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However, Nasser‘s predecessors, King Farouq and Prime Minister Nahhas, have sought to enhance pan-Arabism, yet another more aggressive vision for a regional and international role for Egypt emerged with the advent of the July 1956 revolution. Col.

Gamal Abdul Nasser, leader of Egypt short after the July revolution, which saw Egypt‘s foreign policy as having three dimensions (Arab, Islamic and African), did not give much heed to the so call real and objective world.³⁰⁰ Thus, Nasserite Egypt became the centre of pan-Arabism, socialism and more importantly, the centre for independence movements. Thus, it was not a mere historic incident that the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELF) was founded in 1958 in Cairo. Egypt attracted quite a number of exiled Eritrean political leaders who would lead the struggle later. Moreover, as part of the generous scholarships Egypt was providing to African students, many Eritrean students were attending at Egyptian high school and Al-Azahar University. The number of these students was significant that Cairo was the seat of Eritrean Student Union in the Middle East.³⁰¹ Thus, Cairo, as the champion of socialism and pan-Arabism, not only promoted Eritreans to engage themselves to ideological debates of the time but also as the center of nationalists and diplomatic capital of the Arab world, provided the founding members and young graduates, access to other Arab Capitals and to the rich experiences of other countries‘ liberation movements.³⁰²

300 The Egyptian tradition of looking at their foreign policy as having had their roots in Nasser‘s well known three circles of Egypt‘s movement: Arab, Africa, and Islamic. Theodore A. Couloumbis and James H. Wolfe, Introduction to International Relations: Power and Justice, Prentice All, Inc., New Jersey, 1990, p.135.

301 John Markakis, National and Class conflict in the Horn of Africa, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, P. 109, writes that a sizable community of Eritreans had gathered in Cairo by the end of the 1950s. This included about 300 Eritreans students, who had usually gone to Egypt for higher education, benefited from Egypt‘s generous admittance to her schools of Muslim youth from Africa and the Middle East. In Ethiopia the Egyptian community in Asmara established primary, preparatory and secondary schools, which follows the Egyptian system of education, and had eight thousand students.

Its graduates are awarded their certificates from Egypt.

302 The ELF leadership following unfruitful search for material support in various Arab capitals were advised by a veteran Moroccan nationalist guerrilla chief Abdelkrim al-Khattabi to expect no outside help until they had established an armed presence inside Eritrea. John Markakis, op. cit ., P.111.

As Egypt was competing with other states, notably Ethiopia and Ghana, for the leadership of Africa‘s liberation, as part of its propaganda, acted as an inclusive umbrella of nationalist groups. Therefore, it worked to make sure that as many nationalist leaders as possible were included in the various regional and sub-regional meetings held in Egypt. As the result, Eritrean nationalists became beneficiaries of the good offices of Egypt to find their way into, for instance, in the Africa Day Conference held in Cairo on April 15, 1962³⁰³ and the April 1962 conference of the Arab League. ³⁰⁴ Eritrea‘s benefit from the Egyptian foreign policies, which was not in any way particular to eritrea, is often singled out as special. Obviously, this claim was conceived and advanced by Ethiopia‘s misrepresentation of Eritrea‘s question as internal not colonial, hence criticizing Egypt for meddling in its internal affairs. Leaving the strategic objectives the Egyptian authorities might have had; Eritrea as a colony equally benefited from Nasser‘s foreign policy as the other Southern and Western African countries.

In any case, Egypt gave in to Ethiopia‘s fierce opposition and diplomatic string pulling halted its support to Eritrea before it got off the ground. The often-mentioned broadcast facility, which Egyptian authorities allowed to Eritrean nationalists to propagate their nationalist messages, if it ever was effective, was short-lived.³⁰⁵ Probably, Nasser looking forward to his visit to Ethiopia in early 1960s, the ‗violent propaganda‘ was subdued³⁰⁶ and subsequently agreements were even reached between both countries to co-operate in the fields of airline transportation.³⁰⁷ Later, Nasser in effect gave only verbal support for

303 Attia Abd El-Moneim M., Egypt‘s foreign policy In Africa with particular reference to decolonization and Apartheid within the United nations; 1952-1970, St. John‘s University, Ph.D., Political Science, International law and relations, 1973. p.232.

304 promised the ELF its full solidarity and support, because it was allegedly claimed that the Eritreans were Arabs and overwhelmingly Muslims that they were struggling against the forces of Zionism, American imperialism, and Ethiopian colonialism.Daniel Kendie, Egypt and the Hydro-Politics of the Blue Nile River, 3/22/02, p.9

305 The United Arab Republic, as it was called then, more or less continually allowed Ato Weldaab Weldemariam was given a special radio program and began to broadcast to Eritrea from Radio Cairo.

(former President of the Eritrean Labour Unions) to broadcast messages preached the Eritrean masses to rise up against Ethiopian aggression for independence. Provided low per capita distribution of radio receivers in Eritrea of the time the effectiveness of this messages is questionable.

306 Department of Army, US Army Area hand Book, No. 550-28 Second Edition 24 June 1964.

307 Arab Observer, no. 109, July 1962, p. 23. Attia op. cit .,p.280

Eritrean independence inter alia because of his personal relations with Ethiopia‘s Haile Selassie and the issue of the Nile waters.³⁰⁸ Moreover, Nasser was also handicapped by his costly involvement in Yemeni civil war, which was aptly described as Egypt‘s Vietnam; he had committed 70,000 troops by 1966.³⁰⁹ The Suez Canal conflict was yet another diplomatic bottleneck that further undermined Nasser‘s position vis-à-vis Ethiopia. In fact, this was the major factor for the on-and-off nature of Nasser‘s initial attitude towards the budding Eritrean armed struggle, before it was totally stopped.

Nasser‘s prior sympathy towards Eritrea obviously had to do with his dissatisfaction with Ethiopia‘s position on the Suez Canal dispute. The Ethiopian government, which opposed the control of the Canal by ‗minor powers like Egypt and Israel‘, was circulating a proposal for the internationalization of the Suez Canal.³¹⁰ Hence, in the London Conference of August 16, 1956, concerning the Suez Canal, Ethiopia was one of the 18 states, which voted for the establishment of an International Suez Canal Board that Egypt named it ‗collective colonialism‘.³¹¹Egypt, which had taken over the Suez Canal in 1956 to give it a national rather than an international character, was opposed to losing the political influence, which the canal offers.³¹² It is also recalled that Ethiopia had ordered the Egyptian military attached to leave the country during the Suez invasion of 1956.³¹³

Ethiopia and Egypt, the two most populous and most important states of the region at that time, have never been in the same camp in the Cold War ideological divisions, safe the time of transition. Nasserite Egypt theoretically was an enemy of the pro-American and pro-Israeli Haile Selassie‘s empire. Nevertheless, the contrast of this ideological antagonism was not too sharp to damage their relations beyond repair, as their personal

308 Roy Pateman, op. cit ., p. 94

309 David Hirst and Irene Beeson, SADAT, Great Britain, Faber and Faber Limited, 1981, p.95.

310 Ethiopia, which, because of its poverty and geographical position, has probably suffered more from the Suez closure than any other country, would like to see the Suez operation and defense placed in the hands of the United Nations, which would continue to employ the present (predominantly Egyptian) canal staff and which would- after deduction of administrative dredging and other expenses- pay all canal profits to Cairo.

311 Mohamed El-Hadi Afifi, The Arabs and the United Nations, GB, Longmans, 1964, p.85.

312 Africa Confidential, December 3, 1971, vol.12 No.24.

313 Czeslaw Jesman, The Ethiopian Paradox, London, Oxford University Press, 1963, 23. Cited in Roy Pateman, op. cit ., p. 95.

relations oiled it whenever frictions arise. Moreover, immediate interests as noted above, waters of the Blue Nile, the Suez Canal and their cooperation with in the Non-Aligned Movement figured prominently on the conduct of their mutual relations. Therefore, Nasser‘s support to the Eritrean struggle was insignificant or inconsistent at best.