Security Council warns that fighting should “immediately cease”

Eritrea and Ethiopia should immediately cease all military actions and refrain from further use of force, the UN Security Council resolved on Friday night. The Council strongly condemned the renewed fighting and demanded “the earliest possible reconvening, without preconditions, of substantive peace talks”, under the OAU auspices and on the basis of the OAU peace plan. It stressed its concern that the renewed fighting “has serious humanitarian implications for the civilian population of the two countries”. It resolved to meet again within 72 hours “to take immediate steps to ensure compliance with the resolution in the event that hostilities continued.”

The report of the Council mission to the two countries, led by US ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said the differences between the two sides “while real, were relatively small and manageable and could be resolved by intensive negotiations over time”. It said that Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of “stringing out negotiations to avoid redressing its offensive of May 1998”, while “Eritrea accuses Ethiopia of actively holding to the option of resuming the conflict while negotiations continue”. The report said the mission had concentrated on “creating a mechanism to get past that blockage”. Despite the subsequent outbreak of fighting, the mission report stressed any diplomatic effort “even if it was not successful, was worthwhile when the consequences of war for the peoples of the two nations” was so disastrous.