Turning to Ethiopia’s relations with neighboring countries, Addis Ababa has close relations with Kenya and Djibouti, which now serves as the principal port for all Ethiopian imports and exports. Relations with Sudan have fluctuated since the EPRDF took power in 1991, but have been good following the outbreak of conflict in 1998
between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Addis Ababa is particularly hopeful that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended conflict between northern and southern Sudan not collapse. From the perspective of Ethiopia’s security, maintaining peace in southern Sudan is more important than ending the conflict in Darfur.
Nevertheless, Ethiopia has offered both helicopters and troops to the UN/African Union peacekeeping operation in Darfur. This has ingratiated Ethiopia with the U.S. and presumably with Sudan. Ethiopia has also earned praise in Washington for supporting U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the region.
Ethiopia has established a good working relationship with Somaliland, which declared its independence from Somalia in 1991 but has not been recognized by any country. Ethiopia’s military intervention in Somalia in 2006 at the request of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has been opposed by virtually all Somalis except those aligned with the TFG. If Ethiopian troops left Somalia tomorrow, however, the TFG would almost certainly collapse. The leaders of most Somali groups opposing the TFG are in exile in Asmara, Eritrea, where they formed the Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) and receive support from Eritrea.
Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia has also led to increased conflict in its Somali-inhabited Ogaden region in the southeastern part of the country. There is strong evidence that Eritrea is supporting the dissident Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) in the Ogaden. The withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Somalia and the end of Eritrean support for the ONLF would reduce, but not eliminate, conflict in the Ogaden between ONLF and Ethiopian government forces.
The situation in Somalia remains extremely volatile. The TFG has limited support of Somalis, most of whom see the Ethiopians as an occupying force. Almost 300,000 Somalis have fled the violence in Mogadishu since last October, raising the total number who has left the capital to about 700,000. A UNHCR representative commented
at the end of January that Somalia “is the most pressing humanitarian emergency in the world today—even worse than Darfur.” The African Union force is unable to take control of the situation in Mogadishu as a replacement for Ethiopian troops. The UN is debating whether the security situation even permits planning to send a UN peacekeeping operation to replace the African Union force. An affirmative UN decision, which does
not seem likely anytime soon, would be followed by many months of delay before the UN could mobilize such a force. In the meantime, Somali animosity against the Ethiopians increases.