DATE=5/23/2000
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=WAR RESUMES IN THE HORN OF AFRICA
NUMBER=6-11833
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=
INTRO: New fighting has broken out in the Horn of
Africa between Ethiopia and its neighbor, Eritrea.
The object of the renewed conflict is a relatively
small area of disputed borderland with apparently
little strategic value. And many in the U-S news
media cannot understand why these two poor countries,
currently beset by a deadly famine, are again wasting
precious resources on a fierce border war.
We get a sampling of the latest comments now from
___________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.
TEXT: This fighting has been going on, with some
interruptions, for the better part of two years, and
involves relatively sophisticated weaponry. Each side
has some jet fighters that have attacked the other,
and U-S television regularly shows long-range
artillery of the two armies pounding each other.
The most recent fighting resumed about 11 days ago [5-
12] when the Ethiopian forces made a major advance and
captured a key border town inside what was considered
to be Eritrean territory. One of the problems that
contributed to this conflict is that when Eritrea,
formally a province of Ethiopia, gained its
independence in 1993, after a long guerrilla war, this
part of the border was never fixed with maps and
surveying markers. It has always been in dispute, but
only in the past two years did it cause a war.
We begin our sampling in California, where The Ventura
County Star [about 50 kilometers north of Los Angeles]
is clearly disgusted, writing under the headline: "The
war that won't end."
VOICE: The war between Ethiopia and Eritrea has
echoes of World War One in its bloody stalemate
and trench warfare. There is another parallel
as well: The war seems immune to any rational
peacemaking. In desperation, the United States
has proposed to the U-N Security Council a full
arms embargo on the two countries. ... Like
World War One, this war may stop only when one
side or the other grinds to a halt in
exhaustion. Even then the war may not end, only
pause.
TEXT: The Boston Globe is also upset at the new
fighting in the "Horn of Africa," viewing it as
pointless battle with Ethiopia and Eritrea "fighting
over an inconsequential piece of real estate."
VOICE: Ethiopia's unwarranted attack into
Eritrea has greatly escalated the war between
these two impoverished nations. Despite its
military success, Ethiopia ought to withdraw and
accept the peace agreement that has been on the
table for months. Ethiopia and Eritrea are
fighting over an inconsequential piece of real
estate. But it is highly charged with symbolism
as the two nations sort out their relationship
after a 20-year war that ended with Eritrea
breaking off from the larger nation. President
Clinton before the war hailed President Isaias
Afwerki of Eritrea and Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi of Ethiopia as exemplars of new African
leadership. The conflict suggests they are run-
of-the mill strongmen who fight to advance their
domestic agendas. ... Anthony Lake, [Mr.]
Clinton's former national security adviser, and
other administration figures have gone back and
forth between the two countries to persuade them
to accept a peace plan proposed by the
Organization of African unity. This low-key
diplomacy did nothing to avert the latest
offensive. The administration needs to get
tougher.
TEXT: To the state of Ohio now, where the capital
city's Columbus Dispatch also deplores the failure of
both countries to respond to peacemaking overtures.
VOICE: Only two days after peace talks broke
down, Ethiopia and Eritrea were fighting again.
So much loss for a conflict that has been
likened to two bald men fighting over a comb.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed. A
famine threatens millions of Ethiopians, who
have stumbled before into the intersection of
drought and war. The deadly urgency of the
situation should be motivation to make an
example of how the international community can
prevent the sort of peacekeeping debacle going
on in Sierra Leone by putting enormous pressure
on the two countries' leaders to negotiate an
end to the fighting.
TEXT: Elsewhere in the Midwest, James Patterson, an
editorial writer for The Indianapolis [Indiana] Star,
wrote a column last week about the many ills in sub-
Saharan Africa. He included the AIDS epidemic, the
chaos in Sierra Leone, Congo's civil war, and this
passing reference, to the border war we're focused on
in this program.
VOICE: Despite pleas from (Washington's) United
Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, U-N
Secretary General Kofi Annan and several U-N
Security Council officials, Ethiopia [has
resumed] a war ... with Eritrea over disputed
parts of their almost one-thousand kilometer
long border. ... Heavy fighting was reported at
the Badme and Zalambessa fronts and at Bure, 80
kilometers to the west of Eritrea's Red Sea port
of Assab.
TEXT: One of Tennessee's largest newspapers, The
[Memphis] Commercial Appeal is skeptical of the latest
U-S proposal to the United Nations for trying to end
the battle. Washington is suggesting a full arms
embargo on the two countries, in the hope of starving
their arsenals. Says The Commercial Appeal:
VOICE: Russia and China are skeptical of
sanctions. Russia has urged continued
diplomacy, which hasn't worked. The
Organization of African Unity has failed, and
another U-N peace mission has returned empty-
handed. Because Ethiopia rejected a U-N
deadline to resume peace talks, the United
States would, as part of the sanctions, ban
Ethiopian government officials from traveling
outside their country. Eritrea accepted the U-N
offer, but whether that was out of a genuine
desire to end the fighting or the need to buy
time after recent setbacks is hard to say. ...
Other than bad blood between the two nations and
thin-skinned (EDS: fragile) national pride, the
war seems to have little real purpose. Some
observers think landlocked Ethiopia may have
designs on a Red Sea port.
TEXT: Lastly, The New York Times agrees that, to most
outsiders, this "ruinous" border war makes less than
no sense at all, especially given the famine crisis.
VOICE: The causes of the war resist rational
explication. It is ostensibly a border dispute
... but [it]] ... has inflamed deeper issues of
mistrust and nationalistic passions that have
ruptured what was once an uneasy alliance
between two guerrilla armies that fought side by
side in Ethiopia to bring down the dictatorship
of Mengistu Haile Mariam. ... The leaders of
the two countries ... bear responsibility for
perpetuating the war. They are both able men
and erstwhile allies who were once embraced by
Washington as exemplars of a new generation of
promising African leaders. But they have been
obstinate in defense of their own narrow agendas
and heedless of the suffering the war has
caused. Mr. Meles [Zenawi, Prime Minister of
Ethiopia] began this latest offensive, just two
days after a United Nations Security Council
team failed to bridge minute differences in a
proposed peace accord.
TEXT: That concludes this sampling of editorials from
the U-S press, on the recent resumption of the border
war in the Horn of Africa.
NEB/ANG/JP
23-May-2000 15:51 PM EDT (23-May-2000 1951 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
