Ethiopia, 1998

I should like first of all to

extend to Mr. Didier Opertti the Ethiopian delegation’s

congratulations on his well-deserved unanimous election

to preside over the fifty-third session of the General

Assembly. We are fully confident that under his guidance

the work of this session of the General Assembly will

meet with resounding success.

I should like also to express our appreciation to the

outgoing President for the most effective guidance he

provided to the fifty-second session of the General

Assembly and for the most valuable contribution he has

made in this regard.

We are indeed deeply indebted to our Secretary-

General, Mr. Kofi Annan, who has tried to inject new

vitality into the United Nations and who has, under

difficult circumstances, continued to make a difference at

the helm of the Organization. We appreciate very deeply

in particular what the Secretary-General has been doing

to ensure that the voices of all those whose viewpoints

needed to be heard are heard, and that there is a more

effective cooperation between the United Nations and the

Organization of African Unity (OAU).

I wish in this regard to commend him with great

satisfaction for what can only be called the historic report

he has submitted on the causes of conflict and the

promotion of durable peace and sustainable development

in Africa. This report, on which the Secretary-General has

deservedly already been congratulated by many, raises all

those issues which are vital for the future of Africa and

treats them with such frankness and transparency that I

can only hope that we will all have the necessary resolve

and commitment to follow up its recommendations and

ensure their implementation.

We in Africa have made, over the past few years,

tremendous efforts to change Africa’s image and reality.

Despite the apparent slips of the past few months, what

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has been achieved on our continent since the early 1990s

should not be underestimated. This applies both to activities

in the economic area as well as to the work for peace and

stability on our continent.

The past few years have demonstrated quite vividly

how most African countries, including my own, Ethiopia,

have shown the necessary determination to create a

domestic climate conducive to economic growth and

development. There is today hardly any country in Africa

which has not acknowledged that the economic future of

countries lies in market-based and private-sector-driven

economic transformation and which has not taken the

appropriate steps to that end. It is indeed gratifying to note

that the results, certainly in my own country, have been

encouraging.

However, it is hardly disputable that our performance

in the economic area has not by any means measured up to

our expectations and that it has been far below what is

needed to prevent hopelessness and despair on our

continent, especially among the younger generation.

Although the reasons that provide part of the explanation

for this may not be wanting, it is nonetheless very obvious

that the well-known limitations we face in international

economic cooperation, in particular in the area of trade and

in connection with the debt burden, constitute the major

impediments to Africa’s economic regeneration.

Consequently, the Secretary-General has reiterated in his

report that there is indeed an urgent need for political will

to ensure sustainable growth and development in Africa, not

only on our part as Africans but also on the part of the

international community as a whole.

In the past few years we in Africa have also made

every effort, in particular through subregional organizations,

to work for peace and to prevent and contain conflicts. In

this regard, the establishment by the OAU of a Mechanism

for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution in

Africa has been a major step we have taken, and our

achievement on this score over the past few years should

not be underestimated.

In our own subregion, we have continued to exert the

necessary efforts for peace in the Sudan and to assist the

people of Somalia in achieving national reconciliation and

establish a broad-based Government and a central authority.

In both cases, while success has not been easily won, the

efforts we are making have nonetheless continued because

of the conviction, including on the part of our partners in

the international community, that there is no effective

alternative to these efforts carried out at the subregional

level through the mechanism of the Intergovernmental

Authority on Development (IGAD).

But it is very clear that the gains, however small,

made over the past few years in the area of peace and

security in Africa have been tested very severely in the

past few months. Developments in the Great Lakes

region, most particularly in the Democratic Republic of

the Congo, represent some of the serious sources of

concern we have in this regard. Nevertheless, we remain

hopeful that a way out of this looming danger in the

Great Lakes region will be found based on full respect for

the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries of

the region, including the Democratic Republic of the

Congo, and on the full recognition of the security

concerns of all countries of the region.

It is Ethiopia’s firm conviction that there is no

alternative as a guarantee for peace and amity among

States to the scrupulous observance of all of the principles

of international law governing inter-State relations.

However, the greatest danger for peace in this

connection is not so much the violation of international

law per se, but the response by the international

community in the face of such violation. When the

international community, for whatever reason, fails to

respond to aggression and to violations of international

law with the required indignation and resolve, then

aggressors are sent, wittingly or unwittingly, the message

that the principles of international law are not there to

underpin the peace and that laws are there to be violated

with impunity.

This has been the lesson that we have drawn from

one of the major recent disappointments that we have had

in the area of peace and security in Africa. I am, of

course, referring here to the naked aggression by the State

of Eritrea against Ethiopia on 12 May 1998. Despite the

efforts by various parties, this aggression continues to

portend the outbreak of a full-scale war between the two

countries because, on the one hand, of Eritrea’s

intransigence in insisting that the peaceful resolution of

the crisis must be linked to Ethiopia’s acceptance of the

loss of its sovereignty over a part of its territory and to

the consequent appeasement of Eritrea, and, on the other,

of the dangerous impression the international community

is conveying: that aggression entails not costs to the

aggressor, but rewards.

The aggression committed by the Eritrean regime

against Ethiopia is unprecedented in more ways than one.

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First, it is aggression that was not only unprovoked but was

also carried out against a State that, until the day of the

aggression, was a true friend of Eritrea — probably the

only true friend Eritrea had until that day of infamy when

it decided to stab Ethiopia in the back. Secondly, this is an

aggression that, paradoxical as it may seem, was designed

to impose Eritrea’s will and policy on a country that is in

no shape or form suited to play second fiddle to Eritrea. It

is quite possible that Ethiopia’s preoccupation with

development and with the fight against poverty over the

past several years might have created the wrong impression

in the minds of Eritrea’s leaders, with their fixation on

muscle-flexing and military might.

Conscious of its responsibility not only for its own

people but also for peace and the image of our subregion,

Ethiopia has exerted and continues to exert the maximum

possible effort to ensure the peaceful resolution of this

crisis, which was created solely by the Eritrean aggression

against Ethiopia and the subsequent occupation of Ethiopian

territory. Our full cooperation with the various efforts made

in this regard — ranging from the United States-Rwandan

facilitation to the ongoing effort by the Organization of

African Unity — attests to the maximum amount of self-

restraint that Ethiopia has demonstrated under difficult

circumstances and in the complete absence of a rational and

reasonable partner for peace on the part of Eritrea since the

early days of the aggression.

The origin of the crisis between Ethiopia and Eritrea

is not in any bilateral dispute between the two countries;

rather it is the result of aggression — an unprovoked

aggression which constitutes a flagrant violation of

international law. To many this Eritrean aggression against

Ethiopia has been incomprehensible. But to those who, like

us, are familiar with the internal Eritrean situation, the

behaviour of the Eritrean Government stems directly from

the total absence in Eritrea of the normal characteristics of

a State. The absolute failure of institutions, the absence of

the rule of law and the lack of accountability can explain

the aggressive behaviour of the Eritrean leadership towards

its neighbours ever since the establishment of Eritrea as an

independent State. As a result, these factors also constitute

the single most important cause for the current crisis

between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The fact that aggression was committed against

Ethiopia by Eritrea has been indisputable for some time

now. This has been the position and conclusion of all those

who have so far tried, under the difficult circumstances

posed by Eritrea’s obduracy and lack of civility, to make

their good offices available as facilitators and as brokers of

peace in this conflict. No one who has been intimately

involved with these various efforts for peace between

Ethiopia and Eritrea would fail to see that Eritrea has

never, ever been prepared to give peace a chance. No one

who has been close to the efforts made so far to resolve

the crisis peacefully would fail to have noted not only the

absolute disregard for peace on the part of the Eritrean

authorities, but also their attempt to conceal the truth,

their lack of transparency and their sheer failure to

demonstrate the minimum decency towards all those who

have tried to help. Nevertheless, it is indeed regrettable

that some, jettisoning their principles, seem to have drawn

the conclusion that, in the face of the known irrationality

bordering on the insane in Eritrea, what needs to be done

is to lean on Ethiopia, the victim of the aggression, to

compromise on principles and to agree to the

appeasement of the aggressor and to reward aggression.

Two things must not be overlooked by the

international community with regard to the enormous

implications of Eritrea’s aggression against Ethiopia for

international law and for the future of peace and stability

in our subregion. First, it must be recognized that this is

precisely a trap laid by the Eritrean authorities in the form

of a deliberately designed game of chicken, calculated,

these authorities hope, to end with rewarding aggression.

Needless to say, Ethiopia refuses to play according to the

Eritrean script, and we call upon the international

community to take the same resolute stand.

Secondly, it should never be assumed that through

appeasement war would be averted and that durable peace

can be ensured in our part of the world. Although because

of its recent history this part of the world admittedly

needs peace most, it cannot be expected to pay any price

to avoid war, in particular by accommodating aggressors.

Clearly it stands to reason, and history has amply

demonstrated, that war in the long run cannot be averted

by appeasing aggressors.

It is a total illusion to believe that Eritrea will be

tamed, and we are saying this from experience. One just

has to look at Eritrea’s track record of the past few years

in our area. Eritrea’s propensity to aggression manifested

itself first in its belligerent attitude towards its neighbours

over the past seven years and has culminated in its most

extreme form of aggression against Ethiopia. In the face

of such a destructive attitude one may ask why such

belligerence by Eritrea was tolerated for so long. The

answer is that, since we believed that the transition from

leading a liberation movement to running an independent

State would take time, we somehow entertained the hope

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that the Eritrean leadership would mature over time, as is

the case in almost all other similar circumstances. But our

hopes were finally dashed on 12 May 1998. In light of this,

we have absolutely no doubt that, if we fail to tell the

Eritrean authorities in no uncertain terms that their unruly

behaviour cannot be tolerated any longer, the result will be

even greater instability and interminable conflict in the

subregion, and it will have enormous implications for peace

and stability in our continent.

That is why the Ethiopian Government and people

firmly believe that this flagrant violation of international

law by a small nation that is totally blinded by arrogance

and led astray by a leadership that has concluded that

brinkmanship will always pay should not be left

unchallenged. On our part, whether the international

community stands with us or not on the fundamental

principle of preserving international law and resisting

aggression, regardless of the consequences, we are prepared

to stand alone, if need be on principle as well as for our

national dignity.

This, as we all remember, would not be the first time

for Ethiopia to be in such a situation. In this connection,

one is reminded of Emperor Haile Selassie and the League

of Nations following Italian aggression against Ethiopia in

1936. The measure proposed at the time against Italy was

the imposition of an oil embargo, which certainly would

have been effective in crippling Italian aggression against

Ethiopia. Nevertheless, since appeasing Fascist Italy was

the preferred option for the great Powers of the time, the

proposal was rejected. Instead, in a clear demonstration of

injustice unprecedented in the history of inter-State

conflicts, an arms embargo was imposed by the League on

both the aggressor, Italy, and the victim of aggression,

Ethiopia.

As a result we all know, as history has recorded, this

dismal failure of the League of Nations to prevent

aggression was one of the causes which brought about the

demise of the organization and later contributed to the

outbreak of the Second World War. It is Ethiopia’s hope

that this shameful episode will not be repeated by the

international community today, although the nature and

scale of the challenge Ethiopia is facing today is radically

different, and is not comparable to what it faced during

those difficult days on the eve of the Second World War.

The United Nations is still grappling with various

issues affecting international peace and security around the

world. Among these, the situation in Angola is a cause for

serious concern to us. The behaviour of UNITA clearly

constitutes a dangerous trend which might lead to the

derailment of the peace process — namely, the full

implementation of the Lusaka Protocol. We urge the

United Nations to exert the maximum effort to save the

fragile situation in Angola and ensure the establishment

of lasting peace and stability in that country.

On the situation in the Middle East, we hope every

effort will be exerted towards the full implementation of

the Oslo accords, with a view to establishing durable

peace in the area.

With regard to the question of Western Sahara, it is

our earnest hope that the proposed referendum on the

future of the territory will be held as soon as possible to

bring about a final and successful settlement of the issue.

As a founding member of this Organization, Ethiopia

has always been prepared to contribute to the best of its

ability to all efforts designed to make the United Nations

and its various organs more effective and more

representative. Accordingly, my country attaches great

importance to the ongoing exercises aimed, among other

things, at reforming and restructuring the Security

Council. A satisfactory, fruitful and expeditious outcome

of this process is indeed vital for the effectiveness,

credibility and, I might add, the enhanced legitimacy of

the world body.

For Ethiopia, and for all those who have trust in the

efficacy of multilateralism, there is no alternative to the

United Nations. The Organization should therefore be

protected, and what it stands for — whether in the areas

of economic cooperation, disarmament or human rights —

should be promoted and fostered with all dedication and

commitment. In this endeavour, Ethiopia will continue to

be second to none in discharging its responsibilities to the

United Nations in this and other activities of the

Organization.

I therefore wish to conclude by renewing Ethiopia’s

commitment to the United Nations and to what it stands

for.