Imagine Mexico claiming the city of San Diego, and after failing to take it by force going for international mediation. And imagine international mediators awarding Sandiago to Mexico and telling the USA that is is OK to lose San Diego, because, “we promise to build you a bigger and a better city, just in another area of your border and we will call it Sand Diego.”

I brought the above scenario to show the somehow parallel solution being arrogantly advocated by the so-called Western mediators and experts on Ethiopia. It clearly showshow much disregard there is by the powers to be when it comes to matters of Sub Saharan Africa.

Acting secretary of state for Africa, Mr. Charles Snyder, seems to think that with the right amount of money and enticement even borders between countries should be rearranged. Arrogantly, he stated: “One of the things we said, in fact, to Prime Minister Meles at the highest level was, 'we'll build you another Bademe [the disputed area]. We'll build you a Badme city on the hill. If this local population is disadvantaged, we'll build them brand new state-of-the-art houses, wells, roads, and everything else on the right side of the border. If that's what this is about, if this is really about the people, which is what you keep telling us this is about.”

Mr. Snyder should ask his government why that same offer was not extended to Issayas Afeworki when he invaded and occupied Bademe for over one year. One would only hope that a representative of an important office and one who claims to have been involved in the process from the start would bring something profound to the table.

Mr. Snyder thinks the border issue is not about the people. He carelessly reduces the problem to the missing camaraderie between Melese and Issayas. How absurd! These are his words: “ It's about the line in the sand between two old revolutionary comrades who can't find a way out. The way out is to get out of the box. They are looking at this border as what their relationship is about. It's not. They have to remember their revolutionary roots. It's about raising both of the populations up. And that means they need to say, okay, fair or not fair we agree that this bloody deal is going to be concluded."

To begin with, if truth were told, the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea could have been avoided if Eritrea were told squarely to reverse its aggression by the now so- concerned-mediators.

The solution to the whole problem between Ethiopia and Eritrea lies not in reorganizing the friendship status of the two dictators, Issayas and Melese, but in understanding why Issayas started the war in the first place. Any truly concerned and genuine mediation would begin to understand the cause of the war, which has nothing to do with the border but with Eritrea’s economic insecurity. First, what Mr. Snyder calls worthless land includes people who live not only in one village, Bademe, but people of thousands of villages who have never been Eritreans, these includes the Irobs, the Afars and Tigrians. Second, no amount of “worthless- land “ transfer to Eritrea is not going to cure Eritrea’s irrational desire to be an economic power at the expense of Ethiopia.

What is the urgency of demarcating this border area anyway? Many countries in the world live without a demarcated border, peacefully. This whole rash for demarcation seems to be orchestrated to seal Ethiopia’s land locked status permanently.

Granted, we are poor, we have stupid leaders, and we do not have the resources that Western powers need, but that does not mean neither we do not know what we want nor do we not deserve justice.

We are where we are now not only because of the stupidity of our leaders but also because of the miss guided and disingenuous solutions that are thrown at us in the name of mediations and negotiations.