The EconomistJuly 13th 2019 Middle East & Africa 45for comments late last year, according to
insiders, but nothing has been heard of it
since. Landlocked Ethiopia’s dream of us-
ing Eritrean ports, a huge potential benefit
of the thaw, seems a long way off. The Eri-
trean Red Sea town of Massawa is “as dead
as always”, remarks a visitor.
The most vexing issue of the peace deal,
the physical demarcation of the border, ap-
pears to have been kicked into the long
grass. Disputed areas such as Badme, the
one-goat village over which the war start-
ed, remain under Ethiopian administra-
tion. Troops eye one another across the
dusty frontier.
With neither a war to justify his repres-
sive dictatorship, nor any promise of re-
forms to placate long-suffering citizens, Is-
saias’s grip on power seems to be
weakening. For the first time in years, says
a military officer, people are openly com-
plaining in neighbourhood meetings, de-
spite the threat of being denied state ra-
tions for doing so. “I see many people
calling for his resignation,” he says. In re-
cent weeks residents of Asmara have wo-
ken up to fresh graffiti calling for an end to
conscription. Seditious pamphlets printed
in Ethiopia, as well as two new television
channels linked to the exiled opposition,
are stirring anger. “Silent protest is grow-
ing,” says another army officer. “When we
meet in the military camps, we talk about
the wrongdoings of this government.”
But rather than taking to the streets, Eri-
treans are emigrating. Despite the closed
border, many steal away. Soldiers, who
once shot at those trying to sneak across
the frontier, now turn a blind eye. More
than 60,000 Eritreans have registered as
refugees in Ethiopia since September.
Issaias does not face much internation-
al pressure. In November the un lifted an
arms embargo first imposed in 2009. He
has also mended fences with Sudan and So-
malia, and has drawn closer to the United
Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Even so, he seems concerned about the
possibility of protests. He appears less fre-
quently in public. He has shut down health
centres run by the Catholic church (appar-
ently because its bishops criticised him)
and is arresting people at random. Social
media have been blocked for weeks. Some
internet cafés have been closed. “The gov-
ernment seems to fear the Sudan revolu-
tion might happen in Eritrea,” muses an
employee at the agriculture ministry.
Yet unlike in Sudan, where protests
forced out a veteran despot, Omar al-Ba-
shir, there are few young folk left in Eritrea.
Barely 1% of the population uses the inter-
net, so it is hard to organise protests on-
line. “It will not be done on the streets,”
says Zecarias Gerrima, a former journalist
who is now in exile. A coup is more likely,
though Issaias may be able to hang on. His
country, meanwhile, is emptying. 7T
here waslittle grace to the Grace 1’s
journey, a 12,000-mile (19,000km) slog
around the Cape of Good Hope that came to
an inelegant end off the coast of Gibraltar.
In the early hours of July 4th British ma-
rines roped down from a helicopter to seize
the tanker, which held 2m barrels of Irani-
an oil. Britain says the cargo was bound for
Syria, and that by traversing European wa-
ters it violated European sanctions. It has
not been a good summer for tankers trying
to reach Syria. Last month mysterious ex-
plosions damaged undersea pipelines that
carry oil from vessels to the refinery at Ba-
niyas, temporarily halting imports. Bashar
al-Assad’s regime blamed saboteurs.
Throughout Syria’s savage civil war, loy-
alists liked to daub a slogan on walls: “As-
sad or we burn the country.” They got both.
Syria’s gdp, as best anyone can tell, is 60%
lower than pre-war levels. The Syrian
pound trades at 500 to the dollar instead of- Rebuilding will cost $250bn, reckons
the un, four times Syria’s annual economic
output before the war. Mr Assad rules the
ruins—and is finding it hard to keep the
lights on, especially with one of his closest
allies deep in its own economic crisis.
With its finances in tatters, the regime
has been forced to cut subsidies. The price
of petrol has almost tripled since the start
of the year. A full tank would cost a civil ser-
vant half a month’s pay. In any case, filling
up is impossible because rationing was im-
posed in April. Most drivers can only buy
20 litres every five days. They wait in long
queues for this meagre allotment.
Before the war Syria produced about
385,000 barrels of oil a day. Most was put to
domestic use. Output is now less than one-
tenth of that. Iran helped fill the gap for
several years, supplying about 50,000 bar-
rels a day on easy terms, equivalent to more
than one-third of Syria’s current consump-
tion. But with Iran under harsher American
sanctions that has become untenable. It
stopped the handouts in October. Fuel
shortages soon followed in Syria, as did
blackouts during a cold winter.
Syria can still buy Iranian oil at market
prices—indeed, it is one of the few custom-
ers willing to ignore sanctions to do so.
Even that is fraught, however, as the saga of
the Grace 1illustrated. The tanker switched
off its transponder in April to load cargo, a
common practice for ships that wish to
avoid scrutiny while taking on Iranian
crude. Then it steamed south-east on its
roundabout route to the Mediterranean.
The Suez Canal would have been more
direct, but the heaviest tankers cannot sail
straight through. They must offload their
cargo first and have it piped to the other
side. The pipeline is partly owned by Saudi
Arabia, which forbids Iran from using it.
And maritime-traffic data suggest that
Egyptian authorities may be blocking
lighter vessels from crossing Suez if their
destination is Syria. One tanker, the Sea
Shark, has been anchored near the canal’s
southern entrance since April. America’s
Treasury Department had added it to a list
of vessels that carry oil to Syria.
That leaves the long route around Afri-
ca, and the risk of interception in European
waters. Iran cried foul after the Grace 1was
seized. Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy for-
eign minister, says it was not going to Syria
but “somewhere else”. Iran also threatened
to retaliate. On July 10th a British warship
drove off Iranian boats trying to “impede” a
British tanker. Relations are already
fraught. Iran is angry that European powers
have not done more to offset America’s
sanctions and preserve the deal it reached
in 2015 to restrict its nuclear programme in
exchange for relief from some sanctions.
The tanker incidents will not help.
As for Mr Assad, he may seek help from
his other close ally. Russia is already ship-
ping wheat from Sevastopol, in occupied
Crimea, to its military port in Tartous, Syr-
ia. Oil may be the next commodity. But
Vladimir Putin will probably not be gener-
ous with the terms—and Mr Assad can ill
afford to pay. “Let’s grant that he won the
war. He did that,” says a European official.
“But he can’t win the peace.” 7CAIRO
Bashar al-Assad won the war, but is losing the peaceSyria’s oil crisisTankers away
Spoiled by warSource:CEICSyria, crude oil production
Barrels per day, ’00001002003004002008 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 182