Origins (1948–1959) After
Italy was defeated in
World War II, the fate of
Ethiopia and
Eritrea was left to the
United Nations. A 1948 UN commission failed to agree on whether Eritrea would be independent. In 1952, Eritrea became officially part of Ethiopia under UN Resolution 390 A, which was passed on December 2, 1950. However, Eritrea would remain an autonomous government, meaning that the country could have their own government structures, flag, and official language. Ethiopia was also prohibited from forcibly intervening in Eritrea's domestic occurrences. However, some Eritreans were not satisfied with the UN's decision to place
Eritrea under Ethiopian control. Early independence movements can be traced back to 1949, when some Muslims living in Eritrea formed a group that would grow into the Eritrean Liberation Front. Nonetheless, in the early 1950s, this group remained relatively inactive. Discontent with the Ethiopian government ensured as Emperor
Haile Selassie took actions to destabilize Eritrea's autonomous government. As
Ethiopia was more
authoritarian than
Eritrea, Selassie felt that increased freedom in
Eritrea would destabilize
Ethiopia. The coming years also saw the suppression of insurgency movements against
Ethiopia, the arrests of newspaper editors who spoke against the Ethiopian crown, the seizure of private Eritrean businesses, and the removal of the Eritrean flag. In July 1960, the ELF was openly established in
Cairo by
Idris Muhammad Adam and other Eritrean intellectuals and students. The founders of the ELF were primarily
Muslim and the movement thus adopted
Pan-Arabic beliefs. Egypt helped organize
Arab support for the ELF. The
Arab League countries such as
Syria,
Iraq,
Libya,
Kuwait, and
Yemen pledged their support for the ELF in April 1962. They also felt compelled to help their fellow
Muslims attain
independence from the Christian
Ethiopians. Additionally,
Sudan and
Egypt worked together in attempt to prevent Ethiopian access to the
Nile River. As a consequence,
Sudan allowed the ELF to use their land to ship
weapons to and organize military operations. In response, Awate motivated further military action by claiming that he was fighting "for the sake of the Eritrean flag and their homeland." Selassie remarked that "We thank our people of Eritrea who, guided by a deep sense of patriotism and unity, have labored without crease to bring about this advancement. We vow before God, that, as we have repeatedly stated, we shall spare no effort to secure the happiness and advancement of our people." There were 250 members of the ELF in 1963. That was also the year when
military aid in the form of weapons from
China,
Iraq, and
Syria intensified. The second zone consisted of Eritrea's northern highlands, which was populated by Muslim nomads and led by
Omer Hamed Ezaz.
Internal problems (1966–1971) In 1966, the ELF began to incorporate
Christians into the movement. This resulted in an increasing amount of military confrontations in the highlands near
Sudan. Concerned about the growing strength of the ELF,
Ethiopia procured military support from
Israel and the
United States to launch a
counter-offensive movement against the ELF. The goal of this
counter offensive was to internally fracture the ELF between
Christians and
Muslims, which proved effective by the summer of 1967. This resulted in
Wolde Kahsai's
Christian fighters betraying the ELF in the summer of 1967. Another
Christian group under
Haile Woldetensae's leadership was executed by ELF
Muslims after they surrendered to the Ethiopian
consulate. Hostility between
Christians and
Muslims ensured even when the
Christians did not deflect to the Ethiopian side of the conflict as proven by the September 1967 massacre of 50 Christians in zone four.
Formation of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (1971–1973) Although the
Eritrean Liberation Forces - People's Liberation Forces (ELF - PLF) formally split from the ELF in 1971, the ELF was strictly divided since mid-1969. This division was a direct consequences of the defeats suffered by the ELF as a result of Ethiopia's 1967–1968 counter offensive. Also, by this time, the
EPLF had amassed the support of Eritreans living in the Christian highlands. Nonetheless, Selassie's fall from power enabled the ELF and the
EPLF to put aside their differences and jointly invade
Asmara in January 1975. This
offensive was largely successful; it liberated 95% of
Eritrea. The
EPLF also allowed women to undergo military training in 1975. Between January 23 and 31, 1977, the EPLF convened in Sahel for the meeting of its first congress. There, the
EPLF proposed a plan for Eritrea's independent government, which included steps to resolve gender inequality. Nonetheless, Eritrea's first liberation came to a close, as Ethiopia's army grew to 40,000 troops, following the
fall of the Massawa naval base in December 1977 and the
fall of Barentu in April 1978.
Fall of the ELF (1978–1981) With the assistance of the
USSR,
Ethiopia successfully took back most of
Eritrea by the middle of 1978. Consequently, the
EPLF withdrew to
Sahel and
Nakfa. There, they engaged in sporadic raids of Ethiopian strongholds. The ELF mustered support from the
Arab world to attempt a
counter offensive on the Ethiopian army. However, the attack failed and the ELF placed the
EPLF at fault for not aiding their
counter offensive. The
EPLF also suspected the ELF of working with the
Arab countries to reach a peace agreement with
Ethiopia. Therefore, in 1980, hostility between the
EPLF and ELF reemerged after the ELF left
Sahel. The
EPLF reclaimed the northern
Red Sea area of
Eritrea in 1980 whereas the ELF fled to
Sudan in the face of battle with Ethiopia and the EPLF. In Sudan, the ELF lost their weapons and consequently, dissolved. Therefore, in 1981, the EPLF was the only Eritrean independence movement still afloat. The
Eritrean War for Independence continued for another ten years, with the
EPLF as the primary independence movement.
Eritrea achieved full
independence on May 24, 1991. ==Affiliated organizations==