Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin on Thursday accused the Asmara government of apparent readiness to move closer to accepting a peace proposal by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), in order to mislead the world.

"Eritrea has not accepted the modalities for the implementation of the OAU Framework Agreement," Seyoum said a day after leaders of both countries had attended the 35th OAU summit in Algiers.

Thousands of soldiers from both sides have been killed since war broke out on the ill-defined frontier on May 6, 1998, with the Addis Ababa and Asmara governments each charging that the other has invaded.

"The chances of a peaceful settlement are slender but we are not giving up," Seyoum said. "However, if Eritrea doesn't play along, I don't see how the war can be interrupted."

African leaders in Algiers underwrote two documents: the framework accord presented to the belligerents by the Addis Ababa-based pan-African organisation in November last year, and the modalities for getting the pact off the ground.

The governments of Ethiopia and its former Red Sea province, which won fully recognised independence in May 1993, have agreed in principle to the OAU plan, but their interpretation of it is so different that fighting has raged on.

On Friday, both countries published the terms of implementation agreed in Algiers, committing themselves to the "principle of the non-use of force" in separate but similar releases, as well as to "good faith", but problems of interpretation persisted.

So has a war of words, though at the summit, one major point of contention between Ethiopia and the newest independent African state appeared to have been lifted, regarding the withdrawal of Eritrean troops.

The principles agreed to in Algiers provide for Eritrea to redeploy its troops from positions occupied after May 6, 1998, while Ethiopia would do the same for territory taken from February 6 this year.

Hitherto, Eritrea had spoken only of redeployment concerning the Badme zone on the northwestern front of the border, while Addis Ababa wanted a withdrawal along the whole border, about 1,000 kilometres (more than 600 miles) long.

"This redeployment shall not in any way prejudice the final status of the territories concerned, it being understood that the status will be determined at the end of the border delimitation and demarcation," Asmara said on Thursday, before the joint text in the same terms was issued.

But the Asmara government also stressed the "humanitarian dimensions of the conflict" and looked for damages.

The war has not only been costly in lives, but is an outward sign of deep-rooted differences between the neighbouring countries, which have fallen out politically and over economic issues.

Eritrea argued that "it is imperative to fully compensate the deportees, if not the irreparable harm done to them, at least for expropriated property."

Seyoum claimed that "Eritrea has removed the substance of the proposal by trying to amend it and then saying it has accepted it."

"What Eritrea told the Algiers summit was that it had a different cutoff date for return to the status quo ante - not May 6, 1998, as indicated in black and white in the Modalities, but specifically July, 1997," he said.

The Ethiopian foreign minister also expressed concern at the demand for reparations, saying that "other amendments requested by Eritrea include a demand for compensation for alleged 56 villages uprooted and for Eritrean urban deportees".

"The plant is now under commissioning, and we expect production to commence after validating and testing as of the first week of September," he told The Monitor.

Owned by Biosol plc., a Franco-Ethiopian joint venture, the factory initially plans to produce about 1.3 million litres of different types of intravenous solutions annually. When it operates at full capacity, the factory will be able to produce 3.88 million litres in three shifts annually, meeting more than half of the local IV drugs needs.

Current estimated demand based on existing health facilities is about 6.8 million litres a year. These intravenous solutions are sodium chloride 0.9% and 0.45%, detrose 5%, 10%, and 2.5%, ringer lactate and water for injection. According to Ato Abdurahman, only 1.1 million litres, or 17 per cent of the demand, is met either through local production or imports.

There is a shortfall of 5 million litres, he said. The factory is projected to cost 30 million birr and to create employment for 60 workers on one shift basis.

Ethiopian military authorities said the latest fierce fighting occurred there from 25-26 June, and Ethiopian forces successfully repulsed a two-pronged Eritrean offensive to recapture Badme.

A senior commander told visiting reporters from Addis Ababa 28 June that this was the fourth time the Eritreans were trying to regain control over the area since being ejected in ''Operation Sunset.''

Although the Ethiopian army managed to liberate 8,000 sq.km in four days of fighting, landmines and cross-border shelling remain menace to thousands of displaced people wishing to return home.

Signs of apprehension were visible on the faces of the displaced people when the media group toured the liberated areas in Badme district and parts of the adjoining Shiraro district.

These are located between the garrison town of Endaselassie, capital of the western administrative zone of the Tigray Regional State, and Badme town, a distance of 153 kms. The international frontier on the Mereb river is 17 kms north of Badme.

The conflict has displaced some 100,000 people on the Badme front alone, a sparsely populated semi-arid grazing and farmland.

Some 350,000 others were displaced from the populated Zalambessa front, some 400 kms east of Badme. Over 30,000 others have been displaced at the third front at Bure, some 70 kms from the Red Sea Port of Assab.

But the threat of landmines and cross-border shelling are more pronounced on the Badme front where fierce fighting had been concentrated during the last four months.

It is difficult to estimate the number of mines in the area, which was heavily infested with anti-personnel mines before it was liberated.

By the end of May, some 35,000 anti-personnel mines had been cleared, according to Kiros Bitew, chairman of the administrative council of Western Tigray zone in Endaselassie.

He pointed out that most of the displaced people on the Badme front, who account for one-eighth of the 800,000 total population of western zone of the region, are desperate to return to their homes.

Kiros recalled that when the fighting erupted, less than a month of the start of the rainy season, ''families out on the field were separated from those at home.'' ''There were also cases of separations of entire families that fled in different ways and are still unaccounted for,'' he said.

According to media reports, land mines had killed about 20 people, including children herding cattle, and over 100 others suffered serious and light injuries by the end of May.

Among the victims were displaced people who had rushed back to their homes and farms within a few weeks after ''Operation Sunset.''

Mamuye Legesse, (49), a resident of Badme town, said he had braved the shellings since returning home. He has now reopened his old and partially demolished shop where he sells an assortment of items.

''The enemy should be pushed away from the border area so that this town and other localities will be outside the reach of the Eritrean artillery,'' Mamuye said.

A senior military officer said that although Ethiopian forces have the ability to end the war, they ''strictly follow the government policy of limiting their actions within the national boundary, as we do not covet Eritrean territory.''

The wish of thousands of people from the area to return to normal life could become a reality once Eritrea puts into practice its acceptance of fresh modalities for the implementation of the OAU Framework Agreement, which calls on it to withdraw its troops outside the areas they occupied after 6 May, 1998.

PANA GH/AF/PBM/GA 16July99