The United Nations has voiced fresh concerns over the stalemate in efforts to end the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea, saying it poses a security threat to the Horn of Africa.
Speaking at a press conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, earlier in the week, the Head of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, said the stalemate could have dire consequences if left unresolved.
“This could lead to the conflagration of another war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and could obviously spill over to other parts of the region,” he noted.
The two-and-a-half year border dispute between the two countries claimed about 100 000 lives according to International Crisis Group (ICG) ‒- a non-governmental organisation based in Belgium that lobbies for conflict prevention and resolution.
Fighting ended with the signing of a peace agreement in the Algerian capital, Algiers, in December 2000. This accord also established the Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission (EEBC), which has the task of demarcating the border between the two countries.
In 2002, the EEBC issued its findings on where the 1Â 000-kilometre border should lie. The town of Badme, a highly-contested area during the conflict, was placed on the Eritrean side of the frontier.
Despite agreeing in 2000 that the EEBC’s ruling would be binding and final, Ethiopia has since embarked on a campaign to have its decision altered, prompting the current stalemate with Eritrea.
“Ethiopia realised that the EEBC decision had not given it the territorial gains it thought it had, particularly with regard to Badme and parts of Irob,” Legwaila told reporters at the press conference.
In a letter to the UN Secretary General in 2003, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi described the EEBC’s decision as “totally illegal, unjust, and irresponsible”, and requested the UN Security Council to set up an alternative mechanism for demarcating those parts of the border that were being contested.
But according to Legwaila, work on demarcating the border has simply ceased, “placing the demarcation process and the peace as a whole in a stalemate, which continues up to today.”
UNMEE has since called on the two parties to return to the negotiating table, emphasising that the only solution lies in dialogue. Eritrea disagrees.
“We are not going to negotiate anything else. There is nothing left to talk about,” Teumezghi Tesfa, Deputy Ambassador of the Eritrean Embassy in Kenya said.
“What is remaining is [for the] EEBC, the demarcation body, to put into action what the two countries signed. We all accepted its decision in front of observers,” he added.
Legwaila said Ethiopia is “willing to do everything under the sun” to negotiate a way out of the current impasse ‒- its intransigence over the matter of Badme notwithstanding. Ethiopian government spokesman Zemedkun Tekle declined to speak to IPS about his country’s stance in the border dispute.
During a visit to Kenya earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also raised the problem of the stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea, making it clear that the global body is running short of patience in this regard.
“We came here to do a job. We intend it to be limited,” said Annan, adding “It is not our intention to stay here indefinitely.”
In addition, tensions have increased between Eritrea and the 4,200 UN peace-keepers stationed in a 25-kilometre-wide buffer area along the disputed border that is known as the Temporary Security Zone.
Recently, Eritrea accused the UN forces of sexually abusing minors, and engaging in other forms of misconduct such as using Eritrean currency notes to wipe themselves after defecating.
The UN has not denied these accusations, and says that action has been taken against those implicated. “I do not have figures, but I know it is just a few individuals, both civilian and military,” Legwaila said -‒ noting that certain peacekeepers had been punished, and that some had left the mission.
The ICG believes that the Ethiopian-Eritrea conflict is dragging on because it not getting the attention it deserves from those who engineered the peace deal.
In a report on the matter, the organisation says, “Washington, which negotiated the [Algiers] agreement in tandem with the AU [African Union], has largely ignored the issue despite its interest in regional stability. The AU has remained largely silent as well.”
Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993. However, the position of the border between the states was not clearly defined in certain areas, particularly a triangle of land surrounding Badme. Ethiopia also became landlocked after the secession, and found itself obliged to use the southern Eritrean port of Assab when in need of sea transport.
Tensions between the two countries mounted steadily in the period before the border dispute, notably over Eritrea’s decision to introduce its own currency in 1997 in the face of resistance from Addis Ababa. The border dispute over Badme, which began in 1998, appears to have been the “last straw” in relations between the states. — IPS