Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is again faced with the Tigrayan
nationalism of
some Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF, hard core of the EPRDF in
power
in Addis Ababa) leaders over the border delineation with Eritrea.

Differences appeared in the leadership team over the way to respond to
the
decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC, permanent
court
of arbitration at the Hague) to grant Badme, a township under Ethiopian
administration (ION 1037) to Eritrea. The leaders of the Tigray
regional
state, under pressure from the population of northern Ethiopia, wants
the
Addis Ababa government to reject the EEBC’s decision.

This camp
includes the
president of the Tigray regional state, Tsegaye Berhe; the regional
parliament president, Solomon Inquai, who has long held this position;
and
Abadi Zemo, number two in the regional administration. The latter is
said to
have recently declared that “whatever the TPLF leadership decides, he
personally will not accept the Hague court of arbitration’s resolution.”

Another TPLF current claims that the court of arbitration’s resolution
was
already accepted and must therefore be respected. It seems that the
minister
of foreign affairs, Seyoum Mesfin, is on this wavelength. Finally, a
third
camp deems that opposition to the EEBC’s resolution can’t be head-on,
but
must take the form of a request to revise certain aspects.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is going to have to compose with these
differing
sensibilities, even if he basically seems to accept the Hague court’s
decision. Speaking recently to a group of officials, he said that
national
sovereignty signified “peace and development” more than seizing a piece
of
land here and there.

The Ethiopian administrator in Badme, Woldegiorgis Woldemariam, is
working
doubly hard to permanently settle more than two hundred Ethiopian
families.
School and telephone service are supposedly operating in the village,
where
water pumps were installed. For their part, Adi Irob’s residents
complained
that the debate is limited to Badme and neglects their zone, which is
also
affected by the Hague court’s decision.

THE INDIAN OCEAN NEWSLETTER N° 1038

^* ION news reports are not independently verifiable, and caution should be exercised on the part of readers.