May 10, 2006 ( Canada’s Foreign Policy Newsweekly)-Departing Eritrean ambassador warns that a border conflict with Ethiopia risks destabilizing the Horn of Africa, while an Ethiopian diplomat says that the saber-rattling from Eritrea surfaces every six months.
The United Nations should take Ethiopia to task over its continued occupation of border territory captured from Eritrea during a two-year frontier war, or be responsible for any "disaster" that will arise as a result of Ethiopia's actions, says Girma Asmerom, Eritrea's outgoing Ambassador to the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Asmerom, who made the remarks in Ottawa last week, says that despite an international ruling asking Ethiopia to withdraw its forces from contested areas determined to belong to Eritrea, the government in Addis Ababa has refused to do so four years after the ruling was made in the Hague.
Though he did not say that Eritrea would resort to arms to reclaim the contested border areas, Mr. Asmerom warns the fallout would be disastrous for the Horn of Africa region.
"We reserve the right to protect our sovereignty, it's in the UN Charter," says Mr. Asmerom, whose five-year stint as ambassador with dual accreditation to the U.S. and Canada is ending this month.
"If [the UN] is late [in asking Ethiopia to comply], it will be a disaster for the region."
"Refugees will be streaming to neighboring countries," he said, adding that the "easiest, fastest and cheapest way of resolving the issue is for the international community to implement its own decision."
But an official from the Ethiopian Embassy in Ottawa dismissed the insinuation to instability as nothing new from Eritrea. "It's not a new threat, but a threat issued every six months," says Tebege Berhe, Counselor at the Embassy of Ethiopia. "But I do hope that Eritrea realizes that any attack on Ethiopia will be met in the same way."
"When you agree to go to court, you go knowing very well that you will abide by the ruling and that's what Ethiopia should do," says Mr. Asmerom. He points out that in 1996, Eritrea abided by an international ruling which demanded that it withdraw troops from the Hanish Islands in the Red Sea, which it had captured from Yemen.
"We did not like the decision, but we left," he says. Mr. Berhe says Ethiopia accepted the decision of the boundary commission in principle, but adds that his country still has reservations about the ruling because it ignores factors that would minimize the dislocation and compensation for people in the area.
"Even the EEBC said it's physically impossible to do that," he says. "In order to put [the EEBC ruling] into practice, there needs to be dialogue so as to create modalities that take into account peoples' houses and property," says Mr. Berhe. "But Eritrea has refused every step of the way." Citing a border dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon, Mr. Berhe says that Ethiopia's request is not unheard of in international border disputes.
"There was dialogue even after the Hague ruling. Ethiopia is not asking anything different." Last month, talks to resolve the dispute were postponed indefinitely because Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, the head of the boundary commission, had taken sick.
Mr. Asmerom's statement echoes previous calls by high ranking Eritrean officials criticizing the UN and the international community for failing to force Ethiopia to comply with the ruling of the boundary commission. "The international community must side with justice, there should not be a double standard," Mr. Asmerom says.
To express its displeasure, Eritrea expelled UN peacekeepers from the U.S, Canada, Europe and Russia last December and imposed travel restrictions on other peacekeepers in the 25-km buffer zone separating the two countries, a move which upped the stakes in the border standoff.
Mr. Asmerom also criticizes Western countries for turning a blind eye to what he alleges is Ethiopia's use of aid money to buy weapons and ammunition. Mr. Berhe dismisses the claims as "absolutely false," adding that international organizations and donor partners can testify to the fact that all aid money sent to Ethiopia was used for humanitarian purposes and not war. He urges the international community to push Eritrea and Ethiopia to solve the border spat through peaceful dialogue.
"Other options are not options really," says Mr. Berhe, adding that war will only halt development activities in both countries.
Ethiopia is the largest receiver of Canadian aid money in the Horn of Africa region. Since 1996, CIDA has provided $60 million to support food security in the country. Between 1995 and 2000, it received $160 million, of which $57 million was used for emergency food aid. As of press time, CIDA officials could not be reached to confirm what modalities have been put in place to ensure that Canadian aid dollars are not used for military purposes in Ethiopia.
However, in a previous Embassy story, a CIDA official was quoted as saying there is no evidence that financial aid from Canada is being used for buying military hardware in Ethiopia.
