Birds of the same feather

The Ethiopia-Eritrea border dispute is unfortunately far from over and threatens to add another nail into the collective coffin that the Horn of Africa is turning into.
The area is currently the most volatile and unpredictable sub-region on the continent and the winds of war from the North have made it an even drier tinderbox.
It is indeed a tragedy that the Greater Horn has not been blessed with the vision of regional unity displayed by other sub-regions.
The Horn of Africa proper consists of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Eritrea. The Greater Horn region, it is generally agreed, also includes Kenya, the Sudan and even Yemen.
The cumulative political, social and economic capacity and potential of these nations puts forward a strong argument for regional cooperation.
A 173 million plus population-43% below 15 years of age, 220 billion US in Gross ‘Regional’ Product, 5,157,000 square kilometers of some of Africa’s most fertile and mineral rich land and a strategic location on major trade routes makes a good recipe for regional integration.
Enhancing these ingredients are the religious, linguistic, and other socio-cultural similarities, including overlapping ethnicities across the borders (artificially drawn up by departing colonists).
Creating in the Greater Horn, the conditions necessary for a shift from confrontation to co-operation is a tall order when seen against the light of current reality. However, there are a few indications of bilateral co-operation that can form the basis on which to form a regional framework. And no, it is not IGAD that comes to mind but rather the growing economic partnership Ethiopia maintains with Sudan and also the symbiotic and mutually respectful relationship with Djibouti.
Ethiopia is the key to the entire region in the geo political sense and its leadership is vital to the Horn and the whole of Africa.
The country is the largest most stable and historically iconic nation in the Greater Horn. The region can learn much from Ethiopia’s merits as a bastion of multi-ethnic co-existence and religious freedom.
1945 Europe did not have as many things going for it as does the Greater Horn of 2008.
Devastated in body, soul and material by a horrendous war and stunned into bitter misery and utter destitution, it was only a few years later that Europe began to dream and gradually make real continental union.
The Greater Horn has the rich water, land, human resource and the leadership history of Ethiopia, the great ethnic diversity and oil wealth of Sudan, Eritrean work ethics, the strategic location of Djibouti. Somali ingenuity and rich fisheries and Kenya’s proven (and recently sorely tested) political maturity and free market experience.
As such, it is incumbent on Ethiopia to take the moral high ground and despite the obvious naysayer in the Horn, take the initiative in proposing the establishment of a truly effective regional instrument.
If it weren’t for the intractability of the Eritrean regime this vision of a Greater Horn confederation would not sound so naïve. However, this isolationist and reactionary state should not be allowed to cloud the noble vision.
In fact, the Greater Horn countries should look forward to a future that does not necessarily have to include an Eritrea under the current regime. The work to form even a semblance of union must start today. Perhaps when the Eritrean people see that they are the only ones left stranded at the station with the train gone, it may be that they will find it in themselves to question their rulers.