Eritrea, 2006

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

06-53341 20

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.