A CONFLICT once described as so pointless that it was like two bald men fighting over a comb looks increasingly likely to restart after Eritrea expelled international peacekeepers from the border it shares with Ethiopia.

Troops from the US, Europe, and Canada have been ordered to leave the area, in which nearly a quarter of a million soldiers now face each other.

In recent weeks Eritrea and Ethiopia have moved extra men to the desolate, mountainous border, which is the most militarised in Africa. Between 1998 and 2000 they fought a war there that killed more than 70,000 people.

Berhane Hailu, the Ethiopian Information Minister, said that the Eritrean decision would do nothing to cool tensions. "We will do everything for a peaceful resolution. But we are, as always, ready to defend our sovereignty," he said.

A notice was delivered to the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (Unmee) by the Eritrean Government, ordering international staff to leave within ten days. "It is . . . advisable for Unmee to remain compliant to the decision and to render full co-operation to its implementation," the letter said.

No explanation was given but analysts said that it was a reaction to a UN Security Council resolution last week, which threatened Eritrea with sanctions if it did not ease restrictions on the peacekeeping mission.

The expulsion order will affect about 160 of Unmee’s 3,794 staff — including nearly half the observers on the Eritrean side. Combined with earlier restrictions, it will make it nearly impossible for the "blue helmets" in Eritrea to continue their work.

The source of the tension between the neighbouring countries is Ethiopia’s refusal to recognise the ruling of an international commission demarcating their 621-mile mutual border, despite a prior undertaking to abide by the result. The commission was established as part of the peace deal that ended the previous war.

Eritrea’s relations with the UN have soured since it tried to put pressure on the Security Council to enforce the border decision.

In early October Eritrea banned UN helicopter flights near the 15-mile-wide buffer zone along the border and prevented peacekeepers from making night patrols, forcing the closure of 18 out of 40 observation posts.

Both countries then sent more troops and tanks to the border in a build-up that Henri Boshoff, a military analyst with the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, called "extremely concerning".

On November 23 the UN Security Council urged the two sides to reverse their troop build-up and threatened Eritrea with sanctions if it did not ease peacekeeping restrictions. But the UN resolution did not threaten Ethiopia with punishment for ignoring the border ruling — greatly angering President Afewerki of Eritrea.

Matt Bryden, a senior analyst covering the Horn of Africa for the International Crisis Group, said: "It is pretty clear that Eritrea is escalating its confrontation with the UN because it is frustrated by the Security Council resolution."

Analysts agree that Eritrea has reason to be upset with Ethiopia’s refusal to accept the boundary ruling — and the West’s reluctance to pressure Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian Prime Minister. Ethiopia now has about 150,000 troops on the border and Eritrea 80,000.

A new conflict would make little sense for Eritrea, which gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war. Desperately poor and with a population of only 3.6 million, it would stand little chance against sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous country. But there is a mutual enmity between the two countries’ leaders that could override any logic.

They are both Tigrinian speakers, who fought together to oust Mengistu Haile Mariam, the hardline Marxist dicatator, as leader of Ethiopia in the 1980s. But they fell out after Eritrea’s independence deprived Ethiopia of access to the sea. Both have become increasingly autocratic after more than a decade in power and increasingly dependent on "foreign threats" to unite their peoples.

President Afewerki, who calls Ethiopia "the pampered child of America", recently gave warning that his patience over the border issue was not infinite. Mr Meles is facing increasing internal dissent and does not want to cede any ground to his tiny neighbour.

DECADES OF CONFLICT

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