Ethiopian state support to insurgency in Southern Sudan from 1962 to 1983: local, regional and global connections

Abstract

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Government of Ethiopia supplied Southern Sudanese insurgents with arms, training and political support. This support has been explained as retribution for Sudanese aid to Eritrean rebels fighting against the regimes of Emperor Haile Salassie and the Derg. This is one aspect of the Ethiopian rationale for this proxy war, but other factors were also relevant. Based on primary sources from the Ethiopian Ministry of Defence and the Nation Archive of Great Britain, this article shows that Ethiopian policy was also influenced by local concern for state control in Ethiopia's Western region of Gambella, by the regional interests of Middle Eastern powers in the Horn of Africa and by the global context of Cold War, reflecting a network of multi-level proxy wars.

Keywords:

• proxy war
• Cold War
• Horn of Africa
• Ethiopia
• Sudan
• South Sudan

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the financial support from The Research Council of Norway under two projects: 214349/F10 ‘The Dynamics of State Failure and Violence’ administered by the Peace Research Institute Oslo and 190938 ‘The end or the beginning of conflict? Post-war power sharing in the multi-ethnic polities of Ethiopia and Sudan’ administered by Chr. Michelsen Institute.

Notes

1. Voll and Voll, The Sudan.

2. Yihun, “Ethiopian foreign policy,” 677–691.

3. Yihun, “Ethiopia's role,” 36.

4. Important exceptions are Rolandsen, “The Making of the Anya-Nya Insurgency”; Poggo, The First Sudanese Civil War; and Yihun, “Ethiopia's Role.” The latter contribution presents the Ethiopian perspective but lacks substantial references to the regional and global dynamics around the conflict.

5. Wai, “The Sudan.”

6. Ethiopian Ministry of Defence Archive, Addis Ababa (hereafter MOD), document no. 1042, “Minutes of a meeting to discuss the deteriorating relations between Sudan and Ethiopia, 1969.” The MOD documents have been collected at the Ministry's Research and Publication Centre at the Ministry's premises in Addis Ababa. The access to the archive was facilitated by an endorsement letter from the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Addis Ababa University, with which the author was affiliated.

7. Ethiopian Ministry of Defence Archive, Addis Ababa (hereafter MOD), document no. 1042, “Minutes of a meeting to discuss the deteriorating relations between Sudan and Ethiopia, 1969.” The MOD documents have been collected at the Ministry's Research and Publication Centre at the Ministry's premises in Addis Ababa. The access to the archive was facilitated by an endorsement letter from the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Addis Ababa University, with which the author was affiliated.

8. Yihun, “Ethiopian foreign policy,” 677–691.

9. Mumford, Proxy Warfare; and Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa.

10. Mumford, Proxy Warfare.

11. Mumford, Proxy Warfare.

12. Peters, Israel and Africa.

13. Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa.

14. Poggo, The First Sudanese Civil War.

15. Westad, The Global Cold War.

16. Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa.

17. Mumford, Proxy Warfare.

18. Mumford, Proxy Warfare.

19. Rolandsen, Guerrilla Government; Reno, Warfare in Africa; and Akol, SPLM/A: Inside an African Revolution.

20. Borchgrevink, “State strength on the Ethiopian border”; Bayissa, War and Peace; and Feyissa, “Power and its Discontents.”

21. Feyissa, Playing Different Games.

22. Yihun, “Ethiopia's Role.”

23. Yihun, “Ethiopia's Role.”

24. MOD, ዘመ (Campaign 077) “Joint Ethio-Sudanese Declaration”; “Joint communique on the establishment of ad hoc committees to investigate suspected rebel activities around Kassala and Gambella and to convene a joint boundary commission,” Ethiopian Herald, March 26, 1971; United Kingdom National Archives (hereafter UKNA) FCO 93/2531, “Joint communique, Ethio-Sudan Joint Ministerial Consultative Meeting,” Ethiopian ambassador to Sudan in conversation with British Embassy staff, February 8, 1980; “Joint communique, OAU ad hoc mediation committee to immediate cessation of hostile acts and the reestablishment of air links between the two countries, negotiations held in Freetown, 12–15 Dec 1977,” Ethiopian Herald, February 20, 1978; MOD, “Agreement from the Meeting of Ethiopian and Sudan Military Committee,” September 18, 1982.

25. MOD, 1042, “Minutes of a meeting to discuss the deteriorating relations between Sudan and Ethiopia, 1969.”

26. Rolandsen, “The making of the Anya-Nya.”

27. Yihun, “Ethiopia's role.”

28. Yihun, “Ethiopia's role.”

29. MOD, 1042, “Minutes of a meeting to discuss the deteriorating relations between Sudan and Ethipopia, 1969.”

30. Zewde, Modern History of Ethiopia; and Feyissa, “Power and its Discontents.”

31. Stevens, “The 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement”; and Johnson, Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars.

32. “Repatriation of Sudanese in Ethiopia complete,” Ethiopian Herald, May 24, 1974.

33. UKNA, FCO 93/466 “Memo from J.F.S. Philips, re, Ethiopia and Sudan,” October 30, 1974.

34. Mengistu Haile Mariam's parents came from the Amhara and Southern regions of Ethiopia, Clapham, Transformation and Continuity, 24.

35. British documents describe how the EDU leader Ras Mengesha was travelling on a Sudanese stateless person's travel document and how the Sudanese Government allowed EDU to move back and forth across its borders but doubted whether it supplied them with weapons, UKNA, FCO 93/722 “Letter from M.K. Ewans, East Africa department, Khartoum,” May 7, 1975; FCO 93/722 “Letter from E.W. Callaway, re. UNHCR Ethiopia,” March 21, 1975.

36. Feyissa, Playing Different Games. In the 1980s, the GLF, together with Oromo Liberation Front, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front and Eritrean People's Liberation Front became important tools for Sudanese Government in the fight against SPLA and the Derg: Young, “Along Ethiopia's Western Frontier.”

37. “Ethiopia wants peaceful co-existence with Sudan,” Ethiopian Herald, March 16, 1976.

38. Yihun, “Ethiopia's role.”

39. “PMAC Chairman addresses nation: Sudanese regime commits aggression. Territorial integrity, unity of Ethiopia violated by Invading Force,” Ethiopian Herald, April 13, 1977.

40. The newspaper op-ed mentions the names of individual Southern leaders such as Abel Alier, Bona Malwal, Hilary Logali, Luigi Adwok and Clement Mboro, Ethiopian Herald, May 17 and 18, 1977.

41. “Nimeiri's Suicidal Adventure” op-ed, P. Otong, Ethiopian Herald, May 25, 1977.

42. UKNA FCO 93/2131 “Teleg 60 – Freetown Summit,” February 27, 1979.

43. “Ethiopia and Sudan have reached an agreement on the establishment of a Joint Technical Committee,” Ethiopian Herald, February 19, 1981.

44. “Ethiopia, Sudan agree to close down facilities used by secessionists,” Ethiopian Herald, June 1, 1982.

45. MOD, “Meeting of Ethiopian and Sudan Military Committee,” September 18, 1982.

46. “Ethiopia Refutes Allegations by Sudan,” Ethiopian Herald, August 17, 1984.

47. Levey, “Israel's strategy in Africa”; and Nadelmann, “Israel and Black Africa.”

48. Peters, Israel and Africa.

49. Erlich, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia.

50. Rolandsen, “A False Start.”

51. Poggo, The First Sudanese Civil War, 156.

52. Poggo, The First Sudanese Civil War.

53. Erlich, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia.

54. MOD, 1042, “Minutes of meeting to discuss deteriorating relations between Sudan & Ethiopia, 1969.”

55. Levey, “Israel's strategy in Africa.”

56. Peters, Israel and Africa.

57. According to Levey, diplomatic relations between the two countries resumed in November 1989 – together with rumours that military cooperation also was resumed. For the Ethiopians, the resumption of relations with Israel was a tool for improving its ties with and image in the USA, Levey, “Israel's strategy in Africa.”

58. “Joint communique on the establishment of ad hoc committees to investigate suspected rebel activities around Kassala and Gambella and to convene a joint boundary commission,” Ethiopian Herald, March 26, 1971.

59. Op-ed, by Tiglu Yashenfal, Ethiopian Herald, March 1, 1977.

60. “Ministry comments on proposed talks by Nimeiri on Red Sea,” Ethiopian Herald, March 15, 1977.

61. “Chairman describes freetown talks as failure,” Ethiopian Herald, March 2, 1979.

62. Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa.

63. MOD, “Letter from the Ministry of Finance to His Excellency Brigadier General Teferi Banti, Provisional Military Government of Ethiopia, Chairman,” January 13, 1976.

64. Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa.

65. MOD አስተዳደር 3005, Top Secret, [no date].

66. Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa; and Westad, The Global Cold War.

67. Westad, The Global Cold War.

68. Westad, The Global Cold War, 269, referring to documents in Soviet Government archives.

69. Mumford, Proxy Warfare.

70. Mumford, Proxy Warfare.

71. Westad, The Global Cold War.

72. Yihun, “Ethiopia's role.”

73. “Ethiopia, Sudan resolve to speed up development of bilateral relations,” Ethiopian Herald, November 26, 1980.

74. MOD, “Report on Working Visit in Gambella Province,” June 29, 1983.

75. MOD, “Reporting summary according to the request to build temporary and permanent houses for “Project 007,” August 18, 1983.

76. Nyaba, The Politics of Liberation.

77. Mumford, Proxy Warfare.

78. Borchgrevink, “State strength on the Ethiopian border”; and Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa.

79. Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa; Small Arms Survey, “The militarization of Sudan.”