It is obvious, Ethiopia's statements; press releases and diplomatic briefings if not outright lies are full of contradictions. A case in point is Ethiopia's latest request for international guarantees before pulling from indisputably Eritrean territory: places like Shilalo and Senafe as well as the latest offensive to capture Assab.
For two years Ethiopia was telling the world that it couldn't afford a ceasefire before Eritrea leaves its territories, mind you disputed territories not indisputably Ethiopian territories. The world was deafened with the word "Status quo ante" and the "norms of international law." Eritrea on the other hand was asking for a ceasefire, its rational being Ethiopia will not honor its word. The Woyanes refused to budge. The mediators instead of pressuring Ethiopia to compromise came time and again to extract more concessions from Eritrea, the last one coming on May 24, 2000 (Bouteflika's independence day gift for Eritrea).
On May 24 the OAU asked Eritrea to pull its forces from the disputed territories before Ethiopia does and for Ethiopia to do the same immediately. Eritrea knew Ethiopia couldn't be trusted but for the sake of peace accepted the OAU proposal and here we are Ethiopia has yet to accept. What are the mediators doing at the moment? Trying one more time to appease Ethiopia. From the word go, the OAU and its partners have been doing nothing constructive except appeasing Ethiopia. In less than a week Meles says we will withdraw from all Eritrean territories, the next day he's saying something else, knowing full well the spineless OAU would go along.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister had told the OAU including Libya's QADHAFI "If Eritrea withdrew from the areas it occupied, Ethiopia would withdraw the following day from any territories it occupied." Well Eritrea had completed its withdrawal a week and some days ago and Ethiopia seems to have no intention of withdrawing. If its past is a testimony it will never do unless it is forced to do so.
Here is what Meles told the diplomatic community on May 31, 2000
"We admit that we have our army in indisputably Eritrean territories at this moment. ... we are committed to the principle of the return to the status quo ante, we agree to redeploy our troops on the May 6 line in the context of a peace agreement. ... In the meantime, until we have such an arrangement that will allow us to redeploy our troops to the May 6 line, until we have such an arrangement, our troops will remain in positions that they deem are necessary for military purposes, whether they are inside Eritrea or outside."
What "arrangements" is Meles talking about? He's purposely not clear, suggesting instead that the facilitators can decide for themselves what is appropriate. Like the Technical Arrangements that he rejected after nine months of prevarication he will do the same with any document the OAU comes with. Can a Woyane cleanse his heart of deceit and treachery or his tongue of lies and dishonesty? Not a chance.
On May 31, 2000 the Prime Minister had told the world that "the war is over" and here we are today, June 3, 2000 Ethiopia launching an offensive on the Assab front. The unfortunate thing is that the new front along the Assab front is now half the distance of what it was before Eritrea trusted the OAU and redeployed its troops to a new position. Could it be a design by the mediators to give Ethiopia an advantage to capture the port city of Assab? Cursed is he that trusts the OAU and the US. As for the Security Council, the instrument of the US government, it is no where to be heard. It passes resolutions like 1297 and 1298 but it is no where to be found when it comes in implementing them.
Ethiopian behavior and contempt for agreements was made possible courtesy of the weakness of the OAU and is being facilitated by the Americans. From day one every milepost the OAU said it put for peaceful resolution of the conflict was moved to accommodate Ethiopia's unending demand. Eritreans have been warning "appeasement never worked and never will" but they were not heeded. I am certain the OAU and its chairman Bouteflika will table yet another peace proposal and as usual Eritrea will be asked to accept and probably will accept. As for Ethiopia true to its nature and history will find an excuse to either reject or amend the peace proposal.
There are already signs that the minority government in Ethiopia is trying to place unrealistic preconditions so as to not accept a peace proposal that will lead to a demarcation of the common border. Let's not have any illusion about this. ETHIOPIAN LEADERS WILL NEVER ACCEPT A SPEEDY DEMARCATION. It is not in their best interest. They don't have a population to care for and a future to look for. Demarcation of the border and settling the conflict in a peaceful manner has never been their agenda and it will never be. Eritrea has to plan the future knowing this. The former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under the Bush Administration, Herman Cohen, had spilled the beans the other day. He must have been reading from some documents, he perhaps had prepared for Meles. Thinking that not only would Ethiopia defeat Eritrea militarily, but may even occupy the whole country. He suggested as a price of returning Eritrean sovereignty, Ethiopia may best be served by refusing the demarcation of the border by a neutral body. For if it does it will lose. Please read this coming from a fellow who is an insider. We knew it all along. The US government had a full knowledge that all the disputed areas belong to Eritrea. In fact the CIA had published a map February of 1999 showing all the disputed territory including Zalambesa inside Eritrea. Here are Herman Cohen's words as he told them to the BBC on May 30, 2000. Take note that these words were said before Meles gave his briefing to the Diplomatic community on May 31, 2000.
"I think they [the Ethiopians] are going to continue to be in a state of fighting until they get some concessions from the Eritreans.... The two they really want are: one is that the FRONTIER SHOULD NOT BE ADJUDICATED INTERNATIONALLY and should remain where it was at the beginning of hostilities. IF THEY TRY TO ADJUDICATE IT BY A NEUTRAL BODY ETHIOPIA WOULD BE THE LOSER. So now that Ethiopia has won the war, more or less, they are going to say "let's keep the frontier where it was." Second they are going to insist that the Eritrean army stay far away from the frontier so that when they evacuate Eritrea and restore the sovereignty of the country they don't want the Eritrean army closer to 50 to 75 km. ...[The Eritreans] have to make concessions if they want to deal with the major issues. For example the Ethiopians have stopped using the ports that are closest to Ethiopia. That loses a lot of revenue for Eritrea. They stopped cross border trade that hurts the people living along the border. They refused to accept the Eritrean currency, which is very bad for the Eritrean economy. Eritreans need Ethiopian support in all their economic activities and we must remember what the Ethiopians said at the beginning, they will never trust the government in Eritrea again. That is a signal that says we want a change of regime and I think they are going to wait until they see some change before they make any sort of concession to the Eritreans."
Cohen had put it clearly. If demarcation comes and is done by a neutral body, Ethiopia has no chance of getting even a square inch of territory. Be that it be around the Badma plain, the Tserona area, the Irob (including Zalambesa), Badda, or around Bure. Meles and the Ethiopians know this very well and that is why they wanted the war. The US officials know this very well and that is why they are bungling the peace process. Thus Meles will drag his feet to frustrate the international community and US officials will do their best to cover for him.
Knowing that they will lose the demarcation phase of the peace process what the Woyanes are interested is on how to get an excuse to prolong their confrontation with Eritrea so that they can extend they stay in power and their vandalism of Eritrean land. In the Woyane book everything is about power. They are obsessed with seeing their Tigray be the seat of power and develop at the expense of Ethiopia and Eritrea. They will do everything they can to make this a reality. They will recruit Russian mercenaries, call back Derg officers, and use Oromos as Fengiregatch, to get a chance at defeating Eritrea. Of course defeating Eritrea would never happen. They may overrun territories here and there, but they cannot hold them for long. As we have seen in Barentu and a few other places, Eritrea is not a comfortable place for invaders. The unfortunate thing is that the Eritrean landscape is littered with decomposing bodies of Southern Ethiopians died as a result of the Expansionist war of the Republic of Tigray.
One thing is certain, the moment the Woyanes sign a peace deal with Eritrea they cannot survive in power in Ethiopia. This we know and they know it too. We are not talking here of a popular government like that in Eritrea, but rather a hated minority government that has chosen to extend its life at the expense of hundreds of thousands of fenjiregatch Oromos and about 12 million starving Ethiopians. This is leaving the AIDS victims aside, which is another genocide in itself.
As a group, the Woyane leadership has a way of insulting people it fears. Their obsession with President Isaias is interesting to say the least. Their campaign of vilification reached a new crescendo the last few days as they were trying to justify their request for international safe passage to allow them to leave Eritrean soil unmolested. When the Woyane unashamedly call Eritrea's leaders as "street gangsters" and President Isaias as the "the Saddam in Asmara", it is a result of what the psychoanalysts call projection: "the process of ascribing to others one's own unacknowledged behaviors". Otherwise the analogy is clear it is Ethiopia, a larger country like Iraq, that has territorial ambitions and had invaded Eritrea. It is Ethiopia like what Iraq did to Kuwait that is destroying Eritrean infrastructure. As for tiny Eritrea it knows its limitations and has no desire in Ethiopia's territory other than that what is rightly its own. As for calling Isaias "Saddam" and all other names, they better give it up. President Isaias is Eritrea's beloved son not a leader of an occupying army like what the Oromos and Amharas consider Meles and Co. to be. May I add to that the Ethiopians better know this: they will never find Eritreans with more positive attitude and reasonable leadership than what the Shaabia leaders are. When it comes to Ethiopia and living in friendship with Ethiopia, believe me the EPLF is more liberal than the average Eritrean. The average Eritrean doesn't want to hear of Ethiopia let alone to have a cozy relationship.
Finally we know that the declared aim of Ethiopia as it invaded Eritrea was to "emasculate" Eritrea's army so that it can do whatever it wants with Eritrea, including making it part of its Greater Tigray Republic: a dream republic. This objective of "emasculating" or "incapacitating" the Eritrean army to make it powerless was an objective we have been reading since day one of this conflict but more so after the Ethiopians gained some territory in south western Eritrea. From their army leaders to the two spokespersons (Haile Kiros and Salome Tadesse) to the Foreign Minister and his boss the Prime Minister, the objective was clear and was stated using identical words that were well rehearsed.
" "Our main goal is emasculating the enemy [Eritrean] troops, wherever we find them, we will do that.... What is important is how many of their troops are put out of service. Only when that is done will we avoid any threat against Ethiopia."
To this end, and from day one the world was told that the Eritrean army was "destroyed", "was chased", "had collapsed" and have none but remnants. Even the remnants themselves were destroyed, logically leaving no army.
It is from the same army that was "incapacitated" and "annihilated" that now Ethiopia is asking for guarantees. This is another example of what I had referred to Ethiopia's contradictory statements at the beginning. If the EDF has been decimated as Salome Tadesse has been saying from the first day of the invasion, why does the government need protection from a decimated army? Here is what Seyoum Mesfin said:
" "What we are calling for is that the international community gives us guarantees that Eritrea will not repeat its madness of invading neighbours."
How is that an "annihilated" army is becoming a threat? Can dead soldiers fight? "Dead men marching," perhaps. We have heard stranger things from Woyane, but nothing like this. How can Ethiopia that "smashed" the Eritrean army and "chased" it be afraid of its remnants? Could it be that the Woyanes are saying that the decimated army is that of the Woyane army? How is that a victorious army is asking for an escort service? Isn't this a bit contradictory?