Diplomatic communique is an art form whose arcane language cannot be fathomed by ordinary people. It is as if all diplomats are congenitally
predisposed to obey a law on how to communicate with the public, a law based on the premise that there's an inverse relationship between verbiage and substance: use a lot of words to say precious little. And sometimes use very few selected words to say a lot. Obfuscation is a tool of trade for diplomats, which does not make it easy for the rest of us to make sense of what they are saying. Yet they are saying something in ways only the seasoned reader can understand.

Take, for example, the Press Release the facilitators of the Eritrea-Ethiopia peace talks issued few days ago. The eight-item communique about the October 23-27 meeting in Algiers is a classic example of excessive diplomatic verbiage, of using a lot of words to say precious little, but at the same time sneak in something profoundly important. Yet the casual reader of the October 28 statement is not apt to decipher the diplomatic mambo jumbo to get to the real message that the facilitators have been disappointed by Ethiopia's intransigence. The only inference one can draw from the statement is that at this time, Ethiopia is not ready to make real peace with Eritrea on the basis of the OAU peace package that Ethiopia has said repeatedly that it would honor.

Under a joint mandate from the OAU Heads of State Summit and the UN Security council, the facilitators, all seasoned diplomats, met to work out the details of a peace plan in accordance with the OAU Framework Agreement and the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. It would have been shocking had the Press Release told the truth about the intransigence of  the Ethiopian side. But then these are diplomats and like diplomats everywhere calling a spade a spade is not part of their tools of trade. Obfuscation is. In fact nowhere in the document is any indication that the Ethiopian delegation came late to the talks, and left in a hurry, which they did. They made an appearance not because they wanted to explore possibilities for making peace, but rather to politicize their feigned commitment to peace.

Ethiopia's decision to attend the proximity talks did not occur in a vacuum. It was part of a calculated campaign to convince donors that Ethiopia was committed to peace, and hence eligible for financial assistance. The point about Ethiopia's readiness to make peace with Eritrea was made by Prime Minster Meles in his trip to Washington, last month. For the Ethiopian delegation, a trip to the talks was a necessary public relations campaign to substantiate Meles' pledge.

 The Ethiopian leader had persuaded top World Bank officials that Ethiopia needed emergency assistance for demobilization and reconstruction of the war affected area. He said that Ethiopia had decided to demobilize 150,000 soldiers, and money was needed to ease them into civilian life. Additionally money was needed for reconstruction of the war affected areas, as well as balance of payment support. The World Bank is currently considering a package of around 400 million dollars as a reward for Ethiopia's acceptance of the June 18 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, which the Bank took as prima facia evidence that Ethiopia was committed to peace. What matters to the Bank is that the shooting has stopped. The degree to which the Agreement has been implemented is not at this point consequential. Meles knows this, which explains his mantra that as far as Ethiopia is concerned the war is over. It is a subliminal message to reassure the donor community. Going to Algeria, in Meles' calculation, even if nothing was accomplished was a sufficient demonstration of commitment to peace that should reassure the Bank and the other donors. Therefore mere attendance in the proximity talks, if not actual and meaningful participation in the discussion, was directly related to the loan application pending at the World Bank.

Prime Minister Meles understands well that if he could get the Bank to commit in writing that the funds would be available for Ethiopia, the money would be disbursed even if there were war the day after the signing ceremony. It's crucially important that nothing is done to jeopardize Ethiopia's access to the emergency loans. Equally important, at least from Meles' view is that the loans, borrowed in Ethiopia's name, will be targeted for Tigray. Not many people are aware that Tigray, with slightly less than Eritrea's population (3.5 million), has taken advantage of the borrowing capacity of Ethiopia's 65 million people, giving the people of  Tigray an off the charts loan per capita, perhaps unequalled by any other people in the world. The flip side, of course, is that the loan has to be paid by the other 61.8 million Ethiopians who did not benefit from the loans. Eritrea has suffered hugely from the war. Yet the most the Bank could approve loans for Eritrea is 90 million dollars.

 Assuming Tigray has suffered equally from the war as Eritrea, which by far is not the case, Tigray should not have qualified for anything more than 90 million dollars of loans. Yet borrowing capacity is based on population size of the entire country, not on the region were the money would be spent. Meles is, therefore, using Ethiopia's 65 million people as a base to inflate Tigray's share of the emergency loan to at least quadruple of what it should be, given its population size. To keep the money flowing into Tigray, Ethiopia had to show that its commitment to peace is still intact, at least in words, if not in deeds. Even then, with 400 million dollars targeted for Tigray, how much incentive would the TPLF have to seriously negotiate for peace? Not much.

No wonder then that right after the delegation had prematurely returned from Algiers, AFP quoted someone "close to the talks" that the meeting had made "good progress," just the kind of reports donors like to hear. But then shortly after, Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin blasted Eritrea for insisting that that demarcation be carried out on the basis of the OAU Framework Agreement contrary to Ethiopia's demand that both should go directly to arbitration. The one-two punch is meant to show Ethiopia's willingness to settle the conflict peacefully only to be frustrated by Eritrea's "intransigence," a propaganda ploy the Ethiopians have perfected into an art form.

But there was another reason for the Ethiopian delegation's hasty departure from Algiers. The communique has hinted that the talks dealt with the implementation of the June 18 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. Mind you Ethiopia's pitch of its commitment for peace was based on its acceptance of the June 18. But here we are four months after the Agreement has been signed and Ethiopia is yet to show good faith effort in implementing the Agreement. Ethiopia continues to erect barriers to prevent the United Nations Mission for Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) from carrying out its UN Security Council mandated mission. Ethiopia has denied access to air corridors and land routes connecting the two countries. Instead of clearing mines in the occupied territories, it is laying fresh mines to prevent civilians from returning to their homes, or UNMEE personnel from discharging their assignments. More ominously, Ethiopia is building new trenches and fortifying old ones. Continuing violation of human rights in the occupied areas was also brought to light. The rapes, killings, and wanton pillage in the occupied areas are of the same magnitude that got Slobodan Milosovic indicted as war criminals. Who knows the same fate may await Meles Zenawi, if there's justice in the world, that is.

Forced to respond to the charges, the Ethiopian delegation chose to return home in a hurry. The problem was that it could not credibly deny the charges because the head of the UNMEE, who knew enough about the barriers the Ethiopians, have put in place. was in attendance at the meeting. Confronted with their non-implementation of the June 18 agreement, the Ethiopian delegation chose to go home without answering the charges. Instead once the Ethiopian team returned home, the Ethiopian government issued a statement accusing Eritrea of human rights violation of Ethiopian residents in Eritrea, in contravention of the June 18 Agreement.

We know that nothing much was accomplished on the key issue: demarcation, which forced the facilitators to return to a discussion on the implementation of the June 18 cease-fire agreement. The reference to "concerns to consolidate the gains recorded" by the signing of the June 18 agreement, is the facilitators' tacit acceptance of Eritrea's complaints about Ethiopia's non-compliance. What the facilitator are trying to say but feel constrained as diplomats to express themselves plainly and clearly is that Ethiopia has so far failed to implement the signed agreement. Ethiopia's failure to implement UN Security resolutions in favor of the OAU peace package, and the cease-fire agreement is well known to all the facilitators gathered in Algiers. But they are unwilling to tell Ethiopia to shape up because it has become an unhealthy habit for U.S facilitators to back down with the slightest Ethiopian intransigence. The reluctance to tell Ethiopia to play by the rules has dragged out the search for peace, and with it, the suffering of the people of the two countries.

The October 28 communique has skillfully obfuscated the role of the Americans in the entire peace process. It would have been perfectly acceptable if the Americans were the honest brokers they have presented themselves to the public. But they are not. For whatever reason, they have not distinguished themselves for their even-handedness or fairness. During critical stages during the peace process the U.S. facilitators have demonstrated a proclivity to taking Ethiopia's side repeatedly including their latest tinkering with the OAU Framework Agreement to appease Addis Ababa.

Last July, in Washington, U.S. State Department lawyers had floated ideas they argued would meet Ethiopia's insistence on arbitration only, at the expense of skipping delimitation and demarcation while retaining the thrust of the OAU peace package that mandated two steps-delimitation and demarcation, and if necessary to be followed by arbitration. It's not clear whether a model along the lines of what they suggested in Washington was the proposal they took to Algiers although the probability is great that is what they did.

The model would collapse the three steps into one. However its most controversial feature would be to transfer the technical aspects of delimitation and demarcation from the UN Cartographic Unit to a five-body commission. Members of this commission are to be composed by each side selecting two members and the four, in turn, would select a Chairman. But if they can't agree, the UN Secretary General would appoint one. Decisions would be based on majority votes. An expert from the UN Cartographic Unit would be the commission's secretary, and would be assigned tasks by the commission. For all practical purposes, the expert would have no substantive meaning other than to pacify Eritrea that its concerns about sticking to the OAU peace package has been honored. From Eritrea's point of view, however, the expert would have no more than a placebo effect on the deliberations or final decisions of the commission.

If the model presented in Algiers is along the lines suggested in Washington, then the U.S facilitators are revising the OAU package as they have done so with several other proposals, to appease Ethiopia. It is as if they have not learned the lesson they should have learned the past two and half years. That the more they tried to appease Ethiopia the more it returns for more. With Ethiopia, appeasement begets another call for appeasement. Consider the following: the facilitators let Ethiopia get away with the argument that Badme and its environs covered the entire 1000 Kilometer border; the facilitators convinced Eritrea to withdraw from the Zalambessa and Bure defense line for the sake of implementing a cease-fire agreement, which Ethiopia used as a beachhead for its failed attempt to capture Asmara and Assab. And lately, the facilitators seem to have succumbed to Ethiopia's bullying tactics by writing out the UN Cartographic Unit from the OAU Framework Agreement, when the OAU and the Security Council had given the Unit a pivotal role in the delimitation and demarcation process. If the facilitators are proposing to create a commission, working out of The Hague, to replace the UN Cartographic Unit, then what's left to appease? How much trust should Eritrea have on the even-handedness of the mediation effort of the facilitators?

The Algiers proximity talks was opened with a lot of fanfare in which the two sides, according to the October 28 Press Release, "renewed their trust and confidence in the Algerian mediation." Here the press statement is not being truthful. The two delegations do not share the effusive characterization of Algeria's role in the talks. The Ethiopians never felt comfortable because they knew that Algeria, unlike Burkina Faso, was even-handed in its approach and that it was determined to implement the OAU peace package. Time and again Ethiopia has used its Washington connection to get around Algeria to frustrate the peace process. Eritrea had confidence and trust in Algeria's role but also knows that interference from Washington reduced Algeria's effectiveness.

Algeria is a mediator in name only. So it's better to forget what the press statement is saying about Algerian mediation. In action if not in words, Anthony Lake is the chief mediator. The others are there for show, to give the appearance that the OAU and the UN are still relevant. Anyone who has been diligently following the peace talks is bound to ask, What Algerian mediation? The American facilitators, working closely with Ethiopia have made sure that the Algerians were never allowed to play the role the OAU had assigned them. There has never been an effective Algerian mediation because the Americans and Ethiopians would not allow it to exist. The problem has never been the integrity of Algeria's mediation. As always the fault remains with the lack of even-handedness of the American mediation.

To be sure there's a lot to admire about the fair mindedness of the Algerians but the fact is that the real mediators are the Americans, and the proposal on the table is an American proposal. Had the Algerians had their way last June, Ethiopia would have been forced to say yes or no to the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, after Eritrea had accepted the Agreement and subsequently had withdrawn from all contested areas. Ethiopia asked for time to consider the Agreement, but used the time instead to launch a fresh attack on Assab, taking advantage of Eritrea's withdrawal from Bure. The U.S. looked the other way while Ethiopian forces were taking advantage of Eritrea's withdrawal. It was only after Ethiopia had failed in its attempt to seize Assab that Anthony Lake pressed Ethiopia to sign the Agreement, an act not exactly that of a fair mediator. If truth be told it's the American facilitators who are guiding the talks stealthily, throwing their considerable weight when necessary, to get the Algerians and the others to tow the line in accordance with Washington's wishes.

The Press Release also boasted that "noticeable progress " had been made. But what in the world does it mean? If it's "noticeable" then it must not be visible to the naked eye; if it's "progress" then it must not include moving forward. Ethiopia is stalling on the implementation of the June 18 cease-fire agreement. It has prevented UNMEE observers to fulfill their Security Council mandated assignments. Instead of clearing mines its laying fresh ones. And most alarming of all, it's building new trenches, and fortifying old ones in the occupied territories. The facilitators know all about Ethiopia's non-compliance and that's why it is hard to share their optimism that "noticeable progress" had been made. How can anyone say progress was made, noticeable or not, when Ethiopia even rejected the use of colonial borders as a basis for delimitation and demarcation? How can anyone take seriously Ethiopia's specious argument that Eritrea should honor Ethiopia's economic claims, and that Eritrea's claim should wait for later?

But on second thought the use of the phrase in the communique could not have been a happenstance. It must have been inserted there on purpose, to help Ethiopia convince the donor community that on the peace front progress is being made and thus Meles' government is deserving of financial assistance. With the phrase, the drafters of the communique must have had the Prime Minister's pressing needs in mind, not the requirements for an enduring peace in the region. Between now and December, if war does not break out, Ethiopia should qualify for the loans, and money should pour into Tigray shortly thereafter, war or no war. In the mean time, the proximity talks would be abandoned because of Ethiopia's intransigence. The facilitators have decided to try shuttle diplomacy instead. The time has come to bid good-bye to proximity talks, and hello to shuttle diplomacy.