Mediation in a Transitional Conflict: Eritrea

After thirty years of war, the conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean nationalists was further than ever from a solution. Liberation movements had been organized in other areas of the country, most notably in Tigre, where the Tigrean People's Liberation Front had won major victories. What had started as a bilateral conflict between the government and the Eritrean nationalists thus entered a phase of transition to a multilateral conflict. This made the prospect of a negotiated solution more remote. By definition, many of the conditions necessary for successful negotiations are absent in transitional conflicts, most notably a mutually hurting stalemate and the existence of valid spokesmen.