The New York Times

Tuesday, December 12, 2000

Peace in the Horn of Africa

(Editorial)

A disputed border, nationalistic fervor, reckless personal honor and diplomatic miscalculation have all contributed to the fighting between Horrific trench combat reminiscent of World War I has claimed the lives of between 75,000 and 100,000 conscripts. The two countries, among the poorest on earth, have squandered more than $1 billion on arms, enriching profiteers from Russia and Bulgaria to China and North Korea while impoverishing their own people.

The American-brokered peace treaty to be signed in Algeria this week is therefore a profoundly positive development. It should bring a formal end to fighting that was suspended by a cease-fire in June, after a final Ethiopian offensive that killed many troops on both sides and displaced hundreds of thousands of Eritreans from their homes. The treaty also establishes a peaceful mechanism for the demarcation of their disputed 620-mile border, an exchange of prisoners and the release of civilian detainees.

The United Nations has begun deploying a modest, 4,200-member peacekeeping and military observer mission, to which the United States is contributing $60 million but no troops. The exhausted people of these two countries may now renew the urgent task of development that they began with so much promise a decade ago after 30 years of armed struggle against the successive tyrannies of Emperor Haile Selassie and Mengistu Haile Mariam.

This belated conclusion to the hostilities is cause for relief, but not self-congratulation, on both sides. With so many lives lost and so much treasure wasted, there remains the question of accountability for a war that should never have happened. The leaders of the two countries, Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, arrogantly clung to their own objectives, heedless of the suffering and squandered resources. The two men once fought as allies against Mr. Mengistu, and had been embraced by Washington as promising reformers, princes of what President Clinton called an "African Renaissance." But they proved to be fundamentally men of the gun. Washington and the rest of the world should refrain from lavishing praise or aid on either until they have demonstrated a commitment to peaceful and accountable governing.

The Clinton administration, particularly former national security adviser Anthony Lake and Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice, deserves credit for brokering this accord after a long campaign of intensive and sometimes highly personal diplomacy. But the administration should be doing some soul-searching of its own. Through most of the war it refrained from publicly criticizing its two African allies, and it resisted calls for sanctions, belatedly supporting an arms embargo only after fighting resumed in May. Nor did the administration seek to slow down more than $1 billion in World Bank loans at a time when the two countries were hemorrhaging cash on weapons.

As this war comes to a close, there is reason to wonder whether lives could have been spared with a less accommodating form of engagement.