Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld last week became the highest ranking American official to ever visit Africa’s newest nation, the small state of Eritrea on the Red Sea across from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Why would Eritrea keep secret something that seemed to be in their national interest to publicize? One reason is that their leaders were too proud to admit that some of their own men including officers had been killed.
Like elsewhere in Africa, Western efforts on the African Horn come too little too late. Even if the U.N. security council were to now impose an arms embargo, it could only help lessen the intensity of the next round of fighting
Many developing nations have borders that were first established by colonial powers. But few embrace their colonial heritage as closely as does Eritrea, a tiny nation of 3.6 million people that amicably seceded from larger Ethiopia in 1993.
Secessionist struggles stoke nationalist passions, but they do not necessarily correspond to ethnic groups. While ethnicity burns the fire in the Balkans, ethnic Tigrinyans lead both Ethiopia and Eritrea into battle in the war on the African Horn.
The war on Africa’s Horn may be the most dramatic and bloodiest chapter in the rapid disintegration of an alliance among a group of African leaders–commonly referred to as the “new leaders”–that once held much promise. In 1996, Isaias and Meles, along with Uganda’s…
SUB-SAHARAN Africa is undergoing its most profound changes since the early years of independence. Forces that have long held sway over the region are now either waning or gone. For decades the United States, the Soviet Union, and France propped up dictators who served their interests — men like Ethiopia’s…
