Either these reports are completely false or misleading, just another cynical foreign propaganda to defame Ethiopia or Ethiopian propaganda to shore up its material resources, or the Ethiopian Weyane regime has become so cruel, callous, and indifferent to the suffering of its "own" people that they refuse to accept fully the peace proposals and the Modalities of the framework agreement. The "Modalities" accepted, unequivocally, by Eritrea at the 35th OAU summit are basically what Ethiopia was demanding: for Eritrea to pull its troops from all areas, not only Badme and its environs, a sticking point for the last year, it "occupied" after May 6, 1998. It sounds logical, too, for the Ethiopian Army to pull from areas they have been occupying since February 1999, as the Modalities propose. But logic is far from being part of the inner workings of Ethiopian regime. The "Modalities" stipulate that a cease-fire, logically, would've to be signed and the pullback of troops from the border areas and implementation of the rest of the agreement would thus commence.

But just like in February when we all, indeed the whole world, thought the Ethiopian regime would stop the war after declaring "total victory" (never mind it was a "victory" at a hefty price), but nevertheless a victory since the Eritrean defense forces were forced to withdraw or were pushed out of Badme, you would think February 27 would have been an ideal time for Ethiopia to stop the damn war and make a deal. How mistaken the whole world was!

And yet Ethiopian hedging and fudging continues! Ethiopia wants it both ways: wants to accept the proposals saying they were anyway the same OAU framework agreement they had "accepted" in November 1998, and reject the Modalities for they have attached on them Eritrean "preconditions."

The vacillating Ethiopian prime minister informed the OAU summit that he wanted to go back home to consult with his cabinet and his parliament. While, for a moment, Eritrea, to a keen outside observer, was seemingly exposed as a country ruled by a whimsical man in President Isayas Afewerki, who ostensibly had no need to consult with his Cabinet of Ministers and/or parliament in accepting in the spot the proposed "Modalities" for peaceful settlement of the conflict, the Ethiopian strongman was telling his counterparts in the OAU summit, indeed he had no authority and he and his foreign minister could not decide on this grave matter right there in Algiers. Meles Zenawi, after all, was not as powerful or authoritarian as the world thought he was. However, as soon as he touched at the airport in Addis, Meles Zenawi told reporters that he didn't believe Eritrea had accepted the Modalities without "ifs and buts", and accused Eritrea for attaching preconditions to the proposed modalities.

While Isayas Afewerki spoke of the need to realize and accept the proposals "in the interests of peace, which we owe not only to the people of Eritrea but...also to the people of Ethiopia and our continent as a whole," in a real conciliatory tone, Ethiopia's two strong men unabashedly accused Eritrea for refusing to accept the Modalities, which was an outright falsehood.

President Isayas Afewerki said that " Eritrea knows the bitterness of war and also the taste of the fruits of peace. It has absolutely no interest, and sees no advantage, in war. Our Ethiopian neighbors may pride themselves on the size of their country and population. But the experience of Algeria, which inspired us when we were launching our own liberation struggle, as indeed the whole lesson of the decolonization of our continent including Eritrea's own liberation, point eloquently to the pitfalls of that thinking. More importantly, here in Africa, leave alone the poorer among us, the richest in our midst can ill afford war, .we owe this to the Eritrean and Ethiopian people."

In contrast, the Ethiopian premier and his council of ministers declared that "Ethiopia will defend its sovereignty" and ordered their army to be on maximum alert. This hardly was a tone necessary to create a conducive environment to minimize hostilities and solve the conflict peacefully.

These are but some the contradictions we are dealing with in this conflict. And yet what is frustrating is the international community says that it's satisfied with "the initial positive responses " of both sides. Ethiopia's response was anything but positive. It's belligerent and hostile tone was in stark contradiction to that of Eritrea's conciliatory one. Eritrea has indeed unequivocally accepted the modalities. The need and responsibility to compensate the deportees is the only proposal Eritrea said that should be part of the negotiations for peaceful settlement of the conflict. And that is only fair.