Ethiopia's Foreign Policy in the Third Millennium

Addis Fortune
27 November 2007

Ethiopia's continual existence as a state for thousands of years is in part a result of the fact that successive rulers have established foreign policies that reflect their own sense of statehood. In turn, it is partly because of the consistent conduct of foreign policy that the world has come to know and respect from Ethiopia; hence our nation's existence is recognised and respected.


Almost 1,500 years ago, the Ethiopian monarch granted asylum to the companions of the Prophet Mohammed who were escaping persecution in Arabia and seeking asylum in our country. The emperor received the emissaries of the Arab tribes opposed to the first Muslims but rejected their demands for the forced return of the refugees. As well as an act of mercy, this was an exercise in sovereign power, and also the reflection of Ethiopia's foreign policy.


Just 60 years ago, after the Second World War and the restoration of Ethiopia's sovereignty, Emperor Haile Selassie, who had been a refugee himself, immediately recognised that the solidity and even continued existence of the Ethiopian state depended upon its foreign policy. He devoted immense attention and energy to foreign relations and established the most sophisticated foreign policy of any state in the region, beginning with enthusiastic membership of the United Nations (UN). Ethiopia was among the very first signatories of a host of international covenants, including, for example, the Genocide Convention, which was not only expeditiously ratified, but quickly adopted into domestic law.


These two actions, many centuries apart, are only illustrations of the enduring sense of statehood possessed by Ethiopia's rulers. There is a whole history of Ethiopian foreign policy to be written that includes relations with Egypt and Yemen, the welcoming and expulsion of the Portuguese and the decision to adopt an isolationist policy for several centuries, as well as the beginnings of a modern-era foreign policy under Emperors Teodros and Yohannes - the latter who died fighting the Sudanese Mahdists in defence of Ethiopia.



It was the Emperor Menelik II who first crafted a truly comprehensive foreign policy, dealing with the imperial occupiers of the Horn of Africa as equals and staking out his borders - and in some cases expanding them - as the scramble for Africa raged around Ethiopia to north, south, east and west. Menelik not only played the diplomatic game and succeeded in making alliances with foreign powers, with the aim of thwarting others, but he imported arms from outside.



After the attempted fraud perpetrated by Italians in the Treaty of Wichale, Menelik was quite capable of practicing cunning in his own dealings, for example by buying the loyalty of chiefs and conducting military campaigns in the south and far south of Ethiopia. The strategic aim was to forestall British claims that the Kenyan border should be pushed further to the north and to expand the reach of the new imperial state.


Haile Selassie was the true inheritor of Menelik's statecraft. He learned as much as he could about the outside world and brought in foreign advisors to assist Ethiopia. In doing so, he showed great strategic sense. Haile Selassie knew the dangers of being beholden to any one foreign power, especially one with vested interests in the Horn of Africa, so he looked to smaller countries such as Belgium and Sweden for assistance, and established relations with the United States (US) as a counterbalance to the Europeans on his doorstep.


He established the institutions for a modern foreign policy and joined the League of Nations - an organisation which notoriously betrayed Ethiopia at the time of the Italian invasion. Haile Selassie's speech to the League of Nations is one of the most memorable foreign policy speeches by an African head of state, as well as one of the earliest. After the Italian occupation, it was the Emperor's foreign policy that saved him: He had built up sufficient standing across the world that he could not simply be cast aside, as were the rulers of every previous conquered African territory. And when the British led the military defeat of the Italians, Ethiopia was not absorbed into the British Empire but restored to sovereignty.


Reclaiming his throne and restoring full independence was no mean feat of diplomatic manoeuvre by the Emperor.


Fearful that history might repeat itself, and anxious to anchor Ethiopia's survival in as strong an international matrix as possible, Emperor Haile Selassie pursued an even more vigorous foreign policy after his restoration. At the centre of this was pursuit of the principle of multilateralism. It was the multilateral League of Nations that had let down Ethiopia a decade earlier, but nonetheless the Emperor recognised that a small country could only preserve its independence by seeking to diversify its foreign friends as much as possible, and invest in the new multilateral order.


Ethiopia, a founding member of the UN, was an early signatory of most of its conventions, and was an early participant in UN military and peacekeeping operations, including Korea and Congo. The Emperor was associated with the Non-Aligned Movement but also sought close ties with European governments and the US. Again, he preferred to diversify and deal with smaller powers without imperial ambition, including Belgium for training the Imperial Bodyguard, Sweden for the air force, India for the military academy, as well as Switzerland and Yugoslavia.



Ethiopia was one of the first countries to recognise the People's Republic of China; the Emperor visited the country before it became fashionable.


One of Haile Selassie's most signal triumphs was his leading role in establishing the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). While not a militant Pan Africanist - he supported maintaining existing borders, after Ethiopia's own tragic experience with disputed boundaries - he supported liberation movements across the continent. These efforts resulted in a major diplomatic victory, which was the location of the OAU in Addis Abeba.


The Emperor had realised that independence was coming to Europe's African colonies and that Ethiopia's future lay in good relations with its African neighbours. He played a central role in bridging the two African liberation groupings - the Monrovia and Casablanca blocs - to create a unified African intergovernmental organisation. This in itself was a formidable achievement which any country could be proud of.


Thereafter, he devoted much attention to resolving African conflicts, including the Algeria-Morocco border war, conflict between Mali and Senegal, coup attempt in Tanzania, and the first Sudanese civil war. He supported Africa's liberation movements, welcoming (among many others) Nelson Mandela to Addis Abeba and was one of the only two countries that took South Africa to court over its illegal occupation of Namibia, the other being Liberia.


Every move was calculated. For example, Ethiopia did not vote in favour of the UN resolution that established the state of Israel. Sensitive to the concerns of Ethiopia's Arab and Muslim neighbours, he instructed his Ambassador to abstain from the vote. Good relations between Christians and Muslims were his priority. He sought - and won - good relations with Arab states, including Nasser's Egypt.


These relations were very important in the ongoing disputes over Eritrea, in which the early Eritrean nationalists turned to Arab states for support. Zawdi Retta's recent book on Ethiopian foreign policy shows the sophistication with which Ethiopia presented its case on Eritrea to the UN.


For a long time the Emperor served as his own Foreign Minister. But his government also began training a cadre of foreign policy experts. A small group of world class Ethiopian diplomats emerged at that time. Among them were Lorenzo Tezzazz (who helped draft the speech to the League of Nations), Addis Alemayehu(Member of the UN Disarmament Commission) Ketema Yifru, Aklilu Habtewold, Yilma Deresa, Tesfaye Gebreigzi, Getachew Kibret (who drafted the OAU charter) and Kifle Wodajo (who served as the OAU's acting secretary general for its first year). These men made Ethiopia into a presence on the world stage far in excess of its size. They solidified and expanded the framework of our foreign policy.



The era of the Derg was an aberration. There was some continuity - notably in continued support to Africa's liberation struggle - but the balanced, farsighted and multilateral policy of the Imperial era was replaced by exclusive reliance on the Soviet bloc. Rather than cultivating and expanding the skilled and gifted diplomats who had led Ethiopia's international relations, the Derg harassed, exiled and killed them. The diplomatic corps was paralysed and almost destroyed.


The EPRDF also came from a leftist tradition, but in important respects reasserted the old tradition of multilateral diplomacy and independence from any outside power bloc. Foreign policy was refashioned, reverting to the essentials and drawing upon the depleted assets of the Haile Selassie era. The EPRDF leaders recognised that the world was changing rapidly and possessed a good reading of those changes and what would be necessary for Ethiopia to thrive amidst them.


The immediate priority was establishing good relations with those that had been antagonised by the Derg.


Some of the greatest challenges to the new government were in the immediate region, notably the collapse of Somalia and the intensifying war in Sudan and its destabilising effect on the region. Eritrean independence was another challenge. The genocide in Rwanda and the threat of the Great Lakes descending into turmoil also influenced Ethiopia's policy - it sent the first post-genocide peacekeeping force to Rwanda. Foreign policy in a turbulent region demands continuity and a steady hand.


The turbulence of Africa in the last 16 years has demanded that the army be an instrument of foreign policy. Ethiopia has faced military threats from three of its neighbours and preserving the country's sovereignty and pursuing its interests have demanded the application of military force - selectively in the case of Somalia and Sudan, massively in the case of Eritrea.


Yet, the EPRDF government has recognised that the greatest challenge to Ethiopia's security is the country's poverty. Chronic poverty, lack of economic development, and recurrent droughts and food crises, leave Ethiopia desperately vulnerable and at the mercy of foreign donors and creditors. This is a more complex and chronic threat than invasion; it demands a concerted and sophisticated response.


What emerges from this quick overview of Ethiopia's foreign policy is that at no stage has Ethiopia served as the puppet of any foreign power. Even during the worst days of the Derg, when the government relied on the Soviet Union, the foreign policy was Ethiopia's.


Under the Emperor and the EPRDF, it has been an interest-driven foreign policy, alert to the complexities of Ethiopia's interests globally and in the region. Ethiopia has largely been a status-quo power, valuing stability over disruption -but also ready to back the just causes of oppressed people, from southern Africa to southern Sudan. It has been a predictable and stable policy. It has been an exercise in balancing, an embrace of multilateral institutions and multiple global links and alliances.


Policy is the outcome of careful deliberation; process, not whim; centralised, but not arbitrary. Ethiopia's foreign policy tradition is a sound basis for going forward into the new Millennium.