An Ethiopian website recently conducted a poll of its readers asking them whether Ethiopia should accept the Technical Arrangements. Over 40% of the readers said that Ethiopia should. Over half said no and the rest were undecided. Not enough votes for the Tech Arrangements but at least there is a diversity of opinion.

Things are far different at the Addis Sheraton and Walta. Here the opinions are unformly against the Technical Arrangment. Dissenting opinion is never heard from. Even the posting of the Tech Arrangements at Walta was done grudgingly after criticism from Visafric. Recently, Walta reported on what the president of the EU-Carribean is supposed to have said expressing his disagreement with his colleagues on the resolution passed by EU-Carribean. But since Walta never reported the original EU-Carribean resolution (calling on Ethiopia to accept the Technical Arrangements and stop its ethnic cleansing of Eritrean-Ethiopians), Walta loyalists must have been confused. Incidentally, the EU president said that their problem is since they have no sources in the field, EU relies on information from NGOs. This begs the question: what do the EU embassies do? I mean besides loitering around the Addis Sheraton and taking bets on when Asab will fall?

Recently at the Sheraton, (the "edifice to the exploitation of ordinary Ethiopians by the ruling elite" according to Walta's favorite economist residing in Eritrea, John Weakliam) they brought on speakers from the Ethiopian Government who--surprise, surprise--expressed their dissatisfaction with the Tech Arrangements. It is psychologically unacceptable, don't you know, they said.

In the land of Walta, Ethiopian writers have formed a Mutual Confirmation Society where they read--admiringly--one another's flawed assumptions and analysis. This echo chamber recently achieved farcical status when one virulently anti-Eritrea writer quoted the work of the Diva of Eritrea-haters, the Field Marshall with one name, also doubling as a Macro Economist in his spare time. The Field Marshall has been arguing since June 1998 that the Eritrean economy has collapsed. So far, the Field Marshall has been able to predict accurately 7 of the last 0 Eritrean economy meltdowns. (I will write more on this in a subsequent article. )When he cannot support his arguments, the Field Marshall is not beyond writing articles and giving them a Western byline and a Western-sounding-journal. (His "War Hisses Towards Asmara" is a slithering classic that should be taught at all journalism schools on how to avoid snakeoil salesmen.)

The Walta writers language is war-like, their hatred of Eritrea's leaders pathological and their attitude downright cocky. The writer of "Turn It Loose" must have let loose of his/her senses before he wrote the piece. If that is not inciting war, I don't know what is.

The Ethiopian writers and their supporters who loiter at the Addis Sheraton cannot even articulate a coherent argument on why the Technical Arrangements are objectionable. You would expect that they would be able to compare and contrast the revered Framework Agreement with the dreaded Technical Arrangements and explain the shortcomings of the TA. But every argument they present is a sham and a fabrication. We are told that the Framework Agreement calls for return to status quo ante and the Technical Arrangement doesn't. I challenge them to cite where exactly the Framework Agreement calls for "return to status quo ante." If anything, the return to pre-May 6 positions is even more explicit in the Technical Arrangements, in Ethiopia's favor. We are told that the Framework Agreement only envisioned about 30 African military observers whereas the Technical Arrangement calls for peacekeeping mission. I challenge them to cite the passage that calls for 30 African military observers in the Framework Agreement. We are told that the Technical Arrangement totally prohibits display of weapons by armed militia. Same challenge extended.

The Ethiopian writers have been busily painting a portrait of Eritrea as a police state, a state whose citizens have no rights and live in fear of their dictator and await eagerly to be delivered by some saviors, a state of endless conscription, a state whose armed forces desert their barracks by the dozens, a state suffering from economic meltdown; a state that only exists thanks to the dictator-coddling US government...

If they had formed these opinions on their own, through independent research, they would be merely wrong. In which case, I'd extend them an invitation to go to Eritrea, visit the "ghost town" of Keren, Massawa and Assab as well as Asmara. But to repeat wholesale the propaganda of their government is not just wrong; it is downright dangerous since this is what propels a sense a belief that only war is the solution to tip off a collapsing state.

To any Ethiopian who is of reading age, doesn't this have a sense of dij` vu? Of the "dildiy Afrash" bandits who are an offensive away from being obliterated? Of the bandits whose sole survival is thanks to "petro-dollar" crazed Arabs? And what was the outcome? Hundreds of thousands of young Ethiopian lives perished for NOTHING in what an Ethiopian scholar now calls the Era of Ignorance. Eritreans got to exercise their right of self-determination--a right they could have gotten without all that bloodshed, all the violence, all the bombing of civilians and their displacement by the hundred thousands to all continents if only the Ethiopian Government and the OAU and the UN had been a bit more visionary.

Now Eritreans are asking for the right to live unmolested in secure, demarcated borders. Eritreans are willing to negotiate for this "bottom line" directly with Ethiopia, or through third-parties. Eritreans are willing to bypass this procedure or that one; make this concession or the other AS LONG AS the process takes us to a permanent demarcation of the borders using colonial treaties.

But just as the Ethiopian Government does not trust that Eritrea has true intentions of withdrawing from the disputed territories, Eritreans do not trust that Ethiopia is committed to a permanent demarcation of the borders using colonial treaties. It is of little or no assurance to say that "Ethiopia was the first nation to recognize Eritrea" because (a) Ethiopian may have changed its mind on the subject; (b) the "Eritrea" that Ethiopia recognized is one without the disputed territories; (c) the recognition may have been a temporary tactical maneuver until the Ethiopian Government consolidated its base. And given this mistrust, coupled with Ethiopia's repeated pronouncements that its goals include not just reclaiming territories but bringing about the overthrow of the Eritrean Government-economic sabotage, supporting dissident groups, waging a war of attrition-the Eritrean Government is not keen on taking any steps that will help the Ethiopian Government bring about this outcome.

Where trust is gone, the mediators step in. After endless shuttles and meetings and negotiations, they have presented both parties a series of peace proposals. In the opinion of Eritreans, these peace proposals are lopsidedly in favor of Ethiopia: (a) they defer investigation of the incidents that provoked the border war (currency, Adi Murug, deportation of Eritrean farmers from Badme area) and use May 6, 1998 as the only flash point; (b) they do not safeguard the financial interests of the deported Eritreans; (c) the language on the demarcation is favorable to Ethiopia.

Eritrea, despite strong reservations, has accepted these terms because it understands the principles of peace negotiations: compromise, give-and-take. Ethiopia, perhaps emboldened by these concessions and mistaking them for weakness, perhaps believing its own propaganda of its military prowess, has embarked on a one-way mission of take-and-take. What it cannot take peacefully, it threatens to take by war. It sells inflexibility as resoluteness; negotiation as weakness and defying the will of the international community as principled pan-Africanism. And the willing buyers--the intellectuals with the clock permanently set on two minutes to midnight--call on Ethiopia to "let it loose." Even if Ethiopia "let it loose" and forcefully reclaims all the disputed territories, if it reclaims Alitena and Zalambesa, the Let It Loose folks forget that that is not the end of the war. It will only be the beginning of another long, long war. A long war for the right to to self-determination: the right to live governed by your own government in secure borders. How long will this war last? The Eritrean clock doesn't have a sunrise or a sunset; no midnight nor noon. It has only one hand and it may take a licking after a licking but it will go on ticking until it rests on: Mission Accomplished.

The reason is simple: Eritreans do not have a continengency plan. It is Eritrea or nothing. The Ethiopian Government does have a fall back position: Ethiopia (a nation they pledged allegiance to in 1990) or, if that doesn't work, Greater Tigray (a cause as old as the first Woyane Revolution). And the ones who will be left holding the bag and--without a safety net--are the current War Cheerleaders who are so consumed by their hatred of Eritrea, they have surrendered their God-given right of critical thinking.