Ethiopia Should Hand Over Border Town The Nation (Nairobi) OPINION January 5, 2004 Posted to the web January 5, 2004 By Chege Mbitiru Nairobi There are two African gentlemen who appear to loath good neighbourliness. Ironically, they used not only to be buddies, but also comrades-in-arms. There used to be a rumour they were cousins. No matter, both chat very well in their mother tongue, Tigrinya. The gentlemen are President Isayas Afewerki of Eritrea and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Neither can boast of presiding over much wealth. When they led their countries to war in 1998, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the fighting as "stupid". That's strong language from the mild- mannered Annan. Diplomatic etiquette prevented him from ascribing the adjective to the two gentlemen. Last week Mr Annan revisited the dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea. He warned that the situation between the two countries remains precarious. He was against inflammatory hollering especially coming from Eritrea. The rhetoric, he said, is achieving nothing to settle the dispute. The only time representatives from both countries meet face to face is during military meetings hosted by the United Nations. Mr Annan urged them to open more channels of communication. He named a suave former Canadian foreign minister as a special UN envoy to cool the inflammatory rhetoric and get Mr Meles and Mr Isayas to solve their differences as good neighbours. Mr Annan isn't alone in urging common sense. The European Union is too, and is appealing for dialogue between Addis Ababa and Asmara. In November, the world's self-appointed super cop, US President George W. Bush sent a team in the region to cool tempers. The obvious cause of the dispute is patches of stony earth whose ownership is in dispute. National pride and individual inflated egos probably have quite a bit to do with the dispute. In all fairness though, it isn't solely the fault of Mr Meles and Mr Isayas that the border was never demarcated. Eritreans have never been happy being lorded over by Axum emperors, even before the Italians overrun what they colonised as Eritrea. When the British kicked the Italians out during the World War II, they didn't bother much with the border demarcation. After all, theirs was just a mandate. When the United Nations in 1952 recognised Eritrea as a federal state within Emperor Haile Selassie's kingdom, it forgot to say exactly which piece of the province they were handing over, in terms of longitudes and latitudes. It was more or less the case of that hill, that river and presumably that village. The Emperor couldn't have been bothered with a border. He wanted to gobble every hill, river and village. He did just that 10 years later. That decision infuriated Eritreans and for 32 years, they fought the Ethiopian colonisers. Many people and countries thought they had a cause and helped. Even having liberated their own country, they joined Mr Meles and his fighters to oust Mengistu Haile Mariam, the man who emerged as Ethiopia's strongman. As Mengistu fled Addis Ababa, the Eritreans were among those baying for his blood. Ethiopia and Eritrea soon decided to part amicably. They "forgot" the boundaries issue and were good neighbours. It seems having won Africa's longest continuous war the Eritreans had become a bit cocky. They were soon fighting Yemen over a collection of islands in the Red Sea. They never forgot the boundary. In 1998 they wanted a village called Badme, which Ethiopia administered. Fighting broke out. When it comes to wars, Eritrea, a country with a population of about four million, did reasonably well against a country of 70 million. But like most countries that started wars in the past, it acted stupidly because all options hadn't been exhausted. Unfortunately, Ethiopia now looks like the bad guy. When under pressure the two countries agreed to negotiate, they agreed an independent commission should demarcate the border. They also agreed to abide by the commission's decision. Almost two years ago, the commission granted Badme to Eritrea. Ethiopia rejected that. That's why the two countries aren't talking about any other issue. Their representatives just won't meet face to face without a United Nations chaperon. The problem with a nation's failure to honour an internationally recognised deal is that it amounts to a refusal to pay a debt of honour. No court can rule on that, but credibility gets lost. There are fewer lenders. It's, therefore, stupid not to honour debts. Both Ethiopia and Eritrea are at fault to have parted without agreeing on the border. Negotiations usually work out better when parties trust each other. Mistrusts breed mistrusts. These are plenty between Addis Ababa and Eritrea. The only way out of the impasse is for Mr Meles is to whip the bottoms of his negotiators in Algiers for not getting a better deal, swallow his pride and let Badme go. Otherwise he will end up looking like a kid sulking because the other got an extra crumb from a bar of chocolate. Mr Mbitiru, a freelance journalist, is a former 'Sunday Nation' Managing editor.   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2003 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================