Ethiopia is accusing Eritrea, of all things, mistreating its citizens in Eritrea. Incredulously, the Ethiopian regime has the audacity to accuse Eritrea of mistreating Ethiopians when the fact are as follows: Starting in June 1998 the regime of Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia has brutally and without any due process of law expelled Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin.   To date, the Ethiopian regime has expelled 72,000 of these people to Eritrea. Most of these folks were born or lived in Ethiopia for decades before they were picked in the streets or from their homes and put in buses and expelled. Ethiopia went ahead and illegally confiscated their hard-earned properties. The Ethiopian Commercial Bank even sold the property of expelled Eritreans in auctions claiming the expelled owed the bank millions of birr. Of course, many of these expelled were extremely successful. One gentleman for example owned a civil engineering company that employed more than 700 Ethiopians. Another had a gas station, among other businesses, that brought in a daily revenue of 50,000 Ethiopian birr (8 birr = 1 dollar).

Many of the expelled were women, children, and older men. And most cruelly, families were separated; many underage children are still left behind in Ethiopia because the Ethiopian authorities refused to allow all family members to travel to Eritrea. Sometimes an Eritrean husband was expelled leaving his Ethiopian wife and their children behind. Sometimes it was the other way around: the Eritrean wife would be expelled and the Ethiopian husband would be left with their children. Some children would be left with one parent and some expelled with the other parent. (For detailed information on the plight of the deported please see "The Uprooted I, Uprooted II, by Professor Asmerom Leggesse of Asmara University, at www.dehai.org)

Hence, Ethiopia has no moral standing whatsoever on this issue to be accusing others of mistreatment of its citizens. It is true that Eritrea is repatriating Ethiopians, particularly those who had been internally displaced along with over a million Eritrean the cause of which was the May 12 Ethiopian invasion of Eritrea. Some of these Ethiopians lack resident permit to live in Eritrea, making them aliens. The ICRC monitors these repatriations in Eritrea.

On August 18, 2000, Ethiopia said Eritrea "should consider itself warned". Reuters reported that "Ethiopia has so far exercised restraint in the hope that the international community could prevail upon Asmara. But there is a limit to restraint and the regime in Eritrea should consider itself warned that it will be held responsible for all the consequences of its actions," Ethiopia"s foreign ministry said in a statement released late on Friday."

The Ethiopian accusation and "warning" comes at a time when the UN is speeding the deployment of military observers. Such "warning" and threat could only be a pretext for restarting the war. Last time Ethiopia was warning Eritrea of "provocation". Now the Ethiopians seem to be looking for such a "provocation" to launch another round of offensives. This is an unacceptable. Ethiopia should be roundly condemned for such threats and provocation. It cannot be interpreted in any other way. This is indeed a pretext to launch another war, nothing else. The world should not sit idle and let Ethiopia shatter a fragile peace. Ethiopia should be held responsible for any restart of the war; for, it has signed a cease-fire agreement and it must honor it.

Thus, we Eritreans and the international community at large should take Ethiopia's warning very seriously.