October 19, 1998

Dear Netters:

The purpose of this article is to deflate the Eritrean propaganda about a supposed new map from Ethiopia. We have already seen that is nonsense.

Recently I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a new map I had never seen before at the website of the Eritrean embassy in Sweden. This map better conforms to the Italo-Ethiopian treaty of 1902. Look at the line between the Tekezze/Setit and the Mareb. It is most definitely not a straight line. Also it starts out on the south at a more reasonable location than in previous Eritrean maps.

UPDATE - The map appears to have been hastily removed from the Eritrean Embassy Website on October 21. Fortunately a copy is provided below:

So to the Eritrean foreign ministry I say congratulations! You are making progress in understanding the border issues. Perhaps you are learning from the judgement against Eritrea in the Yemen court case?

Now let us try to keep making progress. Now that you recognize the need for both delimitation and demarcation, I suggest you include more details that show your territorial claims. Make that map larger and show the features such as the Maiteb river and Mount AlaTacura which are listed in the 1902 treaty. Let the negotiations begin. First step is to withdaw your troops behind the frontier shown in this map. Then mark the villages, rivers, hills that you think belong to Eritrea based on their previous Italian colonial experience. Make sure you don't include any areas that have been historically part of Tigray/Ethiopia. - That would be expansionism and we don't need that type of diseased nationalism in Africa.

To continue with your previous position was "crass stupidity" to use a phrase I read in Eritrea Profile. To review, the Eritreans were saying that the Treaty of 1902 defined the border, but then they violate just about every provision of the treaty on the grounds that the Italian expansionist maps are OK because the Italians are Europeans and Ethiopians are Africans. Completely contradictory, racist and ridiculous... this position has no legal weight but this was the small closet the Eritreans were crowding into. Glad to see them come out in the open now.

-Dagmawi