We are both looking in the right direction, sharing the same vision and working with the same keenness for the realization of the same goals.  Our success is guaranteed. ¹ 

Mustafa Osman Ismail

Pre- Conflict Ethio-Sudanese Relations

 Ethio-Sudanese relation in the early 1990s was good.  The same was true of the relationship between the Sudan and Eritrea.  The relationship between the two countries was particularly boosted by the response of the Sudan to the Eritrean request regarding opposition groups who operated from basis in the former.  Hassan Makki has explained this below: 

Eritrean fears about the Sudan were temporarily hushed when the Sudan drove away the leaders of the Islamic Jihad from Kassala in April 1992.  This was the time when the Sudan was involved in the successful referendum which led to the Eritrean independence of May 1993. ² 

However, things changed radically after the assassination attempt on the life of Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, in June 1995. The Eritrean government expediently used this incident to its advantage. According to Dr. Hassan Makki of the Africa university of Khartoum, the relationship between he two countries deteriorated because “Afowrki immediately exploited the deterioration of relations between Ethiopia and the Sudan by severing diplomatic relations with the latter.   Soon after, Asmara became the center of the Sudanese opposition.” ³ 

According to Makki the basis for the Eritrean anxiety which was then also shared by Ethiopia and much of the west was the perception of the Sudan as a promoter of Islamism.   At the time, the general picture of the area was that, “there was peace and stability in Ethiopia and Eritrea and that the major menace was the Sudan.”  Further, the Sudan was portrayed “as a danger which threatened the whole sub-region.”