Assessment for Afars in Eritrea

Risk Assessment | Analytic Summary | References

Risk Assessment

To date, Afars in Eritrea are at risk because of their desire to reunite with other Afars in Ethiopia and Djibouti. Since they are a nomadic people, their lifestyle requires seasonal movements, and because they have traditionally moved throughout the region, the creation of national boundaries (albeit porous, ill-defined ones) over the past few years has negatively affected their quality of life. The Eritrean-Ethiopian 2000 peace treaty has eased border tensions and ended troop movements into one another's territory, and Afar opposition movements have likewise by and large ceased their fights against regional governments. However, if either side returns to aggression in its claims of foreign territory, the Afars may suffer simply by becoming caught once again in between this border dispute.

Analytic Summary

Eritrea, a former Italian colony, was declared independent in May 1993 ending its 31 year secessionist war (1961-1991) waged first against Emperor Haile Selassie and then President Mengistu. During the war, led by Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), 200,000 people (including 40,000 civilians) died. Some 500,000 Eritreans were living in refugee camps in Sudan and 20% of the population within the country were displaced.

Upon independence, the EPLF transformed itself from a liberation movement into the ruling political party. The new government has initiated a cautious transition to plural democracy by adopting a policy embracing minorities, rather than just EPLF members, and through advocating national unity. However, the viability of the new Eritrean state is by no means assured. The state had been severely weakened by the long civil war and has a limited capacity to effectively implement its plans and policies.

Afars represent one of nine ethnic groups in Ethiopia, with 90% of the population consisting of Tigrinya, Tigre and Kunama. Tigrinya and Arabic are the most frequently used languages for commercial and official transactions, but the Afar also speak a language of the same name (LANG = 1; CULDIFX2 = 2), are religiously Muslim (BELIEF = 1; CULDIFX4 = 2), and are generally nomadic herdspeople of Eritrea's lowland region along Ethiopia and Djibouti's borders, where many Afars also live (GROUPCON = 3; NUMSEGX = 2).

Ending a three-decade long secessionist war by declaring independence in May 1993, Eritrea's short sovereign history has been marked by its recent border clashes with Ethiopia, which eventually produced a peace treaty in December 2000. The Afars in Eritrea have literally been caught in between the long-standing dispute among the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and Ethiopia's mainly Tigrean armed forces. For years during this war, each state attempted to undermine the other by seeking Afar assistance against one another (i.e., the Afar Liberation Front and Afar Peoples Democratic Organization in Ethiopia), although it now appears that Afar organizations were more concerned with regional autonomy or union with other Afars who are now split among three countries. In Eritrea, the Afars are represented both conventionally and militantly by the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Union (ARDUF) and its military wing, Ugugumo, which is headed by Mahamooda Gaas and has called for the autonomy of the Danakil region from the Asmara government.

Independent reports confirming the actual condition of Afars in Eritrea are difficult to find, but through inference of Eritrean politics (and neighboring Ethiopia and Djibouti), it is safe to speculate that the nomadic Afars suffer economic and political discrimination due to historical neglect and their position on the fringes of Eritrean sociopolitical life (ECDIS03 = 3; POLDIS03 = 1). It does not appear that Afars are actively repressed by the Eritrean government as reports of repression in Eritrea are generally produced from the pro-Ethiopian government Walta based information center, and not substantiated independently by other human rights organizations. Similarly, for the most part, the Afars of Eritrea are not involved in any organized protest or rebellion against the Eritrean government, but they have been involved with other Afar opposition groups who mainly target the Ethiopian government (PROT98-03 = 0; REB98-02 = 0). In 2003, the killing of a colonel of the ruling party's People's Front for Democracy and Justice by forces of the Red Sea Afars Democratic Organization constitutes one of the few instances of rebellions known from Afars in Eritrea (REB03 = 1).

References

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Keller, Edmond, ARemaking the Ethiopian [email protected] in I. William Zartman ed. 1995. Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

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Zegeye, Abebe and Siegfried Pausewang. eds. 1994. Ethiopia in Change: Peasantry, Nationalism, and Democracy., London and New York: British Academic Press.

Reuters World Service via Nexus/Lexus search