By Betre Yacob.
The Ethiopian government is willing to negotiate with Eritrea and resolve their border dispute
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – The Ethiopian government has clearly shown its strong willingness to negotiate with its neighboring Eritrea and resolve their border disagreement that drove them to a bloody war in 1998.
Mr. Hailemariam Desalegn, the new Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, told to Al Jazeera in an interview that his government is willing to hold talks with Mr. Isaias Afwerki, the president of Eritrea, on the difference of the two nations.
“If you ask me ‘do you want to go to Asmara and sit down and negotiate with Isaias Afwerki?’ ”, Mr Hailemariam Desalegn said, “I will say yes’.” “The most important thing for us is fighting poverty, having regional integration, economic integration, infrastructure integration, so that we will be better off in competing in the global economy. Smaller country you are, you cannot compete in the global market; the larger and the interconnected you are, you can have inter-state trade and investment as well as global trade and investment.”
The Prime Minister indicated that going to Asmara for negotiation was following the policy of his predecessor, Meles Zenawi. He said that Meles Zenawi had asked frequently to go to Asmara and negotiate with Isaias Afwerki. “You can ask the major people who tried to mediate these two countries. Meles Zenawi told all of them that he was ready to go anywhere and negotiate with Isaias Afwerki.”
Furthermore, the prime minister said that his government could accept any country willing to mediate them. But, he said, “it would be much more productive, if we two (Ethiopia and Eritrea) do the negotiation ourselves.”
Following the statement of the prime minister, the Eritrean government has still said nothing. However, many Ethiopians are expressing their support to the statement through different media. Shewit, an Ethiopian Diaspora in America, for instance said that the speech was the diplomatically safer talk of the Ethiopian government, and the right way to deal with the thug of Eritrea.
Likewise, Mr. Gemech said that it was great that the prime minister was willing to talk to the leader of Eritrea. However, Mr. Gemech said, “making peace with Eritrea as a state is not going to mean brotherly neighborhood is going to be established. Eritrean government and its supporters who believe they are better than the rest of Ethiopians and Africans are not capable of being brotherly neighbourhood.”
However, despite the fact that many Ethiopians support the move of the government to negotiate with Eritrea, many opposition political parties and activists are suspicious on the objective of the negotiation. They claim that the negotiation is not intended to bring peace and regional economic integration, but also to crack down the Ethiopian rebel groups that are operating in Eritrean land. They say that in order to do so the Ethiopian government might even give the land it has been claiming to be its own to Eritrea.
According to different news, more than 6 rebel groups operating in Eritrean land have recently established a strong coalition and begun an intensive and well organized war against the regime in Ethiopia that has been deteriorating due to the death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. There are also reports indicating that the number of Ethiopian youngsters joining the rebel groups is also increasing time to time.
A very recent reports indicate that in order to mediate Ethiopia and Eritrea the government of South Sudan, the newly independent African nation, has named a delegation that would travel to both capitals. And the negotiation is expected to start very soon.
Eritrea, a former colony of Italy, was unified with Ethiopia in 1962, with the support of the United Nations. In the 1980s, Mr. Zenawi, at that time a rebel leader in Ethiopia, teamed up with Isaias Afwerki, an Eritrean rebel leader, to bring down the Ethiopia’s tyrannical regime. In 1993, Eritrea became an independent state in a very controversial way, and Mr. Isaias also became its president.
However, after a while, the relation between the two states turned sour and they engaged in to an unwanted border conflict which caused to serious human causalities. According to different reports the war taken place from May 1998 to June 2000 resulted in 100,000 deaths, 10 thousands of serious physical injuries, and millions of dollars destructions. Since this bloody war, the two countries have been in serious hostility, and have routinely accused each other of backing armed groups to destabilize the other. In March, 2012, following Ethiopia’s cross-border attacks in Eritrea on what it said were rebel targets, they were nearly returned to war.
