>> an old border disput a reignited. ethiopia and sudan blame each other for hostilities in the al-fashaga region. what's really behind the latest violence? this is "inside story." ♪ hello and welcome to the program. ethiopia and sudan are warning each other against worsening an

historic border dispute. they fought over al-fashaga for a century. the 250-square kilometer region is rich and fertile. sudan says treat yes show it's part of its territory but ethiopians have long settled there. for decades either yobe ians farmers worked the land without much disturbance but now ethiopia is accused of killing at least five women in a -- and a child in a border battle on monday. as well as at least five troops earlier this month. >> our brothers who were betrayed this month, they killed five or seven soldiers. this was a betrayal. we never expected to be fighting or any violence with our neighbors in ethiopia but they are the ones who started it. yesterday they killed our women and before that our farmers and

burnt our land and yesterday they said these weren't sudanese lands but they are. >> either yomea hasn't responded to the allegations but its government is accusing sudanese of going further into the region. the prime ministers last tried to discuss the tension in december. >> we monetaried movements of the suedien these army inside the borders. we continue to call on -- to stop the border argument. we fully know that behind these events is a full party. silence should not be con trued -- construed as fear. we adopted the option of dialogue and patience has limits. >> now, each side has its own story about what led to the violence in al-fashaga but many see it as the

latest flare-up in decades of rivalry wean the two countries. the grand either yomian ensans dam has been a source of tension since ground was broken in 2011. they fear it will restrict vital water supplies. the two nations have had to contend with waves of refugees. just recently thence -- tense of thousands were pushed into sudan. all right, let's bring in our guests. in the suedien yeels capital, head of the national boundary commission. in ethiopia's capital, the journalist at the reporter and in summerville in the u.s., alex duvall, executive director of the world peace foundation. we asked the ethiopian government for a representative to appear on the panel but no one was available. welcome to you all.

alex, what is really behind this border flare-up right now? >> i think the immediate facts we can go into. they are, as always in a border dispute, in dispute themselves. behind that there is the fact that, like almost all borders in africa, this one hasn't been fully deadline delinlyamented. it was determined in colonial times and an arbitrary line was drawn, which is not well understood on the ground and in the best cases and this was one of the better cases until very recently, the governments concerned had a let and let live attitude, allowing the people to live on the border in a traditional way, crossing the border at will. really, regardless of exactly where the legal line ran. and it was a political fallout at a higher level between the governments that mefpblets that the exact border line

suddenly became an issue of political controversy. >> what does sudan wants to see going forward? what does sudan want to see happen at this point? >> uh, good afternoon. i -- i think, let me first explain something from our colleague, alex duvall. i think what he said, that the line was not delineated, as i can understand and that the border is lots -- not precisely. let me correct him. the border was first limited in a draft agreement of 1900. and there was some objection and requests from the emperor to -- lord of herrington, when they were discussing this, on the precise line to run between the region

lings, which resulted in giving in britain, giving in to the requests of the emperor, of creeding him some parts of sue -- ceding him some parts of sudan. he didn't actually claim those parts then. and then the less britain exceeded to his demand and the line was clearly delineated in the 1902 agreement signed by the emperor himself and this is accomplished in the british -- british -- what you call, treaties. it is there for everybody to see and then the agreement was a boundary commission would be established jointly between sudan

and ethiopia to demarcate this boundary and that boundary commission was established and authorized to put pillars on the boundary line >> which major -- did exactly and he drew the line and he drew the map. he also took the coordinates of the boundary pillars that he actually erected along the boundary from 1903 from the point of this meeting with ethiopian-sudan boundary. in fact, he changed the description in the 1902 agreement -- >> i'm sorry -- i'm sorry to interrupt you. it's just that we don't have a lot of time for this discussion.

we know that it's a disputed territory. may i gist and you, what is it that sudan would like to see going forward when it comes to this dispute right now? >> well, -- i think the dispute is a novel thing. and the boundary was never disputed, even in 972. the exchange recognized the boundary pillars erected by major guinn and that is an exchange of note from the minister of foreign affairs of ethiopia. it was proposed and sudan accepted that, so there is no boundary disputes between sudan and ethiopia. also, the established 2001 boundary commission has worked for more than -- nearly 12 years without discussing any boundary line dispute. all that we hear about

boundary disputes is something novel. it just started two months ago from the ethiopian side. otherwise, there was no -- there was an arrangement on the boundary -- cross boundary cultivation in 1972. >> i'm really sorry, i don't mean -- i don't mean to interrupt you but i need to give time to the other guests. i'll get back to you in a moment. samuel, let me and you, what does ethiopia wants to see going forward when it comes to this dispute? >> i think from the perspective of ethiopia and ethiopians, i think the either yopen government wants to -- either yopian government wants to keep its borders intact. your guests has been mentioning all these agreements and all kinds of stuff that

were signed during colonization through the efforts of other countries. it looks like sudan taking advantage of what's happening in ethiopia and claiming a part of ethiopia. for example, they're trying to claim -- some people are openly debating whether -- belongs. i can almost guarantee you that belongs to ethiopia and that's part of the endless conflict and we hope it will just end and will come out to some kind of conclusion peacefully because people are dying as we speak right now because of these disputes. >> alex, both sides in this are saying they don't want a war but could this trigger a new conflict? >> i think it's already triggering something of a conflict and it could trigger a wider

conflict. let me describe way to the previous governments, the sudan and ethiopian governments decided on the compromise that they did and the compromise was to accept the delineation of the colonial era but also to accept that ethiopians could continue to cultivate and live in what was then described as suedien these territory, sending their children to ethiopian schools, paying tax, etc., etc.,, and the ethiopians didn't want to challenge the status quo because they saw ethiopia's relations over the wilder region at stake. the ethiopian strategy was, until very recently to embed the whole nile water agreement there an african coalition and to have sudan as an ally or member of that

coalition. the current prime minister stood that policy on its held just over a year ago when he went for direct, by lateral negotiations with egypt, without any foreign ministry official present. he met with the jitchings president and agreed that the americans would be -- and sudan is in a weak position, between egypt and america and what the prime minister did, not after malintent but in sheer nigh activety, he stood the preseptember of ethiopian foreign policy on its head and as a consequence of that he lost sudan has a strategic ally. he also made other blunders at the time and made an alliance with the most repressive person in africa, if not the world and the consequence of that is that tensions then began to rise in the

region and as the war broke out in tigre in ethiopia just over two months ago then we saw tension rising around the region and the regional state making territorial claims won -- within ethiopia against tigre state and they were winning that war so they were able to do that. no sudanese claims to -- this is something that i completely knew but also then, the amahara regional state wanted to say, ok, this is our territory too and it's a very different matter to make a territorial claim. what i readily say would be a potentially disputed territory. it's a very different matter to make it against a neighboring state and i think this was the origin of this dispute. it wasactually a

foreign policy error, if i may say so, by prime minister abe more than eight years ago. >> are you concerned that this could become a larger conflict and from your vantage point, what needs to happen in order to deescalate the situation? >> well, i want to see that this situation never escalates to anything worse than what is happening right now. what we want to see if if -- is what the boundary, the reaffirmation, joint boundary reafter medication report that was done between sudan experts and ethiopian experts in 2010, accepted and endorsed by the joint political committee and also in 2011, endorsed and semied by two presidents in 2005 to be implemented.

that is all. i think that is actually the answer to awful the calls for escalation. we don't need to escalate anything. we need to intensify the boundary pillars that were put in 1902, which both understands have agreed that is the correct course of the boundary line in 2010 and the report is there. the geography and coordinates are there. so sudan has accepted its duties and commitments in 1972. would call the ethiopian part also to respect the 1972 exchange of letters, especially those that stemmed from the

minister of foreign affairs of ethiopia and that every part issued respect in its economy. within that agreement and that we cannot start to implement the agreement from the last paragraph or the last sentence. we have to agree to implement it from the first paragraph and that will answer everything there. we do not claim any land in ethiopia. we are not willing or even have a policy or a strategy of claiming land from a neighboring country. but we are really responsible for administering our own land, our own territory and that ethiopian farmers are farming in sudan, they -- the agreement was that they work under sudanese laws, not under ethiopian laws.

they work under suedien's laws and respect sudan's laws. and the people there, we cannot allow them to regard -- disregard the suitenese law in the sudan these territory. that is the answer. we are neighbors. we have a long economic and social rhythm and we cannot go -- rhythm and we cannot go away from each other. we have to share that border so we have to go and fulfill our commitment as it is there. not to select. i mean, agreement has to be implemented in -- has to be with good intention to implement the whole agreement, not to select whatever each party wants and then disregard the commitment. that is all what we need and all what is to be done there.

sudan is really willing to implement the agreement done, but 1972 was -- >> i'm sorry to keep interrupting you. >> the 2001 agreement. >> i'm sorry, we do knee to get to the other guests. >> we also -- 1 >> "the washington times," we're running out of time. samuel, who can play an effective role when it comes to diplomacy going forward? >> before i answer your question, let me personalize the importance of the ethiopian -- which is -- some actors on the sudanny side is now claiming it's part of the sudan. my generation raised $5 billion for the first time to try to build it so that ethiopia could become finally self- sufficient, so we don't want to see our nation in such desperate

situatio as it has always been, at least in my lifetime. whether a few influential act iraqis are claiming that -- which my generation has put in $5 billion to build the renaissance dam. it hurts them because they're had a very, very long relationship for a long time. not just cultural or economical but we see them as one of our own. we've been helping them when they needed our help. the sudannies are giving all ethiopians some refugee status so when they claim or say it belongs to them, it goes to show us, we may have lost -- when it comes to our disagreements with egypt. who's going to help us? i mean, we have decent countries in the world, including canada and the scandinavian nations have always

played a role at looking at peace without their own interests so i think nose countries should really come and bring some kind of solution because we can't keep on losing ethiopians or sudannies in endless, pointless disagreements which turns into a conflicts. >> alec, looked to me you were reacting to what some of what samuel was saying there. these border tensions come at a time when people are trying to resolve the three-way row over the renaissance dam. how much does this complicate this dispute? >> it certainly does complicate this dispute. i must say i've never heard of a sudanese claim of the renaissance dam. that's completely new to me and i do follow this very closely. the architect around the ethiopian policy around the renaissance

dam -- is revered foreign minister of ethiopia for 19 years was cade few days ago and i would very much hope the either yopen nation is in mounching for one of the great leaders of our era. sadly, it is the ethiopian government that claims to have killed him. but there is a key interlocket torrey here that is already trying to resolve some of these issues and that's the united arab emirates, which is a friend and pate ron to ethiopia and trere. not only is trere frk -- invited to fight in the war in tigre by the war in ethiopia but they're providing major

financial support. it has no economy on its own and to have something like 25 combat brigades and daily operations inside ethiopian territory is very expensive and it can't do that alone and sudan has intervened with the u.a. over the last few days so i think what we may expect to see, hopefully, is the u.a.e., which is very concerned with its relationles with egypt, sudan and also with ethiopia, begin to say to either yopea, i very much hope, time for you to scale back on this war. it's not serving anyone's interests and we really need to have a peaceable order on whole before the current inflammation and escalation is complete -- >> i do want to follow up on one other big-picture thing too. how rare is it for the

sudanese and ethiopian armies to fight one another directly over territory. and please keep in mind we only have about two minutes left. >> it is is very rare for them to fight over territory. they've occasionally clashed over one another's proxies over the years but this is first occasion in which there has been an actual dispute that has led to armed clashes between the armies of the two country lings. >> and where things stand now, does it look to you there will be more clashes? >> i think at the moment they are headed to more clashes and i fear that the escalation, which at the moment is coming from the -- primarily from the ethiopian side with aircraft overflights is a very dangerous development. >> we've run out of time so we'll have to leave the conversation there. thanks so much to all our guests and thank you, too, for watching. you can see the program again anytime by

visiting our website. al jazeera.com and go to our facebook page for further conversation. you can also join the conversation on twitter. @aj@inside story. for the whole team here, bye for now. ♪ ñgfvfvfvfvfvfvfvfvfvfvfv■x