Several weeks ago the UN Security Council received a letter from the Ethiopian government accepting the commission’s decision to award the town of Badme to Eritrea. The agreement arrives five years after Ethiopia initially promised to comply with the UN’s 2002 ruling.
Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after 30 years of guerilla war. For two and a half years the two countries fought over the town of Badme until they agreed to a truce to cease hostility in 2000.
Ethiopia’s letter to the UN Security Council required Eritrea to comply with the 2000 truce and if violated to be sanctioned by the commission. In response to Ethiopia’s conditional acceptance, Eritrea issued its own letter blaming the UN for failing to force Ethiopia to turn over the town.
The Security Council met with African Union and Ethiopian officials in Addis Ababa this past weekend to discuss border issues and possible resolutions.
The Security Council was greeted by thousands of Ethiopian Jews in Addis Ababa waiting to get to Israel. In 2005 Israel unofficially promised to relocate Ethiopian Jews who claim their families were forced to convert to Christianity in the 19th century, known as the Falashmura, by the end of 2007.
Under Israel’s “law of return” anyone who is Jewish or has a Jewish relative or spouse is granted automatic Israeli citizenship. However, Ethiopian Jews in Israel are claiming that the government is discriminately blocking their relatives’ immigration.
Instead, thousands of Ethiopian Jews, who have abandoned their home and livelihood, are living on little hillocks near the Israeli embassy in Addis Ababa, waiting in vain to get to the Promise Land.
For more information please see:
Yahoo – Ethiopian troops attacked in Somalia – 15 June 2007
Yahoo – Ethiopia agrees to give town to Eritrea – 15 June 2007
Yahoo – Ethiopian Jews in limbo, waiting to get to Promised Land – 14 June 2007
BBC – Country Profile: Eritrea – 09 March 2007
