National question (Eritrea)

From colony to federation

Eritrea passed through Italian colonial rule (1880s–1941), British military administration (1941–1951), federation (1952) and annexation (1962). Under UN General Assembly Resolution 390A(V) of December 1950, Eritrea became a federal unit with its own administration, judiciary, flag and control of police, local administration and taxation, but foreign affairs, defence, finance and transport were controlled by the federal government, and the resolution ignored Eritrean demands for independence. In the 1950s Unionist forces prevailed in the Eritrean assembly and autonomy was progressively curtailed.

The start of armed struggle

In 1958 the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) was formed by students, professionals and intellectuals. In 1961 exiled Eritreans in Cairo founded the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) under the leadership of Idris Muhammad Adam. On 1 September 1961, at the Battle of Adal, Hamid Idris Awate and his comrades engaged Ethiopian troops and police, beginning the armed struggle. In 1962 Haile Selassie unilaterally dissolved the Eritrean assembly and annexed the territory.

The 1975 land reform and the continuing war

The core of this national question is the distinction between the 1975 rural land nationalization and the war in Eritrea, which continued separately. Eritrea was a multi-ethnic country of nine national groups speaking different languages, divided between highland Christians and lowland Muslims. The ELF's first four zone commands were predominantly lowland Muslim, and Christians initially joined in small numbers for fear of Muslim domination; later, as highland Christian volunteers entered, a fifth command was opened and the organization split amid internal conflict and sectarian violence. In 1970 the ELF's internal split led three groups, including Christian fighters led by Isaias Afwerki, to break away and form the People's Liberation Front (PLF), and in August 1973 two of them merged as the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF).

The Derg's policy reversal

After the Derg took power, a ceasefire was declared from June to mid-November 1974 under the Eritrean officer Aman Andom and a political settlement was explored, but the assassination of Aman on 24 November 1974 ended the political line. By the end of 1974 more than fifty people had been killed by the military in Asmara. In 1975 the Derg committed a peasant force of 100,000 to suppressing Eritrea, but most of it was destroyed after crossing the border and defeats followed for years. Mass killings of civilians, mainly in Muslim areas such as She'eb, Hirgigo, Elabared and Om Hajer, killed Christians as well. Mass killings that spared neither ethnicity, religion nor class prompted many Eritreans who had not joined the war to flee or join the front.

International conditions and the fronts' ascendancy

From the early 1960s Israel supported operations against the ELF and trained counterinsurgency units; an Israeli military attaché served as adviser to the Eritrean governor Asrate Medhin Kassa, and the Ethiopian military training school at Dekemhare was headed by an Israeli colonel. The United States supported Haile Selassie's suppression through the 1960s and early 1970s and kept military advisers at Asmara and Massawa, but withdrew support after the Ethiopian revolution. Israeli-Ethiopian cooperation led the Eritrean insurgents to mobilize anti-Zionist discourse and material support from the Arab and Islamic world. Arab states and organizations including Iraq, Syria, Libya and the PLO provided differing levels of support to the ELF and EPLF, while Sudan's support varied greatly and Somalia's material support was "all but meaningless." In 1975–1977 the ELF and EPLF outnumbered the Ethiopian army, besieged Nakfa and took almost the whole territory except Asmara, Massawa, Assab and Barentu. In 1977 the EPLF expelled the ELF and emerged as the leading liberation organization, and immediately after the Ogaden war Ethiopian forces, backed by Cuba, turned to Eritrea and retook much of the liberated area.

Soviet and Cuban backing and the counter-offensive

After the 1974 revolution the Derg built a Marxist-Leninist communist state and fought Eritrea with support from the USSR and other communist states. After the Ogaden war the USSR and Cuba supplied troops, weapons, training, advice and planning, and Soviet support was decisive in retaking major cities in the late 1970s. This was especially awkward for the EPLF, which professed a Marxist-Leninist and anti-American line. From May 1978 the Ethiopian air force used the newly completed Mekele airfield in Tigray to bomb ELF and EPLF positions in Eritrea and also attacked towns, villages and livestock. A July ground offensive retook towns in southern and central Eritrea within weeks; a second offensive in November 1978 committed larger forces and heavy armour, and on 25–26 November large-scale fighting took place at Elabared for two days. The EPLF suffered heavily, abandoned Keren and nearby towns and withdrew into the Sahel mountains in a "strategic withdrawal," while the ELF, which refused to withdraw from the old liberated areas and kept fighting, brought military defeat on itself.

Liberation and independence

At the 1988 battle of Afabet the EPLF captured Afabet, the surrounding area and the north-eastern Ethiopian army headquarters, and Ethiopian forces withdrew from the garrisons at Teseney, Barentu and Agordat, leaving the west and north in EPLF hands. In February 1990 the EPLF took Massawa in Operation Fenkil. In 1991 the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) advanced on the capital and drove out Mengistu, the Asmara garrison collapsed, and the EPLF entered Asmara on 24 May and destroyed the last government forces at Assab on 25 May. On 1–5 July 1991 the EPLF took part as an observer in the Addis Ababa conference and negotiated Eritrea's status with the Ethiopian transitional government, which recognized Eritrea's right to hold an independence referendum. The referendum was held on 23–25 April 1993 and 99.83 per cent voted for independence on a turnout above 98 per cent; UNOVER verified the vote's freedom, fairness and impartiality under Resolution 47/114 of 16 December 1992; independence was declared on 27 April 1993 and Eritrea joined the UN on 28 May 1993.

Its place in revolutionary history

Unlike the civilian left organizations of the Ethiopian revolution, the Eritrean national liberation movement demanded Eritrean self-determination and separation rather than the remaking of the Ethiopian state, which put it in irreconcilable opposition to the Derg. While the revolution addressed land and class questions, this national question remained unresolved and produced a war of about thirty years (1961–1991).