Neither side has declared a ceasefire but both sides say fighting has died down on the conflict's three fronts at Badme in the northwest, at Tsorona further east and at Bure, southwest of Eritrea's Red Sea port of Assab.

Tens of thousands of Ethiopians gathered at Maskal Square in the centre of the capital to cheer the army and airforce and sing patriotic songs.

They also burned effegies of Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki.

Ethiopian forces last week drove Eritrean troops out of the contested border region of Badme in a ground offensive backed by artillery and fighter planes.

The territory was captured during a first round of fighting last May when Eritrean forces also occupied the border town of Zalambessa.

Eritrea, in a diplomatic climbdown to match its military retreat, said at the weekend it would comply with an Organisation of African Unity plan to end the fighting.

Under the plan, already accepted by Ethiopia, Eritrea must retreat from Badme to territory it held before the conflict started.

The OAU has stepped up its mediation attempt and said it would send a delegation to Eritrea on Wednesday for talks aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the dispute.

For Ethiopia it was a double celebration -- exactly 103 years ago the country defeated Italian forces at the Battle of Adwa in a victory commemorated each year.

Vehicles with Ethiopia's green, yellow and red flag criss-crossed the city, lights on and horns blaring, while school children and priests from the Ethiopian Orthodox church resplendant in ceremonial costumes joined the celebration.

The administrator of Addis Ababa, Ali Abdo, told a parade Eritrea was living in a ``dream world in its desire to take part of Ethiopian territory.''

He also thanked the capital's citizens who he said had ``supported the defensive-war against Eritrea without hesitation.''

Members of parliament in Ethiopia have pledged to contribute half their salary for the next six months to the national army.

They took the decision yesterday, after meeting to congratule soldiers on regaining much of the land lost during the current border war with Eritrea.

MPs also agreed to donate blood to those injured in the fighting.

The Secretary-General of the Organisation of African Unity, Salim Salim, was due to have met Ethiopian leaders yesterday, following the acceptance by both sides of a peace plan.

The OAU has called for an immediate ceasefire.

"There has been no fighting at all reported so far," he told AFP at 4:00 p.m. (1300 GMT).

Ethiopians were celebrating a public holiday -- the 103rd anniversary of Emperor Menelik II's defeat of an Italian expeditionary force at Adua, in the northern Tigray region close to the central front of the 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) border.

Ghebremeskel said a delegation of the Organisation of African Unitywas due to arrive in Asmara on Wednesday for talks on an OAU peace plan presented in November which Ethiopia accepted immediately and Eritrea accepted on Saturday, in a letter to the UN Security Council.

That plan calls for the deployment of peacekeepers and neutral delineation of the border, preceded by an Eritrean withdrawal from the disputed Badme region, on the western front.

Abdo was speaking to a throng of nearly a million people assembled in Addis Ababa's Meskal square to celebrate the 103rd anniversary of the historic victory of Emperor Menelik II against Italian forces at Adua 103 years ago, as well as the recapture of Badme in the current border war.

In the capital, Addis Ababa, thousands of people waving Ethiopian flags sang and danced in the streets as they went to Meskel Square, or the Holy Cross Square. Police estimated the crowd at 500,000.

Government officials claimed the celebrations took place throughout the Horn of Africa nation.

Ethiopian troops broke through Eritrean lines at Badme, where the fight between the two neighbors over their 620-mile border first erupted last May and 1,000 people were killed. The latest round of fighting erupted Feb. 6.

There were no new reports of fighting Tuesday between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which told the U.N. Security Council on Saturday that it had finally agreed to an African peace plan to end the dispute. The Ethiopians have not yet officially reacted to the Eritreans' concession.

In 1896, Ethiopian soldiers defeated an Italian army in the battle of Adwa in northern Ethiopia. Adwa is 50 miles south of the Badme region.

Most of the Italian officers in the battle of Adwa were either killed or captured, and the Italians' defeat by an African army sent shock waves through Europe.

But the Ethiopians failed to drive the colonizers from Eritrea, which remained a colony until British troops chased away the Italians in 1941.

Ethiopia and Italy signed several agreements but the border with Eritrea was never demarcated, leading to the current conflict.

After the Italian defeat in the World War II, Eritrea was administered by Britain and then federated to Ethiopia by the United Nations.

Addis Ababa - Although the official report of Operation Sunset has yet to be made public, some details are emerging on the fiasco suffered by Eritrean troops during their encounter with the Ethiopian army on the Badme front from February 23 to 25, 1999.

According to information gathered by The Monitor from various sources, a great deal of the blow which obliterated Eritrean troops was delivered from the unexpected direction.

Eritrean troops along with their heavy artillery pieces and tanks were dug in 100 km of fortifications made of an enormous amount of lumber, concrete and steel. The average thickness of the fortifications was said to be 45 centimeters.

As Eritrean authorities themselves admitted on Friday, the whole drama began to unfold when their defense lines "have been broken by Ethiopian troops." The Ethiopian army then infiltrated its units through that dent and descended on the enemy from behind. At the same time Ethiopian air force planes and helicopter gunships were targeting Eritrean manpower and material reserves which were readied to replenish the front-line.

Eritrean tanks, placed in fortifications facing south-from where an Ethiopian counter-offensive was anticipated-proved worthless in helping deter an attack coming from the other direction. Eritrean commanders reportedly tried to reinforce the front-line by mobilizing troops from other fronts but to no avail.

When senior army officers felt that the tide was going overwhelmingly against them, they began leaving their much-vaunted fortifications and beat a retreat. According to one source, owing to an efficient tactic and strategy, thousands of Eritean troops were annihilated by a numerically inferior but highly committed and trained Ethiopian force.

"Ethiopian losses in this operation were far less than anticipated," the source said. A military observer told The Monitor that given the scale of the fighting, the sophistication of the war technology employed, the number of troops deployed and above all its dramatic finale, the Ethiopia-Eritrea showdown over Badme was reminiscent of the 1967 six-day Arab-Israeli war.

The number of Eritrean troops put out of action (more than 50,000) in that brief operation was double the size of the army of an average nation, he said. "The war has united Ethiopians more than ever before and at the end of the day the country would emerge as a potent force to be reckoned with both in the Horn and in Africa," the observer said.