On behalf of the
Government and people of the State of Eritrea, I avail
myself of this opportunity to extend to Ms. Haya
Rashed Al-Khalifa, and to the Government and people
of the Kingdom of Bahrain, my sincere congratulations
on her election as President of the General Assembly at
its sixty-first session. I also wish to express our
appreciation to Mr. Jan Eliasson of Sweden, who
presided over the sixtieth session of the Assembly, for
his dedication and skilful leadership during the past
year.
For reasons of brevity, I do not wish to dwell on
generic themes of global economic development,
United Nations reforms and other issues of interest that
have been addressed comprehensively by many
speakers with whom we share similar views. I shall
instead focus on cardinal issues of peace and security
that remain of paramount importance to my country
and the Horn of Africa region as a whole.
In this respect, allow me, Sir, to bring to the
attention of this Assembly, for the umpteenth time,
Ethiopia’s reckless flouting of international law that is
threatening peace and security in our region. It is
painful for my Government to harp on the same theme
at every Assembly session for the past four years. But
these are the sad facts of a perilous reality imposed on
my country. In the event, we are duty bound to press
for and exhaust all legal processes to stave off
dangerous consequences before it is too late.
As the Assembly is aware, demarcation of the
boundary between Eritrea and Ethiopia remains stalled,
more than four years after the legal award, owing to
Ethiopia’s rejection of the final and binding arbitration
decision. Ethiopia’s conduct is contrary to the terms
and conditions of the Algiers Peace Agreement. Indeed,
article 4.15 of the Agreement stipulates as follows:
“The parties agree that the delimitation and
demarcation determinations of the Commission
shall be final and binding. Each Party shall
respect the border so determined, as well as the
territorial integrity and sovereignty of the other
party”.
It must be stressed that there is no equivocation
or ambiguity in the general provisions of this
Agreement. Yet, Ethiopia has violated the core of the
Algiers Peace Agreement with impunity. And, it has
continued to occupy, by force, the sovereign territory
of a United Nations Member State for the past four
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years, in violation of that Agreement and Article 2,
paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter.
How and why did this happen?
To single out Ethiopia as the primary and only
culprit would be missing the forest for the woods. The
fact is that Ethiopia has neither the power nor the
political skill to defy international law for even a single
day, let alone for four long years. If it has done so for
the past four years, it is simply because its unlawful
conduct has been, and continues to be, encouraged and
supported by certain Powers in the Security Council.
This poignant state of affairs is best exemplified
by the following three instances. First, when three
years ago, in September 2003, Ethiopia’s Prime
Minister sent an ominous letter to the Security Council
announcing his Government’s blatant rejection of the
Boundary Commission decision and calling for a “new
mechanism” outside the Commission to overrule the
legal award, the Secretary-General and the Council
chose to accommodate Ethiopia’s unlawful conduct.
This happened in spite of the fact that the Council is
the main guarantor of the Algiers Peace Agreement and
has treaty obligations to maintain the integrity of the
legal decision. It must be recalled that the Council is
explicitly empowered, by article 14 of the same
agreement, to invoke Chapter VII of the United
Nations Charter to ensure compliance by the parties.
As it happened, the Secretary-General and the
Council opted for the wrong path and appointed a
Special Envoy, in contravention of the legal agreement.
The demarcation process has thus been stymied for the
past four years at huge financial cost to the
international community and inestimable cost in terms
of lost opportunity and heightened tension for the
peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Secondly, when this Special Envoy scheme
proved unworkable, the United States Government
employed its full diplomatic clout to unlawfully alter
and modify the legal Award under the rubric of a “new
initiative”. This time around, the United States dropped
all pretensions of influencing the demarcation process
from without, through an external envoy wearing a
United Nations mantle. The current plan consists of
directly planting a senior expert as an adjunct to the
Boundary Commission and bestowing on him wide
powers to alter the decision in the process of
demarcation.
Washington’s package further envisages creating
a new and political appellate body — outside the
Boundary Commission — to accommodate Ethiopia’s
additional requests in case of dissatisfaction with the
“alterations” that would be implemented through the
services of the expert. This United States “diplomatic”
scheme, which in effect renders fundamental tenets of
the Algiers Peace Agreement null and void, has been
tailored to fully address Ethiopia’s request for an
extrajudicial mechanism when it rejected the Boundary
Commission decision in September 2003.
From the foregoing, one can only surmise that
Ethiopia’s original rejection of the award must have
been tacitly supported by Washington from the outset.
The United States Government has even resorted to a
series of measures against my Government with the
apparent purpose of furthering this aim. In this
connection, I wish to refer particularly to the seizure of
financial and other assets of our Embassy in
Washington by the United States Homeland Security
Department in contravention of the Vienna Convention
on Diplomatic Relations and to avail myself of this
occasion to lodge a complaint on behalf of my
Government and to solicit the support of the
international community for redress and restitution.
Thirdly, the semi-annual and other periodic
reports of the Secretariat to the Security Council have
invariably tended to downplay Ethiopia’s violation of
the Algiers Peace Agreement and the Charter of the
United Nations. These reports have often tended to
apportion equal blame to both parties without
differentiation and, particularly in the last two years, to
impugn Eritrea alone. In this regard, Security Council
resolution 1640 (2005), which the Security Council
adopted in December last year, went so far as to
threaten imposing punitive measures against Eritrea,
ostensibly for curbing the freedom of movement of the
United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea
(UNMEE), while overlooking Ethiopia’s refusal to
accept unconditionally the final and binding decision
of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC).
This unlawful conduct by Ethiopia is indeed
threatening to unravel the peace process as a whole.
We can also cite various instances in which the United
Nations Secretariat went out of its way to downplay
unacceptable excesses and infringements of Eritrea’s
sovereignty by UNMEE staff and to blame my
Government instead of taking appropriate remedial
measures. Incidentally, whether the huge annual
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financial outlays for the sustenance of UNMEE are
really justified and provide value for money spent
remains a critical matter that requires thorough
scrutiny and auditing.
For us, these concerted unwarranted acts belie an
overarching theme. The solemn pledges that we have
heard on this podium from leaders of major Powers on
upholding international justice and the rule of law, like
the collective commitments to prevent and resolve
conflicts and avoid humanitarian disasters, ring hollow
at the altar of reality. When the chips are down, major
Powers, and especially the United States, continue to
pursue their perceived narrow interests at the expense
of regional peace and security and the sovereign rights
of nations and peoples.
Be this as it may, my Government is determined
not to allow the legal process to be derailed through
various subtle subterfuges. Let me recall that Eritrea’s
right of independence was compromised by the United
Nations in the 1950s — during the period of African
decolonization — to serve the interests of the United
States. Half a century later, we shall not allow any
encroachment of our territorial integrity.
In addition, as my Government underlined during
the last meeting of the Boundary Commission, first, the
award that is “final and binding” in accordance with
the Algiers Peace Agreement should not be tampered
with under any circumstances. In this connection,
Ethiopia’s acceptance of the decision must be
ascertained publicly and unequivocally. Secondly, the
details and modalities of demarcation must be worked
out in an environment that is free from political
interference, unlawful and compounding mechanisms,
and loopholes susceptible to distortion.
Allow me now to briefly dwell on the dangerous
developments that are unfolding in Somalia and the
muddled interpretations, both deliberate and innocent,
that have gained currency in recent months. We must
recognize that the current crisis in Somalia derives
from multifaceted and cumulative underlying causes
that have been in place for the past 15 years. Collective
or individual initiatives that will be taken to promote
enduring peace and stability in Somalia must
accordingly address the following parameters if they
are to bear fruit.
First, the daunting problem in Somalia is
essentially an internal political problem that must be
resolved through negotiations among Somali political
forces themselves. In this spirit, my Government
welcomes the efforts of the Sudanese Government to
facilitate talks among Somali political forces.
Secondly, the portrayal of recent developments in
Somalia in terms of the global war on terrorism is
factually untenable and politically imprudent. The
overarching national cause of the Somali people should
not be reduced to or lumped together with this singular
concern.
Thirdly, any external military intervention will
further polarize the political realities of Somalia and
induce greater conflagration. Ethiopia’s military
intervention, under whatever guise or justification, is
particularly dangerous both for reasons of historical
animosity and because of the events of the past few
years. It must be understood that there is no consensus
within the Intergovernmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) on the modalities, timing and
nature of deploying foreign forces, although the matter
was comprehensively discussed at ministerial meetings
for the purposes of contingency planning only. We find
the African Union’s recent call for deployment of an
8,000-strong peacekeeping force in the absence of a
robust framework of peace unwise and fraught with
unnecessary complications. Its practicality is also
questionable in view of the financial and other
challenges that the African Union Mission in the Sudan
(AMIS) is grappling with in that country.
Fourthly, a recent call by some forces for a
selective lifting of the United Nations embargo on arms
is unbalanced, misguided and fraught with the potential
for dangerous consequences. Indeed, a selective lifting
can only imperil the political process of reconciliation
in Somalia and a durable political settlement there.
Accordingly, appropriate adjustments to the arms
embargo in Somalia can be contemplated only when
there is irreversible progress in the political
arrangements giving rise to national institutions that
have credible legitimacy and popular support.
Fifthly, the challenges for promoting lasting
peace and stability in Somalia are formidable. They
will be complicated if different actors work, or are seen
to be working, at cross purposes. Closer coordination
and consultation among all interested players must be
cultivated and structured.
Finally, the current situation in Somalia is raising
the spectre of territorial claims and disputes between
Somalia and its neighbours. Territorial disputes and
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claims can only be settled by strict adherence to the
sanctity of colonial boundaries.
Let me conclude by urging caution and prudence
in the international efforts to help resolve the problems
in the Sudan. The truth is that the high price of hasty
and ill-advised policies will ultimately be borne by the
people of the Sudan and the region as a whole. The
complexities of the situation must therefore be gauged
carefully, and all international efforts must be
harnessed to promote a robust peace package that will
bring about a lasting solution. Focus on short-term
arrangements without an overall peace framework will
only postpone and complicate a lasting solution.