US embassy cable - 05ADDISABABA3725

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ADDIS ABABA 003725 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR AF AND INR 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/27/2015 
TAGS: PREL, PINR, MOPS, MARR, KPKO, ET, ER, EE BORDER, UNSC 
SUBJECT: UNITED NATIONS REQUESTS USG ASSISTANCE TO MONITOR 
AND RESOLVE ERITREA-ETHIOPIA CRISIS 
 
REF: A. ADDIS ABABA 3711 
 
     B. ADDIS ABABA 3624 (NOTAL) 
 
Classified By: CHARGE D'AFFAIRES VICKI HUDDLESTON.  REASON: 
1.4 (D). 
 
 
1. (C) ACTION REQUEST:  Post seeks Department's guidance in 
responding to the UN's request for satellite imagery of the 
Ethiopia-Eritrean border area, conveyed on October 26 by the 
UNMEE SRSG to Charge (see paragraph 8). 
 
2. (C) SUMMARY.  Eritrea's restrictions on UNMEE operations 
within the TSZ have rendered it unable to monitor 800 km of 
the 1,100-km border with Ethiopia, prompting the UN to 
request USG satellite imagery while aerial surveillance is 
suspended.  Concerns about UNMEE's reduced capabilities have 
prompted Ethiopia to announce it will move 30,000 additional 
troops toward the border.  Jordan and India are threatening 
to withdraw their contingents, and are not likely to be 
replaced if withdrawn.  In light of inaction by the AU, and 
Eritrea's non-recognition of UN envoys, UNMEE SRSG Amb. 
Legwaila appeals for "robust" action by the United States to 
prevent the outbreak of hostilities, including the 
appointment of a U.S. envoy and organizing a UNSC mission to 
the region.  Legwaila also provided background on the 
disputed status of Badme, and why insisting on demarcation of 
the border (as delimited by the 2002 boundary commission's 
decision) would be tantamount to declaring Ethiopia the 
aggressor in 1998 hostilities.  END SUMMARY. 
 
3. (C) On October 26, Amb. Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, Special 
Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) for the UN 
Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE); Deputy SRSG Amb. 
Azouz Ennifar; and UNMEE Senior Political Affairs Officer Dr. 
Abdel-Kader Haireche briefed Charge and deputy P/E chief on 
the critical need for external intervention to defuse the 
growing crisis exacerbated by the Government of Eritrea's 
(GSE) October 4 decision to ban UNMEE helicopter flights 
within Eritrea. 
 
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REQUEST FOR USG SATELLITE IMAGERY OF BORDER AREA 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
4. (C) Legwaila underscored that the most significant hurdle 
to UNMEE's operations was the GSE's new restrictions on 
movement within the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ), all of 
which lay within Eritrean territory.  Eritrea had also 
forbidden UNMEE from patrolling certain areas at night. 
"What is it that they don't want us to see at night?" 
Legwaila asked.  Other restrictions on UNMEE's freedom of 
movement were not new.  Legwaila noted that (unlike Ethiopia) 
Eritrea had never recognized UNMEE's authority to patrol 
15-km-wide "adjacent areas" adjoining the TSZ, as such areas 
are not mentioned in the December 2000 cease-fire agreement. 
UNMEE monitored "adjacent areas" at the operational 
instructions of the UNSC, Legwaila said, to observe military 
movements into the TSZ. 
 
5. (C) With only 3,200 troops and military observers, aerial 
surveillance had been critical to UNMEE's ability to monitor 
the TSZ, Legwaila said, particularly as rotary-wing aircraft 
could patrol the entire border in a single day.  UNMEE had 
used helicopters based at Assab, Berentu, and Asmara 
extensively.  Without them, "tens of thousands" of 
peace-keepers would be needed to monitor the border 
adequately, and there was "nothing to stop" military forces 
from entering the TSZ and laying mines.  Eritrea had already 
begun to move troops away from its border with Sudan, he 
said, even though Eritrean-Sudan relations remained strained 
following Sudan's withdrawal of its ambassador from Asmara. 
Legwaila observed that both Eritrea and Ethiopia now had more 
arms than at the outbreak of hostilities in 1998; Ethiopia 
was prepared to conduct aerial bombing of Asmara, as it had 
before.  Legwaila said Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi 
had warned him that if war broke out, it would be an 
"Armageddon," and that Ethiopia would not be stopped by 
others. 
 
6. (C) Separately, Meles informed Charge on October 27 that 
Ethiopia was moving 30,000 reserve troops to the border with 
Eritrea over the next ten days as a precautionary measure 
(septel), due to concerns about UNMEE's decreasing 
effectiveness. 
 
7. (C) Legwaila confirmed recent public statements by Meles 
that more Eritrean militia were entering the TSZ, but noted 
that this was not a new development.  Legwaila explained that 
UNMEE recognized that GSE troops often donned militia 
uniforms and were therefore indistinguishable from the 
military: a military commander in the western sector could 
reappear the next day as a militia commander elsewhere.  He 
further observed that the 2000 cessation of hostilities 
agreement had called for local government officials, 
accompanied by police and militia, to enter the TSZ and take 
responsibility for law and order, as a precondition for the 
return of internally displaced persons. 
 
8. (C) SRSG Legwaila presented a demarche on behalf of UN SYG 
Annan, requesting that the USG provide satellite imagery to 
monitor the Ethiopian-Eritrean border.  He reiterated that 
the GSE's flight restrictions had rendered UNMEE "60 per cent 
blind," and seriously impaired its ability to monitor the 
1,100-km border (ref B).  (NOTE: In several meetings with USG 
officials, including AF/RSA deputy director on October 24, 
senior UNMEE officials have detailed how the lack of aerial 
surveillance has created a 600-km "blind spot" in the 
Temporary Security Zone's central sector, flanked by two 
additional 100-km gaps in the eastern and western sectors 
respectively.  END NOTE.)  Legwaila noted that the USG, 
through Embassy Lusaka, had provided imagery to the UN in 
1989 showing the entry of military forces into Namibia in 
contravention of UNSCR 435.  Legwaila added that the UN had 
asked member states to provide additional resources to UNMEE 
in September, to compensate for the downsizing of UNMEE's 
troop strength. 
 
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TROOP-CONTRIBUTING COUNTRIES MAY WITHDRAW CONTINGENTS 
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9. (C) Legwaila reiterated previous warnings that 
"humiliation" of UN peace-keepers could compel Jordan and 
India to withdraw troops (comprising a majority of UNMEE), 
and that no troop-contributing country would likely replace 
them.  He reported that inability to evacuate casualties by 
air had nearly caused the death of two peace-keepers from 
India and Kenya with a concussion and hernia, respectively, 
who had to be driven over rough roads for seven hours for 
medical treatment. 
 
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POLITICAL CRISIS REQUIRES USG INTERVENTION 
------------------------------------------ 
 
10. (C) The international community considered the 
Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission's (EEBC) 2002 decision 
"binding," but had failed to engage the parties in its 
implementation, Legwaila lamented.  He said Algerian 
president Bouteflika, who had previously hosted December 2000 
peace talks between the parties, was now deferring to the AU, 
which remained "in hibernation."  Legwaila criticized the 
AU's priorities, noting that the AU had called for an October 
31 extraordinary summit on UN reform while doing nothing to 
address an impending crisis involving two of its members.  He 
attributed collective inaction to some who believed Eritrea 
was "on the side of the law," and to others "intimidated" by 
Ethiopia's strategic importance as a front-line state against 
terrorism.  He warned, however, that conflict between the 
parties would cause instability in the Horn of Africa, 
creating "a fertile ground for Al-Qaida." 
 
11. (C) Legwaila stated that following Ethiopia's 
demobilization of 150,000 troops before 2003, PM Meles had 
told him that Ethiopia's strategy was to isolate Eritrea and 
wait for it to implode economically.  According to Legwaila, 
Meles's five-point peace proposal of November 2004 therefore 
represented a shift in policy, and reflected an attempt to 
engage Eritrea constructively in talks.  Legwaila explained 
that Article 416 of the cease-fire agreement called for the 
UN to deal with the consequences of demarcation (e.g., in 
providing funds to resettle those in border areas that would 
be transferred among parties).  Whereas the UN was originally 
envisioned as providing humanitarian or technical assistance, 
Ethiopia now sought to invoke the article to have the UN play 
a larger political role, Legwaila said.  Eritrea, however, 
has explicitly rejected contacts with both the SRSG and with 
UN Special Envoy for Ethiopia and Eritrea Lloyd Axworthy. 
 
12. (C) Legwaila appealed for "robust" action by the United 
States.  Specifically, he advocates: 
-- UNSC permreps conducting an official mission to the region 
(as led by US PermRep Holbrooke in 1998); 
-- intervention by parties serving as "witnesses" to the June 
2000 agreement on cessation of hostilities, or the December 
2000 peace agreement (i.e., the United States, or European 
Union); 
-- the appointment of a U.S. (not UN) special envoy. 
Legwaila explicitly rejected arguments for a UN envoy, noting 
his own difficulties in seeing Isaias.  Legwaila and other 
UNMEE officials also reported that the UN SYG received daily 
"hate mail" from Eritrea, rendering the appointment of any UN 
envoy ineffective. 
 
13. (C) Legwaila dismissed the draft UNSCR distributed 
October 25 by Greece as "a useless resolution," warning that, 
if adopted, "Ethiopia will think you are adding insult to 
injury."  Proposing a resolution "no different from previous 
ones," he said, fails to recognize the severity of the 
current crisis.  He also dismissed proposals for a 
comprehensive conference on the Horn of Africa (modeled after 
the UN/AU's International Conference on the Great Lakes), 
saying it would avoid the central issue: Ethiopian and 
Eritrean disagreement over the status of the boundary 
commission's 2002 decision.  He referred to the UN SYG's 
October 25 letter to the UNSC (S/2005/668), which appeals for 
UNSC action to avert "another round of devastating 
hostilities." 
 
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DISPUTED STATUS OF BADME STALEMATES DEMARCATION 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
 
14. (SBU) Legwaila, who has served as UNMEE SRSG for five 
years, detailed how both Ethiopia and Eritrea had initially 
committed to accept any decision by the EEBC, at December 
2000 cease-fire talks in Algiers.  Upon the announcement of 
the EEBC's decision in April 2002, Ethiopia's foreign 
minister hosted a celebration and issued a statement hailing 
the decision as a victory for both parties; however, Ethiopia 
had not realized that Badame had been awarded to Eritrea. 
The reason for this is the the EEBC did not identify Badame 
so it took sometime for the experts to determine to whom 
Badame had been given.  Legwaila observed that delimitation 
of the border (i.e., determining where it lies) was complete, 
whereas demarcation (i.e., placing physical markers) was 
stalemated.  Delimitation of the border had been conducted 
professionally and impartially, Legwaila said, through an 
Asmara-based chief surveyor armed with GPS equipment and 
assistance from New Zealand experts, and with aerial mapping 
conducted by a Swedish company. Demarcation would reflect the 
boundaries determined by delimiation -- there would be very 
little change, e.g. Badame would remain in Eritrea. 
 
15. (C) In an independent effort to determine the status of 
Badme, Legwaila said that UNMEE had examined archives and 
concluded that until 1971, elections in Badme had actually 
been conducted under the administration of Tigray (i.e., in 
Ethiopia).  The OAU had confirmed this.  Legwaila noted that 
UNMEE had not/not provided this finding to Ethiopia or 
Eritrea, for fear of further inflaming the dispute. EEBC had 
found that Ethiopian adminstration of Badame was not an 
effective argument for giving it to Ethiopia. Out of 2,700 
residents in Badme after the war, only 300 were Eritrean, 
Legwaila said, but he acknowledged that Ethiopian troops had 
driven many Eritreans out of Badme. 
 
16. (C) The eastern sector of the border area (once fully 
demined) could be demarcated, Legwaila said, as UNMEE has a 
map of pillar sites accepted by both parties.  However, 
Ethiopia's general objection to demarcation lies partially in 
the August 2003 demarcation directives, Legwaila explained, 
which instruct surveyors to confirm the EEBC's delimitation 
of the border.  Specifically, an instruction for surveyors to 
confirm a line between "point 9 and point 6" would serve to 
have them reaffirm the EEBC's decision that places Badme on 
the Eritrean side.  Ethiopia cannot accept Badme as Eritrean 
territory, Legwaila explained, as doing so would compel 
Ethiopia to recognize that it was the aggressor when entering 
Badme during 1998 hostilities. 
 
19. (C) COMMENT: UNMEE officials expressed strong concerns 
about their lack of ability both to monitor the border and 
pleaed for arieal/satellite maps that would show troop 
locations and encourage us to name a Special US - not UN -- 
envoy.   END COMMENT. 
HUDDLESTON