Eritrea's Relation with IGAD and the OAU/AU: the Domestic and International Dynamics

Abstract

The state of Eritrea joined the club of sovereign states on the early years of the 1990s. Though many were optimist of the new state's contribution for enhanced interstate cooperation in the volatile horn of Africa region, the early years' optimism never stayed longer and the Eritrean state soon begun to collide with the states of the region and beyond. Since the mid-1990s, the relationship between the state of Eritrea and her four immediate neighbors i.e. Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia and Djibouti, have witnessed irregularities ranging from diplomatic confrontation to armed clashes. The armed clashes ranged from the bloody Ethio-Eritrean war of 1998 to 2000, which was estimated to have consumed the life of at least 70,000 individuals from both sides, to the minor and ad hoc clashes with the forces of Djibouti in June 2008. The Eritrean state's rough relation with the neighboring states is replicated as far as the relationship with the Intergovernmental Organizations is concerned. Particularly, the state's relationship with the African Intergovernmental Organizations is irregular for large part to date. On these background, this article tries to explicit the dynamics of the foreign policy and relations of Eritrea focusing on the country's relation with the two African Intergovernmental Organizations (one sub-regional and the other regional) by using historical descriptive methodology and the three major levels of analysis in international relations as the framework of analysis.