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Ethiopia Growth of Secessionist Threats
Outside the Amhara-Tigray heartland, the two areas posing
the most consistent problems for Ethiopia's rulers were
Eritrea and the largely Somali-occupied Ogaden and adjacent
regions.
The Liberation Struggle in Eritrea
Eritrea had been placed under British military
administration in 1941 after the Italian surrender. In
keeping with a 1950 decision of the UN General Assembly,
British military administration ended in September 1952 and
was replaced by a new autonomous Eritrean government in
federal union with Ethiopia. Federation with the former
Italian colony restored an unhindered maritime frontier to
the country. The new arrangement also enabled the country to
gain limited control of a territory that, at least in its
inland areas, was more advanced politically and
economically.
The Four Power Inquiry Commission established by the World
War II Allies (Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the
United States) had failed to agree in its September 1948
report on a future course for Eritrea. Several countries had
displayed an active interest in the area. In the immediate
postwar years, Italy had requested that Eritrea be returned
as a colony or as a trusteeship. This bid was supported
initially by the Soviet Union, which anticipated a communist
victory at the Italian polls. The Arab states, seeing
Eritrea and its large Muslim population as an extension of
the Arab world, sought the establishment of an independent
state. Some Britons favored a division of the territory,
with the Christian areas and the coast from Mitsiwa
southward going to Ethiopia and the northwest area going to
Sudan.
A UN commission, which arrived in Eritrea in February 1950,
eventually approved a plan involving some form of
association with Ethiopia. In December the UN General
Assembly adopted a resolution affirming the commission's
plan, with the provision that Britain, the administering
power, should facilitate the UN efforts and depart from the
colony no later than September 15, 1952. Faced with this
constraint, the British administration held elections on
March 16, 1952, for a Representative Assembly of sixty-eight
members. This body, made up equally of Christians and
Muslims, accepted the draft constitution advanced by the UN
commissioner on July 10. The constitution was ratified by
the emperor on September 11, and the Representative
Assembly, by prearrangement, was transformed into the
Eritrean Assembly three days before the federation was
proclaimed.
The UN General Assembly resolution of September 15, 1952,
adopted by a vote of forty-seven to ten, provided that
Eritrea should be linked to Ethiopia through a loose federal
structure under the emperor's sovereignty but with a form
and organization of internal self-government. The federal
government, which for all intents and purposes was the
existing imperial government, was to control foreign
affairs, defense, foreign and interstate commerce,
transportation, and finance. Control over domestic affairs
(including police, local administration, and taxation to
meet its own budget) was to be exercised by an elected
Eritrean assembly on the parliamentary model. The state was
to have its own administrative and judicial structure and
its own flag.
Almost from the start of federation, the emperor's
representative undercut the territory's separate status
under the federal system. In August 1955, Tedla Bairu, an
Eritrean who was the chief executive elected by the
assembly, resigned under pressure from the emperor, who
replaced Tedla with his own nominee. He made Amharic the
official language in place of Arabic and Tigrinya,
terminated the use of the Eritrean flag, and moved many
businesses out of Eritrea. In addition, the central
government proscribed all political parties, imposed
censorship, gave the top administrative positions to Amhara,
and abandoned the principle of parity between Christian and
Muslim officials. In November 1962, the Eritrean Assembly,
many of whose members had been accused of accepting bribes,
voted unanimously to change Eritrea's status to that of a
province of Ethiopia. Following his appointment of the archconservative Ras Asrate Kasa as governor general, the
emperor was accused of "refeudalizing" the territory.
The extinction of the federation consolidated internal and
external opposition to union (see
The Eritrean Movement, ch.
4;
The Eritreans, ch. 5). Four years earlier, in 1958, a
number of Eritrean exiles had founded the Eritrean
Liberation Movement (ELM) in Cairo, under Hamid Idris
Awate's leadership. This organization, however, soon was
neutralized. A new faction, the Eritrean Liberation Front
(ELF), emerged in 1960. Initially a Muslim movement, the ELF
was nationalist rather than Marxist and received Iraqi and
Syrian support. As urban Christians joined, the ELF became
more radical and anticapitalist. Beginning in 1961, the ELF
turned to armed struggle and by 1966 challenged imperial
forces throughout Eritrea.
The rapid growth of the ELF also created internal divisions
between urban and rural elements, socialists and
nationalists, and Christians and Muslims. Although these
divisions did not take any clear form, they were magnified
as the ELF extended its operations and won international
publicity. In June 1970, Osman Salah Sabbe, former head of
the Muslim League, broke away from the ELF and formed the
Popular Liberation Forces (PLF), which led directly to the
founding of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) in
early 1972. Both organizations initially attracted a large
number of urban, intellectual, and leftist Christian youths
and projected a strong socialist and nationalist image. By
1975 the EPLF had more than 10,000 members in the field.
However, the growth of the EPLF was also accompanied by an
intensification of internecine Eritrean conflict,
particularly between 1972 and 1974, when casualties were
well over 1,200. In 1976 Osman broke with the EPLF and
formed the Eritrean Liberation Front-Popular Liberation
Front (ELF-PLF), a division that reflected differences
between combatants in Eritrea and representatives abroad as
well as personal rivalries and basic ideological
differences, factors important in earlier splits within the
Eritrean separatist movement.
Encouraged by the imperial regime's collapse and attendant
confusion, the guerrillas extended their control over the
whole region by 1977. Ethiopian forces were largely confined
to urban centers and controlled the major roads only by day.
Data as of 1991
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