Eritrean presidential adviser Yermane Gebremeskel told Reuters that Ethiopian forces attacked on the Burre front, 70 km (40 miles) from Assab.

The two Horn of Africa nations first took up arms over a border disagreement in May last year, and fighting on three fronts along the 1,000 km (600 mile) frontier has continued intermittently since.

There has been no major fighting on the Burre front since June 1998, although there was a sustained artillery exchange in February, when Eritrea shot down an Ethiopian attack helicopter.

``It was a small attack,'' Yermane said of Thursday's fighting. ``Fifty Ethiopian soldiers were killed and 97 wounded.'' He declined to comment on Eritrean casualties and said he did not know whether any mechanised forces were involved.

Their decision follows incursions into Kenya by Ethiopian Oromo rebels, followed by Ethiopian army troops in hot pursuit, endemic cattle rustling, and the smuggling of weapons.

Delegations said in their communique at the end of an annual security review in the Ethiopian town of Nazareth, 99 kilometres (60 miles) southeast of Addis Ababa, that they would exchange intelligence and "mount operations" jointly to keep the peace along the 700-kilometre (400-mile) frontier.

Kenya was represented at the three-day meeting, which ended Wednesday, by a 20-strong team headed by Northeastern Province District Commissioner Maurice Makhanu.

Ethiopia's delegation was headed by Deputy Federal Police Commissioner Alemseged Gebre-Amlak.

The delegations included representatives from defence, immigration, police, customs, and foreign affairs departments.

The communique expressed both countries' concern over "the subversive activities of some disgruntled terrorist elements, specially the OLF (Oromo Liberation Front), along the border, engaged in undermining peace and security."

It also accused "certain countries of the sub-region" of sponsoring and encouraging activities of terrorist groups, including OLF and Al-Itihad."

The communique did not name the countries involved, but militia sources in Somalia, which has borders with both Ethiopia and Kenya, say that Eritrea, currently fighting a frontier war with Ethiopia, has sent Ethiopian rebels, along with Eritrean officers and arms, to Somalia to destabilise Ethiopia.

Al-Itihad al-Islam is a group made up of southern Ethiopian rebels of Somali ethnicity.

The Ethiopian delegation expressed its appreciation of the sentencing last month by a northeastern Kenyan court of two OLF rebels to 10 years in prison for possession of an illegal arsenal of weapons.

They were found in possession of eight AK-47 assault rifles, one machine-gun, two rocket-propelled grenades, two bazookas, 43 assorted hand grenades and 3,832 rounds of ammunition.

The insecurity along the border was highlighted at the end of last week when Kenyan police reported that Ethiopian troops and OLF rebels had clashed in the Ethiopian border town of Gurasa Kurbu, with four Ethiopian troops killed and five wounded on each side.

Kenya said follow-up reports indicated that around 100 OLF rebels were "roaming along the Kenyan-Ethiopian border" in that region.

Fleeing Oromo rebels have traditionally found refuge among closely related tribes in Kenya, but Makhanu, the Kenyan delegation leader, told Ethiopian journalists that "Kenya will never harbour terrorists."

The two delegations also discussed arms smuggling, illegal movements of people across the border, frontier patrols, refugees, and immigration, the communique said.

``The gesture to name a street on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Pushkin's birthday is in tribute to the great Russian poet whose mother had Ethiopian ancestry,'' ENA said.

Pushkin's anniversary is being marked with a week of celebrations including artistic shows at the permanent Russian exhibition in the capital.

Ethiopian vice minister of Information and Culture, Bisrat Gashawtena, said commemorative stamps would be issued and selected works of the poet would be published to mark the occasion.

Historians say Pushkin's mother descended from Abraham Hanival an Ethiopian who served Peter, a Russian tsar.

At a busy trade fair in the center of town, women stall holders covered head to toe in red and orange shawls peddle home-made cakes, jams and honey, while young men in fake designer clothes demonstrate mobile phones and computer software to potential customers.

But reminders of the past are everywhere. At one end of the hot, noisy hall the local television station has rigged up a video screen surrounded by flashing lights. A happy, 10-deep crowd jostles to watch a wildlife program showing a lion stalking its prey, but when the video jumps to a grim recording of a mass reburial ceremony the crowd shuffles uncomfortably.

Neat piles of skulls and human bones are laid out in the open air on row upon row of white cloths. These are the remains of some of the thousands of victims of the bloody repression Somaliland suffered as the northern province of Somalia under the rule of Marxist dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.

DICTATOR BOMBED HIS OWN PEOPLE

The underdeveloped north was seen as a hotbed of resistance when Siad Barre's firm grip on power began to falter in the late 1980s. In 1988, determined to wipe out all traces of opposition, the aging president hired white mercenary pilots to carry out indiscriminate bombing raids on Hargeisa from the small airstrip on the outskirts of town. The attacks killed tens of thousands of civilians, laid waste to the town and virtually emptied it of its inhabitants for three years.

"When we see the pictures on the TV of Kosovo we remember it, we feel it. We know what they are suffering," said Abdi Essa, who runs a new television station in Hargeisa.

In 1991, when Siad Barre finally fled Somalia, the refugees began to return from camps in neighboring Ethiopia, only to be caught up in the vicious clan-based fight for supremacy that followed the dictator's departure.

That battle was never won. The rest of Somalia is still without a central government and is carved up into small fiefdoms, each controlled by rival warlords. But with its own president, government and state institutions, the former British protectorate of Somaliland has moved on, and is desperate to prove as much to the outside world.

BUSINESS THRIVES AS A DIVIDEND OF PEACE

The shops and coffee houses that still stand in Hargeisa are painted bright blues and yellows and roadside hawkers selling cloth, transistor radios and the chewable narcotic qat keep the streets alive until well after nightfall. Unlike the rest of Somalia, where few men venture out of their houses without an AK-47 over their shoulder, guns have been swept off Hargeisa's streets, now safe enough for money changers to sit with huge piles of Somaliland shillings at their feet.

The sense of security has allowed the Somali entrepreneurial spirit to thrive. No less than four telephone companies, all offering cellular phones and direct international calls, compete for subscribers in the small town. Three private airlines fly in electronic goods from the Middle East and export frozen meat, skins and hides.

Even refugees who thought they had settled for good in Britain, the Netherlands or the United States have been lured back to their homeland to take part in the economic revival. Shukri Ismail, 46, left her comfortable home and grown-up children in upstate New York to return to Hargeisa to run a business selling henna and spices.

"It's the people themselves who have done it," she said at her stall at the trade fair. "The government has demobilized the militia but it's the people who have built all this from the ruins."

The huge diaspora that has not returned has also played a crucial role in Somaliland's reconstruction, with overseas remittances estimated at between $150 and $250 million a year, by far the country's biggest source of foreign currency.

STATEHOOD FOR SOMALILAND STILL ELUSIVE

Despite creating an island of stability in the volatile region, the government of Somaliland is not recognized by any member of the international community.

The scrubby land actually enjoyed four days as an independent state after the British left their Horn of Africa colony in 1960 but was quickly lumped together with Italian Somaliland to the south to form an independent Somalia.

Sitting behind a large mahogany desk with the green, white and red Somaliland flag draped behind him, "President" Mohammed Ibrahim Egal puts forward his case for statehood.

"We have a moral right to be recognized," he said. "In Europe a number of countries with no previous experience of statehood have been recognized ... and international lawyers tell us any nation which has been victimized by a state of which it was a part has the right to secede."

While the private sector has boomed, the government says it is struggling to keep afloat on a shoestring budget and cannot afford to embark on real development without substantial loans and aid which will only come with recognition.

Diplomatic efforts by the US Department of State, the United Nations, the Organization for African Unity (OAU) and others have produced a framework for peace, but they have not yet produced peace. The returned Peace Corps volunteer team believes it may be able to help the leaders of both countries find common ground and resolve the conflict.

According to team leader John Garamendi, ``The framework for peace has already been established by the OAU and the UN. Both sides have accepted the recommendations. Yet, the war goes on; more lives are lost; the economies of both countries suffer, and both countries lose respect throughout Africa and the world.'' Garamendi was Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Interior from 1995 to 1998.

He added, ``When my wife, Patti, and I served as Peace Corps volunteers in Ethiopia, we envisioned a bright future for this spectacular land and proud culture. We still believe the Horn of Africa has the potential for a glorious future. Sadly, hope and opportunity grow dimmer each day this war continues. I conceived this mission because the people fighting on both sides are my friends. Friends help friends when they are in trouble. My friends are in trouble, and I must do whatever I can before they continue to destroy themselves.''

Eritrea was part of Ethiopia until it gained independence in 1993. The conflict began over each nation's claim to sovereign control of disputed land in the Badme region of their common border. Since then the war has spread to several other disputed regions as well.

Members of the team have been meeting with ambassadors and expatriate citizens from both countries in an effort to understand the issues and explore mutually acceptable means to resolve the disputes and end the fighting. They have also met with officials in the Department of State and the National Security Council. Based upon these meetings, the team believes its trip to Asmara and Addis Ababa has significant promise.

The leaders of both countries were taught by Peace Corps Volunteers. Both of their ambassadors to the United States were taught by Peace Corps volunteers, and so were tens of thousands of citizens in both countries. ``Ethiopians and Eritreans alike express a unique respect and appreciation for Americans who have served in the Peace Corps. They will listen to us,'' said Garamendi.

The project is sponsored by the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA), the organization of returned Peace Corps volunteers. It is a private organization, and not part of the US Peace Corps.

Former NPCA President Charles Dambach, a member of the team, added this perspective on the mission: ``Last night, as I left my office,'' he said, ``I told the parking garage attendant, an Ethiopian, that I was going to Addis Ababa, and I asked him what he wanted me to bring back for him. He did not yet know the purpose of my trip, but he answered immediately, 'peace.' I believe he spoke for everyone, and I hope we can deliver.''

``We know the people of both countries want this dreadful war to end,'' Dambach added. ``The leaders of both countries want it to end. All 1,500 Americans who served as Peace Corps volunteers in both countries want it to end. It is time for it to end,'' he concluded.

Another member of the team, Melvin Foote, Executive Director of the Constituency for Africa, said, ``I am really honored to be part of this important delegation seeking to bring about a peaceful resolution to the war. My Peace Corps experience in both countries more than 20 years ago has done much to shape my career and my life. I welcome this opportunity to try to give something back.''

Other members of the team include Owner of the Chicago Bears NFL football team; and William Canby, Judge, US Court of Appeals, in Phoenix, Arizona. They will meet with national leaders of Eritrea in Asmara on Friday, and with Ethiopian leaders in Addis Ababa on Monday.

In the Peace Corps spirit, all members of the team have volunteered to work on this mission without compensation. Travel expenses will be covered by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to the National Peace Corps Association.

SOURCE: National Peace Corps Association