Sir, - In his column "The African Renaissance that never was" (December 28th) your correspondent Declan Walsh claims that the recent conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea was about a "strip of barren land". This land may look barren to an outsider but it provided homes and livelihoods to over 380,000 people before they were driven off it by invading Eritrean troops in May 1998. Civilians were targeted from the outset when over 200 of them were killed. The town of Mekelle was bombed shortly afterwards and 52 were killed, many of them children and many others were injured. Wars do not just start up for no reason, they are provoked and prolonged by aggression and intransigence.
Mr Walsh castigates Ethiopia for fighting off an assailant in the north while its citizens are facing starvation due to a severe drought in the south, but Ethiopia could not choose one or the other - it had to defend itself against aggression and against the worst drought the Horn has seen for decades.
Despite Mr Walsh's self-confessed gloom there is hope. Even during the recent conflict Ethiopians continued in their development endeavours and now that the conflict is over they can pursue them full time. After all, the main enemy of Ethiopia is poverty. - Yours, etc.,
Ephrem Mehretab, Press Office, Embassy of Ethiopia, Princes Gate, London SW7.