"Any Eritrean territory that the Ethiopian forces are capturing in the course of fighting is strictly for reasons of military strategy and to ensure that the invading Eritrean army is not capable of occupying Ethiopian land again. The Ethiopian government has absolutely no interest in overeign Eritrean territory, as has been its firm and consistent position for the past two years." - Ethiospokesperson, May 18, 2000

(1) The Custodians of the Ethiopian Empire are habitual liars. There is no need to recount this: in the past two years, countless journalists, human
rights organizations, military analysts, OAU mediators have documented their brazen lies. But for anyone who hasn't been following this, just in the
month of May 2000 alone:
(a) the OAU confirmed that the Ethiopian Government had requested (later denied) that the Technical Arrangements be
non-amendable. This was vociferously denied by Ethiopian Empire.
(b) the Economist reported that Ethiopia has used human waves (denied by Ethiopia) to launch its offensive. Ethiopia's use of human waves in its previous offensive of March 1999 was documented many journalists and condemned by the world. This was vociferously denied by the Current Custodians of the Ethiopian Empire.
(c) A journalist who was brought in to witness Ethiopia's taking of Shambko, Eritrea reported that the Ethiopian soldiers were looting Shambko. An Ethiopian military officer denied that his soldiers "by nature and training" do not engage in looting while the journalist was witnessing, during the same interview, the looting of Eritrea's Shambko.

(2) Even if you dismiss all of the above as isolated incidents and take the Custodians of the Ethiopian Empire at their word, consider the Ethiopian
military strategy. Previous rulers of the Ethiopian Empire stated that Eritrea is part and parcel of Mother Ethiopia and made no bones about
claiming the entire country. But the current rulers, true to their strategy of piecemeal territorial encroachment want to do it piece by piece.

The contested areas are in the West, Central and East of the common border. To "liberate" the contested territories in the West (Badme and Environs), the Ethiopian Government has invaded regions all the way to Barentu, tens of miles from the contested areas. This is justified under the guise of
blocking supply lines. Let's see where this logic takes us: Barentu is linked to Agordat, which, in turn is linked to Keren which is linked to the
capital of Asmara. To "liberate" the contested areas in the Central highlands, (Zalambesa), the Ethiopian Government would have to occupy
Mendefera and Adi Keyh and Segeneiti and DekemHare. DeKemHare is linked to Asmara which is also linked to Massawa. To "liberate" the contested areas in the East (Bure), Ethiopia would of course have to occupy Asab. Ethiopia, of course, has absolutely no designs over Asab, but it has to ensure that Eritrea's ability to wage war is curtailed and its spinal cord-the Eritrean Defense Forces-are destroyed. If this means Asab, Massawa and Asmara have to be occupied, well it is all just "strictly for reasons of military strategy."
 
Those of us who have warned that Ethiopia's strategy is nothing less than total annexation of Eritrea or at the very least a creation of a vassal state
that is nominally independent were dismissed as paranoid, wide-eyed, paranoid folks. At what point will the "pacifist" and "neutral" folks understand that
this was Ethiopia's plan all along? Those who say that this was never Ethiopia's intention, it was only Eritrea's belligerence that made them
behave that way will have to explain why the Ethiopian Government continued to up the ante during the negotiations so that peaceful resolution was never achieved. Those who say, "if only Eritrea had unilaterally withdrawn from Badme, Zalambesa and Bure years earlier, this would never have happened" would have to explain Meles' statement to the UNSC mediators that he had already paid for the war. War on Eritrea was the surest way for the Tigray People Liberation Front, the hard-core of the "coalition government" to shed its image as a provincial Tigrayan group and legitimize itself as an "Ethiopian" government. No peace proposal, not even one written in Addis Ababa by the TPLF, was ever going to make Ethiopia abandon its preference for war.

REGRETS

Late last year, four Eritreans met briefly with Dr. Susan Rice at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco, CA. She told us, among other things,
that there is nothing the US can do if Ethiopia wanted to pursue the war option. But if they do, she said, and the following is a direct quote "we
will come down on them like a ton of bricks."

Now, I hear from reliable sources that Dr. Rice gets very offended when we write anything critical about her and she accuses the Eritrean Government of being behind these articles because, according to her, nothing is said in Dehai or Visafric without the approval of the Eritrean Government. For the
benefit of Dr. Rice, the following is the opinion of one American exercising his rights as an American to criticize a public official and she can place it
in her memoirs when she retires and is teaching history at some forelorn college:

Despite my utter contempt for the Clinton Administration, its moral degeneracy, its muddled foreign policy, its novices masquerading as experts,
its cynical manipulation of image over substance, its total disregard for Africa, I, to my regret, actually believed Dr. Rice. I actually believed
that a member of the Clinton Administration would, for once, mean what they say. I had forgotten that in the Clinton Administration, there are two kinds
of promises, the once you keep and the ones you break. (A Clinton Aide, Stephenopolous, while defending his boss, said once: "the president has kept
all the promises he meant to keep.") I actually believed that the US would come down like a "ton of bricks"-especially on a nation like Ethiopia that
couldn't survive a month, much less wage a war, without foreign aid. I actually believed that the US had abandoned its long-stated animosity to
Eritreans' right to self-determination. But the Clinton Administration is back to calling on "both parties" to show restraint.

Where are the ton of bricks, Dr. Rice?