Ethiopia, Eritrea have a year to demarcate

Amsterdam - An independent commission has given Ethiopia and Eritrea a year to demarcate their border according to its proposals to try to end a bitter impasse between the hostile Horn of Africa neighbours.

In a statement on Wednesday, the commission, part of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, said it had reached the decision after a meeting last week that both Ethiopia and Eritrea refused to attend.

The two countries fought a 1998-2000 war over a frontier area of dusty villages and scrubby plains during which 70 000 people were killed.

Under the peace agreement that ended the war, both sides agreed to accept the boundary commission's ruling mapping the 1 000km border as "final and binding."
But the process ground to a halt after Ethiopia rejected the border as set out by the commission in April 2002 - in particular the placing of the border village of Badme on Eritrean soil - while Eritrea refused to consider any changes.

Due to the obstruction of its work on the ground, the commission said it had used modern techniques including high resolution aerial photography to identify points where pillars should be placed to mark the boundary in still disputed areas.

It said it was now up to the countries to finish marking the boundary themselves. If they failed to do so within a year, the boundary would stand as demarcated by the points it identified.

"The parties should, over the next 12 months, terminating at the end of November 2007, consider their positions and seek to reach agreement on the emplacement of pillars," it said.

Ethiopia has said it would not recognise any demarcation of the contested border, rejecting the commission's plans as "illegal".

Eritrea said the commission should deal with Ethiopia's rejection of the boundary it decided on in 2002 rather than passing demarcation back to the countries themselves.

Source: www.iol.co.za