While Eritrea-Ethiopia negotiations ram against the size and timing of any United Nations peacekeeping force to be deployed along the two countries' common border, the belligerent armies are still glaring at each other in Eritrea 's Akele Guzzay Province and Seray Province. Despite propaganda from Asmara that its army's withdrawal in the face of the Ethiopian advance was just a 'tactical manoeuvre', that army was in fact disorganized by the battles of May and June.

Out of 100,000 Eritreans who fled to Sudan, at least 5,000 were military, some complete with arms and baggage, whilst others more prudently changed into civilian clothes and dumped their arms. Following major losses in combat, part of the Warhi troops (literally, 'the inheritors', in other words the young men and women who had never known Eritrea 's war of independence) is latently insubordinate and no longer obeying officers' orders though not going so far as to mutiny. Commanders see the situation as dangerous enough to declare a de facto curfew around Asmara.

Students who volunteered to go to the battlefront are bitterly disappointed and in silent revolt. Transported back to their university campuses, they protested against the regime and some were hurriedly evacuated to military camps in the countryside to be taken in hand to avoid them spreading disaffection to civilians.

In some towns, Eritrea 's civil administration has difficulty getting going again and not just for technical reasons. In Adi Keyh, which was occupied for a short time by Ethiopian forces, local inhabitants refused to meet central government civilian employees when they returned to the town after the Ethiopians left, and threats of force were needed to let them return to the town where local inhabitants accuse them of fleeing before the advancing enemy.

I.O.N. - Eritrea 's opposition is present in several regions but for the present is just watching the discontent and talking with local people. Its leaders consider it would be better to let the situation come to a head though it might worsen things for the government, rather than commence precipitate military operations that local people would not appreciate.

Copyright 2000 Indigo Publications .