Meles and Isaias trade accusations

By Lea-Lisa Westerhoff

February 3, 2006

Many observers believe accusations between the governments of Meles and Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea are like accusations between two opposition parties within one country. They may fight over party differences but stand together when the sovereignty of that nation is threatened.(Photo: Reuters)

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia and Eritrea traded new charges on Thursday over their increasingly tense border as Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi accused his rival of arrogant war-mongering and Asmara hit back.

As the United Nations reported that the situation on the border remained “tense” and that five people had been injured in a landmine blast near the frontier in Eritrea, Meles fired a verbal assault on the Eritrean government.

“The main reason and source of the border conflict … is the arrogant and war-mongering invader that is the Eritrean regime,” he said in a speech to Ethiopia’s parliament.

He blamed the current stalemate on Eritrea, which has warned that new conflict is looming because Ethiopia has refused to accept a border demarcation that emanated from a 2000 peace deal ending their bloody two-year war.

Meles criticized Asmara for keeping the stance that it held before the start of the war in 1998 by insisting that it has the right to take by force territory that it considers its own.

“Even now it is taking the same line by stating it has the right to take what it claims is occupied land by force,” he said, noting that an international panel in December had blamed Eritrea for the start of the war.

“This position, which is the same as at the beginning of the war, is, as the claims commission clearly pointed out, the stance of an invader,” he said. “This is the real source of the problem.”

Eritrea wasted little time in responding by saying that Meles had no legal grounds to reject the border demarcation and dismissing the December 19 Ethiopia-Eritrea Claims Commission ruling as irrelevant to the issue.

“Meles is not the judge in this case,” Yemane Gebremeskel, the director of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki’s cabinet said in an interview initiated by his office shortly after Meles made his comments.

“He does not have the right to interpret the Algiers agreement or to question the judgment of the boundary commission,” he said, referring to the 2000 peace deal that ended the war after the loss of some 80,000 lives.

“The claims commission does not have jurisdiction on the boundary,” Yemane said.

Asmara is demanding that Addis Ababa accept the border demarcation that awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea and has angrily accused the United Nations and world powers of ignoring Ethiopia’s refusal to do so.

To show its displeasure, it has slapped restrictions on UN peacekeepers monitoring the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) border and expelled the mission’s North American and European staff, sending tensions and fears of a new war soaring amid troop movements on both sides.

It has refused to respond to UN Security Council demands, backed by the threat of sanctions, to lift the curbs and last month snubbed a US diplomatic mission aimed at jumpstarting the implementation of the border ruling.

At the weekend, Eritrea blasted the United States for “evil” policies that it said encouraged Ethiopia to ignore the demarcation and thus raise the risk of new war.

Meles, who received the US delegation, praised the United States for its “commendable and positive step” in a side-swipe at Eritrea.

He also reiterated that Ethiopia accepted the border ruling in principle but said that adjustments were necessary in order to prevent families in the Badme area from being split between two nations.

Meanwhile, the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) on Thursday reported that the border remained “tense” and that five people had been injured this week when their vehicle hit a landmine near the border in Eritrea.

Two of the passengers in the civilian truck were seriously wounded in Tuesday’s incident, UNMEE said.