For Eritrea, time has stood still after border war with Ethiopia

By TOM MALITI, Associated Press Writer

ADIKESHI CAMP, Eritrea, Feb 14, 2005 (AP) — Almaz Tela wants to return to her old ways, farming millet, sorghum, corn and tending to cows, goats, sheep and chickens. The only problem is her farmland is in a buffer zone that separates Eritrea and Ethiopia, and she has to live in a homeless camp.

An Eritrean soldier stands on a mound of earth behind his front line trench at Tsorona.

Eritrea stopped fighting Ethiopia over their 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) long border four years ago. But like Almaz, 45, whose farming ambitions are on hold, Eritrea itself is in a state of limbo.

Government officials and diplomats say it has postponed long-term work to diversify its economy until resolution of the stalemate over the border — a ‘temporary security zone’ whose status looks increasingly long term.

More than 2 1/2 years ago an independent international commission made a ruling on the two countries’ border but work on demarcating it has not begun because Ethiopia objected to parts of the commission’s decision.

For the past six years, Almaz has been in Adikeshi Camp, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of the capital Asmara. She fled her home in the border village Mukuti some months after the border war erupted in May 1998 when Ethiopian troops began firing missiles at the village.

Almaz grabbed her two children and her neighbor’s ten children and began a weeklong trek through southern Eritrea’s mountainous land and then further north to the camp.

“I was not expecting to reach the camp. I thought half the children would die on the way,” Almaz said. “The youngest was four years old and the oldest was sixteen,” she said. They all survived.

Her husband, Solomon, was looking after cows during the attack and taken prisoner by the Ethiopians; he was held for a year before being released. When he was freed, Solomon made a weeklong trek to Adikeshi Camp where he was reunited with his family.

Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia in 1991 after a protracted war, maintains an army of at least 100,000 troops, up from 34,000 before war broke out with Ethiopia in May 1998, said Yemani Ghebremeskel, director of President Isaias Aferwerki’s office. Because of the threat of war, Yemani admits, “the government is not truly, fully dedicated to development.”

“We have labor tied up in the army. This is not what we would like it to be … we didn’t know whether they (Ethiopia) are going to attack,” said Yemani.

Meanwhile, Eritrea faces famine due to its fourth straight year of drought which has created severe shortages of bread, sugar and milk.

Yemani said there were also fuel shortages caused in part by increased consumption by the military. He said the government makes sure public transport vehicles do not lack fuel, while it would ration fuel for private cars.

Eritrea and Ethiopia have not held direct talks since they signed a cease-fire deal in December 2000, ending the war. Yemani said 19,000 Eritreans died in the war; Ethiopian deaths are estimated in the tens of thousands.

As part of the peace agreement reached in December 2000, however, Eritrean and Ethiopian generals meet regularly under U.N. auspices to assess how the cease-fire and temporary security zone between the neighbors are holding.

In April 2002, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission — part of the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration — made a ruling on the border as agreed under the peace deal.

But the physical demarcation of the border has been postponed indefinitely because of Ethiopia’s refusal to accept the decision. It objects to the awarding of the disputed town of Badme to Eritrea.

Eritrea’s economy has been unable to register steady growth after the border war, recording 8.7 percent growth in 2001, negative 1.2 percent in 2002, 5.4 percent growth in 2003, according to government and International Monetary Fund figures. The nation’s economy had been enjoying healthy expansion in the years preceding the conflict.

The war also led to a crackdown on dissent, with the government jailing indefinitely senior governing party officials, editors of all the country’s private newspapers and shutting down their publications.

The crackdown, which began in 2001, was an about-face for the governing People’s Front for Democracy and Justice party. It had encouraged rigorous debate of its policies both in Eritrea’s early years after it gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and during the 30 years it was a rebel movement fighting to break away.