The Eritrean War of Independence (Tigrinya: ውግእ ሰውራ ኤርትራ) was an armed conflict and insurgency aimed at achieving self-determination and independence for Eritrea from Ethiopian rule. Starting in 1961, Eritrean insurgents engaged in guerrilla warfare to liberate Eritrea Province from the rule of the Ethiopian Empire under Haile Selassie and later the Derg under Mengistu Haile Mariam. Their efforts ultimately succeeded in 1991 with the fall of the Derg regime.
Eritrea was an Italian colony from the 1880s until the Italians were defeated by the Allies in World War II in 1941. Afterward, Eritrea briefly became a British Military Administration until 1951. The United Nations convened after the war to decide Eritrea's future, voting in favor of a federation between Eritrea and Ethiopia. As a result, Eritrea became a constituent state of the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The federation was intended to last for ten years, during which Eritrea would operate as an autonomous region with its own parliament, while remaining under the Ethiopian crown. However, Eritrea's autonomy was progressively curtailed during the 1950s as Unionist parties gained influence within the Eritrean Assembly. As dissatisfaction with Ethiopian rule grew among Muslim Eritreans, an independence movement called the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was formed in Cairo in 1961 by a group of Eritrean exiles led by Idris Muhammad Adam.
In September 1961 the head of the ELF, Hamid Idris Awate, launched the armed struggle for independence. During 1962, the federation was dissolved by the imperial government and Eritrea was formally annexed by the Ethiopian Empire. This resulted in many Eritreans lending support to the ELF's efforts to achieve independence. Ethiopian imperial army counterinsurgency campaigns against the ELF during the 1960s terrorized the civilian population, leading to even greater local support for the insurgency and significant international attention being brought to the war. Following the Ethiopian Revolution in 1974, the Derg, led by Mengistu, abolished the Ethiopian Empire and established a Marxist-Leninist communist state. The Derg enjoyed support from the Soviet Union and other communist nations in fighting against the Eritreans. The ELF was also supported diplomatically and militarily by various countries. During the Eritrean Civil Wars, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) emerged as the primary liberation group in 1977, after expelling the ELF from Eritrea. The EPLF then took advantage of the Ogaden War to intensify its war of attrition against Ethiopia.
As the Mengistu regime declined at the end of the 1980s and was overwhelmed by Ethiopian insurgents groups, the EPLF decisively defeated Ethiopian forces deployed in Eritrea during May 1991. The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), with the help of the EPLF, defeated the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) when it took control of the capital Addis Ababa a month later. In April 1993, the Eritrean people voted almost unanimously in favour of independence in the Eritrean independence referendum, with formal international recognition of an independent, sovereign Eritrea in the same year.
The Italians colonised Eritrea in 1882 and ruled it until 1941. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia and declared it part of their colonial empire, which they called Italian East Africa. Italian Somaliland and Eritrea were also part of that entity, ruled by a Governor-General or Viceroy.
Conquered by the Allies in 1941, Italian East Africa was sub-divided. Italian Somaliland remained under Italian rule, but as a United Nations protectorate not a colony, until 1960 when it united with British Somaliland, to form the independent state of Somalia.
Eritrea was made a British Military Administration from the end of World War II until 1951. However, there was debate as to what should happen with Eritrea after the British left. The British delegation to the United Nations proposed that Eritrea be divided along religious lines with the Christians to Ethiopia and the Muslims to Sudan. In 1952, the United Nations decided to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia, hoping to reconcile Ethiopian claims of sovereignty and Eritrean aspirations for independence. About nine years later, encouraged by the pro-union majority formed by the Unionist Party and the MLWP in the Eritrean Assembly, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie dissolved the federation and annexed Eritrea, triggering a thirty-year armed struggle in Eritrea.
During the 1960s, the Eritrean independence struggle was led by the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in resistance to Ethiopia's annexation of Eritrea long after Italian control ended. The Ethiopian Monarchy's actions against Muslims in the Eritrean government also contributed to the revolution. At first, this group factionalized the liberation movement along ethnic and geographic lines. The initial four zonal commands of the ELF were all lowland areas and primarily Muslim. Few Christians joined the organization in the beginning, fearing Muslim domination.
After growing disenfranchisement with Ethiopian occupation, highland Christians began joining the ELF. This growing influx of Christian volunteers prompted the opening of the fifth (highland Christian) command. Internal struggles within the ELF command coupled with sectarian violence among the various zonal groups splintered the organization.
The war started on 1 September 1961 with the Battle of Adal, when Hamid Idris Awate and his companions engaged the occupying Ethiopian Army and police. In 1962, Emperor Haile Selassie unilaterally dissolved the federation and the Eritrean parliament and annexed the country.
The Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was founded in 1961 by a handful of exiled Eritreans, and began guerrilla operations against the Imperial Government in the fashion of the traditional bandits of that province. By 1966, it had a free hand in much of the barren lowlands in western and coastal Eritrea. The movement enjoyed military aid from various Arab countries as virtually all of its leaders were Muslims from the Beni Amer tribe. However, the leadership of the ELF was often inept; and communications between roving guerrilla bands and the exiled leaders were sporadic at best. Nonetheless, it was able to infiltrate small arms and returning trainees by way of Sudan and harass Imperial forces in Eritrea. The ELF was mostly made up of Muslims, as the ELF perceived itself as an Islamic organization engaged in freeing Eritrea, which it described as predominantly Muslim and Arab. However, it was unable to gain the support of the Christian Eritreans, who perceived it an Islamist movement attempting to turn Eritrea into an Arab Muslim state.
The Imperial Ethiopian Army, whose Second Division was based in Eritrea, made periodic sweeps through the countryside. The Israeli trained commando police were more efficient than the army. But the commando police was too few in number to protect important installations and also pursue the insurgents. And the 6,000 man strong Second Division, although better equipped and numerically superior, was less efficient than the Eritrean police. It was mostly composed of Ethiopians from the provinces outside of Eritrea, the Ethiopian soldiers lacked knowledge of the area and of the people. Their normal tactics were to burn villages, shoot suspects and destroy livestock—the traditional Ethiopian response to dissidence.
In 1970, members of the ELF had a falling out, and three smaller groups broke away from the group to form the Popular Liberation Forces (PLF) jointly represent by Osman Saleh Sabbe. The first group, led by Romodan Mohammed Nur, was made up of Tigre fighters who felt pushed aside by the Beni Amer dominated leadership of the ELF. The second led by Isaias Afwerki, was composed of Christian fighters who broke off from the ELF in 1969 due to their pro-Arab and Islamist stance. The third and final group led by former Sudanese army NCO Abu Tayyara, was called the Obel Group, and consisted of long-time veterans who resented the decline of their power in the ELF, and broke off due to personal ambitions. In August 1973, the leaders of the first two groups agreed to join together to form the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). The leader of the umbrella organization was Secretary-General of the EPLF Romodan Mohammed Nur, while the Assistant Secretary-General was Isaias Afewerki. The EPLF began to fight a bitter civil war against the ELF. The two organizations were forced by popular will to reconcile in 1975 and participate in joint operations against Ethiopia. The ELF was supported diplomatically and militarily by various countries, particularly China, which supplied the ELF with weapons and training until 1972, when Ethiopia recognized Beijing as the legitimate government of China.