From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Aug 20 2009 - 09:28:12 EDT
Eritrea's payment of damages 'won't improve ties'
August 20, 2009
44 minutes ago
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - Eritrea's acceptance of an international panel's ruling
on compensations from a border war will not improve ties, Ethiopia said
Thursday.
The Hague-based Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission on Tuesday ordered the
Red Sea state to pay Addis Ababa 10 million dollars in damages sustained
during their 1998-2000 conflict, a decision Asmara pledged to comply with.
"Eritrea's acceptance will not give peace a chance. The government there is
bent on wreaking havoc in the Horn of Africa," government spokesman Bereket
Simon told journalists here.
Bereket was referring to Eritrea's alleged backing of secessionist groups
operating within Ethiopia and hardline insurgents fighting against the Addis
Ababa-supported government in Somalia.
Both Washington and its African allies say Asmara is funding the Shebab, an
Al Qaeda-inspired movement spearheading a broad offensive to topple
President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's Somali administration.
"We are left with the formidable question beyond financial compensations
which involves the process of a lasting solution in the region," Bereket
said.
"We would like strong and workable UN sanctions on Eritrea. That's one
instrument that should be applied."
Ethiopia's foreign ministry had earlier argued that its neighbour got off
lightly, and vowed that it would study measures to "ensure that what is owed
by Eritrea is settled."
Some 80,000 people died in the 1998-2000 border conflict, many in brutal
World War I style trench warfare.
The claims commission was set up under a 2000 Algiers peace deal that ended
the two-year war, but both sides are yet to agree on the demarcation of
their disputed frontier
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