DATE=5/17/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=ETHIOPIA / ERITREA (S)
NUMBER=2-262456
BYLINE=SCOTT STEARNS
DATELINE=INSIDE ERITREA
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO:  Ethiopian troops are pushing deeper into 
western Eritrea as this latest round of their border 
war shows no sign of letting up.  V-O-A Correspondent 
Scott Stearns is with Ethiopia's army inside Eritrea, 
and filed this report.

TEXT:  Ethiopian tanks roll across the dusty hills of 
western Eritrea.  They are headed for fighting around 
the town of Barentu along the main re-supply route 
west from Eritrea's capital, Asmara.

It is Ethiopia's intention to cut that route, and 
isolate Eritrea's western army.

State-run Radio Ethiopia said Wednesday that the 
country's air force has attacked convoys of Eritrean 
troops trying to reinforce Barentu.  That has  not  
been independently confirmed.

Mig fighter jets pass overhead of the advancing 
Ethiopian troops who are travelling in trucks and 
buses.  Some of the vehicles were captured here in 
Eritrea.  Ethiopia also is bringing forward heavy 
artillery and tank crews to man captured Eritrean 
tanks.

This far from their border, maintaining supplies of 
food, water, and ammunition is an around-the-clock 
operation.  (Signed)

NEB/SKS/JWH



17-May-2000 06:21 AM EDT (17-May-2000 1021 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.

The immediate objective was Barentu, 25 miles north of the border and the command center of Eritrea's army in the northwest.

The fall of Barentu, a provincial capital of about 25,000 people, was imminent, said Ethiopian government spokesman Haile Kiros, who accompanied reporters to the area. He said the goal was not to hold the town, but to defeat the opposing army, secure the territory around the contested border and withdraw.

"Even if we want to hold it, we cannot afford to,'' he said as troops returning from the frontline, about a dozen miles to the north, cheered and waved green, yellow and red Ethiopian flags. "If there is anything Eritrea wants to claim, and as long as they do not do it militarily, we will have talks and try to solve it legally.''

About 125 miles to the east in the Eritrean capital of Asmara, government and aid officials told The Associated Press that about 200,000 Eritreans had fled Barentu and the surrounding area, posing yet another humanitarian crisis in the drought-stricken region.

Late Wednesday, the Eritrean government asked local U.N. officials to seek emergency international aid for Eritreans displaced by the latest round of fighting that began May 12 with the Ethiopian drive on the Badme border area southeast of Barentu.

Simon Nhongo, the U.N. resident coordinator for Eritrea, said the government had requested 700 tons of high-energy biscuits, 150 tons of milk powder and 15 tanker truckers to carry water.

There were no civilians to be seen in Tokombia, only donkeys and cows that wandered forlornly through the main square of the dusty, wind-swept town.

Soldiers emerged from shops carrying clothing, shoes, soft drinks, tea and food items, but a 22-year-old company commander denied they were looting.

"These people have been fighting the enemy,'' said Abdu Said. "If you see a lot of these things all over the place, it happened during the fighting. By nature and by training, we do not go for looting places.''

Among the artillery pieces seen were four mobile rocket launchers, with an effective range of 25 miles, loaded and ready to go.

Abdu predicted the war would end in a short time after the Eritrean invaders had been defeated.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council was to debate a resolution today that would impose an arms embargo on both countries. Russia and France want the ban to be limited; the United States and Britain want it to apply until Ethiopia and Eritrea have signed and implemented a peace agreement.

In Lisbon, the 15-member European Union, one of the major aid donors to both nations, called for an immediate stop to the fighting and an unconditional resumption of frustrated peace talks sponsored by the Organization of African Unity. Portugal holds the current six-month EU presidency.

The war broke out in May 1998 when Eritrea occupied Badme. But Haile said the border issue was a "secondary'' issue. He blamed Eritrea for trying to put a stranglehold on the economic life of Ethiopia, which became landlocked after Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and kept the Red Sea ports.

Dozens of tanks rolled through the large market town of Tokombia, about 20 miles inside Eritrea, and fighter jets roared overhead, all on their way to a fierce battle for the strategic southwestern town of Barentu.

Outside Tokombia, four Katushya mobile rocket launchers were deployed to support advancing infantry forces in their drive northwards to Barentu, about 19 miles further inside Eritrea.

Military officers said they had made huge advances since launching a huge air and land offensive last Friday and should soon take Barentu, effectively cutting off Eritrean supply lines to the Badme front at the western end of the disputed border.

``We have tested and challenged each other and I know our capacity and their capacity. That is how I know our victory will be total,'' said Abdu Said, a company commander in Tokombia, which was seized in heavy fighting last weekend.

``From the experience so far, I know it will be in a short time,'' he said.

While tanks, troops, helicopters and fighter jets all moved northwards to Barentu, Ethiopian soldiers now based in Tokombia went on a looting spree, stealing clothes, food and drink from stores all around the market town's main square.

The shops were emptied of everything, soldiers wandering off with anything of value and the rejected items scattered around the dusty streets.

Abdu insisted his men were simply looking for water and soap to wash with.

``By nature and by training, we do not go in for looting,'' he said, even as soldiers continued rifling through piles of clothes on the square behind him.

Ethiopia Confident Victory Is Near

But it was all business in the hills and plains around the town with massive reinforcements making their way to Barentu.

Ethiopian officials clearly believe they have a chance of finishing the two-year-old war once and for all and are determined to strike hard.

``The battle for Barentu is very intense and our forces are very close to the town, they are advancing from the south, trying to cut roads in order to encircle the town,'' government spokesman Haile Kiros said earlier.

He said Ethiopian planes had downed an Eritrean MiG-29 that penetrated Ethiopian airspace Tuesday.

The journalists were also taken to Shelalo, an Eritrean town taken by Ethiopian forces at the weekend. The town is now serving as a military base and treatment center for Ethiopian wounded.

The Eritreans appeared to have left the town hurriedly, leaving behind two tanks and other military equipment.

In New York, diplomats said the United Nations Security Council was close to imposing an arms embargo on the two countries, perhaps later Wednesday.

The council has condemned the renewed fighting between the two Horn of Africa neighbors, both battling famine which threatens more than nine million of their people.

Eritrea wants both sides to sign a cease-fire pact before sitting down to thrash out the finer points of a peace accord. Ethiopia wants the peace agreement completed before a cease-fire, saying Eritrea had started the war in May 1998.

Tensions between the two neighbors over border claims and economic policy exploded into war in May 1998 and tens of thousands have been killed in World War One-style trench warfare.

There is little that Ethiopia and Eritrea, former allies at war on the Horn of Africa, can agree on along their disputed border. But no one doubts that this now empty town belongs to Eritrea -- or that Ethiopia now controls it as part of what appears to be a successful drive of its troops into Eritrea in the latest flare-up of fighting in two-year-old war.

Outsiders rarely travel to the Ethiopian side of the front. But in recent days, Ethiopia has been working to promote what it sees as an early set of victories in a war that it says it wants to end quickly because it costs too much for a poor country where eight million people face severe food shortages.

Today, the Ethiopian military took reporters around the territory that it says it has captured since opening an offensive on Friday. Ethiopia says some of the area was invaded by Eritrea two years ago and some was plainly Eritrean. A helicopter buzzed above a latticework of trenches and bunkers, some 30 miles long. They were all empty, Ethiopia said, because of a three-prong assault that led to a major retreat.

Military officials showed off 471 people whom they said were Eritrean prisoners of war. And the officials stopped along a roadside lined with, perhaps, 15 corpses, bloated in the baking sun, that they said were Eritrean troops.

But the tour showed, too, that the war, widely considered one of the deadliest, is far from over. Artillery boomed from the direction of Barentu, a town deep in Eritrea that is the scene of the fiercest fighting.

As an Ethiopian ground commander, Col. Ghebre Kidane, walked up a ridge to a half-dozen Eritrean corpses, a fighter jet streaked overhead, releasing a tail of flares over land that Ethiopia said it securely possessed.

A bomb exploded on a nearby hillside. Even the colonel flinched.

"So far, there has been no Eritrean plane that has penetrated our defenses," he said a later, trying to piece together what had just happened. "At the same time, an Ethiopian plane would not have dropped a bomb."

The plane was, in fact, an Eritrean MIG, possibly trying to take out an artillery position.

Eritrea denies that Ethiopia has pushed far into its territory, saying the lines remain fluid. It also says Ethiopia has suffered huge casualties.

"The victory that Ethiopia is boasting about is proving illusory," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement today.

Despite the Ethiopian gains, in fact, the front here is probably not the most important of the three major combat zones.

Ethiopia has yet to make a serious attack on the center front, near Zalembessa, which is far more heavily fortified because it provides a possible route to the capital, Asmara.

But the Ethiopians do appear to be moving toward it, taking towns along the way and, meantime, cutting off a major western front supply line. Moreover, Ethiopian military officials say they expect a counteroffensive at any moment. "Still," Colonel Kidane said, "even now, they are trying to regroup to launch a counteroffensive. They will try."

Ethiopia and Eritrea had been close allies, whose leaders had fought side by side to oust the military dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Meriam. They succeeded in 1991. Two years later, Eritrea, for years the northernmost province of Ethiopia, officially gained its independence.

But the close relationship soured, largely because of economic issues. In May 1998, fighting broke out in the Badme region after Eritrean troops had taken over an area that they said was theirs. In their earlier friendship, the two nations had not marked the border.

It has been an odd war. The fighting has broken out only sporadically. The border, 620 miles long, is remote and practically barren. So it has had little effect on the outside world.

But the United Nations Security Council and the nations' allies have been nonetheless concerned because of the enormous loss of life. At least 20,000 soldiers are estimated to have died since 1998.

There was little evidence today of huge casualties, though each nation has claimed to have killed, wounded or taken prisoner 25,000 people since Friday. From the air and the ground, it was possible to see no more than 15 bodies. One explanation may be that Eritrea appears to have called for a retreat fairly early in the fighting, after Ethiopian soldiers had penetrated their trenches from two points and attacked from behind.

One prisoner of war, Zerai Tesfai, 27, an elementary school teacher, said the trenches were pounded by planes, tanks and mortars on Friday. But he said he only saw three or four dead before he was captured hours later.

"We were not expecting it," he said.

Now, Mr. Tesfai added, he does not want to keep fighting, saying, "I want a peaceful solution."

Ethiopian soldiers said they had found something in the trenches emphatically not dead, a 1-month-old boy. Many women are in the Eritrean army, and the baby may indicated just how the war has become a part of normal life in Ethiopia and Eritrea over two years.

"I got the feeling that he lived there," said Ibrahim Suliman, 35, an Ethiopian soldier who saw the baby being carried from the trench on Sunday night.