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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Boundary commission scaling down staff

ADDIS ABABA, 18 December 2003 (IRIN) - An independent boundary commission set up to rule on the frontier between Ethiopia and Eritrea has begun scaling down staff, the UN said on Thursday.

Gail Bindley Taylor Sainte, spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE), told journalists the decision had been made because of a “lull” in the peace process.

Sainte, speaking at a video-linked press briefing between Asmara and Addis Ababa, declined to say how many staff were being “suspended” or when they would return.

The move comes amid the stalled physical construction of the 1,000 km border between the two countries. A border skirmish in May 1998 sparked a bloody two-year war, which was formally ended by a peace deal in December 2000.

The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) was set up under the peace accord to establish an internationally recognised frontier, but Ethiopia has rejected the ruling as flawed.

Demarcation of the contested border has been suspended three times and the commission announced last month it was suspending its work. No date for demarcation has been set.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin have publicly stated they have “lost confidence” in the boundary commission.

UNMEE commander Major General Robert Gordon spelt out details surrounding a new initiative to prevent localised flare-ups along the border region. He said plans to introduce local military coordination committees along the border would "deal with issues on the ground” like cattle rustling.

He told journalists that both countries feared that local tensions, sparked by issues such as rustling, could flare up unless there were effective measures in place to “damp down” unease.

“The greatest fear that we all have and it is shared by my colleague commissioners, is of a flare up, a localised incident, which if there was trust and good communication on both sides, could be damped down very quickly,” Gordon said.

“In the absence of trust on both sides at the moment, because of the stalled process, this mechanism will enable both sides to meet regularly, but also to meet to deal with incidents, to stop such incidents becoming a conflagration,” he said.

“This mechanism of having sector level MCCs [Military Coordination Committees] can, I believe, deliver the stability at a local level, resolve issues at a local level that the MCC sitting in Nairobi cannot,” he said.

Gordon said local UN commanders currently had to “shuttle” between both sides but the planned system would have a standing committee that could be called at any time.

He added that local commanders from Ethiopia and Eritrea would meet on neutral territories such as bridges between the countries, or at UN bases.

The local military meetings will report to the full military coordination commission attended by senior military leaders from both countries under the auspices of the UN.

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict

[ENDS]

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