Global Policy Forum

By Katie Nguyen

An Eritrean ban on helicopter flights by U.N. monitors is a calculated attempt to intensify international pressure on former foe Ethiopia to agree to end a border row many fear could spark a new war, analysts say. The move by the tiny Red Sea state is ringing alarm bells around east Africa, whose governments dread a repeat of the neighbours' 1998-2000 conflict that cost 70,000 lives, because it curbs the U.N. ability to monitor troop movements.

The ban imposed on Oct. 5 on U.N. reconnaissance flights over a 15 mile (25 km) wide buffer zone along the 1,000 km (620 miles) long unmarked border stoked worries Asmara was trying to hide a possible troop mobilisation and prepare for a new war. But experts say Asmara's goal is rather to force the issue higher up the agenda of world powers it suspects are either weary of the dispute or biased in favour of Ethiopia. "We go through this every six months to a year. People get nervous that a new conflict is going to break out," said British author Michela Wrong, who has written extensively about Eritrea. "The danger is if the border issue is not settled, one of those days it's not going to be a false alarm. The current situation is clearly not tenable," she said. Defending national pride, Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war over a border of scrubby plains and dusty villages in 1998, sending soldiers to die in World War One-style trench warfare.

Angry

Eritrea is now angry that world powers have failed to use their considerable leverage with aid-dependent Ethiopia to push it to honour the peace treaty that ended their conflict. Under the treaty, both sides agreed to be bound by a boundary commission ruling on the border row, but Addis Ababa rejected the decision when it came in 2002 because it gave the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea. Without the agreement of both sides, demarcation of the border was postponed indefinitely. Diplomats say new conflict would hurt a region that was once used a base by al Qaeda and that continues to suffer drought and famine and the destabilising effect of Somalia's anarchy.

The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) was quick to declare on Thursday the absence of any military build-up on the border, but analysts and some diplomats, citing arms purchases on both sides, say war cannot be ruled out. U.N. Special Representative to Ethiopia and Eritrea Legwaila Joseph Legwaila told reporters that war was not inevitable. But he added: "Tension will rise, and UNMEE and the parties will have to manage this tension to make sure that it doesn't manifest itself into something more serious." Anxious for stability in a region it regards as a safe haven for Islamic militants, Washington said visiting State Department Africa expert Donald Yamamoto would focus on the threat of renewed war in meetings with Ethiopian officials this month.

Accusations

A source close to the Addis Ababa government dismissed the flight ban as "one of the usual scare tactics Eritrea used to impress the international community". Eritrea has as many as 300,000 people out of a population of 3.6 million in military service, an unusually high proportion for a country not currently engaged in a war. "As far as the border is concerned, Eritrea occupies the moral high ground. Ethiopia is clearly in the low ground," said an Asmara-based European diplomat, who did not wish to be named. "If there is another conflict, the international community will have to ask why? Did it do enough to prevent it?" The flight ban will further hurt Eritrea's ties with UNMEE.

Over the past 18 months, Eritrea has imposed travel curbs on U.N. peacekeepers, accused them of pedophilia, making pornography and dishonouring the national currency by using it as toilet paper, and kept seven U.N. staff in detention. The moves reflect Eritrean suspicions of the outside world, feelings rooted in resentment of foreign support for Ethiopia during Eritrea's earlier independence war from Addis Ababa. Legwaila added: "Although I don't know the reason why the helicopters were grounded, I think all of us can surmise that maybe one of the reasons is that there is a lot of frustration that there has not been any movement as far as the work of the Boundary Commission is concerned." "I just hope people wake up and realise it is important we should deal with the stalemate decisively to make sure it ends."

Additional reporting by Ed Harris in Asmara and Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa.

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