Border demarcation controversy with Sudan has no legal backing – official

An Ethiopian government official said the border demarcation controversy between Ethiopian and Sudan has no legal backing but moral and social questions. The official said this during an evaluation and meeting of Intel officers and high government officials.

The official said the demarcation process started in 1965 between the then Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Minase Haile and his Sudanese counterpart Jaafar al-Nimeiri and has been lingering since.

He said based on the complaints received that the Sudanese have passed the Ethiopian border line of Guwi, a committee had been formed which has not yet conducted any form of border demarcation.

The official said on a recent high level meeting Sudanese officials came up with a new suggestion. The Sudanese said “you can still hold the land. We will protect the rights of your citizens. But at least in terms of principle, accept and confirm that the land belongs to us.”

The Ethiopian official told the officers that if one checks out his mobile apparatus near the borders of Ethiopia and Sudan such as Berehet in Tigray or Armachiho near Gonder it shows you that you are in the Sudan. So you may fake politics but not the science, he added.

He also said that recent reports that Armachiho has been given to Sudan is wrong but some Sudanese police officers do at times sneak in to the border towns of Ethiopia start havoc but our militias do not hold down rather they do not even consider the Sudanese soldiers as ‘soldiers’.

He said it does not mean that we can take hold of anything that our eyes see in fact if we want to do so we can even capture Khartoum.

The official asserted that the border demarcation has not at all started so far.

The online news source, Sudan Tribune, had reported quoting the region’s administrator in 2007 that a large chunk of land had been given to the Sudan.ESAT News