Peace for Ethiopia and Erretrea: An Untold Example of UN Success?

Despite the bad press it receives for its handling of the Oil for Food program and its increasing bureaucratization, the UN is not an unmitigated disaster.

One example of UN success in the peace keeping realm is the activity occurring since 2000 to restore peace along the much-troubled Ethiopia/Erretrea boundary. Until 1 January 1993 Erretrea was a rebel province of Ethiopia. When Erretrea finally gained independence, the lingering barrier to peace was boundary delineation. Disagreements on border location led to renewed fighting until and after UN intervention in 2000. Soon after the UN deployed 4000 peace keepers to the border region, the peace keepers found their task was more than a euphamism: They actually had a fragile peace to keep along the still undefined boundary. When the shooting and raiding ended and Ethiopian and Erretrean officials began the process of dialogue through the good offices of the UN Secretary-General Cofi Anan, the first positive attribute to emerge from the discussions was the creation of the Ethiopia/Erretrea Boundary Commission (EEBC).

Few acts lead to future wars more often than a mislaid boundary. Therefore the EEBC recognized the basic importance of its work and the implications of errors in its final report. After two years of intensive efforts, the EEBC determined what it deemed an equitable boundary. Then came the intricate endeavor of persuading Ethiopia and Erretrea to accept the EEBC decision.

Meanwhile the US, EU, and OAU issued declarations designed to sustain peace. Ethiopia initially presented no major objections to the EEBC findings, but things were less solid on the Erretrean side. The EEBC report did not lead to immediate hostilities from Erretrea, but the impression existed among some Erretrean negotiators that the EEBC was simply a new mechanism for the Great Powers to impose their will on poorer, under-developed states. UN officials offered assurances that the EEBC had no such motivations and obtained inferences from OAU leaders. Despite all this, Erretrea still was not convinced. At that juncture the dialogue ended abruptly.

Although formal talks still have not resumed since the EEBC issued its findings on boundary delineation on 30 April 2004, the UN official representative to Ethiopia and Erretrea remains hopeful that the peace keeping contingent there will continue to have peace to keep rather than war to stop. The contingent operates within very limited rules of engagement, but to date it has been effective in complying with those constraints to accomplish its assigned mission. In fact the only barrier to lasting peace lies in gaining bilateral acceptance of the EEBC demarcation. At the establishment of the EEBC, Ethiopia and Erretrea delegated their authority to determine the border and agreed to accept the EEBC's conclusions. Now Erretrea must be reminded of its commitments and encouraged to uphold them. Erretrea has given no tangible reasons for its objections to the EEBC demarcation. Its delegation simply refuses to attend the discussions.

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