Eritrean War of Independence

Eritrean War of Independence
Part of Conflicts in Africa
Date 1961-09-01 - 1991-05-29 Location Eritrea Result Eritrean independence
Combatants
ELF EPLF	Ethiopia Cuba USSR

The Eritrean War of Independence started on 1 September 1961 when Hamid Idris Awate and his companions fired the first shots against the occupying Ethiopian Army and Police. In 1962 the Emperor Haile Sellassie of Ethiopia unilaterally dissolved the Eritrean parliament and annexed the country. The war went on for the next 30 years until in 1991, having defeated the Ethiopian forces in Eritrea, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) took control of the country. In April of 1993, in a referendum supported by Ethiopia, the Eritrean people voted almost unanimously in favour of independence. Formal international recognition of an independent and sovereign Eritrea followed later the same year.

Revolution

During the 1960s, the Eritrean independence struggle was led by the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). This group originally divided the liberation of Eritrea based on ethnic and geographical divisions. The initial four zonal commands of the ELF were all lowland areas and primarily Muslim. Few Christians joined the organization in the beginning, fearing Muslim domination.^[1] After growing disenfranchisment with Ethiopian occupation highland Christians began joining the ELF. Typically these Christians were part of the upper classes or University educated. This growing influx Christian volunteers prompted the opening of the fifth (highland Christian) command. Internal struggles within the ELF command coupled with sectarian violence among the various zonal groups splintered the organization.

Struggle

In 1970, members of the group had a falling out, and several different groups broke away from the ELF. During this time the ELF and the groups that would later join together to form the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) would fight a bitter Civil War. The two organizations were forced by popular will to reconcile in 1974 and participated in joint operations against Ethiopia.

In 1974 Emperor Haile Sellassie was ousted in a coup in 1974. The new Ethiopian Government, called the Derg, was a Marxist military junta led by strongman Mengistu Haile Mariam. With this change of government Ethiopia came under the influence of the Soviet Union.

Many of these groups that splintered from the ELF joined together in 1977 and formed the EPLF. By the late 1970s, the EPLF had become the dominant armed Eritrean group fighting against the Ethiopian Government. The leader Secretary-General of the EPLF Ramadan Mohammed Nur while the Assistant Secretary-General was Isaias Afewerki.^[2] Much of the equipment used to combat Ethiopia was captured from the Ethiopian Army.

During this time the Derge could not control the population by force alone. To supplement control by garrison, forces would be deployed on missions to instill fear in the population. An illustrative example of this policy was the village of Basik Dera in northern Eritrea. On 17 November 1970 the entire village was rounded up into the local mosque and the mosque's doors were locked, the building was then razed and survivors were shot. Such massacres took place in primarily Muslim parts of Eritrea, including the villages of She'eb, Hirgigo, Elabared, and the town of Om Hajer; massacres also took place in predominately Christian areas as well.^[1]

By 1977, the EPLF was poised to drive the Ethiopians out of Eritrea, something which as part of the Cold War the Soviet Union found unacceptable. So in that year, a massive airlift of Soviet arms to Ethiopia enabled the Ethiopian Army to regain the initiative and forced the EPLF to retreat to the bush. Between 1978 and 1986, the Derg launched eight major offensives against the independence movements, all failed. In 1988, with the Battle of Afabet, the EPLF captured Afabet and it's surroundings; then headquarters of the Ethiopian Army in northeastern Eritrea, prompting the Ethiopian Army to withdraw from its garrisons in Eritrea's western lowlands. EPLF fighters then moved into position around Keren, Eritrea's second-largest city. Meanwhile, other dissident movements were making headway throughout Ethiopia.

Recognition

At the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union informed Mengistu that it would not be renewing its defense and cooperation agreement. With the withdrawal of Soviet support and supplies, the Ethiopian Army's morale plummeted, and the EPLF, along with other Ethiopian rebel forces, began to advance on Ethiopian positions.

After the end of the Cold War, symbolised by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States played a facilitative role in the peace talks in Washington during the months leading up to the May 1991 fall of the Mengistu regime. In mid-May, Mengistu resigned as head of the Ethiopian Government and went into exile in Zimbabwe, leaving a caretaker government in Addis Ababa. Having defeated the Ethiopian forces in Eritrea, EPLF troops took control of their homeland. Later that month, the United States chaired talks in London to formalize the end of the war. These talks were attended by the four major combatant groups, including the EPLF.

A high-level U.S. delegation also was present in Addis Ababa for the July 1-5, 1991 conference that established a transitional government in Ethiopia. The EPLF attended the July conference as an observer and held talks with the new transitional government regarding Eritrea's relationship to Ethiopia. The outcome of those talks was an agreement in which the Ethiopians recognized the right of the Eritreans to hold a referendum on independence. The referendum helped in April 1993 when the Eritrean people voted almost unanimously in favour of independence and this was verified by the UN observer mission UNOVER. On May 28, 1993, the United Nations formally admitted Eritrea to its membership.^[3]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Killion, Tom (1998). Historical Dictionary of Eritrea. ISBN 0810834375.
2. ^ Discourses on Liberation and Democracy - Eritrean Self-Views. Retrieved on 2006-08-25.
3. ^ Eritrea. Retrieved on 2006-08-25.
4. ^ Referendum Results. Retrieved on 2006-09-15.

See also

• List of massacres committed during the Eritrean War of Independence

Further reading

• Country profile: Eritrea BBC 4 November 2005
• Ethiopia Eritrea Independence War 1961-1993
• Eritrean War for Independence

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