Ethiopia-Eritrea war looms

2005-03-31 21:35

Asmara - The international community must "act fast" to ease growing tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia or face the risk of a new border war between the rival Horn of Africa neighbours, a UN envoy said on Thursday.

"It is crucial that they act fast", said Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, head of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (Unmee), warning of "grave consequences" if the current border "stalemate" is not resolved.

"Failure on the part of the international community to break it will have grave consequences for Eritrea and Ethiopia, for the Horn of Africa region, and for the international community as a whole," he told reporters here.

"The danger of continued stalemate is war," Legwaila said, adding that the two countries, the region and the international community now faced "a moment of truth".

The two countries fought a border war from May 1998 to May 2000, before signing a peace agreement in Algiers in December 2000.

Under the accord, they promised to respect a border demarcation chosen by an independent commission but Addis Ababa subsequently rejected its findings, a position it maintained until November, when it said it had accepted the "principle" of the ruling but wanted "adjustments".

'Little bit absent'

Eritrea has said the Ethiopian position contains nothing new and since then tensions have flared anew with reports of troops massing along the border and incidents of truce violations.

In recent weeks international concern about the situation has grown and UN chief Kofi Annan said earlier this month he was troubled by a build-up of Ethiopian troops between 25km and 45km from the Eritrean border.

Legwaila said the "primary responsibility" for implementing the Algiers accord rests with Ethiopia and Eritrea but lamented the fact that the witnesses to the signing of the agreement had not done more to ensure it was followed.

The witnesses, namely the now-defunct Organisation of African Unity, its successor, the African Union, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations "have been a little bit absent in the past few years", he said.

"The international community at large including the UN Security Council must take whatever action is deemed necessary to salvage the peace process," Legwaila said.

UNMEE troops, deployed in the wake of a 1998-2000 war fought over the border, are mostly stationed in the buffer corridor that hugs the length of the 1 000km border between the two states.

- AFP