October 16, 1998

Dear Netters,

The Eritreans have recently claimed that Ethiopia has produced a new map that is consistent with their claims. This is false. It appears they are referring to an old map on which the disputed areas were sketched for the benefit of journalists and others. The map is not new and it adds nothing new. I already had the same map at this website displayed Since May 12. It is still on my front page.

Visitors to this website have been able to see all the relevant maps from various sources including atlases, both the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments, the Italian military, and scholarly journals. There is not a single map which shows Badime within Eritrea.

The Eritrean foreign ministry claims that technical experts could solve the border issue in a matter of minutes. Well, since the border issue involves both delimitation and demarcation, they are obviously wrong. Final definition of the border will be a long and tedious task requiring negotiation between both governments and mediation by a third party.

However, since the Eritreans are currently in possession of Badime what is stopping them from inviting a third party to to report the coordinates using GPS or other surveying technique? What we need are the following three sets of coordinates:

1. The junction of the Maieteb river with the Setit (Tekezze) river. (Note the junction of the Mai Tomsa with the Tekezze is unacceptable - that would violate the 1902 treaty)
2. Badime town itself.
3. The junction of the Mai Ambessa river with the Mareb river.

So the Eritrean government should stop the huffing and bluffing. Just let an independent third party determine the coordinates - it will only take five minutes right?. Then we can plot the coordinates and draw a straight line between the Mereb and Setit/Tekezze rivers. (I re-emphasize here that the straight line is not specified in any treaty but just to make things easier for the Eritreans, for this demonstration we will allow the stratight line).

Where lies Badime? On the Ethiopian side or the Eritrean side? To spare the reader suspense, I will give the following hints:

(a) The Eritreans claim Badime lies 15 kms inside Eritrea based on a line drawn from the Mareb to the Tekezze - Mai Tomsa junction. Note - "Mai Tomsa" is NOT the river specified in the treaty. It will not be accepted by any International court.

(b) The Maieteb river lies over 100 kms northwest of the Mai Tomsa along the Tekezze/Setit river.

So even if the Eritrean claim in (a) is correct, we see it has no legal basis. Therefore we move up to the Maieteb (specified in the treaty of 1902) and draw the line from there.

So Eritrea, where are the coordinates? So far 5 months have passed and we still do not have the coordinates. According to the Eritrean President it wouldn't take more than 5-minutes to do this job. What is the problem? Where is the map that shows Badime in Eritrea? By the way where was the map that showed the Hanish-Zuquar islands as part of Eritrea?

On a final note, we should also remember the difference between delimitation and demarcation. Regardless of any line drawn on a map, the border must be demarcated on the ground. When demarcating a disputed border between nations, previous administration is always one of the major factors that guides the course of the detailed border demarcation. In fact, previous administration of the Hanish-Zuquar islands by Yemen seems to have been a major factor in the awarding of those islands to Yemen by the Internalional Court. Will the Eritreans learn from this? We hope so.

The Basic Issues

There are two major issues in this conflict.

(1) Eritrea's decision to attack Ethiopia and occupy localities such as Badime and Zalambessa.

The only possible solution of this problem is for Eritrea to withdraw its troops, apologise to Ethiopia, pay restitution, and transfer the criminals involved in the cluster-bombing of Mekele to an international court for justice.

(2) The dispute about the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The legal and peaceful solution for this problem is to submit the issue to an international court without preconditions. It would be best if the international court itself decided the proper basis for delimiting and demarcating the boundary. Yet Ethiopia has gone the extra mile and committed to settling the boundary on the basis of colonial treaties and international law applicable to those treaties.

Readers of this website are fully aware of the relevant Italy-Ethiopia treaty of 1902 for the Badime border. As I have written time and again, the treaty stipulated that a future delimitation by Italian and Ethiopian delegates was to take place. That never happened. Therefore the Badime border requires both delimitation and demarcation.

But as the Eritreans are well aware, International law favors continuation of the status quo unless there is a compelling reason to change it. The status quo along the Eritrea-Ethiopia border until May 1998 was that the disputed territories were under Ethiopian administration. Eritrea has no counter evidence of a physical nature. For example if Badime contained Italian colonial buildings, or if the inhabitants were mixed race (Italian-African), then Eritrea would have a case. In fact, the town of Badime was founded by the governor of Tigray, (Ras Mengesha) in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The creators of Eritrea, (e.g. Mussolini, Graziani, Badoglio) - they never knew Badime.

The absence of such evidence explains Eritrea's persistent refusal to withdraw and turn the issue over to an International Court as specified in the US-Rwanda peace plan that Ethiopia has already accepted.

The colonial treaties provide no compelling reason whatsover for the disputed areas to be assigned to Eritrea. Hence the Eritrean invasion to create new facts on the ground. Hence the suffering, the killing, and the dislocation.

- Dagmawi