Frustration, uncertainty as Eritreans watch Ethiopians along border
Mar 15, 2006 (AROMO, Eritrea) — Ethiopian militiamen rarely emerge from their bunkers, just visible as slits in the hills from Eritrean positions in this rocky, cactus-littered borderland.
When Eritreans like Father Gebreamlak Berhe do glimpse the enemy, they seethe. The war Eritrea and Ethiopia fought is six years cold, but suspicion and fear is fresh in a dispute driven by pride and national identity.
Gebreamlak, an Eritrean Orthodox priest, fled his home and farm closer to the border. Though clashes have been rare, he felt it was exposed to possible raids and too far from any help Eritrean militiamen could provide if there was trouble.
“It is painful we are unable to go back and cultivate our fields,” Gebreamlak, 60, said outside a small church overlooking dozens of fields and stone houses that were abandoned after Ethiopians seized strategic positions during the 1998-2000 war.
The disputed border region is largely semiarid and rocky, with no known mineral or other natural riches. Only parts of it are fertile. Farmers grow sorghum and wheat in the valleys, and transport goods over the hills on donkey back.
Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war, but their 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) border was never officially demarcated. The border war erupted five years after independence.
For Eritrea, the land dispure is a matter of national pride and the ultimate assertion of independence. Many Ethiopians still do not accept Eritrea’s independence, and pride also plays a part in Ethiopia’s refusal to settle the dispute.
An international border commission set up under a 2000 peace deal. Both countries agreed in advance to accept the commission’s ruling, but when the ruling came in 2002, Ethiopia rejected it because the key town of Badme and other territories — competing claims make it difficult to determine how much land is at stake — were awarded to Eritrea. Ethiopia had gained territory in the ruling, and official previously said the country had won more land than it lost.
“I think the Ethiopian objection does not have any legal ground, no political ground, no justifiable grounds,” said Yemani Ghebremeskel, the Eritrean president’s chief of staff.
Donors and international institutions that give Ethiopia US$1.9 billion (A1.6 billion) in annual humanitarian and development aid should use their influence, Yemani said.
Late last year, Eritrea, intent on getting the international community to press Ethiopia to accept the border ruling, banned helicopter flights by U.N. peacekeepers in its airspace, restricted U.N. ground patrols and expelled some of the workers. At around the same time, the U.N. reported Eritrean and Ethiopian troop buildups, primarily by Ethiopia, along the border.
The U.N. has reported since that troops had been pulled back. Eritrea and Ethiopia attended a weekend mediation meeting in London.
Tuesday, though, Eritrea expressed concern about the talks, accusing Ethiopia of trying to reopen negotiations instead of simply accepting the 2002 ruling.
Ethiopia posted a statement on its foreign ministry Web site Monday saying the country would continue talks as long as they were consistent with a proposal its prime minister made in 2004 calling on Eritrea to accept changes to the 2002 ruling, including exchanging land where villages may be divided by the border.
As the dispute drags on, U.N. peacekeepers monitor a 25-kilometer (16-mile) wide buffer zone that largely runs on Eritrea’s side of the border. The head of the mission, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, said failure to implement the peace deal would set a dangerous precedent.
It would “poison the whole political atmosphere in the Horn of Africa and will send the wrong message to those peacekeeping operations that have just started, like the Sudan,” Legwaila said.
A U.N. peacekeeping mission is being established in southern Sudan, where rebels and the government signed an agreement to end a 21-year civil war.
As long as the Eritrean-Ethiopian border is unresolved, “there is always a threat that the war which ended in 2000 can be reignited,” Legwaila said.
Regular Ethiopian and Eritrean troops are banned from the buffer zone, but militia are permitted. Eritrean militiamen carrying assault rifles could be seen recently monitoring the movements of Ethiopians barely visible across the hills.
The Eritreans said there were dozens of Ethiopians on a hill where bunkers were visible, and that reinforcements were on a slope that was out of sight.
“I just want the border to be demarcated so that I can go back home and raise my six children in peace,” Father Gebreamlak said.
(ST/AP)