Times of London
Sam Kiley
June 9, 1998
YOUNG Eritrean fighters lay snoozing on the veranda of Zalambessa's local bank. Financial statements from the remote Ethiopian Commercial branch fluttered down the main road leading to the front line on a breeze carrying the sickly smell of death.
Scattered about the border town, overrun by Eritrean forces last week, the corpses of Ethiopian soldiers killed in a "family dispute" that has, like so many, ended in violence, were being gathered up by work parties and dumped in a mass grave. For Zalambessa, the scene was almost routine.
Set in disputed territory, the dusty town of two streets, a few bars and shops, saw wave upon wave of conflict during the Eritrean war for independence that ended after 30 years in 1991. Rusting hulks of Soviet-era tanks dot surrounding rocky hills and valleys as memorials to the war, which cost at least 200,000 lives.
Untroubled by the arrival of Eritrean soldiers, Ethiopian civilians drifted back to their homes, dragging sacks holding the meagre possessions with which they had fled into the wilderness. Documents were checked and returning refugees waved on.
Some had recently received rations of American wheat to prevent starvation in a devastated moonscape. "They're our people. We speak the same language, many of them are our relatives, just for now they are on the wrong side," said a smiling young fighter, wearing the standard issue black plastic beach sandals of the Eritrean Army.
But the dreamlike atmosphere of Zalambessa, both Eritrean and Ethiopian officials have said, is likely to be shattered soon as efforts by Rwandan ministers and Susan Rice, the US Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs, to mediate at least a ceasefire appeared to be going nowhere.
"If you thought this was the calm before the storm, you would be right," said an Eritrean government spokesman.
The Ethiopian Government yesterday warned its citizens to move out of the town of Burie, 50 miles southwest of Asab, ahead of the opening of a third front in the escalating border conflict. Eritrean forces, about another ten miles inside Ethiopia, were dug in on top of an escarpment looking down on Adigrat, the last Ethiopian outpost on the road between Addis Ababa and Asmara.
The Reuter news agency reported that 95 per cent of the former guerrillas of the Tigréan People's Liberation Front had been mobilised by Ethiopia and were driving towards the outpost singing war songs and punching the air with their guns. Others were gathering in villages to be reissued with the assault rifles they could never have imagined they would soon have to use against their neighbours. Tigréans fought with Eritreans to depose Mengistu Haile Miriam, the former Ethiopian dictator.
After nearly a week of artillery duels, and the subsequent Eritrean push into Ethiopia, the big guns and "Stalin Organ" BM21 rocket launchers were silent. Eritrean fighters cleaned their armour and serviced T55 tank engines in expectation of receiving orders to do battle. "We're ready. We're always ready. We could have gone into Adigrat without a problem. But it is forbidden," said Benjamin Birhane. Diplomatic efforts to prevent an escalation of a conflict in which Ethiopia can call on about 200,000 veteran soldiers and Eritrea about 110,000, continued yesterday at the Organisation of African Unity annual summit, but failed to offer even a glimmer of hope.
Neither Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's Prime Minister, nor President Afewerki of Eritrea is expected to attend. The latter expressed his hearty contempt for the organisation during his maiden speech there less than a year after his country gained independence.
Ethiopian pride and political necessity dictates Zalambessa be retaken. But as Mengistu's forces discovered in the Eighties, the cost of an offensive against Eritrean gunners with an eagle's view of their enemy is likely to be enormous.
"We could stay here a hundred years," boasted a young Eritrean officer.
An older, more senior, commander rolled his one eye to the sky, shook his head, and wandered off to inspect a tank unit. For him war had lost its edge of adventure and glamour.
His job now was to supervise the building of secondary and tertiary lines of defence for his men. A bulldozer gouged what fertile soil there was into ramparts. Beyond them infantry "shell scrapes", protected by small rock walls, have already been spread far and wide across a plain behind the trenches and gun emplacements on top of the escarpment.
As the one-eyed commander said: "We want to be sure that if we decide to withdraw, the Ethiopians won't be able to stab us in the back."