Eritrea and Eastern Sudan: Backgrounds of Involvement in Bloody Internal Conflict

Summary:

A new factor has begun to emerge in the midst of the armed conflict in Sudan, as Eritrea announced the mobilization of its Armed Forces on the Sudanese border, and observers brought to mind the untold truth regarding Eritrea’s claim to a historical right to the state of Kassala in eastern Sudan.

With the constant battles taking place between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Army, estimates are leaning towards the possibility of the conflict developing into a large-scale civil war and perhaps beyond that, with the possibility of dividing Sudan on tribal and ethnic grounds.

Estimates also noted that Eritrea will be in danger if the civil war develops in the eastern states of Sudan, fueled by the tribes of Eritrean origins from El-Habab and Beni Amer, and if the conflict overflows with a large wave of displacement towards Eritrea, this will upset the equation and ethnic balance in the country, which is controlled by the Tigrinya nationalism, the social base of Isaias Afwerki’s regime and the Popular Front that has solely ruled the country since its independence from Ethiopia in (1993).

With the war in Sudan entering its second year, the Eritrean regime has abandoned its position of neutrality and opened army camps for Movements allied with the Sudanese Army or Movements of ethnic Eritrean origin, although it has been hostile towards them since the leadership of the Eritrean Liberation Movements was decided in favor of the Popular Front led by Afwerki, while the Eritreans in Sudan formed the base of the Liberation Front and its Arab and Muslim faction.

What incited the Asmara regime to break its neutrality and declare its intervention in the Sudanese crisis? In this summary, we will try to shed light on the historical background that casts its shadow today on this transformation:

– The regions of eastern Sudan were linked to the Eritrean National Movement, and this link went beyond shaping the features of identity in Eritrea and fueling a conflict over the Sudanese identity. Al-Habab and Beni Amer tribes, with Eritrean roots, among the tribal groups that settled in eastern Sudan, played an important role in igniting the idea of armed struggle for the independence of Eritrea.

Following the outbreak of the Eritrean revolution in the sixties of the last century, the regions of eastern Sudan have become a safe haven for revolutionary Movements in their war against Ethiopia. At that time, Eritrean Muslims and Arabists led the call for the idea of revolution and independence, believing that the victory of the revolution and building an independent Eritrea would be the main venue of support for the Beja tribes in eastern Sudan, to confront the enforced marginalization by Khartoum and the Northern Nile group that had seized the resources of power and wealth since Sudan’s independence in (1955). However, historical aspects resulted in a contradiction between the components of Eritrean origin in Sudan, due to their old position on the Mahdist Revolution and the British Occupation of Sudan.

– Eastern Sudan became the headquarters of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) fighters, and the leadership duties were carried out by figures from the Beni Amer tribe who settled in Sudan fleeing the war in Eritrea. It even became an alternative homeland, especially after the leadership of the Eritrean Revolution was transferred to the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) in (1981), following the Christian people of the plateau’s hegemony over the leadership of the revolution.

– Thus, the regions of eastern Sudan were transformed into bases for security and pure military training, but the Eritrean issue was no longer a leverage in the hands of the Eritrean-Sudanese tribesmen to strengthen themselves in the face of internal marginalization, and the east was transformed into areas to balance the power between the people of the Northern Nile -who have an interest in the east remaining at the mercy of Khartoum’s politicians- on the one hand and the people of the Ethiopian plateau who wish to remove the influence of the border tribes on their authority, on the other hand.

– Following Eritrea’s independence and turning the page on the differences with the Islamic Front regime in Khartoum, the Eritrean government began to employ tribal extensions and utilize the Sudanese lands’ embrace of the Eritrean revolution to strengthen its influence in eastern Sudan, which would become the most important commercial outlet for Eritrea, whose regime decided not to join the international economic system and to remain in the shadows.

The Eritrean regime also employed, in the first place, a state of hidden hostility for what it believed to be united tribal components that provided support and assistance to the revolution in Eritrea.
The Eritrean regime’s strategy can be summarized as follows:

First: The tripartite agreement with the Sudanese government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was signed, which stipulated the revocation of refugee status from Eritreans who resided in Sudanese camps throughout the war in Eritrea. Thus, the (UNHCR) absolved itself of responsibility for them, in an agreement whereby the Sudanese government approved the process of granting them Sudanese nationalities, regarding it as an attempt to equalize the balance of the eastern tribes to the tribes coming from western Sudan with their multitude of African ethnicities. In return, Asmara would rid itself of ethnic components by helping to settle them, especially since they are mostly of Arab and Islamic backgrounds that pose a threat to the ruling regime based on the Christian Tigrinya ethnicity.

Second: Eritrea sponsored an agreement between the Sudanese government and the Eastern Movement, which adopted an ideology of greater participation for the East in Sudanese politics and ending the enforced marginalization that had befallen it. This agreement revealed the Eritrean government’s support for choosing the (Hadandawa) as a Sudanese partner and excluding (Bani Amer) from playing a role in the political life of the East. Promptly helping settle the components of Eritrean origin in Sudan and at the same time isolating them from the Sudanese political life.

Third: Asmara, with the knowledge of the Sudanese government and even in coordination and cooperation with it, established a network through which it managed a commercial movement for the flow of goods between the two countries as well as financial transfers that supply the Eritrean market with basic consumer goods and through which it manages financial transfer operations, especially with the intensification of isolation, boycott and siege imposed on Eritrea.

In Conclusion:

– With the battles approaching eastern Sudan, the Eritrean regime was faced with a difficult choice, as it had always bet on the northerners’ continued dominance over Sudan and their continued control over eastern Sudan with its complex ethnic components, during which it relied on its historical relations with the Hadandawa component.

– However, the Asmara regime found itself forced to re-arrange its alliances and recruit the sons of Al-Habab and Beni Amer tribes to secure its influence in the eastern Sudanese region, but in order to overcome the threat that such a step could pose a threat to the Eritreans of those tribes, it chose to mobilize and work with other ethnic components in the east, which in turn constitutes another complication to the nature of the crisis and reveals an inability to formulate a clear political vision towards the Sudanese crisis.

The chaos of the Eritrean approach is the result of recent history, where the East and the conflict with its tribes were a permanent and decisive factor in the fall of the Tigray Plateau rulers and the permanent influence of eastern Sudan on the internal Eritrean situation following its independence. The imminent danger to the rule of Isaias Afwerki has always come from eastern Sudan, not from any internal or external opposition.