US launches diplomatic initiative to mark Ethiopia-Eritrea border
Jan 9, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — The United States launched a diplomatic initiative Monday to try to mark the contested border between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a dispute that led to a 2 1/2-year war and has raised concerns of a renewed conflict.
US Ambassador John Bolton told the Security Council that Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer and retired Marine Gen. Carlton Fulford, who directs the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, would be traveling to the region “to discuss how to begin implementation of the demarcation process.”
A December 2000 peace agreement that ended the border war provided for an independent commission to rule on the position of the disputed 621-mile (1,000-kilometer) boundary, while U.N. troops patrolled a 15-mile (24-kilometer) buffer zone between the two countries.
But Ethiopia has refused to implement the international boundary commission’s April 2002 ruling, which awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea. Angered at the international community’s failure to ensure that the ruling is obeyed, Eritrea in October banned U.N. helicopter flights and vehicle movements at night on its side of the buffer zone. In December, it ordered Western peacekeepers to leave the U.N. force monitoring Eritrea.
The Eritrean government gave no reason, but the pullout demand came amid mounting concern that both sides were massing troops near the buffer zone as a prelude to a new war. The United Nations called the Eritrean demands unacceptable but withdrew the American, Canadian, European and Russian troops.
Bolton announced the U.S. initiative at a closed-door Security Council meeting to discuss six options proposed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the future of the U.N. peacekeeping force, ranging from maintaining its present 4,000-strong operation to withdrawing the entire mission.
The U.S. ambassador told reporters afterward that he asked the council to freeze the current status of the U.N. force for 30 days “in order to bring some space for this diplomatic initiative and in order not to send any signals politically or otherwise that might complicate it.”
“I made it clear to the council there were no promises, no guarantees … but that we felt that this kind of diplomatic initiative could bring the movement on the underlying political dispute,” Bolton said.
Tanzania’s U.N. Ambassador Augustine Mahiga, the current Security Council president, said members were “very pleased” by the U.S. initiative and had agreed to keep the force’s status quo for 30 days to wait for the outcome.
U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said there was “a sense of urgency, of crisis” in the council “because, obviously, the status quo is unsustainable.”
But he said there was also a recognition “that everything has to be done to avoid increasing the risks on the front line between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and so time has to be given for diplomacy.”
Guehenno, who recently returned from the region, said “there is a need for a real engagement by the international community.” He called the U.S. decision to send a high-powered mission not only important but “essential.”
“The United States has solid relations with the two countries so it certainly has the clout, the credibility to move the process forward,” he said.
“This is a very difficult mission. There is never a certainty of success. But I think it should be very much appreciated that the United States is prepared to take the diplomatic risk, to engage itself, to move the region away from war,” Guehenno said.
The end goal must be the demarcation of the border and normalizing relations between the two poverty-stricken countries so they can focus on development rather than spend money preparing for a possible war, he said.
“How you get there is extremely difficult because I believe every country is afraid of showing its cards too early and losing the possibility to get what it wants to get from that process,” he said.
In the weeks ahead, Guehenno said, “it’s very important that … the window that is open not be shut and that every effort be made to take advantage of that diplomatic engagement to move the process forward.”
(AP/ST)