Issue No. 195

Eritrea in Sudan: 30 Years of Interference

On 13 July, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki attended the Sudan neighbours’ summit in Cairo. Rejecting any external involvement in Sudan under any pretext, humanitarian or otherwise, Isaias said the Sudanese people could solve their own problems without a peace initiative. The Eritrean dictator has also dismissed the Intergovernmental Authority on Development Quartet (IGAD) Summit on Sudan in Ethiopia as a political bazaar. Yet since Eritrea’s de facto independence in 1991, Isaias has consistently sought to interfere in Sudan.

This pattern of contradiction goes back decades. Sudan was one of the first countries to recognise Eritrea’s independence in 1991, with the countries enjoying cordial relations until 1993. During the Eritrean War of Independence against the Derg regime, Sudan housed the logistical base for military and humanitarian aid for the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front. Sudan also hosted 100s of 1000s of Eritrean refugees.

Yet Isaias accused Sudan of arming the Eritrean opposition in November 1994 and severed diplomatic ties just a month later. Asmara soon lent increasing support to political groups and armed resistance opposed to Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist military regime in Sudan. The most significant of these was the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which Eritrea allowed to operate freely across its border.

Another instrument Asmara used to destabilise Sudan was the ‘Beja Congress.’ Formed in 1957 by Beja intellectuals to address issues of ethnic marginalisation, the group eventually transformed into a resistance movement armed and trained by the Eritrean regime. The Congress joined the Sudan National Democratic Alliance (SNDA) in Asmara in 1993, an umbrella group for political organisations opposed to al-Bashir’s regime. In an unprecedented move, the Sudanese Embassy in Asmara was even gifted to the SNDA after Eritrea severed relations with Sudan in December 1994.

But Sudanese-Eritrean relations plunged to new depths in 1997 after the SNDA opened an offensive front along their shared border. Sudan simultaneously developed military training camps for Asmara’s opposition, primarily for Islamist groups. Mediation by then-Qatari Emir Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani led the two countries to resume diplomatic relations in 1999.

The detente did not last. Eritrea accused Khartoum of allowing Ethiopian forces to attack it during the 1998-2000 Badme War. Eritrea again intensified its support for the SPLA and various rebel groups opposing al-Bashir’s regime. And in October 2002, Khartoum accused Asmara of attacking eastern Sudan, filing a complaint with the Arab League. By then, the Beja Congress, with significant Eritrean military support, controlled a swathe of eastern Sudan along the Eritrean border. Its attempted sabotage of the oil pipeline to Port Sudan was less successful, but the Congress joined the SPLA’s assault on Kassala in 2002. The Beja Congress was also not the only Sudanese rebel group Asmara supported. A Rashaida group called the ‘Free Lions,’ led by Mubarak Salim, also received Eritrean military aid. Its leader was later accused by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea of human trafficking.

Tensions came to a head again in June 2004 when Sudan publicly accused Eritrea of sabotaging its peace process at the UN Security Council. In October of that year, Eritrea declared it had foiled a plot by Khartoum to kill President Isaias. In May 2005, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi brokered an agreement between the regimes in Tripoli. But just a month later, Sudan filed another complaint against Eritrea at the Security Council, again accusing Asmara of supporting Sudanese rebel groups.

Relations improved after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Sudanese Government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement in January 2005, which Eritrea helped mediate. The Beja Congress initially rejected the peace deal, allying with rebel movements in Darfur. But in October 2006, a peace agreement was signed between the Sudanese regime and the Eastern Front, the allied Rashaida Free Lions and the Beja Congress, in Asmara. The Eritrean government sponsored the deal with al-Bashir and Isaias present at the signing ceremony. Beja Congress leader, Musa Mohamed Ahmed, was subsequently appointed as an advisor to al-Bashir. Mubarak Salim of the Rashaida Free Lions was even appointed Deputy Minister of Transport in Khartoum. Asmara had ensured its loyalists were at the table in Sudan.

The renewed relationship was cemented when Omar al-Bashir visited Eritrea in March 2009 in defiance of his International Criminal Court's arrest warrant. Eritrea, under UN sanctions, expressed its solidarity with al-Bashir. Relations between the two wily and brutal dictators of Sudan and Ethiopia steadied from then on, with the two countries agreeing to open their borders in October 2011. Following several years of relative stability, Sudan closed its Eritrean border after accusing Asmara and Addis of amassing forces on its border in 2018. The border remained closed until the overthrow of al-Bashir’s regime in April 2019.

Al-Bashir’s removal in April 2019 ushered in a flurry of reciprocal visits between Asmara and the new players in Khartoum. Eritrea’s Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed, Presidential Advisor Yemane Ghebreab, and Isaias have all visited Sudan multiple times since 2019. The warring commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), General Mohamed ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have also both travelled to Asmara since al-Bashir’s toppling.

Sudan’s conflict has thrown these relationships into fresh contention as al-Burhan and Hemedti seek regional allies and legitimacy. While Asmara has dismissed suggestions that it supports the RSF, the SAF reportedly seized Eritrean military equipment bound for the paramilitary group in June. Considering the history of Eritrean interference in Sudan, and across the Horn, it would be naive to assume Asmara is uninvolved in the brutal conflict. The faster the international community withdraws from engagement with the destabilising country, the better.

By the Ethiopian Cable team