UNITED NATIONS REQUESTS USG ASSISTANCE TO MONITOR AND RESOLVE ERITREA-ETHIOPIA CRISIS

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replaced if withdrawn.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
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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
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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
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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