Journal of Eastern African Studies

ISSN: 1753-1055 (Print) 1753-1063 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjea20

Border diplomacy and state-building in north-

western Ethiopia, c. 1965–1977

Luca Puddu

To cite this article: Luca Puddu (2017) Border diplomacy and state-building in north-
western Ethiopia, c. 1965–1977, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 11:2, 230-248, DOI:
10.1080/17531055.2017.1314997

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2017.1314997

Published online: 24 Apr 2017.

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JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES, 2017
VOL. 11, NO. 2, 230–248
https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2017.1314997

Border diplomacy and state-building in north-western

Ethiopia, c. 1965–1977
Luca Puddu
Department of Social Sciences and Institutions, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy; Institute for Global
Studies, Rome, Italy

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In the first half of the twentieth century, the north-western lowlands Received 29 March 2016
of imperial Ethiopia were the typical interstitial frontier of the Accepted 20 March 2017
Ethiopian–Sudanese borderlands. Starting in the early 1960s, a
KEYWORDS
cash crop revolution paved the way to the transformation of the Ethiopia; Sudan; diplomacy;
Mazega into a settlement frontier and the emergence of a dispute governance; border; frontier
with Sudan for demarcation of the international border. This
article explores the entanglement between the political economy
of frontier governance and border diplomacy in the contested
area. It highlights how the management of the border dispute
was deeply affected by the contradictory interests of the various
layers of government and “twilight” entities that projected
Ethiopian statecraft at the periphery.

International borders in the Horn of Africa region have been a major source of conflict
between state and non-state actors over the past century, and the international boundary
between Ethiopia and Sudan makes no exception.1 Ethiopian rule in the western escarp-
ment between the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century was
usually indirect and flexible, ranging from the cooptation of local kingdoms in return
for payment of a fixed tribute (k’urt gibr) to the creation of frontiers of settlement entailing
land expropriation and forced subjugation of the local population into a tributary relation-
ship (gebbar) with northern soldiers (neftegna) who acted as the vanguard of the Crown.2
This hybrid institutional structure legitimized the use of violence as a tool to bargain for
social mobility and economic wealth.3 In those peripheries where land was not suitable for
colonization by highland farmers, surplus extraction usually took the form of cross-border
raids for cattle and slaves, while banditry (shiftenat) was a socially accepted tool to further
one individual’s political career within the official hierarchy of the Empire.4 In the k’urt
gibr regions, local chiefs performed violence on behalf of the state in the form of frontier
patrol or military expeditions for ivory and booty, while also engaging in warfare with
neighbours in order to expand the reach of their fiefdom and shift the tribute burden
to nearby communities.
The decade of the 1940s is deemed to represent a watershed in the transition towards a
more regularized form of territorial administration and the rigidification of the inter-
national border. Not incidentally, recent research on the political and social history of

CONTACT Luca Puddu luca.puddu@unica.it

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES 231

the Ethiopian–Sudanese borderlands in the second half of the twentieth century shifted
from the study of frontier governance to the analysis of border diplomacy in its multiple
forms: diplomatic historians mostly looked at the logics of cross-border proxy war in
southern Sudan from the perspective of the Ethiopian government,5 while anthropologists
highlighted how non-state actors in Gambella opportunistically invoked the relaxation or
enforcement of border regulations to foster their bargaining position in the quest for
power at a micro level.6
While the southern stretch of the boundary has gone under a certain scrutiny, less
attention has been devoted to the dispute over the northern section of the international
border between the Setit river and the Atbara (Gwang) river, and in particular to the
area between the Setit and the Angareb river, which is known as Mazega or, on the
Sudanese side, Al Fashaqa triangle. Negotiations between Addis Ababa and Khartoum
over delimitation of this part of the boundary are still ongoing today, but they are com-
plicated by the ambivalent behaviour and overlapping interests of the different levels of
governments involved in the management of frontier governance.7 In this paper, I
analyse the historical background to this relatively neglected controversy starting in
the early 1960s, when foreign investments and government-sponsored agricultural
development programmes turned the sparsely populated north-western lowlands into
a powerful centre of economic accumulation, and authorized the reproduction of the
neftegna-gebbar relationship in an updated form.8 The creation of a frontier of settle-
ment facilitated the territorialization of Ethiopian state power in what had historically
been a loosely controlled periphery, but at the same time gave rise to a border
dispute with Sudan that was apparently solved in 1972 with the Addis Ababa agreement.
Ethiopia’s border diplomacy was not only the byproduct of central cleavage, however,
but was affected by the conflicting interests of the provincial layers of government
and the new rural élites in the Mazega, which exploited the border dispute to negotiate
the terms of their subordination to the central government in Addis Ababa. In this per-
spective, the article also highlights the necessity to unpack the idea of the state as a
monolithic actor, and to avoid a clear-cut distinction between state and society: the
border dispute with Sudan was largely driven by the agenda of “twilight” entities oper-
ating in the grey area between the public and the private, whose actions were strategi-
cally appropriated or rejected by different government officials to further their own
goals on the frontier.9
From a methodological standpoint, this article is based on grey literature, and
untapped primary sources collected in the National Archives and Library of Ethiopia,
the Provincial Archives in Gondar, the National Archives and Record Administration
in College Park, the archives of the World Bank Group in Washington DC, and the
National Archives of the United Kingdom at Kew. In addition, oral interviews were con-
ducted in Gondar and Addis Ababa with two individuals who prefer to remain anon-
ymous: one is a high-school teacher who took part to the 1976 zemecha campaign;
the other is the heir of a former overlord at Kafta Humera. The article makes no
claim on the Sudanese posture, since further research in the Sudanese archives is
required in order to obtain a more extensive diplomatic history of the dispute, but
the considered documents show the perspectives, strategies, and internal functioning
of the Ethiopian state very clearly.
232 L. PUDDU

Economic and political setting of the north-western frontier

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the north-western borderlands of imperial
Ethiopia were the archetype of an African interstitial frontier: an undefined geographical
space “nestling between organized societies but internal to the larger regions in which they
are found”, perceived by the surrounding polities “as lacking any legitimate political insti-
tutions and being open to legitimate intrusion and settlement”.10 Local groups of hunters,
traders, pastoralists, and shifting cultivators were interlocked into a predatory system of
surplus extraction that involved both sides of the frontier: Ethiopian and Sudanese
gunmen carried out armed raids in the lowland in search of cattle and slaves,11 shifting
cultivators in the Mazega paid tributes to their masters in the highland district of
Walqait in return for military protection,12 and to the south, the border village of
Metemma/Gallabat was an important trading post for caravans connecting the Sudanese
towns of Kassala and Gedaref to Gondar, the capital of Begemder. The escarpment pro-
vided its inhabitants with various types of opportunity: it was an ideal refuge for
outlaws and political rebels, but it also hosted a mosaic of ethnic groups of different lin-
guistic and religious cultures who had migrated there in search of relief from wars, perse-
cution, and famine.13
Although the Abyssinian kingdoms had claimed sovereignty over the area since pre-
colonial times, imperial control did not fit with European criteria for statehood, which pre-
scribed the imposition of a monopoly of force over a clearly delimited territory. Indeed,
Ethiopian rulers did not seek to reproduce the techniques for ruling that had been
adopted in the highlands, preferring instead to exploit the lowlands as a natural line of
defence against the Turco-Egyptian and Mahdist forces that threatened the north-
western flank of the Empire from the early nineteenth century.14 The political economy
of imperial Ethiopia was marked by flexibility and the maximization of profits: the Chris-
tian rulers of Begemder occasionally encouraged settlement in the lowlands by Muslim
principalities that enjoyed broad autonomy from the provincial capital of Gondar in
return for intelligence information, frontier patrols, and tributes, thus reproducing a
typical centre–periphery relationship of the Ethiopian lowlands.15 Poor levels of state
control also offered a safe haven for bands of criminals and rebels – commonly referred
as shifta in Amharic – who used the escarpment as a launching pad for political careers
at the centre. One such person was the renowned Kassa Hailu, who became Emperor in
1855, taking the name Tewodros, following a long history of raids on the plains of
Quara.16 Shiftenat in its various forms was a pillar of the politics of the lowlands and a
critical tool for social mobility.17 Indeed, the aristocratic titles that granted political
power to selected individuals in the escarpment were not imposed from above, but
“were flexibly applied to provide legitimacy to the consequences of quite unrestrained
competition”.18
Another critical difference between Ethiopian and European notions of statecraft sur-
faced around management of the international border. For centuries, Ethiopian overlords
“never considered the boundary of their territories as a fixed line, (but) only as an unde-
termined area stretching into the lands of their neighbours”.19 The Weberian concept of
borders as the extreme marker of state sovereignty was invoked for the first time by
Emperor Yohannes IV at the end of the nineteenth century in an attempt to protect the
north-western frontier from the Mahdist invasion, but it was only with Yohannes’
 JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES 233

successor, Menelik II, that the Ethiopian Empire aligned itself fully with the norms and
language of European diplomacy.20 Concerned by the British colonial forces’ military
campaign in the Sudan and the advancement of the Italians in what would officially
become, in 1890, the colonia primogenita of Eritrea, Menelik II sent a circular letter to
the European powers in 1891 in which he claimed sovereignty over a large stretch of
land that extended from Kassala and the Setit-Atbara confluence up to Gedaref province
and the city of Metemma/Gallabat.21 He was conscious of the importance of actual occu-
pation for successful recognition of his territorial claims, and exploited the power vacuum
that followed the war between the Mahdists and the Anglo-Egyptians to establish new
military garrisons in the western lowlands before engaging in negotiations with the
British colonial administration for demarcation of the international boundary.22 The
Anglo-Egyptian occupation of Gedaref prevented Menelik’s army in Belashangul from
advancing further northwards.23 Moreover, the 1900, 1901, and 1902 agreements
between Ethiopia, Italy, and Great Britain failed to recognize any of Menelik’s claims
north of the Atbara river except for the division of the border town of Metemma/Gallabat
between Ethiopia and Sudan.24 Colonial treaties were nonetheless somewhat ambiguous in
regard to the exact position of the international boundary between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan: the 1900 treaty between Italy and Ethiopia sanctioned that the
western border of the Italian colony ran from Todluc to Tomat, thereby implicitly recog-
nizing Ethiopian sovereignty over the territory south of the Setit river, but this provision
was contradicted by the 1901 agreement between Great Britain and Italy that fixed the
border along a line from Abu Gamal to the intersection of Khor Um Hajer with the
Setit river. The 1902 treaty between Ethiopia and Great Britain concerning the inter-
national boundary south of Eritrea, in turn, did not make any reference to the area
between Tomat and Khor Um Hager, thereby enabling Ethiopian rulers to argue that jur-
isdiction over the Al Fashaga triangle was not regulated by the treaty. Moreover, there
were major discrepancies between the letter of the treaty and the actual position of
localities on the ground, as well as some concern regarding the authenticity of Menelik’s
seal on the maps (Figure 1).25
The unilateral border demarcation drawn in 1903 by Major Gwynn on the basis of
the 1902 treaty was somewhat arbitrary, in part because of the ambivalent relationship
between the British Commissioner and the various categories of Ethiopian “representa-
tives” on the border.26 This ambiguity was not an issue of immediate concern for the
Ras of Gondar, Wolde Gyorgis, who had no interest in establishing a direct adminis-
tration in the lowlands to enforce cross-border regulations. The rise of the semi-inde-
pendent enclave ruled by the Sudanese hunter Al Imam on the plains between the
Setit and Angareb rivers in the 1910s was a good example of Wolde Gyorgis’s preference
for an open frontier with Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the Italian colony of Eritrea. Al
Imam carried out raids in Sudan to seize slave labourers to be employed on his cash
crop plantations between Nuqara and Humera, and then sold the harvest on the Eri-
trean market by taking advantage of the subsidies provided by the Italian adminis-
tration.27 The Ras of Gondar not only tolerated Al Imam’s ambiguous conduct
towards his northern neighbour in return for the payment of large tributes and infor-
mation on the movement of colonial troops, but also accorded him diplomatic protec-
tion from disgruntled British officials, who wanted him to be arrested for repeated
assaults on His Majesty’s subjects.28
234 L. PUDDU

Figure 1. Map of Ethiopia–Sudan border area. Reproduced with permission from Wubneh, “This Land Is
My Land,” 448.

Things gradually changed in the two decades following liberation from Italian occu-
pation, when the territory between the Setit and the Angareb rivers was included within
the Setit Humera district (woreda) and divided in several sub-districts (miktel-woreda).
Understanding the relationship between the Ethiopian Empire and the new rural élite
in Setit Humera in the area of land allocation and surplus extraction is of paramount
importance to appreciate the changing nature of Ethiopian rule at the frontier. According
to oral sources, the Mazega of Setit Humera continued to be claimed by Welkayt overlords
as part of their tributary sphere of influence until 1963, when all land in the Setit Humera
woreda was declared government property and granted to individuals from the Gondar
area.29 Consequently, while the Mezega of the nineteenth and mid-twentieth century
was a typical periphery that occasionally gave birth to semi-independent enclaves
indirectly linked to the centre by tribute arrangements, from the early 1960s the north-
western lowlands were gradually turned into a kind of gebbar area, similar to what had
taken place in the southern, eastern, and western regions suited to sedentary agriculture
that had been conquered by force at the end of the nineteenth century.30 The most
typical aspect of the gebbar areas was that state control was mediated by a class of
armed settlers (neftegna), who performed military and administrative duties on behalf
of the Empire in return for being assigned a set number of farms worked by tribute-
payers (gebbar).31 The neftegna often received the land in the form of maderya, a land
tenure arrangement that authorized them to collect tributes from the local gebbar
working the land, while retaining a large portion of the agricultural surplus for their
own needs in return for service.32 In a similar vein, from the early 1960s, large maderya
 JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES 235

land grants were made in Setit Humera to individuals from the highland aristocracy and
the police, who were entitled to a one-year renewable rent and generous tax exemptions.33
Maderya settlers were seldom involved in agricultural operations, their main role being
limited to the distribution of credits and income from government subsidies and providing
protection for farmers, but they would nonetheless accumulate large profits in years when
the harvest was good. The new rural élite was closely linked to the office of the woreda and
miktel-woreda: settlers provided military manpower for the enforcement of frontier gov-
ernance and complemented the woreda governor’s low salary with a share of the tributes;
and in turn, miktel-woreda officers were appointed among the largest landlords in each
sub-district.34
Reproduction of an updated gebbar order in the north-western lowlands was made
possible by the rapid development of commercial agriculture. Indeed, by the late 1950s,
the area had recovered from the distress caused by the Italo-Ethiopian war, and was begin-
ning to host an unprecedented flow of farmers from the overcrowded highlands of Begem-
der, Tigray and Eritrea. The farmers were attracted not only by the availability of large
tracts of fertile land but also by the seasonal labour opportunities in the cash crop planta-
tions run by the foreign investors who had obtained land leases from the Emperor. Again,
the driving force behind the economic boom in the lowlands was an increasing demand
for cash crops from the expatriate business community in Eritrea: raw cotton was
absorbed by the textile factory of the Italian entrepreneur Barattolo in Asmara, while
sesame seeds were mostly purchased by European firms working in the import–export
sector.35 In spite of higher transportation costs and erratic rainfall, local prices were
made competitive by the release of subsidies to farmers in the form of seeds, crop
loans, improved road networks, credit facilities, and fertilizers, which were indirectly pro-
vided by aid packages from the World Bank and bilateral donors.36 The Ethiopian govern-
ment also granted protection from the cheaper Sudanese cotton through tariffs and
restrictions on cross-border trade. This set of factors paved the way for an economic
boom in Begemder’s Mazega: in 1970, about 150,000 ha of land were under rain-fed cul-
tivation between the Setit and the Angareb rivers, supplying half of all domestic raw cotton
and 90% of the sesame seeds in the country.37

Diplomacy of border negotiations, c. 1965–1971

From 1965, the political economy of imperial Ethiopia at the north-western frontier was
shaped by two overlapping levels of power. On the one hand, the Ministry of the Interior
exercised critical prerogatives in the realm of security enforcement and the allocation of
government land, in collaboration with the Governor-General of Begemder, Tamrat
Ygazu, and the Governors of the sub-provinces (awrajia), districts (woreda) and sub-dis-
tricts (miktel-woreda) in accordance with their territorial jurisdiction. While the new dis-
tricts south of the Angareb and north of the Setit continued to be ruled through the
appointment of local individuals as balabat, the Setit Humera woreda in theory fell
under the supervision of the Wogera awrajia and its capital, Dabat, in the nearby high-
lands, but was de facto placed into a direct relationship with the Governor-General in
Gondar following the nationalization of land in 1963.38 The woreda and miktel-woreda
governors in Setit Humera nonetheless maintained a high level of autonomy in the man-
agement of local affairs in the district: the woreda was directly responsible for the
236 L. PUDDU

allocation of government land, while the miktel-woreda officers had power over land deli-
mitation and the collection of lump-sum tributes from maderya holders.39 On the other
hand, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Addis Ababa was formally responsible for the
elaboration of the foreign policy of the Empire towards Sudan, although border diplomacy
in Setit Humera was by and large a prerogative of the two most powerful figures immedi-
ately behind Emperor Haile Selassie: the Prime Minister Aklilu Habte Wolde and the Gov-
ernor-General of Eritrea, Ras Asrate Kassa.
The agricultural revolution in the Mazega was founded on the same economic con-
ditions that had favoured the rise of the semi-independent enclave of Al Imam at the
beginning of the century, but the geopolitical setting on the frontier was no longer the
same. The rapid expansion of Ethiopian settlers westward along the un-delimited
border did not go unnoticed: starting in 1964, the Sudanese government began to
accuse Ethiopia of illegal allocation of agricultural land that Khartoum deemed to be
part of its territory, while the Ethiopian authorities in turn accused Sudanese soldiers of
illegally trespassing across the border and the arbitrary arrest of Ethiopian settlers. Ten-
sions reached a peak in 1967 when the two countries moved mechanized divisions into
the district and reached the brink of war, while a diplomatic stalemate persisted until
the signature of the Addis Ababa agreement in 1972.40
The evolution of the controversy was closely linked to the broader diplomatic war that
shaped the relationship between Ethiopia and Sudan in the 1960s and early 1970s. From
Eritrea to Gambella, the porosity of the frontier provided a safe haven for rebel groups who
shared a religious and cultural affiliation with their ethnic comrades on the other side of
the border. Ethiopia and Sudan cooperated in the 1950s and early 1960s to contain the
activities of insurgents along the frontier, occasionally allowing soldiers to cross the
border for police operations.41 Collaboration turned into confrontation with the beginning
of the Eritrean insurgency, which was followed by the popular uprising that brought a pro-
Egyptian and pro-Arab government to power in Khartoum in October 1964. After this
date, Eritrean rebels in the western lowlands began to receive various forms of support
from the Sudanese authorities in Kassala province. The imperial Ministry for Foreign
Affairs complained to Khartoum about the flow of arms from Middle Eastern countries
through Port Sudan, while the Ethiopian ambassador bemoaned the hostile press cam-
paign conducted by pro-Arab newspapers in Khartoum and the privileged treatment of
Eritrean refugees in Kassala in comparison to Ethiopian nationals.42 In retaliation, the
Ethiopian government began to provide arms, money and rear bases to the Anyanya
movement in southern Sudan and, after the rise of Nimeiri to power in May 1969, to oppo-
sition parties involved in northern Sudanese politics, most notably to the Umma party of
El-Mahdi.43
The border dispute with Sudan was not the first to involve the Ethiopian Empire and an
independent African government after the end of colonial rule. In 1964, Emperor Haile
Selassie had gained a stunning diplomatic victory when he secured support from inter-
national and regional powers against Somali claims to the Ogaden region by invoking
the binding validity of colonial border treaties, which had become a fundamental norm
of postcolonial African diplomacy at the Cairo meeting of the Organization for the
African Union in 1964.44 The diplomatic posture adopted towards the Sudanese border
was far less linear, however. Bilateral negotiations began in 1965, a few months after
the first armed clashes between Ethiopian and Sudanese forces along the frontier.
 JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES 237

While the first meeting produced only a general commitment to prevent rebel activities in
Eritrea and Gambella,45 at the Khartoum round table of June 1966 the two parties agreed
to set up a Joint Boundary Commission that was expected to commence border demar-
cation operations the following October, in accordance with existing agreements and
international treaties. In the meantime, the two parties were obliged to respect the
status quo. The weakness of this compromise was that the Ethiopian and Sudanese gov-
ernments had no mutual understanding concerning which treaties should be taken into
account for this purpose. The initial position of the Ethiopian delegation was that the
1902 Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty was not binding because it had not been ratified by the
UK government. In addition, the delegation contested the validity of the southern
stretch of the Eritrean border and advanced claims to large areas of Kassala province.46
The Ethiopian posture changed somewhat in January 1967, when Addis Ababa suddenly
recognized the 1902 Treaty and the validity of the colonial border demarcation in the Eri-
trean section.47 As regards the Setit Humera area, however, the imperial delegation main-
tained that since no Ethiopian had been involved in the border demarcation of 1903 by the
UK, the Gwynn line could not be considered valid.48 The Ethiopian position changed
again in 1968 when the imperial delegation recognized the 1903 border demarcation in
principle, but it also argued that since the actual boundary did not coincide with the
one on the treaty map, it would be necessary to implement certain major changes
through the work of the Joint Boundary Commission, which was, however, unable to
meet for the next three years.49 The diplomatic stalemate lasted until 1971; in the mean-
time, the Ethiopian authorities continued to promote the settlement of farmers in the con-
tested borderlands, while Sudanese soldiers repeatedly carried out cross-border raids
against Ethiopian people and property.50
This ambivalent behaviour on the part of imperial Ethiopia was not without grounds.
The UK government was perfectly well aware of the contradictions in the colonial treaties
and maps that governed the north-western border: not coincidentally, the Foreign Office
recommended that its diplomatic agents in Khartoum ignore the Sudanese government’s
request for full access to undisclosed materials in the Public Record Office (PRO) and
remain as neutral as possible.51 In a confidential conversation, the research team
appointed by the British government to carry out a survey of the archival material in
the PRO recognized that the map prepared on the basis of the 1903 demarcation that
depicted the boundary line had never received legal authentication from the Ethiopian
government.52 Moreover, the UK experts admitted that the archival documents that
cited the presence of Abyssinian representatives during the 1903 border demarcation
were clearly unilateral, and had not been confirmed in any official Ethiopian document.53
As far as the Sudanese government was concerned, however, the colonial treaties were
very clear, and the Ethiopian position was motivated simply by an attempt to preserve
illegal territorial gains on the fertile plains between the Setit and the Angareb rivers.54
According to Jahmal Mohamed Ahmed, the Sudanese special envoy on the boundary
problem in 1967, the efforts of the Ethiopians were not sincere because – notwithstanding
their official declarations – the various power brokers behind the Emperor were still in
disagreement on full acceptance of the 1902 Treaty and considered the Gwynn Line to
be an anathema.55
238 L. PUDDU

The entanglement between diplomacy and state-building on the frontier,

c. 1965–1971
An analysis of Ethiopian, British, and American archival documents suggests that the
erratic posture adopted by the Ethiopian delegation during the period under consideration
was motivated less by the legal ambiguity of colonial diplomatic sources than it was by the
entanglement of the interests of a complex set of actors within the Ethiopian state and its
north-western frontier’s society. In particular, the Ethiopian policy in Mazega was shaped
by the dichotomy between the broader foreign policy concerns of the central government,
the state-building strategy pursued by the provincial administration in collaboration with
the Ministry of the Interior, and the vested interests of the new class of maderya holders in
the lowlands.
The development of Ethiopia’s foreign policy towards Sudan was by and large the
outcome of the power struggle in the 1960s between Prime Minister Aklilu Habte
Wolde and Ras Asrate Kassa, one of the senior members of the Ethiopian nobility and
Governor-General of Eritrea until 1970. The Prime Minister sponsored an African-
oriented foreign policy and a neutral approach towards Middle Eastern politics. With
regard to the relationship with Sudan and the Eritrean issue, he thought it necessary to
promote bilateral appeasement in order to shut down external support for insurgents.
Asrate Kassa, on the other hand, was a staunch supporter of an active Middle Eastern
foreign policy and was the eminence grise behind the de facto alliance with Israel,
which provided training and weaponry to the counter-insurgency special forces of the
Emergency Police, under the command of the Governor-General of Eritrea.56 Asrate’s
foreign policy direction gained the upper hand after the success of the Israeli forces in
the Six-Day War in 1967, at which time he was joined by the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, Ketema Yifru, who inaugurated a policy of open support for the Umma Party
of Sadiq El-Mahdi.57 This shift affected the diplomatic conduct of the Ethiopian govern-
ment on the north-western border: Asrate was of the idea that Sudanese support for the
Eritrean Liberation Front was part of an Arab project to create a new Muslim state and
eventually destroy Ethiopia, while appeasement was not an option because “no agreements
and treaties of friendship signed between Ethiopia and Sudan will cause Sudan to change
her attitude”.58 From this perspective, postponing border demarcation while promoting
the agricultural settlement of Setit Humera was a perfect strategy for protecting the
western flank from a hostile neighbour: not only did the low demographic density on
the other side of the border put the Sudanese government in a weaker position on the
ground, but the Ethiopian government could also bypass the legal constraints resulting
from violations of the status quo by depicting settlers as “working people” who
“whether Sudanese or Ethiopian, must be encouraged”.59 It was no coincidence that
Asrate Kassa was a warm supporter of the Setit Humera agricultural project, to the
extent that he knocked on the door of the UK government for funds to subsidise economic
development of the area.60 He also granted special benefits and tax exemptions to Barat-
tolo for the creation of a cotton plantation and ginning factory at Tessenei in south-
western Eritrea, which acted as a catalyst for the whole of cotton production in the area.61
For the Governor-General of Begemder, Tamrat Ygazu, the controversy over the inter-
national boundary constituted a perfect argument for obtaining further funding from the
central government for the purpose of promoting state-building on the frontier. In
 JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES 239

contrast with the flexible strategy adopted by previous governments at the beginning of the
century, the political economy of frontier governance now advocated by Gondar consisted
in the creation of new administrative outposts and the expansion of military power by
state institutions, but his desire to do so was frustrated by a lack of administrative staff
and financial resources within the provincial administration.62 A report to the Ministry
of the Interior highlights how the Governor-General exploited the danger posed to imper-
ial sovereignty by Sudanese raids as a means of legitimizing his budget demands for the
creation of a “Development and Security Department” within the provincial adminis-
tration, to be assisted in governance of the escarpment by a new Awrajia based in
Humera that would encompass all the lowlands of Begemder. This proposed institutional
restructuring revealed Gondar’s attempt to claim more autonomy from the central govern-
ment in the management of the rich north-western frontier, and this is confirmed by the
fact that the Governor-General put forward an additional request that he be provided with
a brigade of 800 Emergency Police soldiers to be deployed in the lowlands under his
command.63 In the face of the central government’s hesitation in meeting these
demands, the Governor-General became the eminence grise behind the settlement of
maderya holders in Setit Humera: on the one hand, the settlers would provide cheap mili-
tary manpower to enforce security, since they were expected to operate as a shadow div-
ision of the provincial army in the case of a Sudanese invasion,64 while on the other, land
allocations were instrumental in promoting the further expansion of commercial agricul-
ture and consequently broadening the tax base of the provincial administration, which had
seen a twofold increase in fiscal revenues from the Setit Humera woreda between 1966 and
1967.65
The local élite in Setit Humera enjoyed a clear benefit from the postponement of border
demarcation and the maintenance of tense relations with Sudanese authorities along the
frontier. For the local governors, the uninterrupted allocation of government land in
the contested borderlands presented ideal conditions for moving up the imperial hierarchy
because it allowed them to expand their tribute base, to create new patron–client relation-
ships, and to gain a reputation for military prowess among soldiers and outlaws on the
frontier. Moreover, the closure of cross-border trade protected local farmers and traders
from competition from the cheaper Sudanese raw cotton and sesame seeds. There was
a further advantage in the continuation of the boundary dispute, although it gave
armed settlers and district officials on both sides of the frontier an incentive to carry
out lucrative cross-border raids against farmers and herders, thereby reproducing the
earlier political economy of booty capitalism in name of the raison d’état.66 Not coinciden-
tally, Ethiopian police reports highlighted how Sudanese frontier patrols regularly awaited
the harvest season to arrest “illegal” Ethiopian squatters, since this was the moment when
they were able to loot more crops and agricultural equipment.67

Border diplomacy, state-building and local resistance, c. 1971–1975

The diplomatic stalemate ended in March 1971, when a delegation led by the Ethiopian
Minister for Foreign Affairs visited Khartoum and secured an initial agreement to cease
the proxy wars in Eritrea and southern Sudan, while also convening to restart the activities
of the Joint Boundary Commission.68 The rapprochement continued in November with
the signature of a secret treaty for the establishment of military liaison officers in the
240 L. PUDDU

respective capitals, followed by a new extradition treaty in January 1972.69 In July 1972, the
Addis Ababa agreement apparently sanctioned the resolution of all pending issues
between the two countries: Haile Selassie presided over the meeting between Nimeiri
and the leaders of the southern Sudanese insurgency that put an end to the first civil
war, while the Sudanese President committed himself to cutting off all supplies to the Eri-
trean rebels. The price for the end of the proxy war in Eritrea was acceptance of what the
Sudanese government had been requesting since the beginning of border negotiations in
1965: the recognition of the colonial boundary line created by Gwynn in 1903 as the point
of reference for any demarcation south of the Setit river.70
Although the sudden shift to the Gwynn line was officially depicted as a spontaneous
decision on the part of Emperor Haile Selassie “out of a desire to strengthen our friendship
and in order to reach a quick settlement of the frontier question”,71 the underlying reason
behind this change was more profound. In part, it stemmed from the need to contain the
military threat posed by Sudan after Nimeiri’s coup d’état in 1969. The Ethiopian ambas-
sador in Khartoum had recommended a rapid solution of the border dispute because
Soviet assistance for the modernization and expansion of the Sudanese army was
rapidly changing the balance of power in favour of Sudan.72 To some extent, the reassess-
ment of Ethiopian policy towards its western neighbour was also due to the reshaping of
the power position within the imperial establishment in December 1970, when Asrate
Kassa was dismissed from the Governorship of Eritrea in favour of a military adminis-
tration in the face of deteriorating security conditions in the northern province. The
new situation strengthened Aklilu Habte Wolde’s grip on the Empire’s foreign policy:
not only did the Prime Minister now have direct control over the internal affairs of
Eritrea due to the influence he exercised over the imperial army, but he also secured
the removal of Ketema Yifru from the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs in favour of
Minasse Haile, who supported his policy of concessions to his country’s neighbour.73
The Prime Minister found a willing audience in Khartoum, where Nimeiri had success-
fully defeated two attempted coups by the Umma party and the Communist wing of
the army, and was ready to bargain for the end of the proxy war in Eritrea in return
for the extradition of the coup leaders, who had found asylum in Ethiopia, and a solution
to the border dispute in Setit Humera, which had become the first priority on Nimeiri’s
agenda.74
The Addis Ababa agreement sanctioned a U-turn in the political economy of frontier
governance of imperial Ethiopia because it committed Addis Ababa to enforcing regu-
lations on the movement of people and goods across the border. The Ministry of the
Interior gave instructions to the administrations in Gondar and Setit Humera to stop
further land allocations along the border and to avoid any move that might provoke fric-
tion with Sudan, while maderya holders who had land west of the Gwynn line were now
supposed to give it back or keep a part of it and pay taxes to Sudan.75 The central govern-
ment sought to assert more direct control over Mazega and to abolish the gebbar system by
promoting land surveys and registration, while the Ministry of Finance officially extended
its taxation prerogatives by introducing an agricultural income tax in place of the lump-
sum tribute that had been collected thus far.76 The Emperor also recommended that pro-
vincial governors in Begemder and Eritrea take all possible steps to encourage cross-
border trade. The resumption of commercial relations stemmed from a request from
Nimeiri to Haile Selassie during the latter’s visit to Khartoum, but it was also motivated
 JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES 241

by the central government’s wish to increase revenues from customs duties.77 The trade
agreement with Khartoum sanctioned the departure from the former policy of import sub-
stitution that had promoted the economic growth of Setit Humera, because it authorized
the inflow of the far more competitive Sudanese cotton from Gedaref and Kassala.78
The attempt to enforce direct control and comply with international obligations was
largely unsuccessful, however. The Joint Boundary Commission was unable to reach a
compromise on how to manage field-work operations, because the Sudanese insisted on
a re-demarcation of the border in the Setit Humera area, while Addis Ababa wanted
the status quo line to be fixed first by delimiting the extreme western outreach of Ethiopian
farms in the district.79 Another problem was making Ethiopia’s foreign policy shift con-
sistent with the conduct of the various expressions of the administrative apparatus that
participated in the management of frontier governance. On the one hand, in spite of
the official commitment to begin demarcation after the rainy season, the Ministry of
the Interior still did not have the money, mapping technology, or technical expertise to
be able to carry out the process in 1973, and argued that no progress would be possible
for many years to come without substantial inflows of foreign aid.80 On the other hand,
the central government still remained heavily dependent on district governors and local
police for intelligence information and policy enforcement at the frontier.81
Another problem stemmed from opposition to the border agreement by large sectors of
the ruling élite in Gondar, which was not enthusiastic about the idea of setting aside its
claims to the rich Setit Humera plains. The British Embassy reported a fistfight in the
Ethiopian delegation during the border talks with the Sudanese government in 1972 pro-
voked by the resentment felt by the representatives of the provincial administrations along
the north-western border. In May 1972, the parliamentary deputies from Begemder pre-
sented the central government with a public question on the state of border negotiations,
and then publicly contested the Executive’s foreign policy for the first time since the estab-
lishment of the Chamber of Deputies in 1957.82 At the same time, the Ministry of the
Interior reported suspicious activities by certain high-level politicians in Gondar, who
were inciting landholders at the frontier to ignore orders from the central government,
and accused Addis Ababa of selling 60 km of national territory to the Sudan.83 Not coin-
cidentally, the Gondarine administration was also very sensitive to any subsequent breach
of the agreement on the part of the Sudanese authorities: in December 1972, the Governor-
General accused the Gedaref administration of promoting new agricultural schemes and
conducting raids against Ethiopian farmers in the contested border area with the objective
of clearing the ground before demarcation became effective, and invited the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs to lodge an official protest with Khartoum.84 The Governor-General also
opposed removing the army from the area to facilitate field-work delimitation, on the
grounds that farmers’ security was at stake, and that Eritrean rebels were increasingly infil-
trating in the Setit Humera woreda.85
The most powerful opposition to the border agreement and the ensuing regulations
came from the local élite of soldier-settlers and traders, who could rely on more or less
open support from the provincial administration. Large landlords in Setit Humera
staged a protest following the demand to pay agricultural income tax, and then appealed
to the Governor-General in Gondar, who agreed to postpone application of the new fiscal
regulations.86 In spite of the order to avoid any move that might create tensions with the
Sudanese authorities, the woreda and miktel-woreda Governors tended to side with the
242 L. PUDDU

settlers when justifying armed incursions into Sudan to retaliate against the arrest and
looting of Ethiopian farmers by Sudanese frontier patrols.87 The main reason behind
this was that cross-border raids were a lucrative business, but local police officers also
insisted on the need to preserve the legitimacy of their office in the eyes of local commu-
nities, who would otherwise take up arms themselves if the Empire failed to protect its citi-
zens.88 The attempt to re-open bilateral trade was also largely unsuccessful: a few weeks
after establishment of the customs duty station in Humera, the local police were forced
to stop Sudanese merchants entering Ethiopia after traders in the Wogera Awrajia
started rioting in protest against the arrest of an Ethiopian merchant in Gedaref.89 It
was also the police who recommended that the Governor-General boycott commercial
relations with the Sudan, justifying their position by the fact that Sudanese merchants
were receiving a unilateral advantage at the expense of Ethiopian citizens.90
The spread of civil riots in the capital and the gradual dismantling of Haile Selassie’s
regime by the military committee known as the Derg from early 1974 affected the politics
of the lowlands directly. Sudanese officers took advantage of the political turmoil to
occupy contested agricultural settlements and erect new government outposts along the
border of Begemder, while major armed clashes between Sudanese and Ethiopian
troops broke out in Metemma in February 1974.91 By April 1975, the Begemder police
were no longer in control of vast tracts of the lowlands, and they urged intervention
from the 12th Army Brigade to patrol the border.92 They feared not only the movements
of the Sudanese army, but also the possible defection of local officers to Khartoum.93 It was
probably for this reason that the Derg decided to postpone any decision on the introduc-
tion of the agricultural income tax, and attempted to reshuffle power positions in the sub-
provincial army.94 Resistance from the settlers-soldiers was primarily motivated by their
refusal to hand over their holdings in compliance with the 1975 Land Reform Proclama-
tion, which had nationalized rural land: soldiers stationed in the lowlands threatened to
abandon their posts in protest against the recall of a local army official decided by the
Derg,95 and then en masse joined the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), an armed
movement composed of large sectors of the old aristocracy and headed, among others,
by the last Governor-General of Begemder, General Nega Tegegne, which began operating
in the lowlands between Humera and Metemma in 1977. The EDU relied on the agricul-
tural surplus from the north-western lowlands to support its military efforts. In 1977, it
signed an agreement with the Sudan Oil Seeds Company to sell the Humera sesame
seed harvest in Port Sudan, and then occupied the border town of Metemma and
spread unrest across the whole escarpment.96 The EDU forces were quickly defeated
and disbanded, but the lowlands were to remain largely out of government control for
years to come, with the exception of a few pockets occupied by state farms, the 1972
treaty having been fatally weakened by a new season of tensions between Ethiopia and
Sudan.

Conclusion
Contrary to the argument that African border disputes are consequence of arbitrary colo-
nial boundaries, this article has demonstrated that the confrontation between Ethiopia and
Sudan at the north-western frontier was largely driven by local dynamics connected to
struggles for access to political power and control of economic wealth within the imperial
 JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES 243

polity. The transformation of the Mazega into a frontier of settlement enabled imperial
Ethiopia to achieve its twofold objective of promoting state-building while at the same
time avoiding any diplomatic condemnation of its occupation of contested border areas
and counteracting Sudanese military pressure on the western flank without additional
financial burdens on the government coffers. This strategy came at a price, however:
reproduction of the gebbar system at the loosely controlled lowland periphery left the pro-
vincial administration and soldier-settlers with a high level of control over the practical
creation of border politics. Consistency between the agendas of the central government
in Addis Ababa, the provincial administration in Gondar, and maderya settlers was
made possible largely by the perpetuation of the dispute with Khartoum. Once the
central government’s foreign policy shifted from confrontation to appeasement, the con-
tradictory interests of the various power holders that contributed to the reproduction of
statecraft began to clash, because the Gondarine administration, district officials, and
armed settlers invariably struggled to maintain their economic and political prerogatives
in spite of the limitations imposed by the new regional setting.
The trajectory of Setit Humera also provides interesting insights into the political
history of imperial Ethiopia in the second half of the twentieth century. A comparison
with Awsa, in the north-eastern lowlands of the Empire, is instructive: in both cases,
rural development paved the way to the development of an embryonic frontier polity
that managed to escape domination by the neighbouring sub-province and pay tribute
directly to provincial or national rulers.97 Setit Humera was not as successful as Awsa
in forging independent connections with regional and international powers and enhan-
cing its autonomy from the nearby province. Yet, its ability to shift allegiance to Khartoum
once its political patrons in the highlands had been overthrown by the revolution high-
lights quite clearly how Setit Humera fits with the dynamic model of frontier regime
that historically prospered in the Ethiopian–Sudanese borderlands.

Notes
1. Okumu, “Resources and Border Disputes.”
2. Donham, “Old Abyssinia.”
3. Anderson and Rolandsen, “Violence as Politics.”
4. Reid, Frontiers of Violence and Markakis, Ethiopia.
5. Aalen, “Ethiopian State Support” and Bayissa, War and Peace.
6. Feyissa, Playing Different Games and Feyissa and Hoehne, “State Borders and Borderlands,”
13. See also: Schomerus et al., “Negotiating Borders.”
7. In 2015, following major skirmishes between local groups from the two sides of the bound-
ary, the Sudanese ambassador to Ethiopia pledged its commitment to the Ethiopian govern-
ment to contain violence at the border, but at the same time blamed the Amhara regional
state for encouraging armed disturbances against the will of Addis Ababa. http://
hornaffairs.com/en/2015/11/23/ethiopia-sudan-border-ambassador-blame/. Last accessed
February 22, 2017.
8. It is important to note that the neftegna-gebbar relationship took different forms according to
the region where it developed: while in the Amharigna and Tigrigna-speaking regions the
term gebbar carried little sense of social subordination, in the southern regions inhabited
by peoples with no cultural and linguistic affiliation to their new masters, the neftegna-
gebbar relationship paved the way to the establishment of a system of social subordination
and economic exploitation, which resembled the institution of serfdom under European
feudalism. Crummey, Land and Society, 222–5.
244 L. PUDDU

9. Lund, “Twilight Institutions,” 676 and Raeymaekers, “The Silent Encroachment.”

10. Kopytoff, “The Internal African Frontier,” 11.
11. Triulzi, “Trade, Islam” and Ahmad, “Trading in Slaves.”
12. Smidt, “Preliminary Report,” 120. See also: Taddia, “Giovanni Ellero’s Manuscript Notes.”
13. Ellero, Antropologia e Storia and Quirin, “Caste and Class.”
14. Abir, “The Origins.”
15. Seri-Hersch, “Transborder Exchanges,” 8–9.
16. Reid, Frontiers of Violence, 50–2.
17. Dore, “Micropolitica Regionale.”
18. Erlich, “Tigre in Modern Ethiopian History,” 32.
19. Abir, “The Origins,” 455.
20. Seri-Hersch, “Transborder Exchanges,” 5. See also: Caulk, Between the Jaws of Hyenas.
21. Marcus, “Ethio-British Negotiations,” 83–4.
22. Marcus, “The Rodd Mission,” 28–9 and Ram, Anglo-Ethiopian Relations, 152–3.
23. Ram, Anglo-Ethiopian Relations, 132–4.
24. Marcus, “Ethio-British Negotiations,” 94.
25. Wubneh, “This Land Is My Land,” 448–50.
26. James, “Whatever Happened to the Safe Havens?” 226 and Teshome, “Colonial Boundaries,”
350–1.
27. McCann, “A Dura Revolution.”
28. Garretson, “Frontier Feudalism.”
29. Interview with businessman from Kafta Humera, Addis Ababa, 30 November 2014 and
Interview with high-school teacher, Gondar, 3–4 December 2014.
30. Crummey, Land and Society, 223–5.
31. Mantel-Niecko, The Role of Land Tenure, 98.
32. Ibid., 143.
33. NA, FAO/IBRD Cooperative Program, Report of the Project Identification Mission to the
Northwestern Lowlands, 14 November 1968, 10.
34. IES, Report of the Survey Mission, 61.
35. IBRD/IDA, Economic Growth and Prospects in Ethiopia: Volume II, AE9, Eastern African
Department, September 1970, 23.
36. World Bank Archives (hereafter “WBA”), Records of the Africa Regional Office, Box 59,
Ethiopia, Humera Agricultural Development, Negotiations 01, Setit Humera Agricultural
Development Project, 3 November 1969, 17.
37. IBRD/IDA, Economic Growth and Prospects in Ethiopia: Volume II, Annex II, Eastern
African Department, September 1970.
38. Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES), Ministry of Agriculture of Imperial Ethiopia, 1964 F.Y.
Annual Work Programme, Hamle 1963, Addis Ababa.
39. IES, Report of the Survey Mission on the Agricultural Development of Setit Humera Area,
December 1967, Institute of Agricultural Research, Addis Ababa, 60.
40. National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew (hereafter NA), Foreign and Commonwealth
Office (hereafter FCO) 39/56, Tel. 187 from Khartoum to Foreign Office, 29 May 1967; Tel.
194 from Khartoum to Foreign Office (hereafter FO), 1 June 1967; Tel. 233 from Addis
Ababa to FO, 3 June 1967; Tel. from British Interest Section of the Italian Embassy in Khar-
toum to FO, 8 July 1967; NA FCO 39/60, Tel. from British Embassy in Khartoum, 10 Feb-
ruary 1967; 23 March 1967; NAE, 172353, Memorandum on Ethio-Sudanese Relations, 8;
172353, Note MFA/1/4.C.3, from Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Imperial Ethiopian
Embassy, 15 February 1967, Khartoum, 14.
41. Aalen, “Ethiopian State Support,” 630.
42. National Archives and Library of Ethiopia (hereafter NALE), Folder 233/3, 1657/1, Trans-
lation of an Article Published in Khartoum Al Ray El A., Newspaper Edition no. 6098 of
8/9/1964; Folder 172353, Box 1657/6, Report 167, 30 June 1967; Translation of a News
Report Published By Al Ray El Am on 29 September 1968.
43. Bayissa, War and Peace and Yihun, “Ethiopia’s Role.”
 JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES 245

44. Morone, “The Unsettled,” 99–100 and Yhun, “Ethiopian Foreign Policy.”
45. NA FO 371/184150, Tel. no. 476 of 29 July 1965 from Addis Ababa to Foreign Office.
46. NA FCO 39/56, from British Embassy in Addis Ababa to North and East African Depart-
ment, 9 January 1967.
47. NA FCO 39/56, Ethio-Sudanese Consultative Committee, joint communiqué, 3 January
1967.
48. NA FCO 39/60, Tel. from Foreign Office to Embassy in Khartoum, 17 February 1967; FCO
39/56, Khartoum New Service, Joint Communiqué of Ethio-Sudanese Talks in Khartoum,
29–30 July 1967.
49. NA FCO 51/76, Tel from British Consulate in Asmara to FO, 3 July 1968 and Nur, “The
Sudan-Ethiopia Boundary,” 211.
50. NA FCO 39/56, Tel. 187 from Khartoum to Foreign Office, 29 May 1967; Tel. 194 from Khar-
toum to FO, 1 June 1967; Tel. from British Interest Section of the Italian Embassy in Khar-
toum to FO, 8 July 1967; NA, FCO 39/60, Tel. from British Embassy in Khartoum, 10
February 1967; 23 March 1967; NALE, 172353, Memorandum on Ethio-Sudanese Relations,
8; 172353, Note MFA/1/4.C.3, from Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Imperial Ethiopian
Embassy, 15 February 1967, Khartoum, 14.
51. NA FCO 39/60, Attachment to Tel. 56 from Foreign Office to Khartoum, Confidential.
52. NA FCO 39/60, Tel. 56 from Foreign Office to Khartoum, Restricted, 13 February 1967.
53. NA FCO 39/60, Tel. from Hartland-Swann to Griffith, 17 February 1967.
54. NA FCO, 39/914, Tel. 414, from Campbell, 9 November 1971.
55. NA FCO 39/60, British Interests Section of the Italian Embassy, Khartoum, 31 August 1967.
56. Erlich, The Struggle, 39–41; 500; NA, FCO 39/54, Report on the Eritrean Liberation Front.
57. NA FCO 39/492, Tel. 3/11 from FO to Khartoum, 16 October 1969; Tel. 1/12, Secret, from
British Embassy in Addis Ababa to FO, 1 October 1969.
58. NA FCO 39/54, Tel. from British Embassy in Addis Ababa to Foreign Office, 23 September
1968; NA Dominions Office (hereafter DO) 213/75, VA 1015/30, Situation Report on Eritrea,
25 August 1965; FO 1043/78, Report from British Consulate in Eritrea, June 1965.
59. NALE, Box 172.3.30, Folder 1657.1, Memorandum of Conversation Between General
Kebbede Guebre, Minister of National Defence, and H. E. Osman Abdallah Ahmid, Sudanese
Ambassador to Ethiopia, 28 October 1971.
60. NA FCO 39/54, “Report from Swann: Discussions with Asrate Kassa,” 9 October 1968.
61. UNICREDIT Archives, Fondo Banco di Roma, XI, 4.2.2, F. 778, b. 48, Letter from Asmara
Branch to Board Delegation, 3 April 1970.
62. Gondar Provincial Archives (GPA), Box 33, Folder 09/2-5/33, Report of the Governor-
General of Begemder to the Ministry of the Interior, no date.
63. Ibid.
64. National Archives and Record Administration, College Park MD (NARA), RG 286, Public
Safety, Box 7, Confidential, Monthly Report for Public Safety, USAID/E, February 1968.
65. IES, Report of the Survey Mission, 7.
66. NALE, 172353, Memorandum on Ethio-Sudanese Relations, 8; Note MFA/1/4.C.3, from
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Imperial Ethiopian Embassy, 15 February 1967, Khartoum, 14.
67. NALE, 172351, 1657.1, 8.3.1, Tel. from Begemder to Ministry of the Interior, 16 January
1974.
68. NA FCO 39/914, Tel. from British Embassy in Khartoum, 29 March 1971.
69. NA FCO, 39/914, Tel. from British Embassy in Addis Ababa to East African Department, 14
June 1971; NA FCO 39/1159, Tel. from British Embassy in Khartoum to FO, 10 January
1972; NALE, 172.3.330, 1657/1, Secret, Agreement Between the Government of the Demo-
cratic Republic of the Sudan and the Government of Ethiopia Relating to Matters of Security
Between the Two Countries, 6 November 1971, Addis Ababa.
70. NA FCO 39/1159, Tel. from Dorman to FO, 13 July 1972.
71. Yihun, “Ethiopia in African Politics,” 46.
72. NALE, Box 17.2.351, Folder 1657.4, Tel. from Ethiopian Embassy in Khartoum to Ethiopian
Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 6 December 1970.
246 L. PUDDU

73. Erlich, Ethiopia and the Middle East, 173–4.

74. Woodward, The Horn of Africa, 42–4; NA FCO 39/914, Tel. from British Embassy in Khar-
toum to FO, 6 September 1971; NALE, 172.3.30, 1657.1, Memorandum of Conversation
Between General Kebbede Guebre and H. E. Osman Abdallah.
75. NA FCO 39/1159, Tel. from Goulty to East African Dept., 5 August 1972.
76. GPA, Box 91, Folder 17/2-3/46, Letter from Gazaign Tokhon to Ministry of Finance of the
Provisional Military Government, 13 May 1977.
77. NALE, 172.330, 1657.1, 2, 2, Tel from Governor-General of Eritrea to Governor Kassala Pro-
vince, 12 February 1972; 1657.1, 2, 2, Tel. from Governor-General of Eritrea to Ministry of
the Interior, 30 December 1971; 172.330, 1657.1, 2, 2, Tel. from Governor-General of Eritrea
to Governor of Gash Setit Awrajia, 11 March 1972; 172.351, 1657.1, 8, 3, Tel. from Governor-
General of Begemder to Ministry of the Interior, 20 December 1972.
78. NALE, 172.330, 1657.1, 2, 2, Trade Agreement Between Ethiopia and Sudan During the Visit
of Haile Selassie to Khartoum, 31 December–4 January 1972.
79. Yihun, “Ethiopia in African Politics,” 49.
80. Nur, “The Sudan-Ethiopia Boundary,” 228; NALE, Box 172.330.02, Folder 1657.1, Tel. from
Minister of Interior Ato Getahun Tessema to Prime Minister Aklilu Habte Wolde, 30 March
1973.
81. NALE, 172330, 1657.1.2, Letter from Legesse Bizu to Governor-General of Begemder and
Governor of Setit Humera, 11 March 1972.
82. NA FCO 39/1159, Tel. from Dorman to East African Department, 13 July 1972.
83. NALE, Folder 1657/1, Tel. from the Crime Investigation Bureau to the Ministry of the
Interior, 12/08/1964 E.C.
84. NALE 172351, 16571, 8, 3, Tel. from Police Department to Governor-General of Begemder,
11 December 1972; Tel. from Governor-General of Begemder to Ministry of the Interior, 27
December 1972.
85. NALE, 172.330, 1657.1, 2, 2, Tel. from Governor-General of Begemder and Semien to Min-
istry of the Interior, 20 August 1974.
86. GPA, Box 91, Folder 17/2-3/46, Letter from Gazaign Tokhon to Ministry of Finance.
87. NALE, 172.351, 1657.1, 8, 3, Tel. from Begemder Police Department to Ministry of the
Interior, 21/01/1965; Tel. from Governor-General of Eritrea to Ministry of the Interior, 3/
06/1966 E.C.
88. NALE, 172.351, 1657.1, 8, 3, Tel. from Police Chief of Haikel Town to Office of Begemder
Police, 1 October 1966 E.C.
89. NALE, 172.3351, 1657.1. 8.3, Tel. from Police to Governor-General of Begemder, 6 January
1973.
90. NALE, 172.3351, 1657.1. 8.3, Tel. from Police to Governor-General of Begemder, 11 January
1973.
91. NALE, 172.3351, 1657.1. 8.3, Tel. from Deputy Governor of Begemder to Getahun Tesemma,
26 February 1974.
92. GPA, Box 129-120, F. G8-6-28, Tel from Begemder Deputy Commander to Gondar Provin-
cial Office, 25 April 1975.
93. For instance, the Ministry of the Interior recommended that the provincial police monitor
the activities of the Matoaleqa Teferra Workineh, who was forging close contacts with the
Sudanese authorities in Gedaref. See: NALE, 172.3351, 1657.1. 8.3, Tel. from Ministry of
the Interior to Police, 20 June 1974.
94. GPA, Box 91, F. 17/2-3/46, Tel. from Deputy-Minister to Minister of Finance, Provisional
Military Government, 5/09/1969 EC.
95. GPA, Box 129-13, F. 1721-37, Tel. from Begemder Police to Governor-General of Begemder
Nega Tegegne, 12 June 1975.
96. NA FCO 31/2103, Secret, Political Relations Between Ethiopia and Sudan, Telegram from
Palmer, 2 May 1977.
97. Puddu, “State Building.”
 JOURNAL OF EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES 247

Acknowledgements
The article was written during a visiting research stay at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
Research for this article was funded by Fondazione di Sardegna.

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