Eritrea, 2003

I should

like to begin by extending to Mr. Julian Hunte sincere

congratulations on his election to the presidency of the

General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session. The

Eritrean delegation is convinced that, under his wise

guidance, this session will address, with vision and

courage, the challenging issues that are confronting the

world.

My delegation would also like to take this

opportunity to express appreciation and thanks to his

predecessor, Mr. Jan Kavan, President of the General

Assembly at its fifty-seventh session, for the wisdom

and skill he displayed in leading the session to a

successful conclusion. We also pay tribute to the

Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, for his steadfast

commitment to the cause of peace and development —

the twin pillars of the United Nations Charter.

Eritrea pays tribute to and thanks the facilitators

and guarantors of the United Nations Mission in

Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) and its partners, the

troop- and observer-contributing countries, as well as

donor countries, for the assistance they generously

extended to ensure the success of the peace process. It

also urges them not to be discouraged by the recent

negative developments and to continue their assistance,

which is essential for the achievement of peace and

security in our region.

Eritrea would like to bring to the Assembly’s

attention the dangerous developments that are

threatening to destroy the peace process between

Eritrea and Ethiopia. In a message communicated to

the Secretary-General, on 19 September 2003, Ethiopia

officially rejected the decision of the Boundary

Commission and threatened to unleash another war of

aggression against Eritrea if the terms and conditions it

had set were not met.

It should be recalled that Ethiopia declared war

on Eritrea in 1998 because it claimed ownership of the

sovereign Eritrean town of Badme. At that time, we

made every possible diplomatic effort to prevent an

unwarranted and unjustifiable war — prior to and in

the aftermath of Ethiopia’s official declaration of war.

Unfortunately, that sent the wrong signal to Ethiopia

and prompted the regime in power to pursue — with

impunity — its policy of belligerence, and to unleash

successive military offensives that that resulted in a

great loss of life and the destruction of property.

After a cycle of senseless and bloody military

clashes, reason prevailed, with the signing of the

Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities and the

Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Algiers in June

and December 2000, respectively. A Boundary

Commission, empowered to be the final arbiter for the

boundary claims, was subsequently created. The

Commission announced its final and binding decision

on 13 April 2002. Badme was confirmed by the

Commission’s decision as being sovereign Eritrean

territory.

In spite of its treaty obligations to respect and

duly implement the final and binding decision of the

Boundary Commission, however, Ethiopia has chosen

to flout international law and practice. Thus, its

rejection of the entire decision and its denunciation of

the Commission follow a series of major violations of

the Algiers Agreements, including the illegal

deployment of troops and the building of settlements in

sovereign Eritrean territory, the aggravation of the

suffering of over 60,000 Eritrean citizens, who remain

displaced from their home villages in the temporary

security zone, and the delay of demarcation because of

obstructions caused by its tactics to prevent preparatory

field work. That has resulted in huge financial cost to

the international community.

As most Members will have been informed by

now, the Ethiopian Prime Minister declared, in a letter

of 19 September to the Secretary-General, that the

boundary demarcation process is “in terminal crisis”.

The Prime Minister heaped insults on the Boundary

Commission, dismissed its judgement as “totally

illegal, unjust and irresponsible” and called on the

Security Council to set up “an alternative mechanism”

to demarcate the contested parts of the boundary. He

further suggested that UNMEE should pack up and

leave, and pleaded for international recognition and

endorsement of Ethiopia’s occupation of sovereign

Eritrean territories.

Ethiopia’s provocative letter represents nothing

less than an unprecedented assault on the fundamental

principles of international law and the key tenets of the

Algiers peace agreements, as well as Security Council

resolution 1507 (2003). It is full of blatant lies and

distortions in its account of the legal principles and

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findings that the Boundary Commission invoked in

determining the location of Badme.

The Prime Minister’s letter contrasts sharply with

the public statement of his Government when the

Boundary Commission announced its decision on 13

April 2002. At that time, Ethiopia urged the

international community to put intense pressure on

Eritrea to accept and implement the decision of the

Boundary Commission fully and faithfully. It declared

full legal victory and even bragged about its

“successful litigation strategy that hinged on a

maximalist approach” of exaggerating its claims to

include territories that never belonged to it. This

blatant revelation, which is in fact true, was repeated

by both the Prime Minister and his Minister for Foreign

Affairs in a report to the Ethiopian Parliament as

recently as last month.

Let me now briefly address some of the issues

raised in the Ethiopian letter.

First, article 4.2 of the Algiers Peace Agreement

unambiguously states that:

“a neutral Boundary Commission composed of

five members shall be established with a mandate

to delimit and demarcate the colonial treaty

border based on the pertinent colonial treaties

(1900, 1902, 1908) and applicable international

law.”

Article 4.15 further states:

“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”.

Therefore, Ethiopia cannot thus arbitrarily and

unilaterally discard these key provisions of the peace

agreement or urge the Security Council to set up a new

mechanism.

Secondly, the Temporary Security Zone was

never intended or set up to create a provisional

boundary. Article 10 of the Cessation of Hostilities

Agreement specifically states that this will not

prejudge the final status of the contested areas, which

will be determined at the end of the delimitation and

demarcation of the boundary. In this regard, it is

instructive to note that the Boundary Commission had

notified both parties, in its delimitation decision of 13

April 2002, to recognize and respect each other’s

sovereignty and territorial integrity as determined by

the delimitation decision pending demarcation on the

ground. The boundary is thus already determined. This

is reinforced by Security Council resolution 1507

(2003), which calls on both parties to recognize and

respect each other’s territorial integrity and

sovereignty. Ethiopia’s ludicrous suggestion of

“recognizing the southern boundary of the Temporary

Security Zone” as the boundary between the two

countries” thus represents a flagrant violation of the

Algiers Peace Agreements and relevant Security

Council resolutions.

Thirdly, UNMEE’s mandate shall terminate when

the delimitation-demarcation process of the border has

been completed, pursuant to article 5 of the Cessation

of Hostilities Agreement. Ethiopia will again commit a

gross violation of the Cessation of Hostilities

Agreement if, as it has intimated in its letter, it requests

UNMEE to leave before completing its task.

Obviously, Ethiopia’s primary concern is not the

financial burden that UNMEE’s prolonged presence

would entail for the international community.

Ethiopia is, in fact, guilty of a litany of

obstructions and violations that have in the past

prevented expeditious demarcation. It cannot now shed

crocodile tears or preach to the international

community on ways and means of reducing financial

costs. If this is a thinly veiled threat meant to convey to

us its intentions of unleashing war, our response is that

Ethiopia will be the sole party responsible for

endangering regional peace and stability.

As the main guarantor of the Algiers Peace

Agreement, the Security Council has legal treaty

obligations to prevent war. Indeed, in accordance with

article 14 of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement,

the Security Council should urgently consider

Ethiopia’s flagrant violations of the Algiers Peace

Agreement and take appropriate measures under

Article VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

Fourthly, Ethiopian leaders also argue that

“the people of Ethiopia will not accept the

decisions of the Boundary Commission [and that]

Ethiopia will be embroiled in a political crisis and

civil war if we accept the decision”.

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These hackneyed arguments have been used by

previous Ethiopian leaders to justify their wars of

aggression. The truth is that the people of Ethiopia

have enjoyed internal harmony only when they were at

peace with Eritrea. Whenever it has been at war with

Eritrea, Ethiopia has become a source of instability in

the region, and its people the victims of recurrent

famines and pestilence. Also, such declarations must

ring an alarm bell, because they are similar, if not

identical, to statements made by those leaders who

embroiled Europe in the Second World War.

In our view, Ethiopia’s leaders have assumed

their lawlessness and aggressive invasion policy

because they have been emboldened by past patterns of

unjustifiable tolerance by the international community.

No action was taken against Ethiopia when it violated

the moratorium on air strikes brokered by the United

States and launched its second offensive in February

1999. No action was taken against Ethiopia when, in

violation of the technical arrangements forged by the

United States, the European Union, the United Nations

and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and

considered final and binding, it launched its third

offensive in May 2000. Ethiopia has now reached the

apex of its record of lawlessness, contempt for the rule

of law, treaty obligations and the Charter of the United

Nations by rejecting the final and binding decision of

an Arbitration Commission. How long will this culture

of impunity continue? When is the world going to say,

“Enough is enough” and invoke article 14 of the

Algiers Agreement?

Article 14 of the Cessation of Hostilities

Agreement states clearly, inter alia, that

“OAU and the United Nations commit themselves

to guarantee the respect for this commitment of

the two parties until the determination of the

common border on the basis of pertinent colonial

treaties and applicable international law … This

guarantee shall be comprised of:

“(a) Measures to be taken by the

international community should one or both of

the parties violate this commitment, including

appropriate measures to be taken under Chapter

VII of the Charter of the United Nations by the

United Nations Security Council”.

Should not the United Nations and the

international community now take these actions in the

name of justice and the Charter of the United Nations?

The international community has already invested

too much — in financial and in political terms — to

help bring about a legal and peaceful resolution of the

dispute. The political and financial leverage of the

international community, as well as the instruments of

persuasion at its disposal, are also substantial, as

Ethiopia continues to receive lavish development

assistance from multilateral and bilateral partners. Yet,

while all the ingredients and safeguards of success are

there, the danger of failure of the peace process is now

distinct due to the failure of the international

community to take seriously its obligations under this

agreement and to take effective preventive measures.

Unless appropriate action is taken now, before the

situation explodes, crisis management will be too late

and will not be worth the effort.

In this spirit, the Eritrean delegation appeals to

the General Assembly and to the international

community to take necessary and timely actions to

ensure that peace and security prevail in our region.

The obligations of the international community

are clear, while the measures at its disposal are

expressly spelled out in the Algiers Agreement.

Despite international guarantees, Ethiopia has

chosen to blatantly violate international law and its

solemnly signed treaty obligations. Since

19 September, when Ethiopia wilfully crossed a red

line, it has set in motion an irreversible process to

scuttle altogether the Agreement on Cessation of

Hostilities between the Government of the Federal

Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Government

of the State of Eritrea. That is an affront not only to

Eritrea but also to the international community as a

whole, and in particular to the United Nations and the

Security Council.

In his report (S/2003/257) to the Security Council

earlier this year, Secretary-General Kofi Annan

expressed his concern that the Eritrea-Ethiopia peace

process was “at a critical stage”. The situation can now

be considered explosive, paving the way — as

Ethiopian leaders seem to wish — to renewed conflict,

with its attendant horrific consequences, unless the

international community acts promptly and decisively.

The harmful effects of Ethiopia’s lawlessness will

not be limited to Eritrea. They will impinge on the

legitimacy and credibility of the United Nations and

mock its core values, if only because they violate the

hallowed injunction that States, big and small, need to

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observe the basic principles of international law and

the sanctity of legal agreements, and to respect the

sovereignty and territorial integrity of States.

In conclusion, the people of Eritrea and Ethiopia

have been denied peace for three decades. That has had

a devastating effect on their economies. They deserve

peace and development, which are now recognized as

human rights. Yet such peace can be guaranteed only

by respect for the rule of law, the sanctity of

agreements and the sovereignty and territorial integrity

established by arbitration decisions made on the basis

of legal agreements. Eritrea has always been, and will

continue to be, committed to such peace. It is now up

to the international community, and in particular the

Security Council, to uphold those principles and

values. In essence, Ethiopia is no longer in conflict

with Eritrea, but with the Charter, which the Security

Council must uphold as it has done in several similar

cases.