Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

Organization of African Unity

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) took the lead in mediating the conflict from the onset, with the backing of the United States and the European Union. In its attempts to prevent yet another round of deadly fighting, the OAU convened intensive talks from April 29 to May 5 aimed at bringing the two parties to agree on a document for the implementation of its peace plan, Ethiopia having rejected earlier technical arrangements to this end. Despite the mediators' efforts, the talks again failed to resolve the core disagreements between the two parties. Ethiopia's major offensive of May 2000 was clearly meant to break the impasse. Not only did the offensive lead to Eritrea's withdrawal from all disputed border territories, but it placed Ethiopian troops in firm control of undisputed territories inside Eritrea. Ethiopia gained considerable leverage as a result of this military advantage and the pressures resulting from the flight of at least a million Eritrean civilians ahead of the fighting. The terms of the cessation of hostilities accord signed on June 18 thus appeared to reflect Ethiopia's position of strength.

The accord provided for the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force in a temporary security zone, twenty-five kilometers inside Eritrea along the entire border, a time frame for the neutral demarcation of the bitterly disputed borders, and the conclusion of a permanent cease-fire. The accord reaffirmed the two parties' acceptance of the OAU Framework Agreement and the Modalities for its Implementation as endorsed by the OAU summit in July 1999. The framework agreement provided a basis for addressing the human rights and humanitarian problems that the conflict had created, committing the two parties to "put an end to measures directed against the civilian population and to refrain from any action which can cause further hardship and suffering to each other's nationals." They also agreed to "addressing the negative socio-economic impact of the crisis on the civilian population, particularly those persons who had been deported." The OAU in collaboration with the U.N. was to deploy human rights monitors "in order to contribute to the establishment of a climate of confidence between the two parties" under the terms of the Framework Agreement.

Unfortunately, the terms of the cessation of hostilities agreement and the relevant U.N. Security Council regarding its implementation appeared to focus primarily on technical considerations, namely the redeployment of the two parties and the demarcation of the border. In contrast to its active role in the mediation process, the OAU proved itself far less assertive when it came to the definition of formal mediation and arbitration mechanisms to address the human rights and humanitarian consequences of the conflict.

United States

The U.S. continued to give a high priority to the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, two of its closest allies in the continent. It engaged the two parties in direct talks, while providing vital technical and logistical support to the OAU mediation effort. Susan Rice, the assistant secretary of state for african affairs, devoted significant portions of her time to the conflict. Anthony Lake, the U.S. lead mediator since October 1998, and a former national security advisor, shuttled between the two capitals several times during the year, coordinating his efforts closely with the OAU and the U.N.

The administration maintained an active behind-the-scenes role in its efforts to prevent the resumption of the fighting, while refraining from making public statements, including addressing the human rights situation. The Department of State issued statements in March and May calling on the two nations to remain "fully engaged" in the OAU peace process, and on June 10 the U.S. expressed strong support for what was then still a proposal for the cessation of hostilities. Once the accord was signed, the U.S. pursued this active involvement in the peace process by hosting indirect talks between Ethiopian and Eritrean "technical experts" in early July 2000 during which the two sides discussed the substantive issues of border demarcation and compensation for the damages resulting from the war. Quiet diplomacy remained the rule, even after the U.S. sent Ambassador Richard Bogosian, Special Assistant to the Greater Horn, to the region to raise human rights and humanitarian issues with both parties.

Because their intensive involvement had failed to prevent the latest round of deadly fighting, the role of the U.S. policy makers came under harsh scrutiny. Critics faulted the Clinton administration for failing to apply direct pressures on the two parties as reflected in its reluctance to press earlier on for a U.N. arms embargo, or to use its influence to slow the flow of bilateral and multilateral financial aid to the two countries at a time when they were spending hundreds of millions of dollars on arms purchases. Administration officials defended themselves by arguing that an arms embargo would have led the belligerents to discontinue their participation in the peace talks, and that cutting the meager U.S. aid going to vital sectors in their economies would have only punished the neediest people in both countries.

The U.S. used its leverage only sparingly and as a last resort in its efforts to press for restraint. Ethiopia continued to benefit from the International Military Education and Training program, at a cost of U.S. $385,000 in FY 2000, with the only limitation being that the training could not be conducted in Ethiopia. By contrast, the U.S. froze the training of Ethiopian troops within the U.S.-led peacekeeping training program under the African Crisis Response Initiative. The U.S. development assistance to Ethiopia remained largely unaffected, at $40.8 million in development aid and child survival funds. Ethiopia was also the recipient of $14.8 million in non-food donations, and $330.4 million for food aid.

European Union

The E.U.'s position remained one of repeated condemnations of the major outbreaks of fighting, and sustained expressions of support for the OAU peace process. The E.U. gave a hint of why it had limited its involvement to this support role at the occasion of its appointment, on the eve of 2000, of a special envoy to the Horn of Africa, Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Rino Serri. This step, the E.U. said, was meant "to bolster the OAU effort and help the E.U. countries to come up with a better understanding and interpretation of the situation."

The African, Caribbean and Pacific and E.U. Joint Assembly (A.C.P.-E.U.) sent a parliamentary delegation led by the assembly's vice-president John Alexander Corrie to the Ethiopian and Eritrean capitals in mid-December 1999 to advocate for a negotiated settlement of the conflict under the OAU process, obviously to no avail. The ban on arms sales that the European Council of Ministers had imposed on Ethiopia and Eritrea in March 1999 remained effective.

The E.U. made substantial monetary and in-kind donations for the relief of civilians affected by drought and the conflict in both countries. These donations, together with aid provided bilaterally by E.U. member states, placed the E.U. as the top donor of food aid to Ethiopia, a position it has continually occupied in the past twenty-five years. However, the conflict led to significant reductions in the E.U.'s development cooperation with the two countries. The European Commission declared on May 19, 2000, that as a result of the tightening of conditions for the disbursement of credits of the Structural Adjustment Support Programs that it financed, the latter had not disbursed any budgetary support to Ethiopia since January 1999. An aide official told leaders of both nations during a trip to the region in early October that the E.U. was ready to reestablish cooperation with them if they consolidated their peace settlement. The E.U. had suspended its economic cooperation with them after they went to war.

United Nations

The U.N. Security Council fully backed the OAU peace process. Responding to a transient but ominous flare-up in the fighting, members of the Security Council on March 14 called on Eritrea and Ethiopia to cooperate "fully and urgently" with the OAU and to participate constructively in its efforts to settle the dispute between them. With clear signals in early May that fighting was about to resume, the Security Council extended the itinerary of its special mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to include Addis Ababa and Asmara. The mission found the differences between the two sides, "while real, were relatively small and manageable and could be resolved by intensive negotiations over time." Days after it left the region, fighting resumed with rare intensity over these differences. In reaction, the Security Council in its unanimous resolution 1298 of May 17, which the U.S. sponsored, finally imposed a formal embargo on arms sales to the two parties for a year. The belated U.N. embargo was destined to have little effect in the short and medium runs, coming as it did after both countries had amassed huge stocks of arms and munitions. A timid call by the council in February 1999 to member states to immediately end all arms sales to both sides obviously had failed to achieve the desired results.

In early July, the U.N. secretary-general dispatched an advance team to the region to pave the way for the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping mission. Based on the recommendations of the team, the Security Council on July 31 decided to establish a U.N. Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) of up to one hundred military observers and support staff in anticipation of a larger mission. The council authorized 4,200 troops for UNMEE in mid-September, and said member states were cooperating in offering troops and resources for the mission. By late September, some forty military observers were taking positions along both sides of the disputed border, and another group of military observers was to be dispatched to the mission area by mid-October.

In a remarkable omission, the advance team dispatched by the U.N. to prepare for UNMEE did not include a representative of the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, and the resulting mission structure had no human rights component, although a component was provided for in resolution 1320 (2000), which established the mission. The persistence of reports of wide-scale human rights abuses by both parties, even after the cessation of hostilities, appeared to have led the U.N. secretary-general to announce, on September 18, that he intended to establish a "small" component within UNMEE to follow human rights issues.