Eritrea’s Human Rights and Foreign Policy issues in the Aftermath of the Post-Independence Conflict with Ethiopia
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Date
2014-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Eritrea emerged an independent state, in 1993, from a protracted armed struggle to break-free
from Ethiopia. Initially making democratic and economic gains, Eritrea soon relapsed into a
devastating war against Ethiopia to assert its territorial integrity. The war formally ended with a
peace agreement and the dispute is resolved by a binding arbitration. However, disagreeing in
the process of implementing the peace agreement, the two states are locked in a no-war-nopeace
scenario for the last decade. Within this detrimental situation, Eritrea has been deeply
troubled and isolated under an increasingly authoritarian and militaristic government fixated on
a position to implement the arbitrary ruling to its letter and aggressively refusing any
compromise. In the context of this stand-off, the government has been denying Eritreans
political, religious, civil, economic, social, cultural rights and subjecting them to an indefinite
national service, imprisonment and even torture. As a result, and partly due to its rigid
approach to foreign relations, the government is ostracized and sanctioned. This study proposes
to capture the complexity of these issues and the factors involved. Eritrea’s border war against
Ethiopia and its uncompromising position on the border issue are critically scrutinized in light of
a nationalistic approach to politics. And the violation of human rights is inspected using many
sources attested by some of the victims themselves. The factors that influence the aggressive
foreign policy are analyzed by the Democratic Peace and Regional Complex theories. Using
different concepts and considering historical legacies, the study has attempted to determine that Eritrea’s reality is animated by an exclusivist nationalistic itinerary. The stand-off with Ethiopia and the violation of human rights are carried out for and by this extraordinary force. Finally,
admitting a fundamental dilemma, it is concluded that Eritrea’s internal predicament and
external isolation is of its own making, and more to the point, its government’s making.
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