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The Border Demarcation: Let the Healing Begin
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Addis Tribune

By Dr. Tseggai Isaac

In its successive rulings the Ethiopia and Eritrea Border Commission (EEBC) has made determination to specify the borders between Ethiopia and Eritrea. This was arrived at after long and arduous deliberations pitting the Eritrean side and the Ethiopian side in legal debates and arguments. Both sides presented their legal interests by carefully considering legal precedence and treaties. Those precedents and treaties, in themselves, had the backing of international law. These days when countries such as the United States are invoking the rule of the jungle by subscribing to the principle of might makes right, it can be tempting for Eritrea and Ethiopia to do the same. However, that would be a crime against the peoples of both countries. These days, it would not make sense for Eritrea and Ethiopia to sustain the atmosphere of hatred that has consumed our energies and degra! ded our collective humanity. The hunger for killing and the thirst for blood should stop, because the cultural and traditional foundations of the two peoples do not condone it. Furthermore, the blind dash to doom on the bandwagon of polemical constructs designed to instill pride and arrogance, a poisonous sense of nationalism, and false belief in militarization and armaments should be rebuked collectively. Our peoples have not lost their legendary culture of fear of God, humility, generosity, hospitality and yearn for peace. They have suffered in quiet dignity not only for peace, but also for food, medicine, education, employment, child nutrition, shelter, and abiding security. It may appear somewhat naïve on my part to expect healing and reconciliation at this time. However, we must come to the realization that animosity between Ethiopia and Eritrea is unnatural. The fact that there was war, the fact that many innocent civilians were displaced for reasons that are not of t! heir own making, the reasons that many were wantonly killed from both sides is unnatural and only testify to our collective failure. For Eritreans and Ethiopians to get conditioned to irreconcilable positions and to do so with vitriolic and venomous shout can only lead to the displacement of the culture that we ought to celebrate. Such irrational hatred can also begin the petrifaction of a culture that prides itself on violence instead of peace. The current atmosphere of mistrust, hatred, anger, and eagerness for violence needs to stop and replaced by a spirit of forgiveness. Eritrea and Ethiopia need to forget the past and begin anew on a future of hope and peace. Enough blood has been shed on both sides to exorcise the demons of war. The time is now opportune for both peoples to come to their senses and seek ways that would regenerate our traditional values and heritages. Let the healing begin and let the border demarcation be an opportunity to start. How?

Border Demarcation as an Instrument for Peace

In war no victor is a winner, and no loser is a vanquished. Nations, by virtue of their recalcitrant view of themselves, are eager to tell the world that their superiority is unsurpassed and their might is always right. These attitudes lead many countries to an incurable sense of pride and self-destructive visions of grandeur. Both Eritrea and Ethiopia are not exceptions in their self-worth. They are exceptions in far more essential and critical nexus. Their common heritage, their sense of eternal history, and their ethnic link provides them with opportunities to reclaim their past and resurrect their sense of commonality. We should start by understanding that border demarcation does not mean anything but a legal line drawn between two territories to manage territorial rights for grazing, farming, building and legalized population movement. Border demarcation is a techn! ical tool designed to facilitate political administration. It has nothing to do with culture, heritage, family relationship, and sociological behavior. Border demarcation is nothing more than provincial lines within a federal state. The reason why border lines gained political significance in the post-Second World War era was because nation-states were slow in building trust and confidence in the atmosphere of Cold War politics. The post-Cold War years have witnessed the European Union develop a super-state system with its own Euro currency and on to its way of invalidating territorial borders. Europeans have come to realize that parochialism breeds nationalist chauvinism, and nationalist chauvinism breeds a blind sense of arrogance. They took measures that would bring their peoples together irrespective of border lines. We too should learn from Europe.

Long before the European Union, we had mechanisms that identified our borders, but did not ignore our traditional commonalities. The Bahr Midir was not Bega Mider, but they did share common sense of destiny, brotherhood, and collective vision for peace and harmony. In times of crises they united against a common foe; they prayed together, learned together, traded with each other, and never thought of driving each other across the other border. That sense of togetherness and vision for peace needs to be developed today and the current border demarcation can be used to inaugurate and recreate yesterday’s brotherly practices. We can do this by minimizing the significance of the demarcation and maximizing the fruits of reconciliation.

The significance of the demarcation only states where Eritrea ends from north to south and where Ethiopia begins from north to south. That is the only message that the demarcation sends. It does not inform that the two peoples can boost common welfare through trade, investment, inland and across the seas transportation.

Incidentally there are those who say trade with Eritrea ends up by benefiting only Eritreans. This is wrong. Regardless of how large Eritrean investment is in Ethiopia, the weight of the capital coming from Eritrea in the massive markets of Ethiopia is miniscule. Eritrean investment in Ethiopia can be exaggerated for purposes of hateful polemics. Realities on the ground are that Eritrea possesses little capital to affect whatever Ethiopian capital there is. In other words, if we were to saturate Eritrea with all the capital investment that it can husband and quantify their absorption capacity, we soon would fall into the point of diminishing returns for Eritrea. Trade between Ethiopia and Eritrea can only benefit Ethiopia, because it has larger absorption capacity. And even if Eritrea was to get all the capital needs that it ! can fruitfully manage by trading with Ethiopia, it still end up amassing less than 2.7 percent of all that Ethiopia can absorb. Eritrea benefits in trading with Ethiopia, because that is the natural outlet for Eritrean trade in addition to that of Sudan. This should not be seen as a help for Eritrea alone; it should be looked at from cultural and traditional positions and to use those for creating relationships free from politicization and divisive invectives. Aside from that, due to its capacity Eritrea can grow with little effort by enhancing its trade with other neighboring countries that sooner or latter will be eager to take advantage of whatever products it may produce. In reconciliation and in the minimization of the border demarcation, realities are in favor of Ethiopia not Eritrea. What does Eritrea gain from opening up its markets to Ethiopian investment as well as the use of its port facilities? Peace. That is the only! benefit for Eritrea. And peace being an indivisible commodity, it hel ps Ethiopians just as it does Eritreans.

The Urgency of Peace

There is a sectional group in Ethiopia that has pledged to never make peace with Eritrea. They hate Eritreans and would like to see their lust for bloodshed fulfilled in the extermination of Eritreans. If you try to find any rationale as to the source of such a volcanic and genocidal anger, you will find no rational answer. However, there is marked inference replete in their statements and calls for pogroms: they see Ethiopia as possessing large population from where they can draw conscripts to march on the extermination mission. This is wrong. It assumes Ethiopia’s population growth and fertility rate is an instrument for war and violence. This type of argument fails to see that population size does not guarantee military superiority. Regardless of the victory that states achieve by counting on the size of their population, the fact remains that those that are sent to ! fulfill the mission of killing end up being killed also. Death hurts both ways: the victor and the vanquished. Furthermore, the might of nations is not to be found in the size of their populations; in secular sense, it is to be found in the rightness of their causes, and in the legality of their objectives. In the sacred sense, it is to be found in their renouncing violence and relentlessly seeking peace.

Possessing large population to serve as a pool for a war missions the result of which can only bring darkness for Eritrea and Ethiopia is a wrong aspiration. It will not achieve its purpose; it can only end up bleeding both peoples. Ethiopians should disavow the camp of hate and join the camp of peace. Eritreans should do the same. Whatever pride there is in being Eritrean is meaningless if its end result does not bring peace, understanding, humility, and benevolence to forgive and forget. Both countries should learn to forgive and forget, pursue the path of reconciliation and see to it that the four corners of both countries are used for healing, reconciliation and development of industrial frontiers and regeneration of cultural commonalities.

Ed.’s Note: Dr. Tseggai Issak is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri

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