Eritrea angered by border commission proposals

06/16/2006

"Amending the Demarcation Directions to suit Ethiopia's demands is not a solution to this problem; indeed it makes the problem of Ethiopia's defiance even worse," said Eritrea's top legal adviser.

Eritrea has quit talks over the contentious marking of its border with Ethiopia, saying it did not accept changes proposed by a boundary commission and would not participate in negotiations to discuss them.

The so-called proposed amendments to the demarcation directions angered Eritrea, which refused to meet the commission on Thursday. "Amending the Demarcation Directions to suit Ethiopia's demands is not a solution to this problem; indeed it makes the problem of Ethiopia's defiance even worse," said Lea Brilmayer, Eritrea's top legal adviser, in a June 13 letter seen by Reuters.

"Until Ethiopia's defiance stops, there can be no demarcation; there is accordingly, no reason to have another meeting," she said in the letter to the commission. The Hague-based commission was established as part of a peace deal that ended a two-year war between Ethiopia and Eritrea over a border of scrubby plains and dusty villages.

Under the deal, both countries agreed to accept the commission's ruling mapping the 1,000 km (620 mile) border as "final and binding". But Ethiopia rejected the 2002 ruling that gave the flashpoint town of Badme to its much smaller neighbour and insisted on more talks with Eritrea.

Further concessions to Ethiopia

Despite several meetings between the two sides, the commission has failed to break the deadlock over the border and made a series of proposals last week that Eritrea says would "authorise further concessions to Ethiopia". The proposals would allow either side to present its case for changing the boundary to a special adviser.

If the commission was unable to make a decision based on the adviser's findings, it would refer the dispute to a body set up by the United Nations or other foreign powers. A senior Eritrean official accused Washington of influencing the proposed changes, echoing the view of President Isaias Afwerki, who last month accused the United States of favouring Ethiopia, its top counter-terrorism ally in the Horn of Africa. "With the involvement of the Americans, they are trying to change the ground rules," Eritrean presidential adviser Yemane Ghebremeskel told Reuters by telephone late on Thursday.

U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment.

"The boundary commission's decision cannot be tampered with. It's legal, it's final. There's no room for talks. Everything's finished. There's no point in new negotiations," Yemane said, referring to the boundary commission's ruling. He said any challenge to the legally binding ruling would set a poor precedent for other international rulings.

"Tampering with the agreement will have consequences that go beyond the dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The fundamental principles of international law will be at stake." "Let's maintain the integrity of the decision, of the demarcation, of the process and we're in," he added.

Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war in 1998, sending soldiers to die in World War One-style trench warfare. The conflict, triggered mainly by a border dispute, killed an estimated 70,000 people before it ended in 2000.
Source: eitb24