DESTINATION ERITREA
You know that optimism is an overrated virtue when two leaders who, less than two years ago, were fighting side by side and calling each other 'comrade', are now blasting away at each other. Isaias Afwerki and Meles Zenawi, leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea respectively, were considered two of Africa's leading lights, committed to free market reform and the end of despotism, and looked set to lead the emerging African republics into a shining new future. Then they found themselves disagreeing over border lines, and a little bit of hotheaded schoolyard pushing and shoving escalated into an all out bloody conflict. At issue is Badme, a tract of land between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and clashing economic interests over Eritrea's abandoment of the Ethiopian birr, and the adoption of their own currency, the nafka.
Despite repeated attempts by both the USA and neighbouring regions to get the two former allies to kiss and make up, Ethiopia and Eritrea are still locked in a death grip with neither side prepared to back down. In fact as time passes, the conflict is gaining intensity. School buildings have been bombed, and civilians killed, in the latest round of fighting. The US State Department has ordered all nonessential personnel home, and urged American civilians to get the hell out. Unless you're a kamikaze war correspondent, or a person just looking for trouble, Eritrea is not a place you want to visit.
