Talk:Djiboutian–Eritrean border conflict

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Rename[edit]

I suggest that we check the internet for the most common name for this conflict as I have been looking for it (see Talk:Djibouti#Conflict with Eritra and this did not pop up at the top of my search list).

To begin with unless there have been more than one conflict it would probably be best to move the article to Djiboutian-Eritrean border conflict particularly as the BBC report Timeline: Eritrea , 15 April 2009 says:

2009 April - UN Security Council says Eritrea failed to fulfil its obligation to withdraw troops from disputed border area of Djibouti under an ultimatum issued in January. Eritrea denies having troops on Djiboutian soil.

If there have been other conflicts with the same name then we can disambiguate with the year in parentheses "name (year)".

It seems to me the article name could be under

There is then the whole issue of what it is called "war", "border war", "conflict", "border conflict", "dispute", and "border dispute"

We can create redirects for any particular combination, but there seems little point in doing that until we agree what is the common name. --PBS (talk) 10:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IMO the current name is very encyclopedic and descriptive, discussing a change is a waste of time--TheFEARgod (Ч) 12:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Discussing it is not a waste of time, as I said I did not find the article immediately and the article should follow WP:NC not what Wikipedia editors consider to be "very encyclopedic and descriptive". --PBS (talk) 19:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google search:

  • about 29 for "Djiboutian-Eritrean border conflict" -wikipedia
  • about 3 for "Djiboutian-Eritrean conflict" -wikipedia
  • no returns for "Djiboutian-Eritrean war" -wikipedia
  • about 35 for "Djiboutian-Eritrean dispute" -wikipedia
  • 2 for "Eritrean-Djiboutian border conflict" -wikipedia
  • 0 for "Eritrean-Djiboutian conflict" -wikipedia
  • 1 for "Eritrean-Djiboutian war" -wikipedia
  • 1 for "Eritrean-Djiboutian dispute" -wikipedia
  • about 113 for "Djibouti-Eritrea border conflict" -wikipedia
  • about 183 for "Djibouti-Eritrea conflict" -wikipedia
  • about 3 for "Djibouti-Eritrea war" -wikipedia
  • about 106 for "Djibouti-Eritrea dispute" -wikipedia
  • about 5 for "Eritrea-Djibouti border conflict" -wikipedia
  • about 525 for "Eritrea-Djibouti conflict" -wikipedia
  • about 13,000 for "Eritrea-Djibouti War" -wikipedia
  • about 141 for "Eritrea-Djibouti Border War" -wikipedia
  • about 554 for "Eritrea-Djibouti dispute" -wikipedia

AFAICT None of the names strings showed up in Google Books or Google Scholar. So unless there are reliable sources that contradict this search, I suggest we move the article to "Eritrea-Djibouti War" --PBS (talk) 23:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further research shows that the search on "Eritrea-Djibouti War" is throwing up a false number. When I looked at the pages to check their reliability as sources there were in fact only 20 pages returned by the search not the 13,000 claimed by the Google search. --PBS (talk) 09:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Who won the war?[edit]

According to the french article, Djibouti was the victor in this war. That makes sense, since Eritrea withdrew it's troops without achieving anything out of the war. --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 08:03, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

which french article?--TheFEARgod (Ч) 11:15, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This one: [2] --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 00:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
hey, that's a wiki article. It is not a reliable source. Anyway, I see that as of January 2009 Eritrea has not withdrawn. Can you find a source that confirms the opposite or that it happened since jan. 2009?--TheFEARgod (Ч) 13:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I must admit that I had a problem finding a good source. The best thing we can do, is to ask the french wikipedians where they got their information, on the discussion page on the french article. --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 15:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
try this http://www.conflictmap.org/index.php#36 --TheFEARgod (Ч) 20:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, that page will be pretty usefull. However, I still can't find a good source, I'm afraid. Again, I suggest that we should ask the french wikipedians where they got their information from. --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 21:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Geographical changes[edit]

On 30 October 2011 this edit changed the wording of the result in the information box from

result=Eritrean forces seized territory in April 2008 and withdrew in June 2010 to help facilitate the start of bilateral negotiations.Qatari peacekeeping forces are deployed to monitor disputed area.

to

result=Fighting subsided without any geographical changes. Qatari peacekeeping forces are deployed to monitor disputed area.

No change was made to the source that supports the initial comment:

  • "Qatar to deploy troops between Djibouti and Eritrea". Somalilandpress.com. 7 June 2010. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)

Mikrobølgeovn, your comment on the intermediate edit was "Not accurate. The Eritreans seized this territory before the war." At what date before April 2008 did they seize the territory? -- PBS (talk) 05:10, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Eritreans seized territory in January, but this did not lead to clashes before June (citing the article: In January Eritrea reportedly requested to cross the border in order to get sand for a road, but instead occupied a hilltop in the region). This article is about the armed clashes which took place in June, which resulted in no territorial changes. You get my point? --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 19:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The current cited sources says "The dispute between the two Horn of Africa states erupted in April 2008 when Eritrean troops raided the disputed border area of Ras Doumeria, which both sides claim". What source are you referring to? -- PBS (talk) 22:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK I found the source.
"Face to face conflict that threatens the sea lanes". The Scotsman. 2008-06-01. Retrieved 14 June 2008.
What we have to do is either find further sources that either reconcile the differences between these two or confirms one or the other, or we will have to alter the lead to include both sources. But what should not be done is to place a different interpretation into a sentence unsupported by a source (see WP:INTEGRITY).
The second issue is the current source says "Ethiopia news agency, Walta, reports that all Eritrean forces have pulled out of the border area and are now stationed a few kilometers away inside the Eritrean borders".
Looking at two other sources taken from the lead
The they both agree that fighting was triggered by Djibouti refusing to handover some Eritrean deserters.
But there are couple of phrases to note:
  • The BBC reported "Last month, Djibouti complained to the UN that Eritrea was fortifying its side of the border." one would have though that if they were fortifying alleged occupied territory the Djibouti government would have mentioned it to the UN! This would suggest a pox on both of the previous sources.
  • The other is in the AFP quote of the UN resolution: "condemns Eritrea's military action against Djibouti in Ras Doumeira and Doumeira Island," ... "calls upon the parties to commit to a ceasefire and urges both parties, in particular Eritrea, to show maximum restraint and withdraw forces to the status quo ante," The UN clearly considers that territorial advances were made by Eritrea by "military action" and that they should withdraw to their positions before military action (status quo ante). If no territorial gains had been made by the Eritreans during the fighting why the UN request? -- PBS (talk) 23:40, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think I have found another source that explains the sequence of what happened:

From information that has been slowly accumulating, it transpires that, since February 2008, Eritrean forces had begun preparing military positions in the Ras Doumeirah area of the Eritrea-Djibouti land border. The buildup included the preparation of fortification and battlements on Djibouti’s side of the Ras Doumeirah area. However, heavy military equipment was not dispatched to the area at that precise moment, as confirmed by aerial reconnaissance undertaken by French forces.27 On 22 April 2008, President Guelleh led a joint political and military tour of the area, and Djibouti’s Foreign Ministry subsequently claimed that the Eritrean positions were being constructed several hundred metres within Djiboutian territory.28 Eritrea denied accusations that its soldiers had dug trenches on both sides of the border, and on 24 April 2008 military officials from both states even met to compare border maps.

Djibouti had little choice but to respond by sending troops to the border as well. ... On 10 June 2008, fighting erupted between the military forces of Djibouti and Eritrea.38 ... It should also be noted that, if Djibouti accuses Eritrea of direct armed attack, it is entitled to invoke French military assistance.(pages 6 and 7)

The article in a section called "Inauguration of the 200-billion-dollar bridge" on pages 11-12 which gives some analysis of possible reasons for the border dispute. --PBS (talk) 00:21, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some more sources:
--PBS (talk) 01:25, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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War of conflict?[edit]

Whether something is a war or a conflict or something else, is not a legal issue, it is what the reliable secondary sources call it. For example during the Falklands War, the British were careful to point out that no war was declared (to have declared war would have been contrary to international law), however as soon as it was over all most all the sources refer to it as a war. For similar political reasons the British called the Malayan conflict an emergency that name as stuck so it is still referred to as the Malayan Emergency and this is also true of the Suez Crisis. So user:XavierGreen, if this article is to be moved to a new name you need, to use the WP:RM procedure and produce evidence that the conflict is now referred to as the "Djiboutian–Eritrean Border War" in reliable English language sources (if caps are used it indicates it is proper name, and not just a descriptive one). -- PBS (talk) 10:11, 19 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Djibouti declared war during the conflict, so the conflict was a war no matter how you look at it. There have been various wars legally declared that have had little or no combat during their duration such as the Anglo-Swedish War for instance. There are various sources which refer to it as a border war. See for example [[3]], [[4]], and [[5]].XavierGreen (talk) 23:25, 19 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It is no use looking for precedents before 1945, and the UN Charter as that changed the rules; "the United Nations Charter, which prohibits both the threat and the use of force in international conflicts, have made declarations of war largely obsolete in international relations" (Declaration of war). I do not think that war was declared, because as the article says "President Guelleh, was quoted by the BBC as saying that his country was at war with Eritrea", that is not the same as a formal deceleration of war: ""I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and consequently this country is at war with Germany". But that is beside the point, the point is as I wrote in the first section and you have acknowledged, it is what is commonly used in reliable secondary sources to describe the event, and not what may or may not be a formal legalistic/academic definitions (in academic research it takes 1,000 dead for a conflict to be defined as a war -- this is discussed in Civil war#Formal classification, and because under international law war is not longer legal, the threshold of 1,000 deaths is often used for international conflicts as well, however this is not always the case as exemplified by Falklands War. -- PBS (talk) 08:27, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A search of google books returns 45 books for "Djiboutian-Eritrean border conflict" (many not relevant but some are) and none for "Djiboutian-Eritrean border war". "Eritrean-Djiboutian border conflict" returns two books "Eritrean-Djiboutian border war" returns no books, However Google searches the last one by default without quotes, and that returns many books. One example that I think is useful to demonstrate a point Service for Life: State Repression and Indefinite Conscription in ... p.21 it uses "one reason why Eritrea and Djibouti engaged in a war of words over their common border in 1996" and "border war", so simple searches may not be enough to make the decision. This is the reason why, before the article is moved, I think that a formal WP:RM is needed. -- PBS (talk) 08:27, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Your assertation that there have been no declared wars since 1945 is incorrect, there have infact been several. See [[6]]. Note, that a declaration of a state of war has the same legal effect as a declaration of war, it puts a country in a legal state of war. I listed three sources above which refer to the matter at hand as a border war, one of them is a book i found in a google books search. At the very least, the Djiboutian-Eritrean border war should be included on the page as an alternative title on this page.XavierGreen (talk) 23:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The President USA stated that the US was at war with terror, but that does not mean it was a war. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 was as near as can be deceleration of war, but used the diplomatic speak "to use all necessary means..." and did not declare war although it triggered one that involved well over a million combatants (First Gulf War). There is no need to add what you are suggesting because it is only used in a few reliable sources (WP:NEO), and readers can draw their own conclusions if it was or was not a war (WP:ASSERT and Let the facts speak for themselves). -- PBS (talk) 18:30, 23 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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