Eritrea, 2004

Allow

me at the outset to join previous speakers in

congratulating you, Sir, on your election as President

of the General Assembly at its current session. In light

of the restraints on our time, I shall omit several

acknowledgements and tributes that I should have liked

to make and delve directly into matters of vital

importance to my country, to the region of the Horn of

Africa and, by extension, to all Member States of our

global community.

My Government, of course, recognizes and is

grateful for the vital contributions of the international

community, including the United Nations, to promote

peace in the aftermath of the war that Ethiopia declared

against my country, using a place called Badme as a

pretext for invasion.

The Algiers Peace Agreement, signed by the two

parties in December 2000, was drafted and brokered by

the United States, the European Union, the African

Union and Algeria, among others. Furthermore, the

international community has spent more than $700

million to date to maintain the peacekeeping force.

More than 37 countries have contributed military

personnel, which are involved in UNMEE in various

capacities. We are indeed grateful for those

contributions.

But, while we applaud those valuable

contributions, we are duty-bound to express, with equal

candour, our regret and dismay at the lack of resolute

action by the international community at this critical

time, when the entire process is on the brink of

collapse. Had the international community respected its

obligations and seen the process through with the

requisite seriousness, the border would have been

demarcated long ago. Today could have been an

auspicious moment for our peoples to celebrate, from

this rostrum, the resounding success of the United

Nations peacekeeping effort. Instead, the dark clouds

of war are once again gathering over my country

because of Ethiopia’s intransigence and the

acquiescence of major Powers as concerns Ethiopia’s

violations of international law.

Allow me to recall some of the most salient tenets

of the Algiers Peace Agreement (A/55/686, annex).

First, regarding the establishment and powers of

the Arbitration Commission, article 4.2 of the

Agreement states:

“The parties agree that a neutral Boundary

Commission composed of five members shall be

established with a mandate to delimit and

demarcate the colonial treaty boundary based on

pertinent colonial treaties (1900, 1902 and 1908)

and applicable international law. The

Commission shall not have the power to make

decisions ex aequo et bono.”

Secondly, as concerns the final and binding

nature of the decision, article 4.15 states:

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“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.”

Thirdly, regarding punitive measures that should

be taken against the violating party, paragraph 14 of

the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (S/2000/601,

annex) states:

“[The] 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 … 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.”

It has been more than two years now since the

Boundary Commission announced its decision on the

basis of the Algiers Peace Agreement. That legal

decision was reached after 15 months of litigation,

following the exchange of numerous memorandums

and a two-week verbal hearing. The decision is final

and binding in accordance with the aforementioned

Peace Agreement. Furthermore, the decision is based

on the fundamental African principle of the

inviolability of inherited colonial boundaries, which

are not of our making but which we can only respect

unless we wish to open the Pandora’s box of an endless

cycle of bloody border conflicts.

My Government has accepted in good faith the

Boundary Commission’s decision, not because it has

won in the litigation, but because we firmly believe

that the only way to secure an enduring peace is

through respect of the rule of law and the integrity of

the arbitration decision. That is why my Government

has been cooperating, and continues to cooperate, fully

and unreservedly with the Boundary Commission in all

its delimitation decisions and demarcation instructions.

Ethiopia, on the other hand, has categorically

rejected the decision of the Boundary Commission. In

a letter to the Security Council on 19 September last

year, the Ethiopian Prime Minister declared that the

work of the Commission was “in terminal crisis”. The

Prime Minister dismissed the decision of the Boundary

Commission as totally illegal, unjust and irresponsible,

and requested the Security Council to set up an

alternative mechanism to demarcate the contested parts

of the boundary.

Ethiopia, of course, has no reason whatsoever to

reject the Boundary Commission decision. Apart from

its treaty obligations, the fact is that Ethiopia has won,

by its own admission, extra territories that never

belonged to it. Those were the words of the Prime

Minister, the Foreign Minister and the Council of

Ministers on 13 April 2002, when the Boundary

Commission announced its decision.

Ethiopia’s belated and calculated rejection of the

decision was an afterthought. It was tentative and

cautious at first, but gained boldness and audacity

when it realized that it could do so with impunity. The

Prime Minister’s letter informing the Security Council

that Ethiopia totally rejected the decision of the

Boundary Commission was written 16 full months after

the decision was rendered. In a sense, Ethiopia’s

rejection has more to do with the conduct of the

international community rather than any intrinsic

problem of the decision itself.

Critical and encouraging factors in Ethiopia’s

rejection were the sympathetic dispositions towards it

and the “winks and nods” of certain countries and

some foreign missions in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia’s current arguments and excuses on the

need to factor in human and physical geography and

bogus concerns as to population dislocation or

separation of villages and homes are so fallacious as to

not even merit discussion. The legal basis for

delimiting the boundary is unequivocal, and Ethiopia

cannot inject new elements after the fact. Furthermore,

boundaries in Africa, and for that matter elsewhere in

the world, are not always carved out of natural rivers

and ravines to exclude contiguous villages lying on

either side of the boundary between two countries.

In the case of the Eritrea-Ethiopia boundary, in

1998 Ethiopia expelled 14,500 Eritreans who had

inhabited 39 villages on the eastern part of the Badme

line since the 1920s. Those people have spent the last

several years in makeshift camps in western Eritrea.

An additional 58,000 Eritreans remain displaced

because Ethiopia continues to occupy our sovereign

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territories. All in all, more than 90,000 Eritreans, and

Ethiopians of Eritrean origin, were expelled from

Ethiopia in 1998 because the Ethiopian Prime Minister

declared that “Ethiopia has every right to expel any

foreign citizen if it does not like the colour of their

eyes”. How can Ethiopia now invoke the possible

dislocation of a few thousand settlers to prevent

demarcation of the boundary and jeopardize regional

peace?

In spite of Ethiopia’s violations of the Peace

Agreements, major Powers within the international

community have not taken critical steps to persuade

Ethiopia to uphold the rule of law and abide by its

treaty obligations. On the contrary, Ethiopia is

continuing to obtain massive humanitarian, economic

and military support from major Powers. Full-fledged

economic sanctions may not have been necessary, but

the debt cancellation, budgetary support and other

substantial injections of economic and humanitarian

assistance extended to Ethiopia have not been linked to

a positive performance in the peace process. As far as

Eritrea is concerned, therefore, the problem is not

Ethiopia’s bad-faith conduct in the border dispute, but

international silence and acquiescence with regard to

its violations, which has, in turn, encouraged its

intransigence.

It is regrettable that the United Nations

Secretariat and some Powers have introduced — and

continue to dwell on — tangential issues, instead of

taking concrete action to push the peace process

forward. Such notions are not only extraneous to the

Algiers Peace Agreement, but, if they were to become

operational, would actually subvert and derail the

peace process and significantly contribute to tension

and conflict. Here, I am referring to the related issues

of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General and the

“dialogue” to renegotiate the final and binding decision

of the Boundary Commission.

I would like to stress that the appointment of the

Special Envoy occurred only a few weeks after

Ethiopia had formally and officially rejected the

Boundary Commission decision requesting the Security

Council to create a new mechanism. While my

Government did not see any benefit or rationale for

that course of action, it did not reject the proposal

outright. We sought unambiguous clarifications with

regard to the mandate and functions of the Special

Envoy through various communications, emphasizing

that we could not possibly contemplate renegotiation of

the decision in any form. Unfortunately, our efforts did

not bear fruit, and the lack of clarity of the responses

we received only reinforced our original suspicions.

My Government has therefore informed the Secretary-

General that it considers that the issue of the Special

Envoy — which has eclipsed the key issue for almost a

year now — to be a closed chapter and appealed to the

Secretary-General to refocus international attention on

Ethiopia’s violations of the Algiers Peace Agreement

and the rule of law.

In the same vein, the issue of bilateral dialogue

with Ethiopia should be viewed and can be understood

only in its proper perspective. Eritrea has no problem

with the idea of fully normalizing its relations with

Ethiopia and reviving good-neighbourly relations. We

are neighbours, destined to live together and in

harmony. But we cannot possibly put the cart before

the horse and discuss economic or security issues, or

other issues relating to cooperation, while Ethiopia is

forcibly occupying our land in blatant breach of the

Algiers Peace Agreement and the decision of the

Boundary Commission. Indeed, Eritrea will not need

the good offices of an intermediary in order to resume

normal bilateral ties with Ethiopia once the critical

border issue is resolved legally and peacefully. I must

stress that the border issue cannot be the subject of

sterile dialogue such as that sought by Ethiopia. That is

legally untenable and practically impossible.

The cost of inaction by the international

community to regional peace and stability will be

enormous, and my Government sincerely hopes that the

indifference that we have witnessed over the past two

years will be rectified in time. Eritrea has shown

maximum patience and restraint, even though its

sovereign territories remain occupied by force. But

patience has a limit — particularly given that the

humanitarian burden is of great importance and that the

situation in that regard has been unsustainable for a

long time. Indeed, over 60,000 of our citizens continue

to live in makeshift camps, unable to return to their

home villages.

In his address to the General Assembly on

21 September 2004, the Secretary-General made a

passionate appeal for respect for the rule of law at

home and abroad. The people and the Government of

Eritrea would like to thank him for that statement,

which they subscribe to in its entirety and endorse

without reservation. Eritreans continue to be victims of

the violation of the rule of law as a result of Ethiopia’s

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rejection, with impunity, of the final and binding

decision of an arbitration commission sanctioned by

the United Nations and other organizations, as well as

by other States.

Eritreans also fully agree that the rule of law

begins at home, including at the United Nations. It

must not be forgotten that the implementation of the

Commission’s decision was guaranteed by a treaty

obligation signed by the Secretary-General on behalf of

the United Nations. It is therefore essential to note that

any stalemate in the demarcation process is a stalemate

not between Eritrea, which has accepted the decision

without any reservations or conditions, and Ethiopia,

which has rejected it, but between Ethiopia and the

United Nations, which has guaranteed implementation

and provided for punitive action, under Chapter VII of

the Charter, against the party that refuses to implement

the Commission’s decision.

The United Nations has the duty of enforcing the

rule of law. This is a violation of the rule of law and

demonstrates the collective failure of the United

Nations to uphold the law and to instil respect for it in

our fellow men and women. Ethiopia cannot be above

the law; Eritrea should not be denied its protection, and

the United Nations must employ its enforcement

capacity for the rule of law by fulfilling its treaty

obligations.

Before concluding, I would like to outline briefly

the views of my Government on other regional

problems. My Government warmly welcomes the

progress made over the past few months in promoting

reconciliation and lasting peace in Somalia. Although

we are handicapped by the war imposed on us by

Ethiopia, we have nonetheless continued to make

modest contributions to a durable and peaceful

resolution of Somalia’s internal problem. Our approach

has always hinged on supporting the Somalis as they

try to find their own solutions and on preventing the

fragmentation and Balkanization of Somalia, which

have been driven by external, rather than internal,

tendencies.

The magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in the

Sudan is too well known to merit explanation here. But

as the international community focuses on what is

currently taking place in Darfur, what is often missed

is the larger picture of regional destabilization and

incalculable human suffering that the fundamentalist

extremist regime has been fomenting for almost

15 years. Furthermore, the ramifications of the

National Islamic Front’s policies, which are based on

extremist ideology, have not been confined to the

Sudan but have affected several neighbouring

countries, including my country. It is therefore

essential that major Powers in the international

community see the problem for what it is and assess it

on the basis of what it portends.

In conclusion, I would like to restate the position

of my Government on the relevant ongoing debate

about the reform of the United Nations system. It is

clear to us, as a matter that has been reinforced by our

recent experience, that, despite many achievements,

there are areas of critical shortfall that require reform

and restructuring. We also believe that parameters and

considerations that were relevant when the United

Nations was established in the immediate aftermath of

the Second World War need to be revisited and

adjusted, in accordance with contemporary realities.

Furthermore, representation in the Security Council

must satisfy the criteria of reasonable regional

representation and equity, as well as of the equality of

sovereign nations, as enshrined in the Charter.