Border commission urges Ethiopia to comply with ruling

Ethiopia has accused an independent boundary commission of trying to "ridicule" it after the body, set up to rule on the contested border with Eritrea, called on Addis Ababa to comply with the decision. In a statement, the Ethiopian foreign ministry described the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) as "callous" and said its ruling would “create so many ticking time bombs” that peace in the region would be threatened. The attack on the five-strong legal team comes after it launched a point-by-point rebuttal following condemnation of its work by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, president of The Hague-based commission, dismissed the criticism as “misconceived and misleading”. In a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Sir Elihu spelt out his rebuttal in 18 separate points. The EEBC was set up by the two countries in the Algiers peace accord marking the end of a bitter two-year border war. Both countries agreed to accept the EEBC border decision as final and binding. But Ethiopia has since rejected parts of the ruling which place contested territories in Eritrea, particularly the village of Badme where the war flared up. Meles recently said the commission was in "terminal crisis" and called for a new body to rule on the contested areas. “There is no crisis, terminal or otherwise which cannot be cured by Ethiopia’s compliance with its obligations under the Algiers agreement, in particular its obligations to treat the Commission’s delimitation determination as final and binding,” Sir Elihu said in his letter, dated 7 October. Demarcation of the 1,000 km border has been delayed twice over the impasse and is now scheduled to take place this month. Observers say further delays are expected. Sir Elihu said the ruling was totally consistent with international law. “The parties did not give the commission the task of deciding which state administered Badme in recent years," he added. "And at the critical time, when the relevant treaty of 1902 was concluded, Badme and certain other villages and settlements which now exist had not then come into existence.” Part of Ethiopia's argument for rejecting the ruling is that Badme has been under its administration.