U.N. panel yet to demarcate Ethiopia-Eritrea border

By M. S. Prabhakara

ADDIS ABABA, MAY 3. The recent establishment of a 25-km-wide Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) along the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia, according to Mr Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General and Head of UNMEE, is a ``penultimate step in the solution of the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict''.

Perhaps no recent war on this continent has been more fiercely fought, and more difficult to comprehend, than the three-year conflict, a war seemingly over disputes about the border between the two countries. The belligerents, in particular the leadership of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the dominant party in the ruling coalition in Ethiopia, going under the name of the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front, and the Eritrea People's Liberation Front, have been the closest of friends and comrades in arms who fought long and hard to oust the Mengistu regime. Further, the two parties co-operated with each other in ensuring that an independent Eritrea would emerge following a peaceful agreement. And yet, less than five years after Eritrea became independent, it was engaged in a bitter conflict with its erstwhile comrade. The costs so far: some 750,000 internally displaced persons; and an estimated 65,000 killed in Eritrea alone.

The agreement on the cessation of hostilities signed between the two countries in Algiers on June 28 last year, marking the beginning of the end to the bloody conflict that began in May 1998, provides for the establishment of a TSZ, ``a temporary measure which in no way prejudges the final status of any contested areas'', along with the deployment of a U.N. peace- keeping mission and the creation of a military co-ordination commission, in order to create a climate of confidence and ``conditions conducive to a comprehensive and lasting settlement of the conflict''. The June 28, 2000 agreement on the cessation of hostilities was followed by another comprehensive peace agreement signed on December 12, which provides that the two parties shall permanently terminate military hostilities. A most notable feature of the current situation on the Eritrea-Ethiopia border is that though the two sides remain deeply divided, the ceasefire itself has held. This does contrast with the two other (of the many) areas of conflict on the continent, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the U.N. has been involved as peace-keeper.

In a 50-minute-long conversation with this correspondent at the UNMEE offices in the ECA complex here, Mr. Legwaila, sounded positive and upbeat about he state of the peace process. Describing the observance of the June 12, 2000 Agreement as something that was doomed to succeed, Mr Legwaila said: ``The peace process has held because even before the U.N. entered, the parties themselves realised that the war was a terrible, tragic mistake, and an embarrassment''.

With the creation of the TSZ, the U.N. mission had come to an end of its most important task ``except that we cannot get out until the border is demarcated''. Indeed, Mr. Legwaila expected the mandate of UNMEE, currently expended up to September 15, to be renewed. ``I can assure you that by September 15, the Border Commission will be nowhere near completing its work. Our presence here is linked with the work of the Border Commission (and) I will not be surprised if we have up to two more extensions'', Mr Legwaila said.

The next major task was the delimitation and demarcation of the border between the two countries, disagreement over which led to the war, by the International Boundary Commission, which will function from the Hague. However, the two sides continue to remain divided over the personnel of the Boundary Commission.

Another disagreement noted by the U.N. Secretary General in his report to the Security Council relates to the larger scale operational map of the border used by the UNMEE. Among the other tasks that remain to be done are the exchange of prisoners of war and civilian internees still held by both sides, clearance of mines, and the return of the internally displaced persons to their homes.

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