By Neely Tucker
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
ERDE MATTIOS, Ethiopia -- Seven Eritrean soldiers lay dead and disfigured, not far from the burned-out tanks used to try to seize this high and lonesome borderland between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
There was no time to bury them -- only to strip them of their rifles and shoes. A war still is being fought. And these soldiers were only the latest of more than 100 troops killed during the last few days in the battle to control a 155-square-mile area claimed by two nations that used to be one. "Ethiopia has never been conquered by anyone, not even Italy, and certainly not now by Eritrea," said Khalibie Tadessa, commander of a militia unit marching toward the front. "Our ancestors have always kicked out invaders, and we will do the same now." Eritrean and Ethiopian rebels fought alongside each other for 17 years to rid themselves of their common dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, winning that war in 1991. When Eritrea peacefully seceded from Ethiopia two years later, the border was left unclear in several places -- most notably here, in a triangle of land around the city of Badame. On May 6, economic and political tensions simmering between the countries for a year erupted into fighting in the Ethiopian border province of Tigray, home to many Eritreans. And Eritrea now holds many miles of formerly Ethiopian territory. President Clinton spoke Monday with the leaders of both countries, who agreed to suspend air strikes to allow their diplomats to try to forge a peace agreement. But Ethiopia still was refusing to participate in direct talks until Eritrea withdrew from the disputed territory. Thousands of volunteers on both sides marched toward the border to take up positions. Ethiopia has about 120,000 regular army soldiers. Eritrea has a regular army of about 35,000 troops, but reservists now push the number much higher. Peace will come to this region only if Ethiopia and Eritrea can forgive the deaths of hundreds of soldiers and civilians in recent fighting, disassemble military preparations, repatriate or reinstate thousands of each other's citizens, and soften the inflammatory rhetoric that has characterized this conflict. "From their president to their shoe polishers, Eritreans think they're better than everyone else," said Tekle Mesfin, a civic engineer in the northern village of Hageray. "They want to be the bosses of the Horn of Africa." The conflict results from deteriorating relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia, once steadfast allies. Last year, Eritrea, a nation of 4 million people with no natural resources, introduced its own currency, the nakfa, and stopped using the Ethiopian birr. Since then, a series of economic disagreements has exacerbated the land rivalries. The territory at the center of the conflict is harsh, rocky and prone to drought. The people fight for resources, and there are long-remembered rivalries and insults. "The land claim is just an outlet, an excuse, for all the economic conflicts the countries have been having," said Amare Aregawi, executive editor of the Reporter, an independent weekly in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. "Ethiopia has made a number of decisions Eritreans feel are strangling them. They feel as if there are economic cannons pointed at them." Richard Cornwall, director of the African division of the Institute for Security Studies, said the land conflict was an outgrowth of economic tension. "There's been an economic war going on for several months that has escalated into this," he said. Since 1993, when tiny Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia -- which has more than 58 million people -- Eritrea's dreams of prosperity have faded. The Ethiopian economy has grown more than 5 percent annually for five years, while Eritrea has not kept pace. As each new concrete factory and textile mill went up in Ethiopia, Eritreans feared their sister country would become financially independent, leaving them adrift. So when Eritrea's currency was issued in 1997, its central bank wanted the nakfa traded at par with the Ethiopian currency -- a move that would have bound the two economies. Ethiopia refused and said all transactions must take place in hard currency, which Eritrea does not have. The move hurt Eritrean pride and potential profits. Then, in January, Ethiopia stopped buying its gasoline from an aging oil refinery in the Eritrean port of Assab, instead buying refined oil directly from producers. Further, Ethiopian traders were ordered by the government to trade with the port in nearby Djibouti, bypassing Eritrea. "That was crippling," Cornwall said. "Eritrea gets tens of millions of dollars from that port and its refinery every year. When the Ethiopians pulled out, the economy took a hit." With tensions high, attention turned to land disputes along the countries' common border. Eritreans say turn-of-the-century colonial treaties place the disputed tract within modern-day Eritrea. Ethiopians say the land has been under their control for centuries. Each nation has accused the other of crossing the border in recent months. The Eritrean cabinet recently issued a statement accusing Ethiopia of setting up administrative posts within Eritrean territory. Ethiopia countered that Eritrea had sent troops into Ethiopia. Besides the land dispute, a number of slights and animosities fuel the conflict. Ethiopian migrant workers who labor in Eritrea often derisively are called Agame, the name of a local province, but which is used as a derogatory term. "They think we're dirty, poor, illiterate and look down on us," said Tekle, the engineer in Hageray. "That's what they mean when they say Agame, like we are stupid." Eritreans, meanwhile, say that in the deadly drought of 1984, Ethiopian rebels diverted international food aid to their areas, leaving tens of thousands of Eritreans to fend for themselves. "Those wounds hurt, and they've never been forgotten," said Tsegaye Hiwett, an Addis Ababa club-owner, who is half Eritrean. "They're not fighting over the value of the land. This is a post-feudal culture, and the issue is one of respect, both in the land and the economy."