Borders of Violence Boundaries of Identity

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Borders of violence � boundaries of

identity: demarcating the Eritrean

nation-state

Kjetil Tronvoll

Abstract

This article explores the concepts of borders and boundaries in the for-

mation of an Eritrean national identity. The dialectical relationship between

the State of Eritrea and its borders towards the Sudan and Ethiopia areaddressed in order to analyse how this relationship in�uences the formation

of a ‘formal’ national identity. The cultural, political, religious and historical

conguration of the Eritrean frontiers makes it dif cult to demarcate a par-

ticular Eritrean identity, distinguishing it from Sudanese ethnic and religious

identities or historical-politico and ethnic Ethiopian identities. The Eritrean

border con�icts with the Sudan and Ethiopia are used as empirical cases toshow how state violence through the mobilization of the multi-ethnic

national army is employed in order to manifest a signicant other that the

‘formal’ Eritrean national identity may be contrasted against. The articleconcludes that the Eritrean boundaries of identity and borders of territory

are still in the making, and what they will eventually embrace and contain

remains to be seen.

Keywords: Eritrea; con�ict; borders; boundaries; nationalism; identity.

Introduction

Eritrea is the newest state in Africa, gaining formal independence fromEthiopia and international recognition as recently as 1993, after thirtyyears of liberation war. Since independence, Eritrea has had armed con-�icts on all borders demarcating her from the neighbouring states of theSudan, Yemen, Djibouti and, most recently, Ethiopia. All these countrieshave during the post-independence period accused Eritrea of initiatingarmed incursions and border violations, and of exhibiting an expansion-

ist and aggressive foreign policy. The Eritrean President, and formerliberation leader, Isaias Afwerki, on the other hand, has repeatedlyexplained that Eritrea is a peace loving nation which seeks cordial

Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 22 Number 6 November 1999 pp. 1037 –1060© 1999 Taylor & Francis Ltd ISSN 0141-9870 print/ISSN 1466-4356 online


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relationships with her neighbours, and blames the con�icts on theambiguousness of borders and boundaries in the region which facilitatesexpansionist’s aspirations of her neighbouring states.

This article addresses the con�icts on the Eritrean borders towards theSudan and Ethiopia, and shows how they relate to, and in�uence, the

boundaries of an Eritrean identity.1

The apparent contradiction exhib-ited in the Eritrean government’s foreign relations’ policy of peace andpraxis of war will be analysed, in order to reach an understanding of theEritrean government’s position. Rather than portraying Eritrea as astereotype of a repressive regime which exercises violence and goes towar on a ‘habitual’ basis, this article seeks to present a possible expla-nation within a scientic framework, employing theories of identitynegotiation and nationalism. It must be emphasized from the outset,however, that the Eritrean border con�icts cannot be reduced to theissue of negotiating national identity alone. A complex pattern of his-torical, political, economic, cultural and social factors has also con-tributed to the outbreak of the con�icts. Thus, one must view the bordercon�icts both as an expression, or manifestation, of an array of deeperfactors, and as a means of demarcating an Eritrean national identity. Thisstudy, however, will concentrate on the latter explanation.

The political scene in Eritrea today is totally dominated by thePeople’s Front for Democracy and Justice [PFDJ], the re-named

Eritrean People’s Liberation Front [EPLF]. PFDJ holds a monopolisticpolitical position, constituting the government and being the only legalpolitical party in the country. The Eritrean government also severelyrestricts the development and activities of a civil society, and very few, if any, non-governmental organizations are allowed to operate indepen-dently of governmental scrutiny and control. Neither are organizedpolitical opposition activities allowed, and the views and policies pre-sented by President Isaias Afwerki, who is simultaneously secretary-

general of PFDJ, are seldom publicly contested. Thus, in this articlecitations by President Isaias Afwerki will be employed to explain the of �-cial Eritrean perspectives on the different con�icts. At the same time, thiswill give insight into how the leadership in PFDJ/EPLF perceives andunderstands the formation of a formal Eritrean nationalist ideology, anideology which is ‘connected with the demands of the modern nation-state, including bureaucratic organization and meritocratic ideology, cul-tural uniformity and political consensus among the inhabitants’ (Eriksen1993, p. 1).2 The formal nationalist ideology pursued by the Eritreangovernment may not nd resonance among all segments of the Eritreanpopulation. However, Isaias Afwerki’s voice will stand uncontested bothby internal dissident voices and by his military adversaries, since it is theof cial Eritrean position and outlook that this article attempts to explainand understand.3 Isaias Afwerki’s stories will, though, be contextualizedin a manner which discloses the ambiguity of his narratives, and thus shed

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some light upon the abstruseness of the policies and praxis of theEritrean government.

Borders and boundaries

In recent years, there has been a growing interest within social anthro-pology, and social sciences in general, in exploring the concepts of borders and boundaries within the context of states (and nation-states)(see, for instance, Donnan and Wilson (eds) 1994; Alvarez 1995; Nugentand Asiwaju (eds) 1996; Michaelsen and Johnson (eds) 1997; Wilson andDonnan (eds) 1998). Nevertheless, this is still a eld of study whichdemands more empirical and theoretical work, before a sound and broadacademic basis is established. Therefore, any reference to the terms‘borders’ or ‘boundaries’, particularly in an African context, is destinedto face contestable interpretations of the contents that the terms are sup-posed to embrace.4 Moreover, ‘translating’ local sentiments and under-standings of borders and boundaries into a scientic framework andlanguage demands in-depth empirical research. In particular, it must befocused on what Nugent and Asiwaju describe as ‘the interplay betweenof cial intentions and popular perceptions – between policy and the �owof everyday life – [which] is part of what imparts a paradoxical quality toall boundaries’ (1996, p. 1). In few places is this more present than in the

Horn of Africa, where different kinds of border/boundary concepts areinfused with cultural notions, social validity and political importance,which in turn are intensely contested by competing groups and factions(see Sorensen 1992; Triulzi 1993; Clapham 1996).

It is obvious that the concepts of border/boundary mean differentthings to different persons in different contexts, and various factors areemployed to dene their meaning and contents based on varied inten-tions. On different levels borders and boundaries are infused with social,

cultural, economic and political importance, hence an ongoing process of creation, denition and manipulation of these demarcations is takingplace. For example, within the Horn of Africa, the Ethiopian/Eritreanhighlands (the Abyssinian plateau) with its indigenous plough-basedagricultural system has throughout history placed great importance onthe control of land and hence on the demarcation of land between thatwhich is controlled by one person, kin group, or village and that con-trolled by another (Nadel 1946; Hoben 1973; Pausewang 1983; Clapham1996; Tronvoll 1998a). Frequent border disputes over agricultural landbetween neighbours, kinsmen, lineages and villages have been commonfor centuries which have continuously imbued the concept of boundarywith a concrete and metaphorical importance. This notion is also partlyre�ected in a proverbial Amhara denition of a good neighbour, whichreads ‘One who does not attempt to shift the boundary markers’(Clapham 1996, p. 238).

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Whereas the sedentary agriculturists on the Horn exhibit a keen inter-est in border demarcations, the lowland pastoral groups tend to approachthe concept of borders in a different manner. The Somali pastorals, forinstance, although having broadly dened territories, do not have clear-cut borders demarcating one’s own land from that of one’s neighbouring

kin or group. There are overlapping zones of interest, where the bordersare permeative to humans and animals alike. During the Somali national-ist struggle of dening where the borders of a united Somalia should bedrawn, a Somali border concept was illustrated by the popular slogan‘Wherever the camel goes, that is Somalia’ (Clapham 1996, p. 240).

On another contextual level, the historian Harold Marcus (1994) viewsthe 2,500 years history of Abyssinia/Ethiopia as a series of cyclical expan-sions from its component parts to empire and back again, thus a con-tinuous �ux in physical as well as cultural and political borders andboundaries. Moreover, the particular ethnic-territorial development of contemporary Ethiopia, rooted in the new constitution of 1995 whichestablished Ethiopia as an ethnic federation, has entailed that few issuesare so politically and symbolically loaded as the notions of borders andboundaries in this region.

The challenge of social science therefore will be to develop conceptualtools which manage to incorporate and re�ect the diversied notions of borders and border demarcations, and how they connect or relate to

boundaries of identity and boundary markers, in Barth’s sense of theterm (1969). Interestingly, as pointed out by Donnan and Wilson (1994),anthropologists in general have conducted much more work on culturaland symbolic boundaries between groups, than on the concrete, physicalborders between them, which to a large extent have been overlooked.5

This neglect should be addressed, since, according to Alvarez, ‘the cross-ing of borders and the myriad dimensions of shifting human accommo-dation in this context illustrates some of the most important elements in

the anthropological canon – community, culture, gender, identity, power,and domination’ (1995, p. 450).6

In an attempt to develop some conceptual tools of an anthropology of borders, Wilson and Donnan (1998, p. 9) argue that borders have threeelements: a) a legal borderline which simultaneously separates and joinsstates; b) the physical structures of the state which exist to demarcate andprotect the borderline, composed of people and institutions which oftenpenetrate deeply into the territory of the state; and c) frontiers – that is,territorial zones of varying width which stretch across and away fromborders – within which people negotiate a variety of behaviours andmeanings associated with their membership in nations and states. Inother words, these three elements of borders respectively demarcate andnegotiate the territory, the state, and the identity related to an existing, ornascent, nation-state. What we need to keep in mind, however, is thatborders are always domains of disputed and contested power, in which



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local, national and international groups and factions negotiate relationsof subordination and control.

Moreover, borders of a nation-state are never homogeneous, in thesense that a border re�ects the same status and content vis-à-vis differ-ent neighbouring states, or even within different sections towards one

state. Local contexts of ethnicity, politics and geography, also in�uencedby forces from adjacent states and other relevant international relation-ships, give specic borders specic political and cultural congurationswhich again dene their relationship with the central government. As thecase of Norway aptly illustrates, one border may be as good as invisible,in a physical, cultural and political sense, as is the Norwegian-Swedishborder, where almost no restrictions are put on the �ow of people, goodsand cultural in�uence across the border. The Norwegian-Russian border,on the other hand, is from a physical, political, and cultural viewpointsolidly demarcated by state institutions and representatives from bothsides, which prohibits, or strongly regulates, all traf cking of goods andpeople across the border. This symbolical and concrete representation of the two borders, surely affects the negotiation of identities in the Nor-wegian frontiers, or borderlands: the ‘invisible’ Swedish-Norwegianborder encourages the creation of a Scandinavian ‘supra-identity’, anidentity which builds on the common political, linguistic and cultural con-gurations of the Scandinavian countries. The ‘solid’ Russian-Norwegian

border, on the other hand, has not only been a bilateral border, but hasalso formed the border between the West and the East as part of the ColdWar scenario, thus restricting the development of a ‘Norwegian-Russian’commonness and identity, and cementing instead an image of Russia asa political and cultural adversary.

National borders are thus the tool used by governments to create a dis-tinction between the in-group, namely the ‘nation’, and the out-group,those who belong to other communities and nations, the ‘others’.

Analysing the Eritrean border con�

icts within such a perspective of borders and boundaries, will shed light upon the dialectical relationshipsbetween borders and their states, ‘relationships in which’, argue Wilsonand Donnan, ‘border regions often have a critical impact on the for-mation of nations and states’ (1998, p. 3). However, to understand thepresent dialectical relationships between the Eritrean borders and herstate, some knowledge about the making of Eritrean territory is needed,before we proceed to discuss the contemporary border con�icts.

Crafting the Eritrean territory

The Eritrean borders as they appear today were crafted by Italiancolonialism. At the advent of the Italians in the 1870s, the territory whichwas to become the colony of Eritrea constituted parts of four regions withwider dimensions and with different characteristics and people. The



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Mereb Melash (The Land of the [river] Mereb)7, as it was called by theAbyssinians, consisted of the central highland (kebessa) region. Thepeople of the highlands were Tigrinya-speaking, mainly Orthodox Chris-tians from the three plateau districts of Hamasien, Seraye, and Akele-Guzai, which formed an integral part of the Abyssinian kingdom. These

three districts were, and to a certain degree still are, kinship-based terri-torial units with distinct geographical borders and boundaries of identity(Nadel 1944; Tronvoll 1998a, 1998b). The fringes of this region were alsoinhabited by Saho-speaking agro-pastoralist Muslims. The Jeberties,Tigrinya-speaking Muslims, were to be found in scattered groups in theurban centres of the highland, as they still are today.

The three other regions which were to be integrated into the colonialentity of Eritrea were lowland areas. The Western lowlands of Barka andGash-Setit were dominated by various Tigre-speaking groups and Beni-Amer clans. These nomadic pastoral groups had little contact with thehighlanders, except occasional mutual livestock raids. Smaller groups of sedentary agriculturists and hunters and gatherers, such as the Kunamaand Nara, were also to be found here. The coastal and inland areas northof Massawa constituted the third region, which since the rise of Islam hadbeen under Arabic/Muslim in�uence. During the Ottoman Turk periodfrom the sixteenth century this district had developed its own identity,distinguishing it from the neighbouring areas. The fourth region of

present-day Eritrea, the Afar land of Dankalia, was the coastal area andinland plains extending southwards from the Gulf of Zula (south of Massawa) down to Djibouti. This area was mainly part of the Sultanateof Assua, and the pastoral Afar clans which inhabited the region hadnever been ruled by any outside power until the arrival of the Italians.After the colonial scramble for the Horn was over, however, the Afarsfound themselves divided by new borders and fragmented between twonew-born states, Eritrea and Djibouti, and the old Empire of Ethiopia.

The Italians thus carved out the Eritrean borders by means of violenceduring the period 1869–1896. On 1 January 1890 Eritrea was of ciallyproclaimed an Italian colony. But it was not until the Ethiopian victoryover the Italian army in the battle of Adwa in 1896, that Italy temporar-ily ceased its expansionist policy and sought neighbourly relations withEthiopia (Negash 1987).

During the last phase of Italian colonial history in Eritrea, Italy onceagain planned for an expansion of Eritrean borders to include theEthiopian empire. Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, but theirattempt to establish a greater Italian East-African empire was thwartedby the British/Allied forces as a consequence of World War II. Duringthis last phase of Italian colonialism, Tekeste Negash (1997) argues thata combination of three factors contributed towards a development of what may rightly be called a separate and distinct ‘Eritrean’ identity andconsciousness among major parts of the population; a territorial identity



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which distinguished them from the old ‘greater-Ethiopia’ identity-sphere. The rst factor was the growing racist ideology of the Italian col-onial policy, which began to draw a distinction between ‘Eritreans’ – thatis, people settled within the colonial borders – as subjects under theircivilizing umbrella, and the rest of the inhabitants of the Ethiopian

empire.8

This policy which was intended to enhance the Italian colonialego, appeared also to have been employed by the Eritrean literati in theirshaping of ‘Eritreanness’. A second factor was the economic boom thatthe Italian war preparation against Ethiopia created in Eritrea. A hugeindigenous wage-labour market was created – thereby effecting Eritreancitizens’ inclusion in a modern money-economy – which distinguishedthem further from their Ethiopian neighbours. Finally, the third factor,mentioned by Tekeste Negash, behind the emergence of an ‘Eritrean’identity was the Italio-Ethiopian war itself and the vital role that Eritre-ans were made to play. With slightly more than 50,000 Eritrean troopsghting alongside the Italians in the occupation force, whose role waspivotal in the conquering of Ethiopia, and later its pacication, helped tobroaden the division between the two peoples. These three factorscreated a boundary between the inhabitants of Eritrea, as the core colonyof Italy, and the natives of Ethiopia, and thus contributed to the for-mation of an Eritrean identity; an identity whose main characteristic wasbased on the notion that the Eritreans and their land were more devel-

oped than the rest of the Ethiopian empire – a notion which was later tobe sustained during the war of liberation, and added to the nationalistfeelings created by the war itself.9

After Italy’s defeat in World War II, Eritrea was put temporarily underBritish trusteeship, before the UN decided to federate it with Ethiopiain 1952. Repeated Ethiopian violations of the federal agreement, and thesubsequent annexation of Eritrea as the country’s fourteenth province in1962, triggered Eritrean armed resistance. The Eritrean Liberation Front

[ELF] commenced its armed struggle in 1961, but in 1970 a small factionof the ELF broke away and established its own competing liberationmovement, which, by 1975,took the name of the Eritrean People’s Liber-ation Front [EPLF]. Internal disagreements and ghting between theELF and the EPLF ended in 1982, when the ELF was driven off Eritreansoil and the EPLF could thus direct all its efforts against the Mengisturegime. With growing tension within Ethiopia as a consequence of themilitary activities of Tigray People’s Liberation Front [TPLF] andOromo Liberation Front [OLF], the EPLF managed to liberate thecapital Asmara, and thus Eritrea on 24 May 1991.

One can say that it was during this last decade of the liberation warthat an Eritrean national identity took root, since the EPLF was uncon-tested in shaping the struggle to put an end to the Ethiopian hegemoniccontrol of Eritrean society. ‘Eritrea thus ceased to be a mere dream andbecame a reality,’ writes Ruth Iyob, and continues, ‘because those who



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shared in its construction attained the capabilities needed to counterthose of its main opponent, Ethiopia’ (1995, p. 3). One should realize,however, that many people from ethnic minority groups in Eritrea holdambivalent sentiments towards the EPLF as ‘liberators’, as for instancedo people from the Kunama and Afar groups. Many perceived the liber-

ation fronts as local opponents and oppressors, and do not necessarilyfeel ‘at home’ within the newly constructed ‘Eritrean identity’,10 a pointwhich will be elaborated below.

After the fall of the Derg regime in June 1991, the coalition resistancemovement, Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front[EPRDF], took power in Ethiopia, and the EPLF proclaimed a two-yeartransitional period which would end in a referendum on independence.In April 1993 the Eritreans went to the polls and voted overwhelminglyin favour of independence.11 Hence on 24 May 1993 the EPLF declaredEritrea as an independent sovereign state. With this, the last chapter of the colonial history of Eritrea ended, and the new independent State of Eritrea had been established within the colonial borders demarcated byItaly a century earlier.

As this brief history of the territory shows, the Eritrean borders wererst born out of violence, then subdued under violence, and later re-established by violence. The use of violence by the EPLF to re-establishthe status of Eritrea’s borders as an independent state and a nation-

to-be, was a considered option to challenge the Ethiopian hegemony, asIsaias Afwerki explained:

The military initiative which we took last March [1988] must havedemonstrated to Ethiopia’s rulers that the path of confrontation, thelanguage of brute force and coercion leads nowhere but to their peril.[. . .] From the outset, we have accepted the war , the military path toassert ourselves as a people and a nation, because all other avenues

were and remain closed to us.12

The strategically and intermediate location of Eritrean territory hasentailed that its borders have been contested and negotiated by externaland internal forces for centuries. Christopher Clapham underlines sucha thesis, and describes Eritrea as a classic ‘borderland’ which explains its�uctuating territorial history because it has ‘been pulled this way and thatby the Ethiopian empire to its south, the Sudanic states and peoples toits west, and the Red Sea trade and associated religious and political tiesto the east’ (1996, p. 241–42).

Defending ‘national unity’: closing the window of peace?

The territorial, cultural and political unity of Eritrea forms the basis of all ideological and practical thinking within the EPLF, aptly described by



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Isaias Afwerki in the following manner as a comment on a possibleemerging opposition to the implementation of the new regional divisions(zoba) of the country in 1995:

The history of regional boundaries in Eritrea does not go back more

than 100 years. All Eritreans are born equal. No ethnic group issuperior or inferior to any other group. Eritrea belongs equally toevery Eritrean. No social group is more closely related to land than therest. There was a time when people thought in terms of “we” and“they” using religion and regional boundaries as bases. However, suchnotions have been put aside during the 30-years long struggle, and it isbecause the ghters struggled as one person by uniting their hearts thatwe were able to achieve our goal of liberation. A person should be

judged not by his place of origin but by his mental capacity, goodmanners and sense of altruism. Those who think otherwise are men-tally sick and we should not allow them to impose their will on us. Thegovernment will not restrain itself from taking appropriate measuresregarding those who misinterpret and misconstrue any administrativeor developmental policies in order to create religiousand regional con-�icts.13

The ideological basis for the political development of post-war Eritrea

has been outlined in the National Charter for Eritrea, approved by theThird Congress of the EPLF/PFDJ in February 1994.14 The Charter ,which summarizes EPLF/PFDJ’s vision of future Eritrea, declares thatnational unity is the paramount guideline to which all work and policiesshould be aligned. The Charter thus rejects ‘all divisive attitudes andactivities [and] places national interest above everything else’ (EPLF1994, p. 13). One of the prime policies of the EPLF/PFDJ government,in order to imbue a sense of nationhood and national identity among the

diversi

ed Eritrean citizens, is the implementation of compulsory mili-tary national service for all men and women when they reach the age of eighteen. By putting youth from the Kunama, Afar, Beni Amer, Tigrinyaand other ethnic groups together under military order to prepare to ghtfor their common motherland Eritrea, will, the EPLF/PFDJ believe,enhance and cement the national spirit created during the liberationstruggle.

The efforts put into reconstruction and development in post-warEritrea were, however, soon to be distorted by the re-emergence of border violence. The opening sentence of a statement from the Ministryof Foreign Affairs, issued on 6 December 1994,15 runs:

Ever since the day of complete liberation and the declaration of sov-ereign and independent Eritrea, the Government of Eritrea has beenworking diligently to establish brotherly and friendly relations with all



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neighbouring countries, and in particular with the Government of theRepublic of Sudan.

The statement makes public what has been rumoured for a long time –that Eritrea and her people have entered into their rst border con�ict

since gaining independence a year and a half earlier. Since then, Eritreahas had continuous small-scale border con�icts, of varying length andintensity, with her neighbours, leaving a ‘window of peace’ for the war-struck Eritrean nation of only about one year, from 1993–1994.

On a later occasion, Isaias Afwerki commented upon the Eritrean-Sudanese con�ict in a manner which, in retrospect, might be read as thenew Eritrean border doctrine: ‘If countries are to coexist peacefully, theyshould show mutual respect. If, for example, my neighbour destroys myfence and there is nothing I can obtain by taking him to the magistrate,then I will be obliged to destroy his fence.’16 A closer look at the politi-cal, historical and ethnic conguration of Eritrean borders and frontierswill help to explain this border doctrine.

The Eritrean-Sudanese con ict: demarcating politico-religious

boundaries?

The Eritrean-Sudanese border contains a multifaceted dialectical

relationship with the Eritrean state, since it simultaneously demarcates,and thus is permeable to, religious, ethnic and political interference.Eritrea’s main concern, however, is the religious signicance of theirborder towards Sudan, as voiced by Isaias Afwerki:

We have been since 1991 working for cooperating and workingtogether without intervening in the NIF [National Islamic Front, theSudanese ruling party] policies, but unfortunately we found ourselves

in confrontation with it because of its hostility, enmity and its inter-vention in our internal affairs. How many a time did I say to the friendsin the NIF and repeated saying: “Why don’t you keep your Islam toyourselves? Ideological fanaticism does not work in the societies withmulti ethnicities, cultures and religions.” But what happened was theinsistence of the NIF on disseminating and propagating its extremistideology and on imposing it over all.17

The Eritrean-Sudanese frontier area is predominantly inhabited bypeople from Beni Amer clans. The Beni Amer formed a united groupuntil the end of the last century. At that time the Mahdist uprising in theSudan (1882–1898) and the establishment of Italian Eritrea, split thegroup into two unequal parts, whose living area became divided by thenew political border line (Nadel 1943, p. 51). The territorial border hasnot, however, necessarily cut the bonds of loyalty which exist between



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the Beni Amer groups in Eritrea and Sudan. Kinship-based alliancesbetween clans in Eritrea and Sudan may thus still operate independentlyof the territorial and political border, as well as pastoral nomadic activi-ties across the border line. Since the Beni Amer, and other groups at thefrontiers, such as the Tigre and Rashida, are adherents of Islam, the

Eritrean government fears that these kinship alliances may also facilitatethe �ow of political Islam – spearheaded by the Khartoum regime – intoEritrea.

The Eritrean-Sudanese con�ict illustrates well the paradox of inter-national borders in the context of violence: the border may simul-taneously work as a closure from one side, and as a channel from theother. During the Eritrean liberation war, the EPLF had rear baseswithin Sudan and established cross-border operations, both to engagethe Ethiopian forces in battle, and to channel people and goods in andout of EPLF-controlled territories.18 The borderline demarcated a safehaven for Eritrean resistance, since they were accepted and partlybacked by Sudanese authorities. Today, the situation is reversed. Due tothe Sudanese government’s religious and political interference inEritrean affairs, the EPLF felt pressured to sever the diplomatic relationswith Sudan.19 This has entailed new groups of Eritrean opposition forcesestablishing bases in Sudan – such as the Eritrean Islamic Jihad and ELFfractions – and conducting military cross-border operations into Eritrean

territory to promote their own policies and destabilize the EPLF regime.To balance the asymmetrical relationship of having opposition groupsacross the border in Sudan, the Eritrean authorities have reciprocallyinvited the National Democratic Alliance [NDA] (a coalition force com-posed of the southern and northern Sudanese opposition movements) tomake Asmara their headquarters in their struggle to topple the NIFregime in Khartoum, a strategy of tit for tat.

The Eritrean government is faced with the challenge of demarcating a

border against what they view as destructive politico-religious in�

uence.This must necessarily imply that the Eritrean government tries to restrictthe contact between the Eritrean Muslims in the Western lowlands andtheir ethnic and religious brothers on the Sudanese side of the border; asituation which might seem unfeasible. But with military mobilization of the people along the borderline, the Eritrean government is confrontingthe politico-religious in�uence from Sudan with a national based strat-egy of violence, as commented by Isaias Afwerki: ‘It [Sudanese borderincursions] has never been a serious military threat – small sorties,mining and killing across the border – it just serves to consolidatenational feelings.’20

Since Beni Amer clansmen and women in Eritrea have to serve in theEritrean army, and thus may be confronting their ethnic brothers andcousins from Sudan in battle, the Eritrean government depends upon thisenhancing and cementing their ‘Eritrean’ belongingness. Whether the



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nationalistic sentiments created by the violence will override the re-ligious adherence and ethnic sentiments among the western lowlandersin the long term is, however, still an open question.

The Eritrean-Ethiopian con ict: demarcating political,historical and

ethnic boundaries?

In retrospect, the border con�icts with the Sudan, Yemen and Djiboutiappear to be a prelude to the con�ict which would follow. In the begin-ning of May 1998, Eritrea was once again thrown into an armed con�ictwith its old adversary Ethiopia, a border con�ict which has the potentialto ignite a full-scale war between the two countries. The con�ict on theground started in a barren desert area called Badme on the westernborder between Eritrea and Tigray, the northern regional-state inEthiopia. Eritrean armed forces established control over the district inthe second week of May 1998, a move which was looked upon as a terri-torial annexation by the Ethiopian authorities. The Eritrean governmentclaims that the initially disputed district is part of Eritrea, whereasEthiopian authorities state that the area is an integral part of Tigray.Both countries defend their position by referring to borders dened byhistorical treaties and maps drafted by the turn of the century betweenthe colonial powers and Ethiopia, in addition to the local inhabitants’

‘national’ identity. The incident triggered off a con�ict between the twocountries which rapidly escalated into a war on several fronts, notably inthe western lowlands, the highlands, and in Afar territory along thesouth-eastern border. Issaias Afwerki explains the start of the bordercon�ict in the following manner:

It all started with the demarcation of new boundaries from theEthiopian side along the areas that border Eritrea with the Tigray and

Afar zone. This de

nition of boundaries was followed by successiveborder violations from the Ethiopian army and militia including thedestruction of administrative posts and mistreatment of the Eritreanpeople living there.21

At the time of writing,22 the con�ict is still in a state of stalemate as bothsides mobilize huge military forces in the region. Several attempts tonegotiate the con�ict have been futile, and both parties are seemingly notwilling to enter into a dialogue and make any compromises, or asdepicted by Isaias:

Insisting on pulling out of Badme may be likened to insisting that thesun [will] not rise in the morning.23 [. . .] It’s unthinkable. It’s liketelling the government in this country to migrate somewhere else withits own people and leave this land and its sovereign territory to



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someone else who is threatening to use force. Morally it’s not accept-able. Physically it’s never going to happen.24

The rationale behind the border con�ict is complex and embedded in his-torical, political, economic and cultural factors, and an elaboration of

these issues would take us beyond the scope of this article.25

I shall heremerely examine some aspects of the political and cultural congurationsof the Eritrean-Ethiopian con�ict, in order to achieve a clearer under-standing of the crucial importance of this border in the Eritrean nation-building process, which again will shed light upon the understanding of the border con�ict.

In order to explain the con�ict, some observers have emphasized theeconomic problems faced by Eritrea after the introduction of the newEritrean currency, the Nakfa, in November 1997. This reason has beenrejected by Isaias Afwerki:

The question of economic problem behind this crisis does not makeany sense at all because there are no sound economic bases in bothcountries. [. . .] It is a speculation in�uenced by foreign culture whereevery con�ict should involve money and where every problem doesinvolve resources. That is not the case in this part of the world. [. . .] It is a problem of culture.26 [. . .] We might be more concerned about

pride, integrity, respect, trust, condence. When you lose that, itbecomes a big problem for us in this region. It is not always money andresources.27

Broadly speaking, one may divide the political and cultural signicanceof the Eritrean-Ethiopian border into three sections: the Afar border inthe south-east; the Tigrinya highland border in the centre, and the desertborder of the western lowlands.

As noted previously, after the colonial scramble for the Horn of Africa,the Afars found themselves divided between the three countries Dji-bouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Traditionally, the Afars were rather looselyorganized, and as Nadel (1944, p. 51) observed, the group ‘represented apolitical rather than an ethnic unit’. Most of the people are pastoralnomads and the camel and goat owners often migrate over long distancesdeep into Ethiopia. Although the Afar people are divided into varioussegments according to political, territorial and kinship criteria, I.M.Lewis noted that the Afar ‘tribal boundaries are never static, but con-stantly change as the power of tribes waxes and wanes’ (1994, p. 160).The borders of Afar territory were also used by the Derg regime in a‘divide and rule’ tactic against the Eritrean liberation movements. In1978 Afar territory, including both Ethiopian and Eritrean Afars, wasproclaimed a separate administrative region, called Assab, with theprospects of achieving cultural autonomy. The objective of this



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motherland’, it had also necessitated a ght against Ethiopian authori-ties, since, prior to the current Eritrean-Ethiopian con�ict, the twogovernments had coordinated their military actions against ARDUF.33

As a consequence of the new war, however, ARDUF seized the oppor-tunity to establish new alliances on the old principle ‘my enemy’s enemy,

is my friend’. Thus, they have declared a unilateral ceasere with theEthiopian government, and ‘setting aside its political differences with theTPLF/EPRDF regime, ARDUF invites the Afar National State for con-structive dialogue to seek means and ways to protect the Afar people’.34

The Eritrean-Ethiopian border which runs through Afar territory is thuschallenged by opposing forces from within and without Eritrea, and anintense negotiation of territorial borders as well as boundaries of iden-tity by means of violence is taking place. Which group of Eritrean Afars,if any, will manage to dene the identity hegemony of the western RedSea Afars – the ARDUF ghters ghting the Asmara government, or theAfars in the Eritrean army ghting ARDUF/EPRDF – remains to beseen.

The Eritrean-Ethiopian border running through the Abyssinian high-lands has become the most politically potent border section of allEritrean borders. This section of the Eritrean-Ethiopian border signiesthe ancient history of this region, since the city-state of Axum, with itspeak in�uence between A.D. 100 and A.D. 600, was located in this area.

Later, the polity of Mereb Melash (the Eritrean highland) was estab-lished as a region under the Abyssinian kingdom. Crossing the riverMereb meant that one was under the jurisdiction of the Bahir Negus, the‘Sea King’, namely the Eritrean ruler. The river Mereb was the olddemarcation line, as it is the border demarcating this section of Eritreafrom Ethiopia today. This ancient history of the territory and some of itsborders, infuse the highland border of Eritrea and Tigray with a sym-bolism probably not found among other borders on the continent.

The highland border divides the Tigrinya-speaking block of sedentarypeasants into two sections, leaving around 1.7 million on the Eritreanside, whereas just over 3 million are living in Tigray regional state.35 TheTigrawi people in Tigray and the Tigrinya in Eritrea are of particularpolitical importance for the understanding of the border, since theEritrean president and the Ethiopian prime minister and core membersof both governments (that is, EPLF and TPLF) are drawn from thesepopulation groups. The peoples on the frontiers are also connected bykinship and inter-marriage, which strengthen the commonness betweenthe Tigrinya-speaking people of Eritrea and Ethiopia (see Abbay 1997).Moreover, historically these groups formed constituent parts of theAbyssinian kingdom, and have been engaged in rival power-strugglesthroughout the centuries (see Zewde 1991; Marcus 1994; Erlich 1996).

In many areas along the Eritrean-Ethiopian frontier, the border line isnot properly demarcated on the ground. The absence of state institutions



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and representatives which can visualize and manifest the borderlines,thus create zones of ‘no-man’s-land’ of overlapping, and/or neutral, auth-ority. When TPLF was established as a resistance movement in themid–1970s, the location of their activity was Shiraro, a small village adja-cent to the initially disputed area of Badme (or Yirga-triangle). The pres-

ence of the state and its institutions and representatives in this frontierarea were at that time weak, and clear-cut border demarcations on theground between the provinces of Eritrea and Tigray did not exist. In1984, EPLF and TPLF drafted an agreement about the ambiguity of theborders in the area, and recommended that they should let the questionof border demarcation rest until they had managed to topple the Dergregime.36

In the shadows of the focal political, historical and cultural border of the highlands, lies the marginal and tri�ing border of western lowlands,following the Setit river which �ows into Sudan. The Kunama, a minor-ity group, live in small scattered communities in this area, on both sidesof the border. The anthropologist Dominique Lussier describes the con-sequences of their location as: ‘The advent of Eritrea as a newly createdstate has put the Kunama in the position of a double periphery now thatthe national borders have divided them on the ground’ (1997, p. 441).

The consolidation of nationalist sentiments in Eritrea and the con-struction of a centralist, unitary state after independence, have led to a

growing tension between the dominating nationalist ideology – whichpartly re�ects the cultural sentiments of the Tigrinya majority group –and minority groups. The Kunama have in particular been exposed tothese processes. During the liberation war, the Kunama were accused of being the only group ‘which have largely and consistently supported theEthiopian Administration’ (Gilkes 1983, p. 203; see also Bondestam1989, pp. 183–84; Markakis 1990, p. 116), even though one saw Kunamarecruits to the EPLF in the last phase of the war (Pateman 1990, pp.

20–21). More than being ideologically motivated, the support for theDerg was probably pragmatically oriented, as a Kunama elder explained:‘We had no choice, we joined whoever came: when these came we said“father,” when those came we said “father” and we just stayed alive’(Lussier 1997, p. 443).

The Kunama history of supporting the Derg during the liberation waris a stigma they still carry and which sustains their vulnerable positionwithin the nationalistic Eritrean development policies. But by includingthe Kunamas in the national service, the Eritrean government is, inter alia, trying to persuade them to shift their loyalties to the Eritrean state.During a trip to the Badme frontline in October 1998, the author metKunamas who declared their support for the Eritrean government in thecon�ict against Ethiopia, and who seemingly were proud to serve in thenational army. However, other elder Kunamas told the author that ‘thisis not our war’. They felt betrayed by the Tigrinya-rulers, and saw the



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new con�ict with Ethiopia as a con�ict between ‘Tigrinya-groups’, ratherthan between the countries Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Such sentiments are also re�ected in the fact that the pressure onKunama land by the central authorities has led to organized resistancetowards these infringements, and a Kunama resistance movement has

been established. The Kunama resistance towards central authorities,whether Eritrean or Ethiopian, will possibly also affect their con-ceptualization of the national border dividing their homeland. Thus, tocounter the ‘border-subduing’ tendencies by minority groups in the fron-tier areas, it might be argued that the Eritrian, as well as the Ethiopianauthorities have to employ stronger measures to politically, culturallyand socially internalize the geographical borders among the frontierpopulations. Some are of the opinion that such a perspective should beincluded in an analysis of the current war between the two countries.

Demarcating and sustaining Eritrean national identity

Many kinds of socially constructed identities refer somehow to space andterritory, be it individualsbelonging to the family farm, the ethnic group’sidentication with a homeland, or the nation’s claim to a specic terri-tory of the state. But land is not only a territory considered as an exclus-ive domain of an individual or group, it is also subject to cultural and

social organization and becomes part of individuals’ or groups’ symbolicrepresentation of the world. ‘Human societies,’ Mach writes, ‘have physi-cal and conceptual relations between themselves and their land’ (1993,p. 172); relationships which are in a continuous process of creation, main-tenance and negotiation. In certain historical periods the forging of suchlinks between people and their land as part of a nationalist expression, ismuch more pertinent and demanded than in other periods. A recentlyliberated territory is in strong need of producing primordialistic national

symbols and myths to legitimate self-rule and independence from theformer colonial state. In the mature and well-established nation-states of Europe, however, we rather see the emergence of national symbolswhich re�ects multiculturalism in order to accommodate the growingnumber of immigrants and their descendants into the conceptual spaceof ‘nationhood’.

Nationalist liberation movements, such as the EPLF, on the otherhand, are in a radically different position to that in contemporary Europeor other well-established nation-states. EPLF have to justify theirbelonging and occupancy of the Eritrean territory through social organiz-ation and specically designed procedures. Symbols and rituals of national consciousness and territorial belonging must be created whichemphasize the idea that the land called Eritrea is the only proper placefor the community to live, even though it took decades of liberation warto achieve such a goal. Moreover, a war of liberation and a war to defend



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territorial sovereignty will forge even stronger ties between the peoplewaging the war and their territory. In this way, the idea of the land as anindependent homeland will play a vital role in shaping a cultural identityattached to the territory over which the war was, or is, fought. ‘Nationalidentity’ is made up of a set of ideas and notions manifested, created, and

sustained through symbols, myths, rituals and action. The idea of a givennational territory, a motherland, becomes transformed into a symbolicimage through violence and war by means of personal sacrices, whichthen forms part of and determines people’s images and sentiments con-cerning their land. Thus the given territory is also culturally establishedand mythologized (cf. Mach 1993).

When a nationalist group has dened its rights to a specic land – andcemented this relation through political, social and cultural means – itdoes not only involve the right of that specic group to inhabit a par-ticular territory; it also implies that other groups of people are notallowed to have those prerogatives. This – and the important fact that theconcept of a group’s own land entails that there are other neighbouringgroups who also have lands and territorial claims, but notably not theirs

– draws attention to the processes of boundary mechanisms in order todistinguish between one’s own land and that of others. A distinction notonly in territorial rights but also in the realm of identity negotiation.

The EPLF has never been an ethno-nationalist movement, as

labelled by the Derg regime and misclassified by some internationalscholars (as, for instance, A. Smith 1991, p. 124). ‘Eritrea’ has neverbeen an ethnic category, as the ‘Tigrean’ or ‘Oromo’ resistance move-ments denote. The ‘Eritrean’ liberation movement refers to the liber-ation of the territory of Eritrea and the people inhabiting that land, bethey Tigrinya, Afar, Saho, Tigre, Beni Amer or Kunama. Nationalism,as an expression of a process of identity creation, is simultaneously aprocess of border creation, negotiation and maintenance. If the par-

ticular ‘Eritrean nation’ is to be defined, it must be bound and delim-ited to a previously established space and given a relevant historicalpast, since it encompasses a multi-ethnic and diversified population.The historical past into which the idea of the new Eritrean nation-stateis inserted, both in terms of time and space – does not need to belengthy and elaborate, and the EPLF has defined the breach with thegreater-Ethiopia identity sphere with the advent of the Italian colonial-ism, and has thus established their own relevant past (cf. Hobsbawm1992). The long experience of violence and history of war has thereforecontributed to the development of a fierce Eritrean territorial national-ism;37 a nationalism which seemingly has not yet accommodated theshift from being an occupied country and a society at war, to an inde-pendent state at peace. This shift implies a radically different con-ceptualization of the raison d’être of Eritrean nationalism, which is alsoacknowledged by Isaias Afwerki who pinpoints this challenge at the



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celebration of the 33rd Anniversary of the start of the liberation war,one year after gaining independence:

The 30 years of struggle were testimony to our steadfast tenacity. Butthe last three years have seen our resolution weaken. Perhaps it is

because human behaviour differs in times of peace and war. Perhapsit is because expectations change in war and peace. Perhaps it is dif -cult to adjust to new conditions. Whatever the reason, on September1st, a date which marks the start of a long journey, we should under-stand that though war is dif cult, the challenges of peace and consoli-dating it are equally hard. It is simple to dismantle and destroy. It isnot easy to rebuild and consolidate. Peace calls for no less endurance,dedication and patience than war. We have to be as resolute in time of peace as we were in time of war.38

President Isaias tries to convey to the Eritrean people that even thoughthe war is over, they still have to be united and strong to face the chal-lenges ahead for the nascent Eritrean nation-state. It seems that IsaiasAfwerki is well aware that ‘national identity’ is a doubled-edged relation-ship, an identity which is dened both from within and without. Fromwithin, the Eritrean territory unites per denition all Eritrean citizens,and forms the fundament upon which their national identity is estab-

lished. But, a territory alone is not enough: an identity is always consti-tuted in interaction with others. Triandafyllidou writes that ‘the historyof each nation is marked by the presence of signicant others that havein�uenced the development of its identity by means of their “threaten-ing” presence’ (1998, p. 600). By defeating the Derg army in 1991 andestablishing friendly relations with the new EPRDF regime in Ethiopia,Eritrea simultaneously lost its ‘signicant other’ in terms of what theyhad previously built their own national identity on: ‘we’ – the Eritreans

of all ethnic groups – are the ones who

ght the ‘others’ – the Ethiopians.This left a void for contrasting the territorial Eritrean identity: who wereto replace their old military adversary in order to demarcate the Eritreanethnic groups from their ethnic and religious cousins in Ethiopia andSudan? In this context, it is important to acknowledge that diversity initself cannot generate identity, and in order to achieve this, to transformdiversity into difference, there must be opposition, a signicant other isneeded (cf. Conversi 1995).

How this opposition should be manifested varies according to howstrong the centrifugal forces are which operate within a state. In themajority of cases, the signicant other is presented as a cultural andpolitical ‘other’ only, and not as a military adversary too. However, weknow that the Eritrean government is facing political, ethnic, religiousand military opposition from various Eritrean groups based in neigh-bouring countries. To counter their strong centrifugal potential, the



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Eritrean government seems to deem it necessary to create signicantothers by means of violence. State violence through the mobilization anduse of the national army whose recruits are drawn from all ethnic groupsin the country, is thus viewed as a practical and accepted means by thepower-holders to forge and sustain a national unity.

The construction of an Eritrean ‘formal’ nationalism surely involves abroad range of policies and development strategies. The Eritreangovernment employs a combination of multiple, or redundant, dimen-sions and levels of communication to counter centrifugal forces in theheterogeneous Eritrean society, in order to create and sustain a strongsense of national unity. Their new policies of regionalization, nationalservice, and land tenure; and various celebrations of national heroes andholidays are only a few examples of such strategies. It is within such aperspective that we might also nd the explanation behind the bordercon�icts waged by the Eritrean government – con�icts they considernecessary for the demarcation of religious (Sudan), ethnic (Ethiopia,Sudan), political (Ethiopia, Sudan), and territorial (Ethiopia, Yemen)borders and boundaries, in order to both defend what they perceive ascompeting claims to parts of Eritrean territory, and to re-establish ‘sig-nicant others’ that the ‘formal’ Eritrean identity may be contrastedagainst. In other words, the Eritrean borders and boundaries are still inthe process of being made, and where and what they will eventually

contain and embrace remains to be seen.

Acknowledgement

The author is grateful to Tekeste Negash and Siegfried Pausewang forcomments on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

1. The Eritrean border clashes with Yemen and Djibouti in 1995 and 1996 respectively,will not be included in this analysis. The dispute with Yemen did not involve people as

subjects or citizens, as the Sudan and Ethiopia con�icts re�ect, but concerned territorial

claims over the Greater Hanish archipelago only. The ownership of the islands was decidedby an international court in London in October 1998, which granted the main islands to

Yemen. Concurrently with Eritrea’s engagementin the Yemen con�ict, reports of Eritrean

border clashes with Djibouti in mid-April 1996 appeared. It was claimed by the Djiboutianauthorities that Eritrean artillery had shelled a border post and troops had crossed the

border and penetrated seven kilometres into Djibouti territory. Noteworthy, however, is

the fact that the Eritrean government denied all charges that their troops had made anyincursionsinto Djibouti territory. The border skirmishes ceased as swiftly as they had�ared

up, and talks between representativesof the two governmentsmanagedto settle the dispute

peacefully.2. Eriksen contrasts this formal nationalism with ’informal nationalism’, that is, as

‘identied in collective events, such as ritual celebrations and international sports compe-

titions, taking place in civil society’ (1993, p. 1). This contrasting aspect to a formal Eritreannationalism will not be addressed here.



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3. The citations of Isaias Afwerki are taken from the various of cial statements and

interviews he has given on these topics. Most of the statements have been published inEritrea Pro �le, an English version newspaper published by the Ministry of Information,the

Government of Eritrea. Other citations stem from of cial statements published by the

Government of Eritrea. Thus, the source of all citations is the Eritrean Government, inorder not to reproduce misquotations or misinformation disseminated by Eritrean adver-

saries or opposition groups.4. The terms ‘border’ and ‘boundary’ are used interchangeably by different scholars.However, many tend to distinguish between ‘borders’ as territorial demarcations and

‘boundaries’as identity (ethnic,national or other) demarcations, a distinction also favoured

by this author.5. With the possible exception of the US-Mexican border which Alvarez describes as

the ‘border icon’ within this eld of study (1995, p. 451).

6. The crossing of ‘borders’ as a topic for anthropological research, was already high-lighted in 1909 by the renowned scholar Arnold van Gennep in his seminal work Les rites

de passage (English version published in 1960), where he writes:

The passage from one country to another, from one province to another within each

country, and, still earlier, even from one manorial domain to another was accompanied

by various formalities. These were largely political, legal, and economic, but some wereof a magico-religious nature.

He continues to elaborate on the symbolic meanings of border crossings (1960, pp. 16–25).7. The expression Mereb Melash is often translated as ‘The Land beyond Mereb’ which

is a translation re�ecting a view from the south (where most authors/academics have been

positioned, that is, in Addis Ababa), in other words from the ‘Abyssinian’ point of view.

This is an inaccurate translation, since the name was given to the land by the people livingthere, thus it should really be translated from a perspective north of the river, namely ‘The

Land up to Mereb’. In this way a distinction between their own territory and the others’territory beyond the river is created. To avoid using a translation where one is positioning

oneself in a geographical, and, consequently, an ethno-political position, one can translate

the expression as ‘The Land of Mereb’. (The author is grateful to Tekeste Negash forpointing out this semantic clarication.)

8. A decree was passed in 1937 which distinguished the Eritreans from other subjects

of the new colony; Eritreans were to be addressed as such and were given special prerog-atives to certain categories of jobs and professions, whereas the Ethiopians were termed

‘natives’ and were in certain

elds discriminated vis-à-vis the Eritreans (Negash 1997, p.16–18).9. This point was also stressed by the old TPLF leader Sebath Nega in order to explain

the Eritrean aggression in the current border con�ict, in an interview with the author, 19

November 1998, Addis Ababa.10. See, for instance, Lussier 1997 for an illuminating account of Kunama resistance

towards EPLF hegemony.

11. For an in-depth analysis of the Eritrean referendum process, and how it wasperceived by the rural inhabitants, see Tronvoll 1996.

12. From a speech delivered at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London 27

October 1988. Printed version appeared in Adulis, November 1988, pp. 3–4 (emphasisadded).13. Taken from Eritrea Pro �le, 27 September 1995.

14. On the occasion of this same Congress, the Front decided to change its name toPeoples Front for Democracy and Justice [PFDJ], signifying that military liberation had

been achieved, and that the country was under civilian administration.

15. Printed in Eritrea Pro �le, 10 December 1994, p. 1.16. Cf. Eritrea Pro �le, 30 September 1995, p. 2.



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17. From the address made at the US Institute of Peace delivered under the theme

‘Religion, Nationalism and Peace in Sudan’ on 17 September 1997. Written versionappeared in Eritrea Pro �le, 4 October 1997, p. 3.

18. Cross-border operations were also used by the internationalcommunity during the

war to bring in relief aid and support the EPLF liberated areas.19. A statement of the Eritrean Ministry Foreign Affairs explains: ‘The core cause for

the deterioration of the relationship is the NIF Government’s actively working to disruptthe peace which the Eritrean people are enjoying, by pursuing a policy that would de-stabilize the security of the country’, issued on 6 December 1994 (printed in Eritrea Pro �le,

10 December 1998).

20. Cf. Financial Times, 18 January 1996.21. From an interview with ‘Voice of America’. Written version appeared in Eritrea

Pro �le, 30 May 1998.

22. This article was written in July 1998 and revised in early January 1999, hence theEritrean-Ethiopian border con�ict was still unsettled. The information presented in the

article m ust therefore be interpreted against this background.

23. From an interview at EriTV , 8 July 1998.24. From an interview with BBC News, 1 June 1998.

25. See forthcoming book Brothers at War: Making Sense of the Eritrea/Ethiopia War ,

by Tekeste Negash and Kjetil Tronvoll, for an elaborate analysis of these multiple aspectsof the con�ict.

26. Cf. Eritrea Pro �le, 20 June 1998 (emphasis added).

27. From interview on ‘Voice of America’, 9 June 1998.28. The three groups were Afar Revolutionary D emocratic Union (ARDU), Afar

Ummatah Demokrasiyyoh Focca (AUDF) and Afar Revolutionary Forces (ARF).

29. From an interview which appeared in Africa Events, May 1993.

30. Cf. Ethiopian Constitution article 46.2: ‘States shall be delimited on the basis of thesettlement patterns, language, identity and consent of the people concerned’ (Federal

Democratic Republic of Ethiopia 1995) .31. Yemane Gebreb, head of Political Department within PFDJ/EPLF voiced this

concern in an interview with the author in Asmara, 26 February 1997.

32. Cf. ’Statement of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Government of Eritrea on theDispute with Ethiopia’, 14 May 1998.

33. According to ARDUF’s statement of June 1998.

34. Cf. ARDUF’s statement, June 1998.35. The Eritrean number is an estimate since no population census has been broken

down to show ethnic representation in Eritrea. In Ethiopia, however, the 1994 populationcensus states that the Tigray had 3,136,267inhabitants of whom 94.8 per cent were Tigrawis(Tigrinya-speakers) (Central Statistics Authority 1995).

36. Cf. Ghidey Zeratsion, one of the initial seven founders of TPLF, interviewed 3 June

1998 in Oslo.37. ‘Territorial nationalism’ is understood as an ideology which embodies a concept of

the nation as a civic and territorial unit. In a pre-independence phase, movements support-

ing such an ideology will seek to ‘eject foreign rulers and substitute a new state-nation forthe old colonial territory’ (Smith 1991, p. 82).

38. From the ‘President’s Message to the Eritrean People’ on the 33rd Anniversary of

Armed Struggle, Eritrea Pro �le, 3 September 1994, p. 3.

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Review, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 23–67—— 1998a Mai Weini: A Highland Village in Eritrea, Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press—— 1998b ‘The process of nation-building in post-war Eritrea: created from below ordirected from above?’ The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 461–82UNITED NATIONS 1996 The United Nations and the Independence of Eritrea, New York:Department of Public Information, United Nations

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of Chicago Press

WILSON, THOMAS M. and DONNAN, HASTINGS 1998 ‘Nation, state and identity atinternational borders’ in T.M. Wilson and H. Donnan (eds), Border Identities: Nation and

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—— (eds) 1998 Border Identities: Nation and State at International Frontiers, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press

ZEWDE, BAHRU 1991 A History of Modern Ethiopia 1855 –1974, London: James Curry

KJETIL TRONVOLL is Research Fellow/Horn of Africa ProgrammeDirector at the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, University of Oslo.ADDRESS: University of Oslo, Norwegian Institute of Human Rights,Universitetsgaten 22–24, N-0162 Oslo, Norway.


Documents

Borders of Violence Boundaries of Identity