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Ethiopia’s new claims that Sudan is occupying Ethiopian territory are baseless and constitute a desperate attempt to dust the international community with dust. The authenticated facts testify that the eastern borders of Sudan with Ethiopia have been clearly demarcated and demarcated since 1903; and that the demarcation of the borders was completely agreed upon between the British government and the then emperor of independent Ethiopia, Menelik II.
Documents confirming Sudan’s position are deposited with international and regional institutions and organizations. One of the most important and relevant documents is a copy of Menelik’s letter of instruction, written in Addis Ababa on November 7, 1902, in which he charges local chiefs, rulers and subordinates at the border, to accept the demarcation. directed by Major Gwen.
Likewise, the new Ethiopian claim that the previous Ethiopian regime secretly ceded Ethiopian land to Sudan does not pass the litmus test either. In fact, this could be understood appropriately in the context of the frenetic and prolonged political rivalry between the warring ethnic groups inside Ethiopia, where the struggle for land remains its most important axis and manifestation. .
Therefore, the words of Ethiopian Ambassador to Khartoum Yibtalal Amro last December in which he implicitly accused Britain of having been detrimental to his country regarding the 1902 agreement were only an echo and prelude to other official voices openly rejecting the historic accord.
It does, however, embody a serious paradigm shift on the part of Addis Ababa’s central government from its previous positions on common borders and perhaps a desperate attempt to disavow its previous obligations to the Binding Agreement of 1902.
Since these borders were drawn and demarcated in 1905, and as evidenced by the minutes and records of successive bilateral talks, including the last meetings of the Joint Boundary Commission in July 2020, the Ethiopian side has not has never presented any formal grievances or questioned the subordination of the region to Sudan, whether bilaterally or multilaterally.
On the contrary, Addis Ababa has continued to renew its political commitment to the agreement on different occasions; July-August 1955, June 1957 and July 1972 respectively. In fact, in 2010, the joint technical investigation team took an important step forward in the delimitation and establishment of common border markings.
In fact, until recently, Addis Ababa’s official position continued to dissociate itself and distance itself from the abuses, havoc and encroachments in the Al-fashaqa area against the interests of the local Sudanese population, pointing to rather finger the elements, he (Addis Ababa) continued to qualify and incriminate the unruly and banned Ethiopian militias.
Such a sudden transformation can be interpreted as a retort of anger or a reaction to the successful redeployment operation of the Sudanese army in its eastern borders, freeing much of
usurped Sudanese territory which had been under the control of rogue elements for more than two decades. The main motivation behind this redeployment was increased encroachment in recent months in the form of armed attacks and ambushes, targeting Sudanese army positions and burning down cultivated areas. December 14e 2020, a number of Sudanese army officers were ambushed by “Ethiopian forces and militias” during a security patrol in the border region.
However, the most likely reason for such a paradigm shift is that extremist elements of Sudan’s neighboring ethnic group have become increasingly vocal and influential in the current decision-making process in Addis Ababa.
It should be noted here that the ambitions of these elements in the Sudanese territories, mainly based on outdated historical and ancestral claims, are not limited only to the present-day region of Al-Fashaqa, but their literature reveals that it is ironically extends a little deeper into Gezira state in central Sudan.
Let there be no mistake, rejecting such a binding agreement on the grounds that it was signed by a colonial power, is too simplistic and fallacious in the first place, since Britain was then a colonial power in the first place. Sudan and not Ethiopia; on the other hand, Ethiopia was an independent state whose Emperor Menlik II voluntarily authorized and ratified these maps in 1905, as the documents emerge.
It should also be emphasized that the approval and ratification of the Emperor was not a favor for nothing; it was part of a big problem; under which Britain agreed to annex much of the Sudanese land to Ethiopia, including the Benishangul region which has been famous for its enticing gold reserves and where Ethiopia is currently building its dam giant of the Renaissance.
Therefore, it should be re-emphasized that the authority that existed in Ethiopia at the time of the signing of the border agreement was a national authority represented by Emperor Menelik, while Sudan was a British colony, and the British officer, Colonel Quinn, signed his name. Logic and common sense give Sudan, and not Ethiopia, the right to protest against the situation that resulted from the 1902 accord. How ironic!
Sister Ethiopia, the AU Headquarters State, which today hosts the 34th Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union cannot continue to act as if it were not not a signatory party to the Cairo Declaration in 1963, which committed all States to accept colonial borders; cannot continue to act as if it has not ratified the OAU Convention which provided for the acceptance of borders drawn by colonialism likewise, Ethiopia cannot continue to act as if it has not a member of the African Union, which in 1998 adopted the Statute of African Unity which provided for the acceptance and inviolability of the borders drawn by colonialism.
Addis Ababa cannot have both; If he insists on his current uncompromising and unconstructive position, refusing to recognize these colonial agreements, then the principle of transparency and justice demands that he in turn abandon all Sudanese lands, acquired in the same way and also in these colonial agreements.
The African Union was sufficiently far-sighted when it adopted in 2007 the “Border Plan” to facilitate and support the demarcation and marking of African borders, warning at the same time that the absence of delimitation and demarcation in Africa, gives place in “ indefinite zones ”, within which the application of national sovereignty poses problems and constitutes a real obstacle to the deepening of the African integration process. Addis Ababa, as the seat state of the AU, is required to lead by example to other Member States and not the other way around.
Unfortunately, this was not the case; at the diplomatic and political levels, the basic modus operandi of the Ethiopian negotiators with their Sudanese counterparts, for the past twenty years, has been marked by the elusiveness and the desire to evade the obligations of delimitation of the long overdue borders, by means including save time, stall and delay.
Meanwhile, on the ground in Al-fashaqa, the so-called outlaw Ethiopian militias and bandits, have systematically wreaked havoc and terrorized the local Sudanese population of the Al-fashaqa region, turning their lives into living hell, forcing them out of their homes and farms out of fear for their lives.
In fact, since 1995, Ethiopian farmers have tapped – under the protection of armed militias – about two million acres of highly fertile land (generating hundreds of millions of dollars in export revenue to the Ethiopian treasury annually).
In turn, the local Ethiopian authorities – in Addis Ababa’s view – have been active in building many villages or rather settlements supporting them with services and infrastructure, including electricity and paved roads, in his systematic and unadorned quest to impose the accomplished fact or a de facto situation on the ground. Open up opportunities for politicians to make these false statements.
This is due to Sudanese leniency, hospitality or let’s say laxity on the part of the various governments since independence, which quite simply started out as a simple infiltration of a handful of Ethiopian farmers in 1957, ready to pay their respective agricultural tax to Sudanese local authorities, gradually but systematically. swollen, eventually devouring around 95% of the Al-fashaqa region in recent years, making it completely isolated and outside the reign of Sudanese sovereignty.
Looking towards a better future, there is no place in modern Africa, and even in the modern world, to raise such obsolete claims of ancestral historic lands, as a ploy and an excuse for the forced seizure and acquisition of territories. neighbors. Mixing fact with fiction must end.
Addis Ababa is expected to follow words with action; fulfill its moral and legal obligations by ruling over elements that continue to despise official and internationally recognized maps, showing disrespect and contempt for the AU resolutions that are binding on all Member States gathered today in the beautiful city of Addis Ababa.
The Sudan will continue to believe in the historic and everlasting relations between the Ethiopian and Sudanese peoples and in the importance of strengthening these ties in all areas of mutual interest. Sudan also believes in peaceful solutions to disputes without necessarily giving up an inch of its land. However, there should be no mistakes, the persistence of these empty and illegal claims; the presentation of ancestral lands as a title deed will in itself constitute an obstacle to the peaceful resolution of the conflict. The ball in the Addis Ababa court.
Mubarak M. Musa
Former Ambassador
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