Woyane's leaders suffer from a pathological obsession with President Isaias. They call him all sorts of names thinking they will tarnish his image and they will lessen the love and respect the Eritrean public has for the man. The world but particularly the United States is a witness for the highest affection Eritreans have towards Isaias, their Wedi Afeworki. Surely, he is the country's President, but that's not the reason why people feel close to him. In ways no Woyane will ever understand, Wedi Afeworki is every Eritrean's brother, son, and neighbor. He's us. He's "Eritrawi." Among Eritreans there's no higher accolade.

In only three days' notice about 10,000 Eritreans gathered outside of Washington D.C. for their annual Festival of Eritrea. President Isaias came from Asmara to be part of the Festival. He came to thank them for their role in defending Eritrea from Woyane invasion. The reception was way out of this world. The affection, the respect, the love was something to behold. I dare Prime Minister Meles to demonstrate his closeness to his fellow Ethiopians in the US. The challenge for the Woyanes is for Meles to come to DC and see if he can attract a mere 1% supporting Ethiopians from the more than 100,000 of them in the US. Quite to the contrary, like they did to him in his mid 90's visit, they will egg him and pelt him with rotten tomatoes. That is the fact and they know it very well.

Ethiopian leaders also love to promise knowing well they cannot deliver. They love to sign agreements knowing well they don't mean to respect them, and they blabber too much without saying anything of substance. As if talking too much and repeating lies can find the truth, all they do is talk and lie. They have this need to lie the way the normal people need to breath--to stay alive. They say one thing today, only to contradict themselves tomorrow. To them life is a one-day affair. They don't know where they came from, and they don't seem to know where they are heading. This has always been the case with their military, diplomatic, and historical analysis.

For the moment let's leave everything else they have been saying and let's focus on how they reacted when Eritrea submitted a set of questions to the OAU for clarification. Here is how Prime Minister Meles put it in Ouagadougou on Dec. 17, 1998:

"Once again we accepted that package [the OAU Framework for Agreement]. I wrote to the Chairman of our organization informing him of our formal acceptance of this proposal. The response of Eritrea to this proposal in the report by the Secretary General of our organization, and in particular the addendum to that report [Eritrea's questions for Clarification] which has been circulated today is indeed the final answer from Eritrea, the response from Eritrea appears to be, once more, the rejection of this proposal. This time the rejection has been presented in the form of tens of questions that have been posed to the High Level Delegation which in effect add up to rejection."

Prime Minister Meles is gloating on his quick reply and is trying to condemn Eritrea for asking questions for clarifications. It is to be remembered that Eritrea had asked questions on the Framework Agreement by the first week of December 1998. The OAU took more than six weeks to answer them and many of those questions were not clearly answered until the Modalities and the Technical Arrangements came out this summer. Leaving that aside, if the Prime Minister had called Eritrea's questions "the final answer" and concluded they "add up to rejection", what does he have to say to the scores of questions he submitted on the Technical arrangement including the question "Why was the option I put forth not preferred?" Indeed a silly question the OAU did not bother to answer.

Are Ethiopia's more than forty questions for clarification or are they meant to be Addis Ababa's final answer? Do they also add up to Ethiopia's rejection of the Technical Arrangements? It would have been wise for Ethiopia not to have said anything about Eritrea's questions in December, but since Meles and Seyoum called Eritrea names for asking questions, they should have been smart to accept the Technical Arrangements without submitting questions for clarifications.

Hours before Prime Minister's comments about Eritrea's request for clarifications at the Ouagadougou meeting, the Ethiopian leader, in his infamous AIDE MEMOIRE, had had circulated these words:

"20. In that regard, it should not be doubted even for a moment that Eritrea will have no use for the Central Organ in terms of a genuine search for the peaceful resolution of the crisis between Ethiopia and Eritrea. If that were the case then Eritrea would have accepted the OAU peace proposal without Ifs and Buts [questions for clarifications] and without prevarication. But that is not Eritrea's objective."

Can't one assume that Ethiopia's over forty questions are also "Ifs and Buts"? Mind you, Eritrea's questions were on the OAU Framework for Agreement, a skeletal document that had 11-points, but no details. Ethiopia declared its acceptance to this document at a lightening speed and was willing to condemn Eritrea for asking questions. We all know that Eritrea's questions were legitimate questions. In fact some of these, like the one on "Badme and its environs" had to be clarified because Ethiopia claimed the "environs" to include all the way from the Eritrea Sudan border to the Eritrea Djibouti border, about 1000km. Isn't this odd? They were willing to accept a vague Framework and now they have problems with a detailed Technical Arrangement? I am not objecting to Ethiopia's questions; they have every right, but if they themselves were going to ask questions, why were they making so much noise on Eritrea's right to ask questions?

Ethiopia's Foreign Minister, Seyoum Mesfin, as he was briefing members of the Diplomatic Community in Addis Ababa on January 5, 1999 was even more blunt. He called Eritrea's request for clarification a "crime" and "odd and bizarre". Here are his own words:

"Eritrea, Your Excellencies, can be said to have committed two types of crime. The first crime is related to the totally unexpected invasion and occupation of our territory on 12 May 1998.... The second crime that has been committed by the Eritrean authorities involves the disdain they have shown towards efforts at peace-making and towards attempts made to assist the two parties to avoid war and achieve peace. This latter crime is no less grave and no less brutal because essentially by closing all avenues for peace... Their refusal to give peace a chance has also continued as can be seen very vividly from their response to the latest peace proposal by the Organization of African Unity----a response which is devoid of any seriousness and which is essentially designed as a public relations ploy calculated to confuse and to keep the Eritrean rejection of the peace proposal as ambiguous as possible.... In this regard, there is nothing that would show the lack of seriousness of the Eritrean authorities with the peace efforts by the OAU, and the contempt they have for the Organization, more than the set of questions, that they handed over, like a school master would to students, to the OAU on 12 December, 1998, emphasizing that their response to the peace proposal would be contingent on replies by the OAU to those thirty two or so questions, most of which are manifestly odd and bizarre."

If asking for clarification on the Framework for Agreement was a crime, then asking for clarification on the Technical Arrangement must be a capital crime. Yes, if asking questions on a document that only lawyers understood was a crime, then asking questions on a document that was authored in a way that even lay people could understand must be a higher and serious crime. If Eritrea's questions were "a response which is devoid of any seriousness and which is essentially designed as a public relations ploy calculated to confuse and to keep the Eritrean rejection of the peace proposal as ambiguous as possible...", then what should we say Ethiopia's questions are? If Eritrea's questions were "odd and bizarre", then what should one make of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's set of questions?

As usual, everything that comes out of Ethiopia is noble and devine. Here is how they were spinning their questions on August 16, 1999

"It is because Ethiopia is sincerely committed to sustainable peace and realizes the importance of the Technical Agreements that it is asking for clarifications. Ethiopia wants to make sure that the Eritrean regime has no opportunity to find any excuse to stall or abort the implementation of the Technical arrangements."

If Ethiopia is asking questions because it "is sincerely committed to sustainable peace and realizes the importance of the Technical Agreements" how come Eritrea was not given the benefit of the doubt in December?

On January 27, 1999 Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had parroted his Foreign Minister's charges against Eritrea as well. This time the PM was briefing the African Diplomatic Community in Addis. He was at home with the crowd and thus he didn't have to be civil at all. Here are his words:

"Because the proposal was principled, the position of Eritrea could not but be rejection, because the very same principles that they rejected in the US/Rwandese proposal were also enshrined in the OAU proposal. ... "

We were told the Framework proposal was a principled proposal; what about the Modalities and Technical Arrangements? They have to be principled as well. Let's take their August 18, 1999 words and logic to support the above conclusion.

"Haile Wolde Tensae was, however, most definitely correct when he said in his interview that this document, -the Technical Arrangements- is no different from previous ones. On this point there is agreement. The Technical Arrangements are the detailed steps for implementing the OAU Framework Agreement accepted by Ethiopia in November 1998. ... If we concur with Haile Wolde Tensae that the peace proposals are essentially the same today as fourteen months ago then why didn't the Eritrean regime accept these at the time, as Ethiopia did?"

The question they posed to Eritrea is a right question and I will ask the same, but what about them why are they not accepting it? If the " Technical Arrangements- is no different from previous ones" and they had accepted all the others without any questions, how come they are not moving forward to accept the Technical Arrangements? They have admitted the Framework to be principled and they have also admitted the Modalities and Technical Arrangements are the same with the Framework and thus it is also principled; why then reject a principled document? Do these people know what they are talking about?

The truth of the matter is that they were not honest with their acceptance the previous times. Ethiopia's earlier pronouncement of "accepting" the different peace proposals was based on its "hope" that Eritrea would not accept them. They knew the nature of Eritrean leaders. They knew that they like to move at their own pace rather than rushing to score a diplomatic victory and for a PR gimmick. The Ethiopian leaders also knew very well that Eritrean leaders wouldn't take time defending the obvious because they believe that sooner or later "the truth will take care of itself". It was this calculation that had made the minority government of Ethiopia to shout, to the top of its voice, "we accepted peace proposal X, but Eritrea rejected it." They were shocked in Algiers with Eritrea's acceptance of the Modalities and for weeks they had to shout, "Eritrea didn't accept them". They were even more stunned when Eritrea accepted the Technical Arrangements without "Ifs and Buts". They have been telling the world that the Technical Arrangements are the same as the Framework and Modalities, and they have been bragging how peace loving people they are, then why are they prevaricating?

The Prime Minister had continued his January 27, 1999's attack of Eritrea's questions as follows:

"They gave the OAU Secretary-General what some have called a mid-semester exam, incorporating some thirty-one questions, including questions such as, 'What is the mandate of the Conflict Resolution Mechanism of the OAU?' Now it is easy to dismiss this as a crude joke. But this is very serious business and a member nation is asking its secretariat to tell it what the mandates of the institutions of the OAU are."

Well, well, well, what about their questions like "what is the mandate of this [Peace] Mission?" when in fact the mission is somewhat spelled out in the Technical Arrangements? The Prime Minister thinks he is smart by making fan of Eritrea's question on the mandate of the institution of the OAU. What he didn't know is that the OAU's Conflict Resolution Mechanism of the OAU had never been tested in work before and it is only logical for Eritrea to ask what the Mandates are. After all as this new Mechanism was being set up, Cairo Summit of 1993, Eritrea's membership in the OAU was not even a month old. But how is asking what the mandate of a Peace Mission is any better? After all Ethiopia had participated in many UN lead Peace Missions and how come it doesn't comprehend the mandates of Peace Missions?

His Excellency the Prime Minister continues his "childish" way of attacking Eritrea in the following words:

"But obviously, the examiner [Eritrea] didn't take the exam [questions for clarification] seriously either. And so, a few days after these questions were handed over to the secretary-general, in the context of the meeting in Ouagadougou of the Conflict Resolution Mechanism, the Eritrean government responded to the proposals without waiting for the answers of the mid-semester exam. "

Whose fault is this then? Eritrea had asked questions and it was up to the OAU to respond on time. The OAU did not answer on time, before the December meeting at Ouagadougou and Eritrea was asked to say what its feelings were and it spelled them. If the good PM knows how writing exams went, he wouldn't have used the exam-examiner analogy. If a student doesn't hand-in his answers to a take-home exam before the end of the semester, the teacher has no option but to proceed giving the final grade based on what is already in. In fact this is only if the teacher is generous, otherwise the normal practice is to hand an "F". As far as I am concerned Eritrea should have given an "F" to the OAU peace proposal long time ago. But as generous and optimist that it is, it gave it a partial credit and that is why it is still alive.

Finally, if Eritrea's set of questions were "mid-semester exam" questions, what type of an exam was Ethiopia's set of questions? If they have been saying "there is nothing that would show the lack of seriousness of the Eritrean authorities with the peace efforts by the OAU, and the contempt they have for the Organization, more than the set of questions, that they handed over, like a school master would to students" to Eritrea's questions what would they have to say about their act? Do their questions for the OAU also imply "the contempt they have for the Organization"? If so, how does this square with Ethiopia's alleged respect for the OAU? They are running scared. It's put up or shut up time. As it is their way, as a friend said it, is totally incoherent. These people can't afford to make peace. Where would they go?