Early this month, the Ethiopian government declared that it was finally ready to implement a peace deal it signed with Eritrea nearly two decades ago. The Eritrean government didn’t respond to the announcement for over two weeks — until Wednesday, when President Isaias Afwerki said that “the positive direction that has been set in motion is crystal clear.” Mr. Isaias also promised to send a delegation to Ethiopia “to gauge current developments directly and in depth.”
For many years, however, even as Ethiopia declared its willingness to implement a 2002 judgment about the two states’ border, it refused to withdraw its troops from Eritrean territory until other issues — about armed groups, trade, access to Eritrea’s ports on the Red Sea — were settled.… Seguir leyendo »
If nature abhors a vacuum, politics abhors a military standoff, especially between two nations in one of the poorest, most volatile and most strategically sensitive regions of the world.
And so there was much excitement when the government of Ethiopia announced on Tuesday that it would fully accept the ruling of an international tribunal in the country’s boundary dispute with Eritrea — some 16 years after the judgment was issued.
In 2002, a special international commission delineated the border between the two countries, as they had agreed in the peace deal that ended their 1998-2000 war. Demarcation on the ground was expected to start swiftly, allowing cross-border trade and cooperation to resume.… Seguir leyendo »
Little guys often make up in aggressiveness what they lack in size - and tiny Eritrea, the Horn of Africa's plucky bantam, is no exception. The Red Sea nation of 5 million people is currently engaged in verbal fisticuffs with the United Nations, the US government, and its giant neighbour, Ethiopia (population 77 million). As they say in boxing, it is ducking and weaving like a good 'un.The problem with this latest David and Goliath act by Eritrea's mercurial president, Isaias Afwerki, is that even the smallest miscalculation could bring disaster. An estimated 225,000 troops are now within glaring distance of each other along the disputed Eritrea-Ethiopia border.… Seguir leyendo »
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