Some 50,000 angry Ethiopians demonstrated Sunday in Addis Ababa against their government’s plans to renew border talks with Eritrea. Their main protest is that a large village of some 5,000 inhabitants called Badme, is likely to be handed over to the Eritreans. At first sight their patriotic zeal is at least understandable — Eritrean forces moved into Badme in 1998 and triggered a bitter two-year war in which tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed on both sides.

Closer examination of the protest however is likely to evince despair rather than sympathy over the furious objections of the demonstrators who thronged the capital. When in 2000 the fighting stopped over a border that has at best always been poorly defined, it was agreed that the dispute over Badme would be settled by an independent boundary commission. In 2002 this commission ruled that the village belonged to Eritrea. The Ethiopian government immediately rejected the finding but by November last year, wiser counsels had prevailed. It is against this change of view that opposition politicians have been rousing crowds of angry demonstrators.

Many Ethiopians will feel a deep sense of grievance because of the number of people who died in what turned out to be the successful campaign to recapture Badme. To be forced to relinquish this tiny bloodstained patch of land challenges national honor. Unfortunately, the challenge to common sense is even greater.

Why is anyone encouraging demonstrators to be baying for blood and challenging a carefully structured peace deal with a neighbor? It beggars belief that responsible politicians could foster such dangerous protest.

Worse, these demonstrators took place in the city that the African Union has chosen to make its headquarters. Everything, for which the AU stands from peaceful resolution of differences to the fostering of economic growth and prosperity, was being trampled under foot by Sunday’s crowds.

And worse still, Ethiopia is a country that has itself known massive tragedy. Under the pitiless Marxist Mengistu regime, famine was used as a political tool to control any opposition. The international community overrode government objections and sent substantial food and development aid to the ravaged areas, establishing reconstruction programs which continue to this day. The international community has given the government in Addis Ababa funds for development, not for frittering away on further bloody warfare with its neighbors.

At a time when the world is diverted by a monstrous new tragedy in Asia, how can any Ethiopians, indeed how dare any Ethiopians forget the gifts the world gave them when they were in need. How dare they start again banging the drums of war and retribution? Can they have learned nothing from the misery and loss into which Ethiopia and Eritrea were plunged in their pointless war over a single village? Can they still not see that the only lasting resolution to conflict comes from negotiation, which inevitably involves compromise on both sides?