The East African (Nairobi)
January 12, 2000
By Otsieno Namwaya Special Correspondent

Nairobi -Only a few days after the European Union's announcement that it plans to send a special envoy to the Horn of Africa to support efforts to end the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, an Ethiopian embassy official in Nairobi dismissed the current Organisation of African Unity peace proposal as technically weak and unacceptable.

Ethiopian embassy counsellor Mengistu Ayalew said in an interview with The EastAfrican (below) that even though the proposal requires Eritrea to withdraw from the areas it occupied by force, it does not categorically name the regions. The OAU peace proposal, he said, needed to be categorical about which areas Eritrea should withdraw from. According to Ethiopia, the peace proposal can only be considered comprehensive if it specifically mentions by name places like Zalambessa-Aiga, Bada-Bure and Egala, among others, as areas from which Eritrea should withdraw before any peace agreement can be discussed.

Mr. Ayalew said that although the EU initiative was welcome, what was needed was not a multiplicity of initiatives by various groups. This would only work against the peace process, he argued. The two countries were capable of generating such peace initiatives themselves, adding that everyone's energies should be directed towards persuading Eritrea to withdraw from the regions it captured in the invasion.

The EU presidency, currently held by Finland, last week named the Italian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Rini Serri, "to bolster the OAU's effort and help the EU countries to come up with a better understanding and interpretation of the situation in the area". The EU said that Serri will come with "no new initiatives but would always be in support of the OAU peace plan".

Nonetheless, Mr. Ayalew insisted that Ethiopia had not rejected the peace proposal. On the contrary, he said, it was the Eritrean government which had totally refused to accept the proposal, preferring to refer to it only as a talking point and not a peace proposal. Mr. Ayalew, speaking in Nairobi last week said Ethiopia could not accept the peace proposal as it would be difficult to implement. Embassy authorities had sought the interview with The EastAfrican to refute claims made by the former Israel Prime Minister Shimon Peres and sentiments expressed by a reader, both of which were published in the paper.

Last month the Eritrean President Isayas Afeworki was quoted as saying that he would withdraw his troops from disputed areas of the border with Ethiopia if it would help end the brutal 19-month war. And the OAU announced a fortnight that it had presented the Ethiopian government with a document detailing a key chapter in its plan for peace.

Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993 and the two countries were for five years regarded as sisterly states until May 1998, when the two went to war over a border dispute. In Nairobi, Mr. Ayalew insisted that Eritrea had invaded Ethiopia, and that his country only responded in self-defence.

Publication date: January 10 - 16, 2000