U.N. Council Tries to Avert New Eritrea-Ethiopia War

Reuters; Jan 29, 1999 - By Anthony Goodman


"The Security Council welcomed Ethiopia's acceptance of the OAU agreement and strongly urged Eritrea to do likewise, noting that the OAU had responded to its request for clarifications."

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council called on Ethiopia and Eritrea on Friday not to resume a border conflict that erupted last year and threatens to explode in a new round of fighting.

The council's unanimous resolution is designed to strengthen the hand of a special U.N. envoy, troubleshooter Mohamed Sahnoun of Algeria, who will visit Asmara and then Addis Ababa between Feb. 1 and 6 to support peace efforts by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

Hundreds of people were killed in six weeks of artillery exchanges and aerial bombardments that broke out last May over the dispute between the two once-friendly neighbours.

After a seven-month lull, both have reinforced their positions along the 625-mile (1,000 kms) frontier and engaged in a virulent war of words.

The council resolution welcomed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's decision to send Sahnoun to the region and called on both Ethiopia and Eritrea to work for a reduction in tensions.

It stressed the importance of their accepting an OAU framework agreement which the council said ``provides the best hope for peace between the two parties.''

The dispute centres on a rocky 150-square-mile (390 sq kms) patch of land called the Badme triangle. After a border skirmish last May 6, Eritrea invaded the contested territory on May 12.

Eritrea has rejected a demand by the OAU that it withdraw to positions it held before the fighting started. It has called instead for international monitors to police the disputed area while ownership is established and for direct talks with the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

Ethiopia says it will not open talks until Eritrea pulls back its forces.

The Security Council welcomed Ethiopia's acceptance of the OAU agreement and strongly urged Eritrea to do likewise, noting that the OAU had responded to its request for clarifications.

The council strongly urged both countries to ``maintain their commitment to a peaceful resolution of the border dispute'' and called on them ``in the strongest terms to exercise maximum restraint and to refrain from taking any military action.''

United States envoy Anthony Lake recently visited the region for the fourth time in as many months in a bid to avert new fighting.

The governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea worked together to oust Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991 after a long civil war.

Two years later Eritrea took independence from Ethiopia after a referendum. But relations soured and economic rivalry intensified after Eritrea introduced its own currency, the nakfa, in November 1997, to replace the Ethiopian birr.

Last year's conflict forced thousands of Ethiopians and Eritreans working in each other's country to return home.

Sahnoun, who was deputy secretary-general of the OAU from 1964 to 1973, is an experienced negotiator who has carried out missions for the United Nations in such hot spots as the Great Lakes region of Africa and Somalia.

He resigned his Somalia post in 1992 after thenSecretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali rebuked him for saying the United Nations was slow to react to famine in that country.

Educated both in France and the United States, Sahnoun has also served as Algeria's ambassador in Paris, Washington and at the United Nations.



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