Isayas vows to end conflict with Ethiopia

Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki has pledged to end the conflict with Ethiopia in 2002, following a year of "relative peace" in his country.

In a New Year message to the Eritrean people, he said Eritrea would work "indefatigably" to make this year "the end of the unjustifiable war that victimised the Eritrean and Ethiopian people". He said that although relative peace had been achieved last year, the core of the peace agreement was to find a lasting solution to the border issue based on colonial treaties. The two countries signed a peace deal in December 2000, after a protracted two-year border war.

Noting that the Boundary Commission at The Hague would rule definitively on border demarcation next month, Isayas accused Ethiopia of making "baseless allegations" regarding a planned Eritrean offensive. "It is clear to everyone that this invention on the eve of the ruling is aimed at influencing the process and, in a subtle way, the opinions of the commission," he said. "To launch a war at this late stage of the Boundary Commission's decision can come only from the mentally disturbed or from sides that are not confident of their case."

Moving onto Eritrea's internal problems last year when 15 government dissidents were arrested and the private press banned, Isayas said this was due to "sabotage" which had been "externally instigated". According to Isayas, the anti-government position had been adopted by the dissidents - many of them his former comrades-in-arms - who "tried to cover up their defeatism and other failures" and who were supported by the independent media. The events, he said, had "put the existence of the Eritrean people at stake", but valuable lessons had been learnt and this would have a positive impact on Eritrea's future political development.

On terrorism, Isayas said Eritrea had been fighting extremism for over 10 years and was not jumping onto the counter-terrorism bandwagon as a result of the September 11 2001 attacks in New York. He claimed Eritrea had been a target of fundamentalist terrorism through networks established in the names of religious schools and aid organisations.