Hanish Islands conflict

Hanish Islands conflict
Part of the conflicts in the Horn of Africa
Map of the Hanish islands
Date 15–17 December 1995 Location Greater Hanish, Zaqar-Hanish archipelago Result Eritrean military victory Territorial changes The Permanent Court of Arbitration determined that most of the archipelago belonged to Yemen, while some small islands closest to Eritrea belonged to Eritrea.
Belligerents
Eritrea	Yemen
Commanders and leaders
Isaias Afwerki Sebhat Ephrem	Ali Abdullah Saleh
Strength
500	About 200
Casualties and losses
12 killed	15 killed 196 captured
17 Yemeni civilians arrested

The Hanish Islands conflict was a dispute between Yemen and Eritrea over the island of Greater Hanish in the Red Sea, one of the largest in the then disputed Zukur-Hanish archipelago. Fighting took place over three days from 15 December to 17 December 1995. In 1998 the Permanent Court of Arbitration determined that the territory belonged to Yemen.

Background

The archipelago is on the southern side of the Red Sea near Bab-el-Mandeb (Mouth of the Red Sea). The Red Sea is about 60 miles (100 km) wide at this point. Since the time of the British protectorate of Aden, the islands had generally been regarded as part of Yemen.

After being granted independence and membership of the United Nations, the new Eritrean government started negotiations with Yemen over the status of the archipelago. Two rounds of talks had taken place before the invasion:

Gutmann [French mediator] produced an Agreement on Principles, which Eritrea and Yemen signed on 21 May. The two sides agreed to resort to arbitration, to refrain from using force and to abide by the verdict of an arbitration tribunal. The French mediation effort almost collapsed when on 10 August, Eritrean forces occupied Hanish al-Saghir. With Yemen threatening to take military action, the UN Security Council ordered Eritrean troops off the island. Asmara withdrew its forces on 27 August. The renewed threat of conflict prompted Eritrea, at the end of August, to begin deploying along its coastline Russian-made SAM missiles acquired from Ethiopia.

— Lefebvre.

On 22 November 1995, Yemen's Foreign Minister Adb al-Karim al-Iryani met in San'a' with three Eritrean officials to discuss the problem. Iryani, heading a Yemeni delegation, then attended a meeting in Eritrea on 7 December. There, both sides agreed to resolve their dispute over maritime borders through negotiations, which they scheduled for February 1996. If those negotiations failed, both sides agreed to take the case to the ICJ at The Hague.

— Lefebvre.

Greater Hanish (or Hanish al-Kabir) is one of three main islands in an archipelago, and until 1995, it was inhabited only by a handful of Yemeni fishermen. In 1995, a German company, under Yemeni auspices, began building a hotel and scuba diving centre on the island. The Yemenis then sent a force of 200 men to guard the construction site. Eritrean officials thought that the construction work on Greater Hanish was an attempt to establish facts on the ground before the negotiations scheduled for February started. "Prompted by concern over the Yemeni construction project on Hanish al-Kabir, Eritrea's Foreign Minister Petros Solomon delivered, on 11 November 1995, an ultimatum giving San'a one month to withdraw Yemeni military forces and civilians from Hanish al-Kabir".

Armed conflict

When the deadline for the Eritrean ultimatum ran out and the Yemeni military forces and civilians had not withdrawn, Eritrea launched an operation to take the island by force. The Eritreans used all seaworthy vessels that they had to land ground forces on the islands. Some Eritrean troops landed in fishing vessels and a commandeered Egyptian ferry. The Eritreans also used aircraft to ferry troops to the island. Eritrean forces attacked the Yemeni contingent and overran the entire island within three days of combat. Yemeni fighter jets launched airstrikes during the fighting from Al Hudaydah air base.

During the fighting, a Russian merchant ship was damaged by Eritrean gunfire after it was mistaken for a Yemeni naval vessel.

Alleged foreign involvement and other motives for the attack

The Eritrean attack on the Hanish islands was said by Yemenis to be supported by Israel. According to Yemeni sources, the Eritrean operation may have been directed by Israeli officers. Sources close to the office of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh claimed that "several Israelis" had directed the operation, including a lieutenant-colonel named Michael Duma. This claim was based on several coded messages in Hebrew allegedly intercepted by Yemeni intelligence. Despite this, Yemen made no formal complaint to Israel.

According to Steven Carol, in light of Yemeni military humiliation in the battle for Great Hanish island, the allegation of Israeli involvement may have been nothing more than an attempt of Yemen to "save some face".

In 1996, Brian Whitaker (1996) and Carol (2012) suggest that apart from the overt casus belli (that the war was initiated to establish facts on the ground), three other reasons had been proposed for the attack by the Eritreans on the island. The Yemeni opposition sources claimed that during 1994, Yemen received clandestine military assistance from Israel via the Eritreans, and the Eritreans took Hanish when Yemen failed to deliver the promised payments. Yemen's military claim, that it had intercepted radio messages in Hebrew and that "several Israelis" had helped to direct the Eritrean operation, led the Arab League to suggest that the real motive for the attack was that Israel intended to set up a base on the island. The third reason put forward was that there may be oil in the Red Sea and that the territorial rights to the seabed were the underlying reason for the war.

Arbitration

As no resolution to the problem could be reached in bilateral talks, the status of the archipelago was placed in front of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in the Netherlands. The Permanent Court of Arbitration determined that most of the archipelago belonged to Yemen, while Eritrea was to retain the right to fish the waters around all the islands and sovereignty over some small islands close to Eritrea.

The islands, islet, rocks, and low-tide elevations of the Zuqar-Hanish group, including, but not limited to, Three Foot Rock, Parkin Rock, Rocky Islets, Pin Rock, Suyul Hanish, Mid Islet, Double Peak Island, Round Island, North Round Island, Quoin Island (13°43'N, 42°48'E), Chor Rock, Greater Hanish, Peaky Islet, Mushajirah, Addar Ail Islets, Haycock Island (13°47'N, 42°47'E; not to be confused with the Haycock Islands to the southwest of Greater Hanish), Low Island (13°52'N, 42°49'E) including the unnamed islets and rocks close north, east and south, Lesser Hanish including the unnamed islets and rocks close north east, Tongue Island and the unnamed islet close south, Near Island and the unnamed islet close south east, Shark Island, Jabal Zuquar Island, High Island, and the Abu Ali Islands (including Quoin Island (14°05'N, 42°49'E) and Pile Island) are subject to the territorial sovereignty of Yemen;

— CHAPTER XI – Disposition.

On 1 November 1998 "Yemeni Defence Minister Mohammad Diefallah Mohammad raised his country's flag over the island of Greater Hanish as Yemeni army and navy troops took up positions on it. At the same time, Eritrean troops departed on board a helicopter and a naval vessel".

References

• AUL staff (December 1999), Yemem, Air University Library Publications, Middle East, archived from the original on April 14, 2001
• BBC WS staff (13 December 1998), Flights back on between Yemen and Eritrea, BBC World Service
• Carol, Steven (2012), From Jerusalem to the Lion of Judah and Beyond: Israel's Foreign Policy in East Africa, iUniverse, p. 363, ISBN 978-1-4697-6129-9
• Dzurek, Daniel J. (1996), "Eritrea-Yemen Dispute Over the Hanish Islands" (PDF), Boundary and Security Bulletin, Durham University {{citation}}: External link in |journal= (help)
• Economist staff (13 January 1996), "Whore wars? The Red Sea. (Hanish Islands)", The Economist, vol. 338, no. 7947, London, pp. 43–44, archived from the original on 24 September 2015
• ICRC staff (30 December 1995), Eritrea: 196 prisoners of war and 17 civilians repatriated to Yemen, ICRC, archived from the original on 14 April 2005
• Lefebvre, Jeffrey A. (Summer 1998), "Red Sea Security And The Geopolitical-Economy of The Hanish Islands Dispute", Middle East Journal, 52 (3)
• Permanent Court of Arbitration (3 October 1996), In the matter of an arbitration pursuant to an agreement to arbitrate dated 3 October between the government of the State of Eritrea and the government of the Republic of Yemen award of the arbitral tribunal in the first stage of the proceedings (territorial sovereignty and scope of the dispute) (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on September 5, 2015
• Pike, John (29 August 2012), Hanish Island Conflict, globalsecurity.org
• Schofield, C. H.; Pratt, M. A. (1996), "The Hanish Islands Dispute in the Southern Red Sea", Jane's Intelligence Review (cited by Dzurek)
• Stansfield, G. R. V. (2001), "The Israeli Connection" (PDF), The 1995/96 Yemen-Eritrea conflict over the Islands of Hanish and Jabal Zuqar: a geopolitical analysis, Working Paper, Durham: University of Durham, Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, retrieved 26 June 2014 (PDF, 4,72 MB)
• Wertheim, Eric (2007), The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World: Their Ships, Aircraft, and Systems, Naval Institute Press, p. p. 1033, ISBN 978-1-59114-955-2
• Whitaker, Brian (5 January 1996), "Clash over islands", Middle East International, archived from the original on 7 September 2008, retrieved 12 December 2005 (Retrieved at al-bab.com on 26 June 2014)
• Younis, Saleh AA (14 December 2004), "The Lessons of Yemen", Saudi Gazette, archived from the original on 28 September 2007
• UN press release (1 November 1998), "Yemen flag raised over Greater Hanish", United Nations and international organizations page, Michigan State University

Further reading

• Al-Saidi, Abdullah Mohammed (27 December 1999 – 2 January 2000), "Comparative Study Between Yemeni-Eritrean Ways of Documentation in Arbitration Over Red Sea South Islands]", Yemen Times, vol. IX, no. 52, archived from the original on 13 March 2008 — Al-Said was then the Yemeni Vice Minister of foreign Affairs in Law & Diplomacy
• Allegation and counter allegations:
  • Gidron, Avner (March 1996), "Disputes: Eritrea's Ally?", World Press Review, 43 (25), Air University Library Publications: Middle East: December 1999: Yemen, archived from the original on April 14, 2001 — "Yemen alleges that Israel backed the Eritrean troops who captured three Red Sea islands from Yemen".
  • "Ethiopia-Sudan-Yemen alliance a 'conspiracy', Eritrea's FM", Sudan Tribune, 8 January 2004, archived from the original on 19 October 2006 — Text of interview with Eritrean Foreign Minister Ali Said Abdella by Musa Idriss entitled "Sanaa Grouping was born by ’caesarean’ – its aims: asphyxiating Eritrea," says Eritrean foreign minister"; published by London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat on 6 January 2004.

External links

• Eritrea-Yemen Arbitration at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, The Netherlands:
  • Arbitration Agreement: Eritrea/Yemen (October 3, 1996)