Ethiopia and Eritrea are now in possession of a proposal aimed at defusing the crisis which was triggered by Asmara's blatant aggression against Ethiopia in May of this year.

The proposal, drawn up after five months of painstaking study, was handed over to the two governments during a mini-summit held on 7 and 8 November 1998 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

When the high-level delegation met with the Ethiopian delegation led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the substance of the proposal was discussed in detail and Ethiopia accepted it in the belief that peace would prevail as a result of the mediation mounted by the Organization of African Unity.

Piecing together bits and pieces from various comments made by the President of Eritrea, his Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as news reports on a row with Djibouti that unexpectedly surfaced in Ouagadougou, one is left with bewilderment. An apt conclusion could well be that Eritrea's reaction amounts to a non-response, Asmara's way of rejecting the proposal.

Listening to the radio interview President Isayas Afewerki gave on his return from the mini-summit, one had to labour to capture the essence of his attitude towards the proposal. He was repeating what he had said before about the efforts of the OAU high-level mission, which amounted to discounting the merits of the meditation attempts. We had not expected the meeting to produce anything of substance was the way he began his answer to a question on the results of the Ouagadougou meeting.

Other points heard from the interview include such condescending assertions as the meeting appeared to be hastily convened, implying that it was disorganized. On the proposal entitled: "A framework Agreement for a Peaceful Settlement of the Dispute Between Eritrea and Ethiopia", the head of the Eritrean regime said it was confusing, the points in it were uncoordinated or haphazardly presented, that it was impossible to deal with the document because its presentation is as complicated as the crisis itself, it lacks clarity and firmness of position on the issues involved, it lacks focus, etc. etc.

So much on the blatant abuse hurled at the work of an OAU mission at the highest level. It borders on dismissing the high-level delegation.

However, this attitude does not tally with the idea implied in the press release on the Ouagadougou meeting, issued on 9 November 1998 by the Eritrean Foreign Ministry, which said Eritrea regarded the meeting as positive and the proposal as talking points for discussion at the next meeting of the OAU Central Organ to be held in December. This is one misleading interpretation of the work of the mediation committee. The high-level delegation has discharged its mandate and will only report to the Central Organ. Discussion on the proposal ended at Ouagadougou.

How can the proposal be regarded as talking points when the President of Eritrea has heaped so much scorn on it? Are the president and his foreign minister giving conflicting signals. If so, for what end?

President Isayas and his Foreign Ministry are wrong to downgrade a formal peace proposal to mere talking points. The high-level mission of the OAU, which Eritrea had accepted as such, should be given the respect it deserves for the interest and dedication with which it drew up a peace plan to help the two countries resolve the dangerous crisis. The work should have been considered seriously by the Eritrean side. To disagree with points of the proposals is one thing.

To treat it as substandard, as the Eritrean reactions have it, is not only unbecoming of a state but is also damaging to a mature document, to a delegation of the OAU whose dedication is to bring peace to a troubled area.

The OAU high-level delegation on the conflict has completed its work which will earn it the deserved respect of all peace-loving people. If the Eritrea regime's behaviour of confusing, incoherent and disrespectful reaction to the peace proposal presented to it is meant to blame others for its failure to be at peace with its neighbour, Asmara will find none to blame. If they think that they are smarter than the OAU delegation, they are making fools of themselves. If they want to persist in their arrogance by dismantling the OAU high-level delegation which has completed its mediation to the satisfaction of African and international expectations, they are too late; they should wake up and instead stop the errors they continue to make.

The manner in which the Eritrean regime has treated the OAU attempts to find a way out of the crisis has elements of deviation, diverting attention away from the international desire to undo aggression and return to legality in relations between sovereign states. There are pretexts to avoid seriously addressing the matter. The problem with the Eritrean regime is that it regards the problem as trivial and aggression as inconsequential.

As far as blackmail goes Asmara has returned to it again. It is an open secret that Eritrean blackmail was the reason why Rwanda decided to withdraw from the delegation to which it had been elected by the OAU Assembly of heads of State and Government in June as part of its decision on assisting the two countries to resolve the conflict between them.

On 10 November 1998, a report of the French News Agency, AFP, quoted the Foreign Minister of Djibouti as saying that Eritrea had demanded that Djibouti withdraw from the high-level OAU delegation. The Minister said that the Eritrean government had accused his government of helping Ethiopia's war effort, a charge which the Djibouti Foreign Minister described as "grave, slanderous and baseless" and putting relations between the two countries at great risk.

On 11 November, the government of Djibouti warned Eritrea of worsening relations if Asmara does not apologize for its behaviour at the Ouagadougou meeting of the OAU high-level delegation.

It is not difficult to deduce from the above that the mini-summit had a serious problem conducting any discussion with the Eritrean delegation.

It must have been a stunning surprise for the heads of state and obviously shocking to note that the Eritrean delegation did not care to embarrass an elder statesman, President Hassan Gouled Aptidon of Djibouti, who was the first to engage in shuttle diplomacy between Addis Ababa and Asmara when the Eritrean aggression against Ethiopia was launched. Blackmailing Djibouti was the way the Eritrean regime avoided discussion the substance of the peace proposal and consequently rejecting any idea of making peace with Ethiopia

Not many people were optimistic about the Ouagadougou conference. For some reason, it just didn't seem that a solution to the festering Ethio-Eritrean crisis was in sight.

The skeptics were on the mark. They were not disappointed. In another display of arrogance and a total lack of esteem for fellow African leaders and their travails in favour of peace, the Eritrean President marched out of the meeting dashing hopes once again of an early settlement to the ugly "family quarrel".

If Isayas Afeworki wanted peace, he could have easily reached for and grabbed it in Ouagadougou. It was there for the taking. Three African leaders, two of them of high seniority were in evidence. The OAU Secretary General, Salim Ahimed Salim, and a representative of the UN Secretary General - Ambassador Sahnoun, were on hand. The Ethiopian Prime Minister had just agreed, as he has done before, with the proposals made by the peacemakers. All it took for Isayas was to say 'Yes', and add his name to the existing consensus. But, in line with his earlier defiance he once again said 'No!' Whatever color one may wish to give to his answer, one cannot pretend that he agreed with the OAU proposals. A few diehards who believe that the Eritrean President meant 'maybe' are attempting to draw in a non-existent element into the picture. Isayas must be laughing inside at their feeble efforts to ascribe to him a position that he does not hold.

The Eritrean leader, true to his habit, sideswiped a concerned party as he trampled on the peace proposals laid before him. Some months ago it was Susan Rice who was "young and inexperienced." Later it was the OAU Secretary General, who was described __ more or less __ as an American stalking horse. The victim this time was Djibouti's venerable Hassan Ghouled Aptidon, a man old enough to be Isayas' father, and wise enough to count for even more.

Djibouti, the scapegoat of the season, was reportedly attacked in the most rude way, prompting Eritrea's admonishment by the other members of the OAU Committee who couldn't take it anymore.

The incident recalls to mind the familiar fate of the quarrelsome boy in the neighborhood who, in the end, quarrels with the person trying to stop a fight. The Eritrean leader felt he could bring down the committee a peg or two by casting aspersion on one of its members. But his outburst only helped the others link arms and come to Aptidon's defense. Clearly Djibouti deserves an apology from Eritrea for the latter's unacceptable behaviour in Burkina Faso.

Picking an argument with Djibouti, however, is only part of the story. The Eritrean leader was offered a gentlemanly way out of Badme __ to redeploy as a favour to the OAU __ pending the final outcome of the demarcation exercise six months hence. He refused, ignoring the fact that the OAU had travelled the extra mile to "bring him on board." But it was not to be. Respect given to one can only have meaning when it is reciprocated. In this case, Isayas demonstrated yet again just how poorly he regarded the OAU and his African brothers.

This was made all the more clear upon his arrival in Asmara on November 9. "We were not expecting any thing from Ouagadougou" he stated, "and neither do we expect any thing more from the Central Organ meeting in December." 24 hours later, his spin doctor, busy at work, gave a facelift to his remarks. After the necessary editing, adding and subtracting exercise typical of Asmara following debacles on the diplomatic front, Eritrea suddenly turned around 360% and described the Ouagadougou meeting as positive!

On November 9 the Eritrean President told his people there were "no new elements from the OAU." On November 10, his political engineers had twisted that around to sound like the OAU had discovered some thing new after all. They meant the OAU's reference to so called problems between the two countries in July 1997. But what's new about that? The US/Rwanda plan also took Eritrea's complaints on board, five months ago, agreeing to discuss earlier alleged problems with Ethiopia.

How could we be surprised when in the process of doublethink in Asmara the OAU peace proposals were transformed into something else. They became "talking points". If Eritrea doesn't like proposals, they are not proposals. They are reduced to merely "talking points". Again this is an interpretation unique to Eritrea. The rest of the world recognized the proposals to be what they are __ serious proposals for peace.

The Asmara authorities have ever gone further to take the psychiatrists role and interpret what we in Ethiopia are thinking. They declare "Ethiopia has no intention of accepting Eritrea's colonial boundaries," when Ethiopia has every intention to continue to do so. But they don't want to believe it for the simple reason that they wish to introduce a brand new precondition that Ethiopia (the aggressed country) "rescind its illegal claims on Eritrea and declare" (with Eritrean troops on its land) "without equivocation that it respects the colonial boundaries..." It is like the thief who cries out "thief" to draw away public attention. The OAU, the international community and many Eritreans know that the opposite is the case __ that it is Eritrea that has acquisitioned territory by force __ not only in Hanish but in Badme, Zalanbessa and Alitena as well.

But in the view of Eritrea's leaders, they can never made a mistake. This was eloquently stated by President Isayas on his arrival statement after returning home from Ouagadougou. "We've never made mistakes about our borders" he affirmed. Of course the twelve casualties at Hanish who perished guarding the wrong frontier are forgotten __ not to mention the hundreds killed and thousands displaced by another costly Isayas mistake regarding his border with Ethiopia.

We could go on and on. We could recall Isayas saying that the Ouagadougou talks failed because of Ethiopian intransigence, when in fact the OAU leaders are telling the world to put pressure on Isayas because it was he that sunk the talks. Ethiopia does not need to tell the world that Isayas sabotaged the talks. The facts are there for all to see. The OAU made recommendations, Ethiopia supported them, Eritrea didn't. End of story.

We could go even further and expose the hypocritical position in Asmara now calling for the "rejection of the use of force" after having conveniently acquired territory by force itself just a few months ago. Does Eritrea expect us and the rest of the world to believe that force should be rejected halfway through a conflict, after one side sits high on the territory of another? Or should there be no recourse to force at all? That would be more acceptable to many. But for Eritrea it would not work as it would require the reversal of the initial Eritrean landgrab.

All the verbal gymnastics from Asmara boils down to the fact that whether we wish to believe it or not, Isayas is not ready for peace, and at the end of the day, it will be the Ethiopian and the Eritrean people that will put the man in his place. Of course the preferable option would be for concerted international pressure to bring him to heel. We must hope for the best while expecting the worst as the world closes rank in solidarity with Ethiopia and the OAU as we rededicate ourselves to building a future free of arrogance and destruction in the Horn of Africa.