PIA started the War per the EEBC Ruling which is Final and Binding and which PIA has accepted responsibility for Starting the war by Signing the Final and Binding Agreement of the EEBC!
Abiy EARNED the Nobel Peace Prize because he Brought PEACE to the Region:
1. He ended the conflict with Eritrea by abiding by the EEBC Ruling
2. He ended conflict by allowing Opposition Ethiopian groups to Return Safely to Ethiopia without Arrest
3. He ended conflict by Freeing Imprisoned Journalists, political prisoners etc
4. He ended conflict by freeing up the Government Owned Companies to the Public for private ownership
5. He ended conflict by Bringing peace to South Sudan, and Sudan with the AU
6. He ended conflict by bringing all sides in the Horn Together: Djbouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia to come some sort of agreement for peace in the region
PIA has worked Relentlessly AGAINST PEACE in the region and in Eritrea:
1. He imprisoned 10s of Thousands of Eritreans in prison for simply Nkfta (Questioning), he is imprisoning eritreans in SAWA military camps, 350 underground unknown prisons in Eritrea
2. He started the Badme War per the EEBC finding of which He Admitted Guilt
3. He imprisoned Eritrean Journalists, Bayto(National Assembly), to this day
4. He supported financially, geographically spoiler groups: Islamic Court(Al shabaab), OLF, OPLF, South Sudan Against Sudan, Sudanese Junta against Sudanese people, etc
5. He continues to use Eritrea as a Base for other Countries to Launch Wars against Other Countries
6. He sent Eritreans to War against Yemen over the so-called Hanish Islands for the Benefit of the State of Israel
So to all the PFDJ clowns on here...PIA does not Deserve a Nobel Peace Prize ...He Deserves a Nurembourg Trial, Conviction, and Sentencing!
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/afri ... ot-so-sure
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
The Ethiopian-Eritrean crisis: The Eritrean perspective
By: Foreign Minister Haile Woldensae
(Initially published in "American Foreign Policy Interests".
Vol. 20, Number 6, December 1998)
Allow me to preface my remarks to this group of eminent persons by expressing my deep appreciation to the officers and members of the Executive Boards of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the Peace and Development Committee for their kind invitation and the opportunity afforded me and my colleagues to share with you our thoughts on the current Eritrean-Ethiopian crisis. There is reason to hope that these and the other problems of the world will be amenable to solutions as long as far-sighted people like you recognize the essential interdependence of our world and the fact that a disturbance of peace and tranquillity in one region will sooner or later affect the peoples of other regions. Two major challenges confront any developing nation in the world today: the betterment of the living conditions of its nationals and the preservation of peace. These are, of course, mutually interdependent. The government and the people of Eritrea recognize that peace is an essential precondition for development. The commitment to peace has therefore been a prominent cornerstone of Eritrean foreign policy. To this end, it has set out to create peaceful conditions at home and, in collaboration with its neighbors, to establish a regime of peace and enduring stability in a region of the world in which the two have been absent for several decades. Thus Eritrea has assiduously worked toward the revitalization of IGAD with a view to making it more relevant and purposeful in meeting the multifaceted needs of the region. It has also cooperated with all the countries of the region, including, in particular, Ethiopia, to bring about peace and stability to the region, in particular, the Sudan and Somalia.
Eritrea's geographical position as a littoral state of the Red Sea and as a member of the historically troubled Horn of Africa has hitherto made it the victim of an inordinate number of colonial wars and wars of aggression in the declaration and conduct of which its people had no say at all. The thirty years war of liberation, caused to a large extent by the UN's unwillingness to live up to its responsibilities of ensuring respect for its resolutions and decisions, has taken an excessive toll inhuman lives, the loss of property, and the destruction of the ecology. Eritreans are thus determined that their country will not again be scarred by the ravages of war and that their foreign and domestic policies will not be counseled by the logic of the use of force. They affirm and strictly adhere to the principles of peace, non aggression, good neighborliness, non interference in the internal affairs of states, nonintervention, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. These principles are applied uniformly, with neighbors and others alike.
This policy framework had hitherto enabled Eritrea to establish an exemplary close tie of friendship even with a former enemy, Ethiopia. It has also helped to defuse conflict with the Republic of Yemen and to arrive at a mutual agreement to resolve the conflict between them over the Eritrean archipelago of Hanish-Zuquar in the Red Sea by peaceful means of arbitration. It has also helped bring about a peaceful resolution of the misunderstanding with Djibouti. In all instances, Ethiopia had steadfastly upheld Eritrea's policies and actions. Almost equally important is the fact that it underlies our determined search for mutually beneficial economic and commercial relations among the countries of the region.
Eritrea's conduct of its foreign policy and its relations with all states, including Ethiopia, have been consistent with these declared policies. Today too the government of Eritrea insists that the road to peace with Ethiopia extends from the strict application and enforcement of the principles of the charters of the UN and the OAU as well as the OAU decision on colonial borders. Once again, Eritrea calls on the international community, particularly the UN and the OAU, to ensure respect for these principles and decisions.
Conflict with Ethiopia
That is why Eritrea was surprised and disturbed by the eruption of conflict with Ethiopia because in spite of disagreements on the issue of boundaries dating back to the days armed struggle, the Eritrean government had assumed and hoped, in view of the close relations between the two, that it would be possible to arrive at an amicable and enduring solution.
Responsibility for the escalation of the dispute rests solely with the government of Ethiopia that has for a long period of time consistently violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea, resulting in the occupation of large tracts of Eritrean territory followed by the forced displacement of Eritrean peasants and the replacement of Eritrean administrative structures by Ethiopian institutions. It reached a climax on May 6 only as a result of the further unprovoked incursions by members of the Ethiopian armed forces that attacked Eritrean troops in the Badma region in southwestern Eritrea. These incursions were premeditated and meticulously planned.
For a long time Eritreans opted for patient and quiet diplomacy. They had hoped against hope that the periodic incursions were only the petty acts of some miscreant and ill-advised regional officials. It was only at a late stage and particularly after the publication in 1997 of an official map of the Tigray Administrative Zone, the home base of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which s the senior and hegemonic member of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), incorporating additional indisputably Eritrean territory, and particularly after the issuance of the new Ethiopian currency note depicting the same map, that they realized the full meaning of the Ethiopian adventure.
Consequently, even in the aftermath of the fighting that was triggered by the unprovoked Ethiopian incursion and attacks on Eritrean troops, Eritrea never crossed its internationally recognized border; but Ethiopia still controls other Eritrean territory in southwestern and southeastern Eritrea.
In spite of all this evidence of its aggressive deeds, the Ethiopian government is conducting an absurd propaganda campaign to portray Eritrea as warmongering nation that committed aggression against Ethiopian territory, which it occupies. Nothing could be further from the truth. At no time have Eritrean troops crossed Eritrea's internationally recognized borders, and its territory is there for everyone to see. On the contrary, it was Ethiopian troops that invaded Eritrea after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's declaration of war on May 13, 1998. They were repulsed. In fact, it is important to recall that Dr. Tekeda Alemu, the deputy foreign minister of Ethiopia, articulated Ethiopia's expansionist designs by publicly declaring in a speech to members of the Ethiopian community in the United States that Ethiopia would occupy the Eritrean port of Assab within a short time. In light of the above, Ethiopia's claims that it is the victim of aggression and will not negotiate unless Eritrea withdraws from "its territory" are obviously false and are meant to hoodwink the international community and to cover its own acts of aggression.
Even today Ethiopia is threatening war unless Eritrea withdraws unconditionally from territories that are within its internationally recognized borders. Today virtually the whole of the Ethiopian Army has taken positions along the Eritrean border, and almost all of the most powerful leaders of Ethiopia, including the president, the prime minister, the deputy minister and minister of defense, the chief of staff of the armed forces, the president of the Tigray Region, and the senior official of the TPLF, publicly declared only in the past few weeks that Ethiopia has finalized preparations for war and will soon teach Eritreans lessons they will never forget.
The violation of Borders
This is a dispute about borders and the violation of these borders by Ethiopia, nothing more and nothing less. It is not linked to the differences on trade between the two countries. It is not about mineral deposits in the disputed area and definitely not about aggression, as Ethiopia claims. It is about Ethiopian expansionism and the willful violation of the non-controversial and clearly defined, internationally recognized boundaries between the two countries. Indeed, these boundaries are probably some of the most meticulously defined African borders. The village of Badma is well inside Eritrean territory. The Ethiopian occupation of Badma and its environs was therefore nothing short of a blatant violation of the UN and OAU charters and Resolution AHG/RES 16(1) of the First Assembly of Heads of State and Government held in Cairo in 1964 that sanctified respect for colonial borders in Africa.
The Ethiopian authorities have unabashedly declared that Badma and its environs "have never been part of Eritrea," either during Italian colonialism or since. This awkward falsehood can easily be contradicted by any map of Eritrea from Italian times to the present, including those that were produced by the governments of both Emperor Haile-Selassie and Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam and by the UN before it created the ill-fated Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation.
Badma is located, without any ambiguity, within Eritrea's colonial boundaries. These boundaries were defined by internationally recognized colonial treaties and confirmed by the UN when it created the ill-fated federation and when it gave Eritrea its first constitution. The constitution, which incorporates part of the UN Resolution (390 [v], 1952) that created the federation, unequivocally states that
In any case, it must be a supreme irony of history that Ethiopia, which was the most important sponsor of the Cairo Resolution on colonial boundaries and had effectively used it against the claims of the Republic of Somalia in the sixties and seventies, is now attempting to undervalue it because it undermines its occupation. It also augurs bad for inter-African international relations because it will open a Pandora's box of claims and counterclaims.
In spite of all this, the government of Eritrea has been consistently pursuing a peaceful policy to resolve the situation first by bilateral means and then through international mediation. It has been constant in its condemnation of force and has upheld the view that border disputes of whatever nature can and should be resolved by peaceful and legal means.
In this connection, it must be mentioned that both the executive and the legislate branches of the Eritrean government have repeatedly called on the government of Ethiopia to pursue a similar policy of peace.
Two examples will suffice. In July 1997 Ethiopian forces unexpectedly and forcibly occupied the Eritrean village of Bada (Adi Murug) in southeastern Eritrea. They entered the area with the express permission of Eritrean authorities ostensibly to pursue Ethiopian Afar opposition elements. On that occasion the president of Eritrea wrote to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to remind him that
The Eritrean Reaction
The question may be asked: What took you so long to react? The asnwer is that since its liberation Eritrea has had no particular fixation with the problem of borders for several reasons. First, the borders were just about the most clearly defined in Africa, and it was believed that there would be no room for controversy. Second, Eritrea had an abiding faith in its presumed strong bond with Ethiopia and in the two countries' common commitment to regional integration. Under the circumstances it saw no reason to pay any significant attention to what it considered to be a secondary issue. Finally, it believed in quiet diplomacy.
The Ethiopian offensive
On the other hand, Ethiopia has unremittingly pursued a policy of chicanery and the use or the threat of force. It is also perpetrating the massive violation of the human rights of Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin and conducting a propaganda campaign emphasizing ethnic hatred against Eritreans and their leaders.
I cannot believe that at this late stage the distinguished members of both committees are unaware of the horrendous human rights violations, including kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, detentions, deportations and expulsions, the deplorable and dehumanizing conditions of expulsion and deportation as well as the cruel, degrading, humiliating, and inhuman treatment of more than 20,000 Eritreans by the Ethiopian government. The expellees include Eritrean staff members of international organizations, mostly from the UN, and citizens of third countries, including the United States and Canada who are of Eritrean origin. The implausible reason given by Ethiopia to justify this veritable ethnic cleansing, which, by the way, is still continuing, is that all the victims are spies.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the Ethiopian government has also accompanied its threat of force with a bombardment of lies, distoritions, perversions, and deplomtic subterfuge that, in an amazingly refined appplication of the Orewellian peinciple, accused the Eritrean government of precisely the outrages and atrocities it committed against Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin. The truth is that the Eritrean government has not detained, expelled, deported, or otherwise violated the rights - human or otherwise - of Ethiopians living in Eritrea. This contention has been verified by legitimate third parties such as representatives of the European Union, specific UN agencies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. As usual, the Ethiopian government has called all of them liars. We have extended to all interested parties invitations to make on -the-spot verifications of the human rights conditions in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. We now extend this invitation to your committees. We also would like you to receive a similar invitation from the Ethiopian government.
Eritrea seeks no territorial expansion or selfish advantages. It has no plan of aggression against any other state. We have no objective that will clash with the peaceful aims of any other state. On the other hand, we will not passively countenance territorial changes, acquisitions, or special advantages made at our expense and obtained by force or the threat of force, diplomatic duplicity, or any other coercive measures.
Eritrea's Proposal for Peace
Eritrea desires peace with all the world but perhaps most of all with its neighbors. Eritrea has thus made several proposals to solve the current problem peacefully, and I hereby submit the proposal made by my president, H.E. Isaias Afwerki, to the Nonaligned Summit recently held in Durban, South Africa.
To date several countries, including Norway and other European countries, are conducting quiet diplomacy. In addition, the OAU is continuing to conduct its initiative, and the U.S. government has also embarked on a new initiative. Eritrea welcomes all these gestures of goodwill; but it hopes that they will be supportive of one another and that their proliferation will not lead to contrary and unexpected results.
In this connection I wish to refer to the U.S. - Rwanda Facilitation effort. I have no doubt that the facilitators acted out of goodwill and in good faith; but they acted in ultra vires. The mandate of a facilitator - any facilitator - is to a dispute a framework for the resolution of the conflict that should be acceptable to both parties. It is not part of the mandate of any facilitator to make recommendations to the parties involved and certainly not to third parties. This understanding was made clear to them by the Eritrean government, which, on several occasions, made strong reservations about some of the details of what would have been a negotiating framework. The facilitators made an error of judgment in ignoring the reservations. They compounded the problem when they presented not a negotiating framework to the parties but recommendations to the OAU. The Eritrean delegation to the OAU Summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, took strong exceptions to the submission of recommendations and again made known its reservations. It may be argued that the facilitators took this unprecedented step, in spite of the strong objections of one of the parties to the dispute, to avert imminent armed conflict. History, of course, has proved that assumption wrong. On the contrary, it is now abundantly clear that it only made the government of Ethiopia, which is still clinging to the recommendations, more obdurate and intransigent. It must also be remembered that it was on the day that the facilitators were to present their recommendations that Ethiopian Air Force jets, for whatever reason, were ordered to bomb Asmara International Airport and thus escalate the conflict. That was to be fatal to the U.S. - Rwanda initiative.
Eritrea appreciates the apprehension of all women and men of goodwill, both in and outside of government, about the possible renewal of fighting. It understands and shares their concerns about the disastrous consequences that could take place. I wish to reiterate that Eritrea is committed now, as it has been since the beginning of the crisis, to a peaceful and legal solution. It will remain open to all constructive advice. Above all, Eritrea will not abandon its vision of a peaceful and stable region that fosters cooperative relations with all states.
By: Foreign Minister Haile Woldensae
(Initially published in "American Foreign Policy Interests".
Vol. 20, Number 6, December 1998)
Allow me to preface my remarks to this group of eminent persons by expressing my deep appreciation to the officers and members of the Executive Boards of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the Peace and Development Committee for their kind invitation and the opportunity afforded me and my colleagues to share with you our thoughts on the current Eritrean-Ethiopian crisis. There is reason to hope that these and the other problems of the world will be amenable to solutions as long as far-sighted people like you recognize the essential interdependence of our world and the fact that a disturbance of peace and tranquillity in one region will sooner or later affect the peoples of other regions. Two major challenges confront any developing nation in the world today: the betterment of the living conditions of its nationals and the preservation of peace. These are, of course, mutually interdependent. The government and the people of Eritrea recognize that peace is an essential precondition for development. The commitment to peace has therefore been a prominent cornerstone of Eritrean foreign policy. To this end, it has set out to create peaceful conditions at home and, in collaboration with its neighbors, to establish a regime of peace and enduring stability in a region of the world in which the two have been absent for several decades. Thus Eritrea has assiduously worked toward the revitalization of IGAD with a view to making it more relevant and purposeful in meeting the multifaceted needs of the region. It has also cooperated with all the countries of the region, including, in particular, Ethiopia, to bring about peace and stability to the region, in particular, the Sudan and Somalia.
Eritrea's geographical position as a littoral state of the Red Sea and as a member of the historically troubled Horn of Africa has hitherto made it the victim of an inordinate number of colonial wars and wars of aggression in the declaration and conduct of which its people had no say at all. The thirty years war of liberation, caused to a large extent by the UN's unwillingness to live up to its responsibilities of ensuring respect for its resolutions and decisions, has taken an excessive toll inhuman lives, the loss of property, and the destruction of the ecology. Eritreans are thus determined that their country will not again be scarred by the ravages of war and that their foreign and domestic policies will not be counseled by the logic of the use of force. They affirm and strictly adhere to the principles of peace, non aggression, good neighborliness, non interference in the internal affairs of states, nonintervention, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. These principles are applied uniformly, with neighbors and others alike.
This policy framework had hitherto enabled Eritrea to establish an exemplary close tie of friendship even with a former enemy, Ethiopia. It has also helped to defuse conflict with the Republic of Yemen and to arrive at a mutual agreement to resolve the conflict between them over the Eritrean archipelago of Hanish-Zuquar in the Red Sea by peaceful means of arbitration. It has also helped bring about a peaceful resolution of the misunderstanding with Djibouti. In all instances, Ethiopia had steadfastly upheld Eritrea's policies and actions. Almost equally important is the fact that it underlies our determined search for mutually beneficial economic and commercial relations among the countries of the region.
Eritrea's conduct of its foreign policy and its relations with all states, including Ethiopia, have been consistent with these declared policies. Today too the government of Eritrea insists that the road to peace with Ethiopia extends from the strict application and enforcement of the principles of the charters of the UN and the OAU as well as the OAU decision on colonial borders. Once again, Eritrea calls on the international community, particularly the UN and the OAU, to ensure respect for these principles and decisions.
Conflict with Ethiopia
That is why Eritrea was surprised and disturbed by the eruption of conflict with Ethiopia because in spite of disagreements on the issue of boundaries dating back to the days armed struggle, the Eritrean government had assumed and hoped, in view of the close relations between the two, that it would be possible to arrive at an amicable and enduring solution.
Responsibility for the escalation of the dispute rests solely with the government of Ethiopia that has for a long period of time consistently violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea, resulting in the occupation of large tracts of Eritrean territory followed by the forced displacement of Eritrean peasants and the replacement of Eritrean administrative structures by Ethiopian institutions. It reached a climax on May 6 only as a result of the further unprovoked incursions by members of the Ethiopian armed forces that attacked Eritrean troops in the Badma region in southwestern Eritrea. These incursions were premeditated and meticulously planned.
For a long time Eritreans opted for patient and quiet diplomacy. They had hoped against hope that the periodic incursions were only the petty acts of some miscreant and ill-advised regional officials. It was only at a late stage and particularly after the publication in 1997 of an official map of the Tigray Administrative Zone, the home base of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which s the senior and hegemonic member of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), incorporating additional indisputably Eritrean territory, and particularly after the issuance of the new Ethiopian currency note depicting the same map, that they realized the full meaning of the Ethiopian adventure.
Consequently, even in the aftermath of the fighting that was triggered by the unprovoked Ethiopian incursion and attacks on Eritrean troops, Eritrea never crossed its internationally recognized border; but Ethiopia still controls other Eritrean territory in southwestern and southeastern Eritrea.
In spite of all this evidence of its aggressive deeds, the Ethiopian government is conducting an absurd propaganda campaign to portray Eritrea as warmongering nation that committed aggression against Ethiopian territory, which it occupies. Nothing could be further from the truth. At no time have Eritrean troops crossed Eritrea's internationally recognized borders, and its territory is there for everyone to see. On the contrary, it was Ethiopian troops that invaded Eritrea after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's declaration of war on May 13, 1998. They were repulsed. In fact, it is important to recall that Dr. Tekeda Alemu, the deputy foreign minister of Ethiopia, articulated Ethiopia's expansionist designs by publicly declaring in a speech to members of the Ethiopian community in the United States that Ethiopia would occupy the Eritrean port of Assab within a short time. In light of the above, Ethiopia's claims that it is the victim of aggression and will not negotiate unless Eritrea withdraws from "its territory" are obviously false and are meant to hoodwink the international community and to cover its own acts of aggression.
Even today Ethiopia is threatening war unless Eritrea withdraws unconditionally from territories that are within its internationally recognized borders. Today virtually the whole of the Ethiopian Army has taken positions along the Eritrean border, and almost all of the most powerful leaders of Ethiopia, including the president, the prime minister, the deputy minister and minister of defense, the chief of staff of the armed forces, the president of the Tigray Region, and the senior official of the TPLF, publicly declared only in the past few weeks that Ethiopia has finalized preparations for war and will soon teach Eritreans lessons they will never forget.
The violation of Borders
This is a dispute about borders and the violation of these borders by Ethiopia, nothing more and nothing less. It is not linked to the differences on trade between the two countries. It is not about mineral deposits in the disputed area and definitely not about aggression, as Ethiopia claims. It is about Ethiopian expansionism and the willful violation of the non-controversial and clearly defined, internationally recognized boundaries between the two countries. Indeed, these boundaries are probably some of the most meticulously defined African borders. The village of Badma is well inside Eritrean territory. The Ethiopian occupation of Badma and its environs was therefore nothing short of a blatant violation of the UN and OAU charters and Resolution AHG/RES 16(1) of the First Assembly of Heads of State and Government held in Cairo in 1964 that sanctified respect for colonial borders in Africa.
The Ethiopian authorities have unabashedly declared that Badma and its environs "have never been part of Eritrea," either during Italian colonialism or since. This awkward falsehood can easily be contradicted by any map of Eritrea from Italian times to the present, including those that were produced by the governments of both Emperor Haile-Selassie and Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam and by the UN before it created the ill-fated Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation.
Badma is located, without any ambiguity, within Eritrea's colonial boundaries. These boundaries were defined by internationally recognized colonial treaties and confirmed by the UN when it created the ill-fated federation and when it gave Eritrea its first constitution. The constitution, which incorporates part of the UN Resolution (390 [v], 1952) that created the federation, unequivocally states that
The current Ethiopian government cannot therefore invoke legitimacy as a successor state to an administration in Badma that existed outside its recognized colonial boundaries.the territory of Eritrea, including the islands, is that of the former Italian colony of Eritrea.
In any case, it must be a supreme irony of history that Ethiopia, which was the most important sponsor of the Cairo Resolution on colonial boundaries and had effectively used it against the claims of the Republic of Somalia in the sixties and seventies, is now attempting to undervalue it because it undermines its occupation. It also augurs bad for inter-African international relations because it will open a Pandora's box of claims and counterclaims.
In spite of all this, the government of Eritrea has been consistently pursuing a peaceful policy to resolve the situation first by bilateral means and then through international mediation. It has been constant in its condemnation of force and has upheld the view that border disputes of whatever nature can and should be resolved by peaceful and legal means.
In this connection, it must be mentioned that both the executive and the legislate branches of the Eritrean government have repeatedly called on the government of Ethiopia to pursue a similar policy of peace.
Two examples will suffice. In July 1997 Ethiopian forces unexpectedly and forcibly occupied the Eritrean village of Bada (Adi Murug) in southeastern Eritrea. They entered the area with the express permission of Eritrean authorities ostensibly to pursue Ethiopian Afar opposition elements. On that occasion the president of Eritrea wrote to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to remind him that
and to urge himthe forcible occupation of Adi Murug [was] truly sad
Then again, President Isaias wrote to the Ethiopian prime minister about ten days later, on August 25, 1997, to inform him that the transgressions that had been committed in Bada were being repeated in Badma and to suggest the creation of a Joint Commission to avert further deterioration of the situation and to resolve all outstanding problems amicably. Similarly, in a resolution that it passed on June 18, 1998, the Eritrean National Assembly urged the leaders of the Eritrean government to continue their attempts to engage the Ethiopian government in a constructive dialogue with a view to achieving a peaceful and legal solution to the problem. Unfortunately, all Eritrean efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to the dispute have failed because the Ethiopian government obdurately insists that Eritrea must unconditionally withdraw from the territories that Ethiopia illegally occupied in the first place, that is, from Eritrea's own territory. This precondition - as unfair, unjust, and fraudulent as it possibly could be - is not acceptable now and will not be acceptable at any time in the future.personally to take the necessary prudent action so that the measure that had been taken [by Ethiopian forces] will not trigger unnecessary conflict.
The Eritrean Reaction
The question may be asked: What took you so long to react? The asnwer is that since its liberation Eritrea has had no particular fixation with the problem of borders for several reasons. First, the borders were just about the most clearly defined in Africa, and it was believed that there would be no room for controversy. Second, Eritrea had an abiding faith in its presumed strong bond with Ethiopia and in the two countries' common commitment to regional integration. Under the circumstances it saw no reason to pay any significant attention to what it considered to be a secondary issue. Finally, it believed in quiet diplomacy.
The Ethiopian offensive
On the other hand, Ethiopia has unremittingly pursued a policy of chicanery and the use or the threat of force. It is also perpetrating the massive violation of the human rights of Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin and conducting a propaganda campaign emphasizing ethnic hatred against Eritreans and their leaders.
I cannot believe that at this late stage the distinguished members of both committees are unaware of the horrendous human rights violations, including kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, detentions, deportations and expulsions, the deplorable and dehumanizing conditions of expulsion and deportation as well as the cruel, degrading, humiliating, and inhuman treatment of more than 20,000 Eritreans by the Ethiopian government. The expellees include Eritrean staff members of international organizations, mostly from the UN, and citizens of third countries, including the United States and Canada who are of Eritrean origin. The implausible reason given by Ethiopia to justify this veritable ethnic cleansing, which, by the way, is still continuing, is that all the victims are spies.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the Ethiopian government has also accompanied its threat of force with a bombardment of lies, distoritions, perversions, and deplomtic subterfuge that, in an amazingly refined appplication of the Orewellian peinciple, accused the Eritrean government of precisely the outrages and atrocities it committed against Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin. The truth is that the Eritrean government has not detained, expelled, deported, or otherwise violated the rights - human or otherwise - of Ethiopians living in Eritrea. This contention has been verified by legitimate third parties such as representatives of the European Union, specific UN agencies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. As usual, the Ethiopian government has called all of them liars. We have extended to all interested parties invitations to make on -the-spot verifications of the human rights conditions in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. We now extend this invitation to your committees. We also would like you to receive a similar invitation from the Ethiopian government.
Eritrea seeks no territorial expansion or selfish advantages. It has no plan of aggression against any other state. We have no objective that will clash with the peaceful aims of any other state. On the other hand, we will not passively countenance territorial changes, acquisitions, or special advantages made at our expense and obtained by force or the threat of force, diplomatic duplicity, or any other coercive measures.
Eritrea's Proposal for Peace
Eritrea desires peace with all the world but perhaps most of all with its neighbors. Eritrea has thus made several proposals to solve the current problem peacefully, and I hereby submit the proposal made by my president, H.E. Isaias Afwerki, to the Nonaligned Summit recently held in Durban, South Africa.
Quiet Diplomacy and Other InitiativesA comprehensive solution of the problem through a technical demarcation based on established colonial treaties that clearly define the boundary between the two countries;
Arbitration based on the sanctity of colonial borders in the event that that is demanded by the other party; and
An immediate cease-fire and the cessation of all hostilities that will be monitored by an observer force under the auspices of the UN until a lasting legal solution can be adopted.
There are limits to misdeeds, and any self-respecting state should be expected to endure few of them. We hold the view that he territory of a state is always inviolable and cannot be the object of occupation or of any other measure of force imposed by another state directly or indirectly for any motive or purpose whatsoever. It is the right and duty of the government and people of a country to protect their rights against misdeeds that affect their vital interests. Such an action is legal and legitimate and promotes peace and justice.
To date several countries, including Norway and other European countries, are conducting quiet diplomacy. In addition, the OAU is continuing to conduct its initiative, and the U.S. government has also embarked on a new initiative. Eritrea welcomes all these gestures of goodwill; but it hopes that they will be supportive of one another and that their proliferation will not lead to contrary and unexpected results.
In this connection I wish to refer to the U.S. - Rwanda Facilitation effort. I have no doubt that the facilitators acted out of goodwill and in good faith; but they acted in ultra vires. The mandate of a facilitator - any facilitator - is to a dispute a framework for the resolution of the conflict that should be acceptable to both parties. It is not part of the mandate of any facilitator to make recommendations to the parties involved and certainly not to third parties. This understanding was made clear to them by the Eritrean government, which, on several occasions, made strong reservations about some of the details of what would have been a negotiating framework. The facilitators made an error of judgment in ignoring the reservations. They compounded the problem when they presented not a negotiating framework to the parties but recommendations to the OAU. The Eritrean delegation to the OAU Summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, took strong exceptions to the submission of recommendations and again made known its reservations. It may be argued that the facilitators took this unprecedented step, in spite of the strong objections of one of the parties to the dispute, to avert imminent armed conflict. History, of course, has proved that assumption wrong. On the contrary, it is now abundantly clear that it only made the government of Ethiopia, which is still clinging to the recommendations, more obdurate and intransigent. It must also be remembered that it was on the day that the facilitators were to present their recommendations that Ethiopian Air Force jets, for whatever reason, were ordered to bomb Asmara International Airport and thus escalate the conflict. That was to be fatal to the U.S. - Rwanda initiative.
Eritrea appreciates the apprehension of all women and men of goodwill, both in and outside of government, about the possible renewal of fighting. It understands and shares their concerns about the disastrous consequences that could take place. I wish to reiterate that Eritrea is committed now, as it has been since the beginning of the crisis, to a peaceful and legal solution. It will remain open to all constructive advice. Above all, Eritrea will not abandon its vision of a peaceful and stable region that fosters cooperative relations with all states.
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
How can Issaias receive any prize or praise, his foreign Minister and many of the dictator's former cabinet members were jailed for two decades and killed in jail.
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
This man was his friend and minister but he killed in jail
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
Meselo, you are Pathetic for using the Words of the HONOURABLE Haile Durue who Defended Eritrea's Sovereignty in this moment just to protect your Human Rights violating Criminal warmongerer PIA...you are Pathetic...PFDJ is pathetic! The Nobel Peace Council is made of intelligent people who can see through your pathetic stunts in the region, at the UN, etc!
Zmeselo wrote: ↑11 Oct 2019, 21:11The Ethiopian-Eritrean crisis: The Eritrean perspective
By: Foreign Minister Haile Woldensae
(Initially published in "American Foreign Policy Interests".
Vol. 20, Number 6, December 1998)
Allow me to preface my remarks to this group of eminent persons by expressing my deep appreciation to the officers and members of the Executive Boards of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the Peace and Development Committee for their kind invitation and the opportunity afforded me and my colleagues to share with you our thoughts on the current Eritrean-Ethiopian crisis. There is reason to hope that these and the other problems of the world will be amenable to solutions as long as far-sighted people like you recognize the essential interdependence of our world and the fact that a disturbance of peace and tranquillity in one region will sooner or later affect the peoples of other regions. Two major challenges confront any developing nation in the world today: the betterment of the living conditions of its nationals and the preservation of peace. These are, of course, mutually interdependent. The government and the people of Eritrea recognize that peace is an essential precondition for development. The commitment to peace has therefore been a prominent cornerstone of Eritrean foreign policy. To this end, it has set out to create peaceful conditions at home and, in collaboration with its neighbors, to establish a regime of peace and enduring stability in a region of the world in which the two have been absent for several decades. Thus Eritrea has assiduously worked toward the revitalization of IGAD with a view to making it more relevant and purposeful in meeting the multifaceted needs of the region. It has also cooperated with all the countries of the region, including, in particular, Ethiopia, to bring about peace and stability to the region, in particular, the Sudan and Somalia.
Eritrea's geographical position as a littoral state of the Red Sea and as a member of the historically troubled Horn of Africa has hitherto made it the victim of an inordinate number of colonial wars and wars of aggression in the declaration and conduct of which its people had no say at all. The thirty years war of liberation, caused to a large extent by the UN's unwillingness to live up to its responsibilities of ensuring respect for its resolutions and decisions, has taken an excessive toll inhuman lives, the loss of property, and the destruction of the ecology. Eritreans are thus determined that their country will not again be scarred by the ravages of war and that their foreign and domestic policies will not be counseled by the logic of the use of force. They affirm and strictly adhere to the principles of peace, non aggression, good neighborliness, non interference in the internal affairs of states, nonintervention, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. These principles are applied uniformly, with neighbors and others alike.
This policy framework had hitherto enabled Eritrea to establish an exemplary close tie of friendship even with a former enemy, Ethiopia. It has also helped to defuse conflict with the Republic of Yemen and to arrive at a mutual agreement to resolve the conflict between them over the Eritrean archipelago of Hanish-Zuquar in the Red Sea by peaceful means of arbitration. It has also helped bring about a peaceful resolution of the misunderstanding with Djibouti. In all instances, Ethiopia had steadfastly upheld Eritrea's policies and actions. Almost equally important is the fact that it underlies our determined search for mutually beneficial economic and commercial relations among the countries of the region.
Eritrea's conduct of its foreign policy and its relations with all states, including Ethiopia, have been consistent with these declared policies. Today too the government of Eritrea insists that the road to peace with Ethiopia extends from the strict application and enforcement of the principles of the charters of the UN and the OAU as well as the OAU decision on colonial borders. Once again, Eritrea calls on the international community, particularly the UN and the OAU, to ensure respect for these principles and decisions.
Conflict with Ethiopia
That is why Eritrea was surprised and disturbed by the eruption of conflict with Ethiopia because in spite of disagreements on the issue of boundaries dating back to the days armed struggle, the Eritrean government had assumed and hoped, in view of the close relations between the two, that it would be possible to arrive at an amicable and enduring solution.
Responsibility for the escalation of the dispute rests solely with the government of Ethiopia that has for a long period of time consistently violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea, resulting in the occupation of large tracts of Eritrean territory followed by the forced displacement of Eritrean peasants and the replacement of Eritrean administrative structures by Ethiopian institutions. It reached a climax on May 6 only as a result of the further unprovoked incursions by members of the Ethiopian armed forces that attacked Eritrean troops in the Badma region in southwestern Eritrea. These incursions were premeditated and meticulously planned.
For a long time Eritreans opted for patient and quiet diplomacy. They had hoped against hope that the periodic incursions were only the petty acts of some miscreant and ill-advised regional officials. It was only at a late stage and particularly after the publication in 1997 of an official map of the Tigray Administrative Zone, the home base of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which s the senior and hegemonic member of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), incorporating additional indisputably Eritrean territory, and particularly after the issuance of the new Ethiopian currency note depicting the same map, that they realized the full meaning of the Ethiopian adventure.
Consequently, even in the aftermath of the fighting that was triggered by the unprovoked Ethiopian incursion and attacks on Eritrean troops, Eritrea never crossed its internationally recognized border; but Ethiopia still controls other Eritrean territory in southwestern and southeastern Eritrea.
In spite of all this evidence of its aggressive deeds, the Ethiopian government is conducting an absurd propaganda campaign to portray Eritrea as warmongering nation that committed aggression against Ethiopian territory, which it occupies. Nothing could be further from the truth. At no time have Eritrean troops crossed Eritrea's internationally recognized borders, and its territory is there for everyone to see. On the contrary, it was Ethiopian troops that invaded Eritrea after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's declaration of war on May 13, 1998. They were repulsed. In fact, it is important to recall that Dr. Tekeda Alemu, the deputy foreign minister of Ethiopia, articulated Ethiopia's expansionist designs by publicly declaring in a speech to members of the Ethiopian community in the United States that Ethiopia would occupy the Eritrean port of Assab within a short time. In light of the above, Ethiopia's claims that it is the victim of aggression and will not negotiate unless Eritrea withdraws from "its territory" are obviously false and are meant to hoodwink the international community and to cover its own acts of aggression.
Even today Ethiopia is threatening war unless Eritrea withdraws unconditionally from territories that are within its internationally recognized borders. Today virtually the whole of the Ethiopian Army has taken positions along the Eritrean border, and almost all of the most powerful leaders of Ethiopia, including the president, the prime minister, the deputy minister and minister of defense, the chief of staff of the armed forces, the president of the Tigray Region, and the senior official of the TPLF, publicly declared only in the past few weeks that Ethiopia has finalized preparations for war and will soon teach Eritreans lessons they will never forget.
The violation of Borders
This is a dispute about borders and the violation of these borders by Ethiopia, nothing more and nothing less. It is not linked to the differences on trade between the two countries. It is not about mineral deposits in the disputed area and definitely not about aggression, as Ethiopia claims. It is about Ethiopian expansionism and the willful violation of the non-controversial and clearly defined, internationally recognized boundaries between the two countries. Indeed, these boundaries are probably some of the most meticulously defined African borders. The village of Badma is well inside Eritrean territory. The Ethiopian occupation of Badma and its environs was therefore nothing short of a blatant violation of the UN and OAU charters and Resolution AHG/RES 16(1) of the First Assembly of Heads of State and Government held in Cairo in 1964 that sanctified respect for colonial borders in Africa.
The Ethiopian authorities have unabashedly declared that Badma and its environs "have never been part of Eritrea," either during Italian colonialism or since. This awkward falsehood can easily be contradicted by any map of Eritrea from Italian times to the present, including those that were produced by the governments of both Emperor Haile-Selassie and Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam and by the UN before it created the ill-fated Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation.
Badma is located, without any ambiguity, within Eritrea's colonial boundaries. These boundaries were defined by internationally recognized colonial treaties and confirmed by the UN when it created the ill-fated federation and when it gave Eritrea its first constitution. The constitution, which incorporates part of the UN Resolution (390 [v], 1952) that created the federation, unequivocally states that
The current Ethiopian government cannot therefore invoke legitimacy as a successor state to an administration in Badma that existed outside its recognized colonial boundaries.the territory of Eritrea, including the islands, is that of the former Italian colony of Eritrea.
In any case, it must be a supreme irony of history that Ethiopia, which was the most important sponsor of the Cairo Resolution on colonial boundaries and had effectively used it against the claims of the Republic of Somalia in the sixties and seventies, is now attempting to undervalue it because it undermines its occupation. It also augurs bad for inter-African international relations because it will open a Pandora's box of claims and counterclaims.
In spite of all this, the government of Eritrea has been consistently pursuing a peaceful policy to resolve the situation first by bilateral means and then through international mediation. It has been constant in its condemnation of force and has upheld the view that border disputes of whatever nature can and should be resolved by peaceful and legal means.
In this connection, it must be mentioned that both the executive and the legislate branches of the Eritrean government have repeatedly called on the government of Ethiopia to pursue a similar policy of peace.
Two examples will suffice. In July 1997 Ethiopian forces unexpectedly and forcibly occupied the Eritrean village of Bada (Adi Murug) in southeastern Eritrea. They entered the area with the express permission of Eritrean authorities ostensibly to pursue Ethiopian Afar opposition elements. On that occasion the president of Eritrea wrote to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to remind him that
and to urge himthe forcible occupation of Adi Murug [was] truly sad
Then again, President Isaias wrote to the Ethiopian prime minister about ten days later, on August 25, 1997, to inform him that the transgressions that had been committed in Bada were being repeated in Badma and to suggest the creation of a Joint Commission to avert further deterioration of the situation and to resolve all outstanding problems amicably. Similarly, in a resolution that it passed on June 18, 1998, the Eritrean National Assembly urged the leaders of the Eritrean government to continue their attempts to engage the Ethiopian government in a constructive dialogue with a view to achieving a peaceful and legal solution to the problem. Unfortunately, all Eritrean efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to the dispute have failed because the Ethiopian government obdurately insists that Eritrea must unconditionally withdraw from the territories that Ethiopia illegally occupied in the first place, that is, from Eritrea's own territory. This precondition - as unfair, unjust, and fraudulent as it possibly could be - is not acceptable now and will not be acceptable at any time in the future.personally to take the necessary prudent action so that the measure that had been taken [by Ethiopian forces] will not trigger unnecessary conflict.
The Eritrean Reaction
The question may be asked: What took you so long to react? The asnwer is that since its liberation Eritrea has had no particular fixation with the problem of borders for several reasons. First, the borders were just about the most clearly defined in Africa, and it was believed that there would be no room for controversy. Second, Eritrea had an abiding faith in its presumed strong bond with Ethiopia and in the two countries' common commitment to regional integration. Under the circumstances it saw no reason to pay any significant attention to what it considered to be a secondary issue. Finally, it believed in quiet diplomacy.
The Ethiopian offensive
On the other hand, Ethiopia has unremittingly pursued a policy of chicanery and the use or the threat of force. It is also perpetrating the massive violation of the human rights of Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin and conducting a propaganda campaign emphasizing ethnic hatred against Eritreans and their leaders.
I cannot believe that at this late stage the distinguished members of both committees are unaware of the horrendous human rights violations, including kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, detentions, deportations and expulsions, the deplorable and dehumanizing conditions of expulsion and deportation as well as the cruel, degrading, humiliating, and inhuman treatment of more than 20,000 Eritreans by the Ethiopian government. The expellees include Eritrean staff members of international organizations, mostly from the UN, and citizens of third countries, including the United States and Canada who are of Eritrean origin. The implausible reason given by Ethiopia to justify this veritable ethnic cleansing, which, by the way, is still continuing, is that all the victims are spies.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the Ethiopian government has also accompanied its threat of force with a bombardment of lies, distoritions, perversions, and deplomtic subterfuge that, in an amazingly refined appplication of the Orewellian peinciple, accused the Eritrean government of precisely the outrages and atrocities it committed against Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin. The truth is that the Eritrean government has not detained, expelled, deported, or otherwise violated the rights - human or otherwise - of Ethiopians living in Eritrea. This contention has been verified by legitimate third parties such as representatives of the European Union, specific UN agencies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. As usual, the Ethiopian government has called all of them liars. We have extended to all interested parties invitations to make on -the-spot verifications of the human rights conditions in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. We now extend this invitation to your committees. We also would like you to receive a similar invitation from the Ethiopian government.
Eritrea seeks no territorial expansion or selfish advantages. It has no plan of aggression against any other state. We have no objective that will clash with the peaceful aims of any other state. On the other hand, we will not passively countenance territorial changes, acquisitions, or special advantages made at our expense and obtained by force or the threat of force, diplomatic duplicity, or any other coercive measures.
Eritrea's Proposal for Peace
Eritrea desires peace with all the world but perhaps most of all with its neighbors. Eritrea has thus made several proposals to solve the current problem peacefully, and I hereby submit the proposal made by my president, H.E. Isaias Afwerki, to the Nonaligned Summit recently held in Durban, South Africa.
Quiet Diplomacy and Other InitiativesA comprehensive solution of the problem through a technical demarcation based on established colonial treaties that clearly define the boundary between the two countries;
Arbitration based on the sanctity of colonial borders in the event that that is demanded by the other party; and
An immediate cease-fire and the cessation of all hostilities that will be monitored by an observer force under the auspices of the UN until a lasting legal solution can be adopted.
There are limits to misdeeds, and any self-respecting state should be expected to endure few of them. We hold the view that he territory of a state is always inviolable and cannot be the object of occupation or of any other measure of force imposed by another state directly or indirectly for any motive or purpose whatsoever. It is the right and duty of the government and people of a country to protect their rights against misdeeds that affect their vital interests. Such an action is legal and legitimate and promotes peace and justice.
To date several countries, including Norway and other European countries, are conducting quiet diplomacy. In addition, the OAU is continuing to conduct its initiative, and the U.S. government has also embarked on a new initiative. Eritrea welcomes all these gestures of goodwill; but it hopes that they will be supportive of one another and that their proliferation will not lead to contrary and unexpected results.
In this connection I wish to refer to the U.S. - Rwanda Facilitation effort. I have no doubt that the facilitators acted out of goodwill and in good faith; but they acted in ultra vires. The mandate of a facilitator - any facilitator - is to a dispute a framework for the resolution of the conflict that should be acceptable to both parties. It is not part of the mandate of any facilitator to make recommendations to the parties involved and certainly not to third parties. This understanding was made clear to them by the Eritrean government, which, on several occasions, made strong reservations about some of the details of what would have been a negotiating framework. The facilitators made an error of judgment in ignoring the reservations. They compounded the problem when they presented not a negotiating framework to the parties but recommendations to the OAU. The Eritrean delegation to the OAU Summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, took strong exceptions to the submission of recommendations and again made known its reservations. It may be argued that the facilitators took this unprecedented step, in spite of the strong objections of one of the parties to the dispute, to avert imminent armed conflict. History, of course, has proved that assumption wrong. On the contrary, it is now abundantly clear that it only made the government of Ethiopia, which is still clinging to the recommendations, more obdurate and intransigent. It must also be remembered that it was on the day that the facilitators were to present their recommendations that Ethiopian Air Force jets, for whatever reason, were ordered to bomb Asmara International Airport and thus escalate the conflict. That was to be fatal to the U.S. - Rwanda initiative.
Eritrea appreciates the apprehension of all women and men of goodwill, both in and outside of government, about the possible renewal of fighting. It understands and shares their concerns about the disastrous consequences that could take place. I wish to reiterate that Eritrea is committed now, as it has been since the beginning of the crisis, to a peaceful and legal solution. It will remain open to all constructive advice. Above all, Eritrea will not abandon its vision of a peaceful and stable region that fosters cooperative relations with all states.
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
Meselo, you are Pathetic for using the Words of the HONOURABLE Haile Durue who Defended Eritrea's Sovereignty in this moment just to protect your Human Rights violating Criminal warmongerer PIA...you are Pathetic...PFDJ is pathetic! The Nobel Peace Council is made of intelligent people who can see through your pathetic stunts in the region, at the UN, etc!
Zmeselo wrote: ↑11 Oct 2019, 21:11The Ethiopian-Eritrean crisis: The Eritrean perspective
By: Foreign Minister Haile Woldensae
(Initially published in "American Foreign Policy Interests".
Vol. 20, Number 6, December 1998)
Allow me to preface my remarks to this group of eminent persons by expressing my deep appreciation to the officers and members of the Executive Boards of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the Peace and Development Committee for their kind invitation and the opportunity afforded me and my colleagues to share with you our thoughts on the current Eritrean-Ethiopian crisis. There is reason to hope that these and the other problems of the world will be amenable to solutions as long as far-sighted people like you recognize the essential interdependence of our world and the fact that a disturbance of peace and tranquillity in one region will sooner or later affect the peoples of other regions. Two major challenges confront any developing nation in the world today: the betterment of the living conditions of its nationals and the preservation of peace. These are, of course, mutually interdependent. The government and the people of Eritrea recognize that peace is an essential precondition for development. The commitment to peace has therefore been a prominent cornerstone of Eritrean foreign policy. To this end, it has set out to create peaceful conditions at home and, in collaboration with its neighbors, to establish a regime of peace and enduring stability in a region of the world in which the two have been absent for several decades. Thus Eritrea has assiduously worked toward the revitalization of IGAD with a view to making it more relevant and purposeful in meeting the multifaceted needs of the region. It has also cooperated with all the countries of the region, including, in particular, Ethiopia, to bring about peace and stability to the region, in particular, the Sudan and Somalia.
Eritrea's geographical position as a littoral state of the Red Sea and as a member of the historically troubled Horn of Africa has hitherto made it the victim of an inordinate number of colonial wars and wars of aggression in the declaration and conduct of which its people had no say at all. The thirty years war of liberation, caused to a large extent by the UN's unwillingness to live up to its responsibilities of ensuring respect for its resolutions and decisions, has taken an excessive toll inhuman lives, the loss of property, and the destruction of the ecology. Eritreans are thus determined that their country will not again be scarred by the ravages of war and that their foreign and domestic policies will not be counseled by the logic of the use of force. They affirm and strictly adhere to the principles of peace, non aggression, good neighborliness, non interference in the internal affairs of states, nonintervention, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. These principles are applied uniformly, with neighbors and others alike.
This policy framework had hitherto enabled Eritrea to establish an exemplary close tie of friendship even with a former enemy, Ethiopia. It has also helped to defuse conflict with the Republic of Yemen and to arrive at a mutual agreement to resolve the conflict between them over the Eritrean archipelago of Hanish-Zuquar in the Red Sea by peaceful means of arbitration. It has also helped bring about a peaceful resolution of the misunderstanding with Djibouti. In all instances, Ethiopia had steadfastly upheld Eritrea's policies and actions. Almost equally important is the fact that it underlies our determined search for mutually beneficial economic and commercial relations among the countries of the region.
Eritrea's conduct of its foreign policy and its relations with all states, including Ethiopia, have been consistent with these declared policies. Today too the government of Eritrea insists that the road to peace with Ethiopia extends from the strict application and enforcement of the principles of the charters of the UN and the OAU as well as the OAU decision on colonial borders. Once again, Eritrea calls on the international community, particularly the UN and the OAU, to ensure respect for these principles and decisions.
Conflict with Ethiopia
That is why Eritrea was surprised and disturbed by the eruption of conflict with Ethiopia because in spite of disagreements on the issue of boundaries dating back to the days armed struggle, the Eritrean government had assumed and hoped, in view of the close relations between the two, that it would be possible to arrive at an amicable and enduring solution.
Responsibility for the escalation of the dispute rests solely with the government of Ethiopia that has for a long period of time consistently violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea, resulting in the occupation of large tracts of Eritrean territory followed by the forced displacement of Eritrean peasants and the replacement of Eritrean administrative structures by Ethiopian institutions. It reached a climax on May 6 only as a result of the further unprovoked incursions by members of the Ethiopian armed forces that attacked Eritrean troops in the Badma region in southwestern Eritrea. These incursions were premeditated and meticulously planned.
For a long time Eritreans opted for patient and quiet diplomacy. They had hoped against hope that the periodic incursions were only the petty acts of some miscreant and ill-advised regional officials. It was only at a late stage and particularly after the publication in 1997 of an official map of the Tigray Administrative Zone, the home base of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which s the senior and hegemonic member of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), incorporating additional indisputably Eritrean territory, and particularly after the issuance of the new Ethiopian currency note depicting the same map, that they realized the full meaning of the Ethiopian adventure.
Consequently, even in the aftermath of the fighting that was triggered by the unprovoked Ethiopian incursion and attacks on Eritrean troops, Eritrea never crossed its internationally recognized border; but Ethiopia still controls other Eritrean territory in southwestern and southeastern Eritrea.
In spite of all this evidence of its aggressive deeds, the Ethiopian government is conducting an absurd propaganda campaign to portray Eritrea as warmongering nation that committed aggression against Ethiopian territory, which it occupies. Nothing could be further from the truth. At no time have Eritrean troops crossed Eritrea's internationally recognized borders, and its territory is there for everyone to see. On the contrary, it was Ethiopian troops that invaded Eritrea after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's declaration of war on May 13, 1998. They were repulsed. In fact, it is important to recall that Dr. Tekeda Alemu, the deputy foreign minister of Ethiopia, articulated Ethiopia's expansionist designs by publicly declaring in a speech to members of the Ethiopian community in the United States that Ethiopia would occupy the Eritrean port of Assab within a short time. In light of the above, Ethiopia's claims that it is the victim of aggression and will not negotiate unless Eritrea withdraws from "its territory" are obviously false and are meant to hoodwink the international community and to cover its own acts of aggression.
Even today Ethiopia is threatening war unless Eritrea withdraws unconditionally from territories that are within its internationally recognized borders. Today virtually the whole of the Ethiopian Army has taken positions along the Eritrean border, and almost all of the most powerful leaders of Ethiopia, including the president, the prime minister, the deputy minister and minister of defense, the chief of staff of the armed forces, the president of the Tigray Region, and the senior official of the TPLF, publicly declared only in the past few weeks that Ethiopia has finalized preparations for war and will soon teach Eritreans lessons they will never forget.
The violation of Borders
This is a dispute about borders and the violation of these borders by Ethiopia, nothing more and nothing less. It is not linked to the differences on trade between the two countries. It is not about mineral deposits in the disputed area and definitely not about aggression, as Ethiopia claims. It is about Ethiopian expansionism and the willful violation of the non-controversial and clearly defined, internationally recognized boundaries between the two countries. Indeed, these boundaries are probably some of the most meticulously defined African borders. The village of Badma is well inside Eritrean territory. The Ethiopian occupation of Badma and its environs was therefore nothing short of a blatant violation of the UN and OAU charters and Resolution AHG/RES 16(1) of the First Assembly of Heads of State and Government held in Cairo in 1964 that sanctified respect for colonial borders in Africa.
The Ethiopian authorities have unabashedly declared that Badma and its environs "have never been part of Eritrea," either during Italian colonialism or since. This awkward falsehood can easily be contradicted by any map of Eritrea from Italian times to the present, including those that were produced by the governments of both Emperor Haile-Selassie and Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam and by the UN before it created the ill-fated Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation.
Badma is located, without any ambiguity, within Eritrea's colonial boundaries. These boundaries were defined by internationally recognized colonial treaties and confirmed by the UN when it created the ill-fated federation and when it gave Eritrea its first constitution. The constitution, which incorporates part of the UN Resolution (390 [v], 1952) that created the federation, unequivocally states that
The current Ethiopian government cannot therefore invoke legitimacy as a successor state to an administration in Badma that existed outside its recognized colonial boundaries.the territory of Eritrea, including the islands, is that of the former Italian colony of Eritrea.
In any case, it must be a supreme irony of history that Ethiopia, which was the most important sponsor of the Cairo Resolution on colonial boundaries and had effectively used it against the claims of the Republic of Somalia in the sixties and seventies, is now attempting to undervalue it because it undermines its occupation. It also augurs bad for inter-African international relations because it will open a Pandora's box of claims and counterclaims.
In spite of all this, the government of Eritrea has been consistently pursuing a peaceful policy to resolve the situation first by bilateral means and then through international mediation. It has been constant in its condemnation of force and has upheld the view that border disputes of whatever nature can and should be resolved by peaceful and legal means.
In this connection, it must be mentioned that both the executive and the legislate branches of the Eritrean government have repeatedly called on the government of Ethiopia to pursue a similar policy of peace.
Two examples will suffice. In July 1997 Ethiopian forces unexpectedly and forcibly occupied the Eritrean village of Bada (Adi Murug) in southeastern Eritrea. They entered the area with the express permission of Eritrean authorities ostensibly to pursue Ethiopian Afar opposition elements. On that occasion the president of Eritrea wrote to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to remind him that
and to urge himthe forcible occupation of Adi Murug [was] truly sad
Then again, President Isaias wrote to the Ethiopian prime minister about ten days later, on August 25, 1997, to inform him that the transgressions that had been committed in Bada were being repeated in Badma and to suggest the creation of a Joint Commission to avert further deterioration of the situation and to resolve all outstanding problems amicably. Similarly, in a resolution that it passed on June 18, 1998, the Eritrean National Assembly urged the leaders of the Eritrean government to continue their attempts to engage the Ethiopian government in a constructive dialogue with a view to achieving a peaceful and legal solution to the problem. Unfortunately, all Eritrean efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to the dispute have failed because the Ethiopian government obdurately insists that Eritrea must unconditionally withdraw from the territories that Ethiopia illegally occupied in the first place, that is, from Eritrea's own territory. This precondition - as unfair, unjust, and fraudulent as it possibly could be - is not acceptable now and will not be acceptable at any time in the future.personally to take the necessary prudent action so that the measure that had been taken [by Ethiopian forces] will not trigger unnecessary conflict.
The Eritrean Reaction
The question may be asked: What took you so long to react? The asnwer is that since its liberation Eritrea has had no particular fixation with the problem of borders for several reasons. First, the borders were just about the most clearly defined in Africa, and it was believed that there would be no room for controversy. Second, Eritrea had an abiding faith in its presumed strong bond with Ethiopia and in the two countries' common commitment to regional integration. Under the circumstances it saw no reason to pay any significant attention to what it considered to be a secondary issue. Finally, it believed in quiet diplomacy.
The Ethiopian offensive
On the other hand, Ethiopia has unremittingly pursued a policy of chicanery and the use or the threat of force. It is also perpetrating the massive violation of the human rights of Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin and conducting a propaganda campaign emphasizing ethnic hatred against Eritreans and their leaders.
I cannot believe that at this late stage the distinguished members of both committees are unaware of the horrendous human rights violations, including kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, detentions, deportations and expulsions, the deplorable and dehumanizing conditions of expulsion and deportation as well as the cruel, degrading, humiliating, and inhuman treatment of more than 20,000 Eritreans by the Ethiopian government. The expellees include Eritrean staff members of international organizations, mostly from the UN, and citizens of third countries, including the United States and Canada who are of Eritrean origin. The implausible reason given by Ethiopia to justify this veritable ethnic cleansing, which, by the way, is still continuing, is that all the victims are spies.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the Ethiopian government has also accompanied its threat of force with a bombardment of lies, distoritions, perversions, and deplomtic subterfuge that, in an amazingly refined appplication of the Orewellian peinciple, accused the Eritrean government of precisely the outrages and atrocities it committed against Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin. The truth is that the Eritrean government has not detained, expelled, deported, or otherwise violated the rights - human or otherwise - of Ethiopians living in Eritrea. This contention has been verified by legitimate third parties such as representatives of the European Union, specific UN agencies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. As usual, the Ethiopian government has called all of them liars. We have extended to all interested parties invitations to make on -the-spot verifications of the human rights conditions in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. We now extend this invitation to your committees. We also would like you to receive a similar invitation from the Ethiopian government.
Eritrea seeks no territorial expansion or selfish advantages. It has no plan of aggression against any other state. We have no objective that will clash with the peaceful aims of any other state. On the other hand, we will not passively countenance territorial changes, acquisitions, or special advantages made at our expense and obtained by force or the threat of force, diplomatic duplicity, or any other coercive measures.
Eritrea's Proposal for Peace
Eritrea desires peace with all the world but perhaps most of all with its neighbors. Eritrea has thus made several proposals to solve the current problem peacefully, and I hereby submit the proposal made by my president, H.E. Isaias Afwerki, to the Nonaligned Summit recently held in Durban, South Africa.
Quiet Diplomacy and Other InitiativesA comprehensive solution of the problem through a technical demarcation based on established colonial treaties that clearly define the boundary between the two countries;
Arbitration based on the sanctity of colonial borders in the event that that is demanded by the other party; and
An immediate cease-fire and the cessation of all hostilities that will be monitored by an observer force under the auspices of the UN until a lasting legal solution can be adopted.
There are limits to misdeeds, and any self-respecting state should be expected to endure few of them. We hold the view that he territory of a state is always inviolable and cannot be the object of occupation or of any other measure of force imposed by another state directly or indirectly for any motive or purpose whatsoever. It is the right and duty of the government and people of a country to protect their rights against misdeeds that affect their vital interests. Such an action is legal and legitimate and promotes peace and justice.
To date several countries, including Norway and other European countries, are conducting quiet diplomacy. In addition, the OAU is continuing to conduct its initiative, and the U.S. government has also embarked on a new initiative. Eritrea welcomes all these gestures of goodwill; but it hopes that they will be supportive of one another and that their proliferation will not lead to contrary and unexpected results.
In this connection I wish to refer to the U.S. - Rwanda Facilitation effort. I have no doubt that the facilitators acted out of goodwill and in good faith; but they acted in ultra vires. The mandate of a facilitator - any facilitator - is to a dispute a framework for the resolution of the conflict that should be acceptable to both parties. It is not part of the mandate of any facilitator to make recommendations to the parties involved and certainly not to third parties. This understanding was made clear to them by the Eritrean government, which, on several occasions, made strong reservations about some of the details of what would have been a negotiating framework. The facilitators made an error of judgment in ignoring the reservations. They compounded the problem when they presented not a negotiating framework to the parties but recommendations to the OAU. The Eritrean delegation to the OAU Summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, took strong exceptions to the submission of recommendations and again made known its reservations. It may be argued that the facilitators took this unprecedented step, in spite of the strong objections of one of the parties to the dispute, to avert imminent armed conflict. History, of course, has proved that assumption wrong. On the contrary, it is now abundantly clear that it only made the government of Ethiopia, which is still clinging to the recommendations, more obdurate and intransigent. It must also be remembered that it was on the day that the facilitators were to present their recommendations that Ethiopian Air Force jets, for whatever reason, were ordered to bomb Asmara International Airport and thus escalate the conflict. That was to be fatal to the U.S. - Rwanda initiative.
Eritrea appreciates the apprehension of all women and men of goodwill, both in and outside of government, about the possible renewal of fighting. It understands and shares their concerns about the disastrous consequences that could take place. I wish to reiterate that Eritrea is committed now, as it has been since the beginning of the crisis, to a peaceful and legal solution. It will remain open to all constructive advice. Above all, Eritrea will not abandon its vision of a peaceful and stable region that fosters cooperative relations with all states.
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
Meselo, you are Pathetic for using the Words of the HONOURABLE Haile Durue who Defended Eritrea's Sovereignty in this moment just to protect your Human Rights violating Criminal warmongerer PIA...you are Pathetic...PFDJ is pathetic! The Nobel Peace Council is made of intelligent people who can see through your pathetic stunts in the region, at the UN, etc!
Zmeselo wrote: ↑11 Oct 2019, 21:11The Ethiopian-Eritrean crisis: The Eritrean perspective
By: Foreign Minister Haile Woldensae
(Initially published in "American Foreign Policy Interests".
Vol. 20, Number 6, December 1998)
Allow me to preface my remarks to this group of eminent persons by expressing my deep appreciation to the officers and members of the Executive Boards of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the Peace and Development Committee for their kind invitation and the opportunity afforded me and my colleagues to share with you our thoughts on the current Eritrean-Ethiopian crisis. There is reason to hope that these and the other problems of the world will be amenable to solutions as long as far-sighted people like you recognize the essential interdependence of our world and the fact that a disturbance of peace and tranquillity in one region will sooner or later affect the peoples of other regions. Two major challenges confront any developing nation in the world today: the betterment of the living conditions of its nationals and the preservation of peace. These are, of course, mutually interdependent. The government and the people of Eritrea recognize that peace is an essential precondition for development. The commitment to peace has therefore been a prominent cornerstone of Eritrean foreign policy. To this end, it has set out to create peaceful conditions at home and, in collaboration with its neighbors, to establish a regime of peace and enduring stability in a region of the world in which the two have been absent for several decades. Thus Eritrea has assiduously worked toward the revitalization of IGAD with a view to making it more relevant and purposeful in meeting the multifaceted needs of the region. It has also cooperated with all the countries of the region, including, in particular, Ethiopia, to bring about peace and stability to the region, in particular, the Sudan and Somalia.
Eritrea's geographical position as a littoral state of the Red Sea and as a member of the historically troubled Horn of Africa has hitherto made it the victim of an inordinate number of colonial wars and wars of aggression in the declaration and conduct of which its people had no say at all. The thirty years war of liberation, caused to a large extent by the UN's unwillingness to live up to its responsibilities of ensuring respect for its resolutions and decisions, has taken an excessive toll inhuman lives, the loss of property, and the destruction of the ecology. Eritreans are thus determined that their country will not again be scarred by the ravages of war and that their foreign and domestic policies will not be counseled by the logic of the use of force. They affirm and strictly adhere to the principles of peace, non aggression, good neighborliness, non interference in the internal affairs of states, nonintervention, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. These principles are applied uniformly, with neighbors and others alike.
This policy framework had hitherto enabled Eritrea to establish an exemplary close tie of friendship even with a former enemy, Ethiopia. It has also helped to defuse conflict with the Republic of Yemen and to arrive at a mutual agreement to resolve the conflict between them over the Eritrean archipelago of Hanish-Zuquar in the Red Sea by peaceful means of arbitration. It has also helped bring about a peaceful resolution of the misunderstanding with Djibouti. In all instances, Ethiopia had steadfastly upheld Eritrea's policies and actions. Almost equally important is the fact that it underlies our determined search for mutually beneficial economic and commercial relations among the countries of the region.
Eritrea's conduct of its foreign policy and its relations with all states, including Ethiopia, have been consistent with these declared policies. Today too the government of Eritrea insists that the road to peace with Ethiopia extends from the strict application and enforcement of the principles of the charters of the UN and the OAU as well as the OAU decision on colonial borders. Once again, Eritrea calls on the international community, particularly the UN and the OAU, to ensure respect for these principles and decisions.
Conflict with Ethiopia
That is why Eritrea was surprised and disturbed by the eruption of conflict with Ethiopia because in spite of disagreements on the issue of boundaries dating back to the days armed struggle, the Eritrean government had assumed and hoped, in view of the close relations between the two, that it would be possible to arrive at an amicable and enduring solution.
Responsibility for the escalation of the dispute rests solely with the government of Ethiopia that has for a long period of time consistently violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea, resulting in the occupation of large tracts of Eritrean territory followed by the forced displacement of Eritrean peasants and the replacement of Eritrean administrative structures by Ethiopian institutions. It reached a climax on May 6 only as a result of the further unprovoked incursions by members of the Ethiopian armed forces that attacked Eritrean troops in the Badma region in southwestern Eritrea. These incursions were premeditated and meticulously planned.
For a long time Eritreans opted for patient and quiet diplomacy. They had hoped against hope that the periodic incursions were only the petty acts of some miscreant and ill-advised regional officials. It was only at a late stage and particularly after the publication in 1997 of an official map of the Tigray Administrative Zone, the home base of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which s the senior and hegemonic member of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), incorporating additional indisputably Eritrean territory, and particularly after the issuance of the new Ethiopian currency note depicting the same map, that they realized the full meaning of the Ethiopian adventure.
Consequently, even in the aftermath of the fighting that was triggered by the unprovoked Ethiopian incursion and attacks on Eritrean troops, Eritrea never crossed its internationally recognized border; but Ethiopia still controls other Eritrean territory in southwestern and southeastern Eritrea.
In spite of all this evidence of its aggressive deeds, the Ethiopian government is conducting an absurd propaganda campaign to portray Eritrea as warmongering nation that committed aggression against Ethiopian territory, which it occupies. Nothing could be further from the truth. At no time have Eritrean troops crossed Eritrea's internationally recognized borders, and its territory is there for everyone to see. On the contrary, it was Ethiopian troops that invaded Eritrea after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's declaration of war on May 13, 1998. They were repulsed. In fact, it is important to recall that Dr. Tekeda Alemu, the deputy foreign minister of Ethiopia, articulated Ethiopia's expansionist designs by publicly declaring in a speech to members of the Ethiopian community in the United States that Ethiopia would occupy the Eritrean port of Assab within a short time. In light of the above, Ethiopia's claims that it is the victim of aggression and will not negotiate unless Eritrea withdraws from "its territory" are obviously false and are meant to hoodwink the international community and to cover its own acts of aggression.
Even today Ethiopia is threatening war unless Eritrea withdraws unconditionally from territories that are within its internationally recognized borders. Today virtually the whole of the Ethiopian Army has taken positions along the Eritrean border, and almost all of the most powerful leaders of Ethiopia, including the president, the prime minister, the deputy minister and minister of defense, the chief of staff of the armed forces, the president of the Tigray Region, and the senior official of the TPLF, publicly declared only in the past few weeks that Ethiopia has finalized preparations for war and will soon teach Eritreans lessons they will never forget.
The violation of Borders
This is a dispute about borders and the violation of these borders by Ethiopia, nothing more and nothing less. It is not linked to the differences on trade between the two countries. It is not about mineral deposits in the disputed area and definitely not about aggression, as Ethiopia claims. It is about Ethiopian expansionism and the willful violation of the non-controversial and clearly defined, internationally recognized boundaries between the two countries. Indeed, these boundaries are probably some of the most meticulously defined African borders. The village of Badma is well inside Eritrean territory. The Ethiopian occupation of Badma and its environs was therefore nothing short of a blatant violation of the UN and OAU charters and Resolution AHG/RES 16(1) of the First Assembly of Heads of State and Government held in Cairo in 1964 that sanctified respect for colonial borders in Africa.
The Ethiopian authorities have unabashedly declared that Badma and its environs "have never been part of Eritrea," either during Italian colonialism or since. This awkward falsehood can easily be contradicted by any map of Eritrea from Italian times to the present, including those that were produced by the governments of both Emperor Haile-Selassie and Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam and by the UN before it created the ill-fated Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation.
Badma is located, without any ambiguity, within Eritrea's colonial boundaries. These boundaries were defined by internationally recognized colonial treaties and confirmed by the UN when it created the ill-fated federation and when it gave Eritrea its first constitution. The constitution, which incorporates part of the UN Resolution (390 [v], 1952) that created the federation, unequivocally states that
The current Ethiopian government cannot therefore invoke legitimacy as a successor state to an administration in Badma that existed outside its recognized colonial boundaries.the territory of Eritrea, including the islands, is that of the former Italian colony of Eritrea.
In any case, it must be a supreme irony of history that Ethiopia, which was the most important sponsor of the Cairo Resolution on colonial boundaries and had effectively used it against the claims of the Republic of Somalia in the sixties and seventies, is now attempting to undervalue it because it undermines its occupation. It also augurs bad for inter-African international relations because it will open a Pandora's box of claims and counterclaims.
In spite of all this, the government of Eritrea has been consistently pursuing a peaceful policy to resolve the situation first by bilateral means and then through international mediation. It has been constant in its condemnation of force and has upheld the view that border disputes of whatever nature can and should be resolved by peaceful and legal means.
In this connection, it must be mentioned that both the executive and the legislate branches of the Eritrean government have repeatedly called on the government of Ethiopia to pursue a similar policy of peace.
Two examples will suffice. In July 1997 Ethiopian forces unexpectedly and forcibly occupied the Eritrean village of Bada (Adi Murug) in southeastern Eritrea. They entered the area with the express permission of Eritrean authorities ostensibly to pursue Ethiopian Afar opposition elements. On that occasion the president of Eritrea wrote to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to remind him that
and to urge himthe forcible occupation of Adi Murug [was] truly sad
Then again, President Isaias wrote to the Ethiopian prime minister about ten days later, on August 25, 1997, to inform him that the transgressions that had been committed in Bada were being repeated in Badma and to suggest the creation of a Joint Commission to avert further deterioration of the situation and to resolve all outstanding problems amicably. Similarly, in a resolution that it passed on June 18, 1998, the Eritrean National Assembly urged the leaders of the Eritrean government to continue their attempts to engage the Ethiopian government in a constructive dialogue with a view to achieving a peaceful and legal solution to the problem. Unfortunately, all Eritrean efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to the dispute have failed because the Ethiopian government obdurately insists that Eritrea must unconditionally withdraw from the territories that Ethiopia illegally occupied in the first place, that is, from Eritrea's own territory. This precondition - as unfair, unjust, and fraudulent as it possibly could be - is not acceptable now and will not be acceptable at any time in the future.personally to take the necessary prudent action so that the measure that had been taken [by Ethiopian forces] will not trigger unnecessary conflict.
The Eritrean Reaction
The question may be asked: What took you so long to react? The asnwer is that since its liberation Eritrea has had no particular fixation with the problem of borders for several reasons. First, the borders were just about the most clearly defined in Africa, and it was believed that there would be no room for controversy. Second, Eritrea had an abiding faith in its presumed strong bond with Ethiopia and in the two countries' common commitment to regional integration. Under the circumstances it saw no reason to pay any significant attention to what it considered to be a secondary issue. Finally, it believed in quiet diplomacy.
The Ethiopian offensive
On the other hand, Ethiopia has unremittingly pursued a policy of chicanery and the use or the threat of force. It is also perpetrating the massive violation of the human rights of Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin and conducting a propaganda campaign emphasizing ethnic hatred against Eritreans and their leaders.
I cannot believe that at this late stage the distinguished members of both committees are unaware of the horrendous human rights violations, including kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, detentions, deportations and expulsions, the deplorable and dehumanizing conditions of expulsion and deportation as well as the cruel, degrading, humiliating, and inhuman treatment of more than 20,000 Eritreans by the Ethiopian government. The expellees include Eritrean staff members of international organizations, mostly from the UN, and citizens of third countries, including the United States and Canada who are of Eritrean origin. The implausible reason given by Ethiopia to justify this veritable ethnic cleansing, which, by the way, is still continuing, is that all the victims are spies.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the Ethiopian government has also accompanied its threat of force with a bombardment of lies, distoritions, perversions, and deplomtic subterfuge that, in an amazingly refined appplication of the Orewellian peinciple, accused the Eritrean government of precisely the outrages and atrocities it committed against Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin. The truth is that the Eritrean government has not detained, expelled, deported, or otherwise violated the rights - human or otherwise - of Ethiopians living in Eritrea. This contention has been verified by legitimate third parties such as representatives of the European Union, specific UN agencies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. As usual, the Ethiopian government has called all of them liars. We have extended to all interested parties invitations to make on -the-spot verifications of the human rights conditions in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. We now extend this invitation to your committees. We also would like you to receive a similar invitation from the Ethiopian government.
Eritrea seeks no territorial expansion or selfish advantages. It has no plan of aggression against any other state. We have no objective that will clash with the peaceful aims of any other state. On the other hand, we will not passively countenance territorial changes, acquisitions, or special advantages made at our expense and obtained by force or the threat of force, diplomatic duplicity, or any other coercive measures.
Eritrea's Proposal for Peace
Eritrea desires peace with all the world but perhaps most of all with its neighbors. Eritrea has thus made several proposals to solve the current problem peacefully, and I hereby submit the proposal made by my president, H.E. Isaias Afwerki, to the Nonaligned Summit recently held in Durban, South Africa.
Quiet Diplomacy and Other InitiativesA comprehensive solution of the problem through a technical demarcation based on established colonial treaties that clearly define the boundary between the two countries;
Arbitration based on the sanctity of colonial borders in the event that that is demanded by the other party; and
An immediate cease-fire and the cessation of all hostilities that will be monitored by an observer force under the auspices of the UN until a lasting legal solution can be adopted.
There are limits to misdeeds, and any self-respecting state should be expected to endure few of them. We hold the view that he territory of a state is always inviolable and cannot be the object of occupation or of any other measure of force imposed by another state directly or indirectly for any motive or purpose whatsoever. It is the right and duty of the government and people of a country to protect their rights against misdeeds that affect their vital interests. Such an action is legal and legitimate and promotes peace and justice.
To date several countries, including Norway and other European countries, are conducting quiet diplomacy. In addition, the OAU is continuing to conduct its initiative, and the U.S. government has also embarked on a new initiative. Eritrea welcomes all these gestures of goodwill; but it hopes that they will be supportive of one another and that their proliferation will not lead to contrary and unexpected results.
In this connection I wish to refer to the U.S. - Rwanda Facilitation effort. I have no doubt that the facilitators acted out of goodwill and in good faith; but they acted in ultra vires. The mandate of a facilitator - any facilitator - is to a dispute a framework for the resolution of the conflict that should be acceptable to both parties. It is not part of the mandate of any facilitator to make recommendations to the parties involved and certainly not to third parties. This understanding was made clear to them by the Eritrean government, which, on several occasions, made strong reservations about some of the details of what would have been a negotiating framework. The facilitators made an error of judgment in ignoring the reservations. They compounded the problem when they presented not a negotiating framework to the parties but recommendations to the OAU. The Eritrean delegation to the OAU Summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, took strong exceptions to the submission of recommendations and again made known its reservations. It may be argued that the facilitators took this unprecedented step, in spite of the strong objections of one of the parties to the dispute, to avert imminent armed conflict. History, of course, has proved that assumption wrong. On the contrary, it is now abundantly clear that it only made the government of Ethiopia, which is still clinging to the recommendations, more obdurate and intransigent. It must also be remembered that it was on the day that the facilitators were to present their recommendations that Ethiopian Air Force jets, for whatever reason, were ordered to bomb Asmara International Airport and thus escalate the conflict. That was to be fatal to the U.S. - Rwanda initiative.
Eritrea appreciates the apprehension of all women and men of goodwill, both in and outside of government, about the possible renewal of fighting. It understands and shares their concerns about the disastrous consequences that could take place. I wish to reiterate that Eritrea is committed now, as it has been since the beginning of the crisis, to a peaceful and legal solution. It will remain open to all constructive advice. Above all, Eritrea will not abandon its vision of a peaceful and stable region that fosters cooperative relations with all states.
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
If only Abiy was the President of Eritrea, then all the 50,000 political prisoners would be freed, the 10,000 press employees, journalists, camera people, stage handlers, media employees, even newspaper janitors,...the 25,000 rotating prisoners within the military who are Imprisoned, released, beating, imprisoned again, released, so forth....finally the 450,000 conscripted Eritrean SAWA military (unsure of their status, as the whims of a commander or general decides their fate and not anything official and formal that is Used in NORMAL Countries like Ethiopia)...In Normal Countries, Military people have set dates for release, travel, permissions etc...not in CORRUPTED PFDJ-damaged eritrea!
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
OBESE Sirak Bahlbi, a PFDJ Public Figure (FAT) is upset that his Master PIA is not awarded the Nobel Peace Award. SOrry SIRAK, War Criminals/Human Rights Violators like PIA Deserve Only a Nurembourg Trial, Conviction , and Sentencing. Whatever Food Payment you Received from Monkey or will Receive for your BTCHING Will Not DO! So STUFF your FAT FACE with that Food and Shut the Fack Up About Eritrea, You Don't Speak for Me, as an Eritrean, nor Eritrea!:
-
Hazega/Tsazega.
- Member
- Posts: 1588
- Joined: 12 Jun 2007, 20:55
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
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Woyanu pastlast,
i see you enjoy using my normal 150/blue font & stealing jokes ...typical hasadat unoriginal copy/paste woyanu
Anyways, the last i understood from my reading years ago...the mandate of the EEBC was just for the boundary delimitation...the rest was just commentary and not their mandate. However after delimitation of the border another commitee/commission was to be formed to establish the cause/responsibility of the war & compensation. However, you illiterate woyanu agams like Seyum Mesfin didnt understand at the beginning. You reneged when you realized the EEBC declared Bademe eritrean & realized that the next commission would find woyanu guilty because of previous incidents like Adi Murug...etc Thats why Meles did 180 & started begging deported eritreans to return/reclaim their properties woyanu stole.
Re: PIA started the War, Abiy Ended the Conflict - Nobel Prize goes to Abiy
http://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/repor ... war-claims
Eritrea (Isayas Afwrki) triggered a two-year war with Ethiopia and violated international law when it invaded its neighbour in May 1998, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission (EECC) has ruled.
https://pca-cpa.org/en/cases/71/
Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission
Following the breakout of armed conflict between the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (“Ethiopia”) and the State of Eritrea (“Eritrea”) in May 1998, the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea “permanently terminate[d] military hostilities between themselves” pursuant to an agreement signed in Algiers on 12 December 2000 (the “Algiers Agreement”).
Two commissions were established under the Algiers Agreement. Article 4 provided for the establishment of a Boundary Commission and Article 5 provided for the establishment of a Claims Commission.
The Claims Commission was established to “decide through binding arbitration all claims for loss, damage or injury by one Government against the other” related to the armed conflict and resulting from “violations of international humanitarian law, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions, or other violations of international law.” The Parties were entitled to submit claims on their own behalf and on behalf of their nationals (including both natural and legal persons), or in appropriate circumstances, persons of Ethiopian or Eritrean origin who were not nationals.
The Commission was seated in The Hague with the Permanent Court of Arbitration serving as registry.
Between July 2001 and August 2001, the Commission held hearings on significant questions related to jurisdiction, procedure and possible remedies. The Commission addressed these issues in Decisions 1-5, issued in August 2001.
In October 2001, the Commission adopted its Rules of Procedure following consultation with the Parties. These rules were based on the Permanent Court of Arbitration Optional Rules for Arbitration Disputes Between Two States.
The Parties filed their claims by 12 December 2001, addressing matters including the conduct of military operations in the front zones, treatment of prisoners of war, treatment of civilians and their property, diplomatic immunities and the economic impact of certain government actions during the conflict.
The Commission decided to bifurcate proceedings, dealing first with issues of liability and reserving the determination of damages for a later stage. The Commission heard: the prisoner of war claims in December 2002; the Central Front claims in November 2003; the Home Front claims in March 2004; and the remaining liability claims in April 2005. The Commission held two rounds of hearings on damages in April 2007 and May 2008.
In total, the Commission delivered 15 partial and final awards on liability and concluded its work on 17 August 2009, when it delivered its final awards on damages.
Eritrea (Isayas Afwrki) triggered a two-year war with Ethiopia and violated international law when it invaded its neighbour in May 1998, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission (EECC) has ruled.
https://pca-cpa.org/en/cases/71/
Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission
Following the breakout of armed conflict between the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (“Ethiopia”) and the State of Eritrea (“Eritrea”) in May 1998, the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea “permanently terminate[d] military hostilities between themselves” pursuant to an agreement signed in Algiers on 12 December 2000 (the “Algiers Agreement”).
Two commissions were established under the Algiers Agreement. Article 4 provided for the establishment of a Boundary Commission and Article 5 provided for the establishment of a Claims Commission.
The Claims Commission was established to “decide through binding arbitration all claims for loss, damage or injury by one Government against the other” related to the armed conflict and resulting from “violations of international humanitarian law, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions, or other violations of international law.” The Parties were entitled to submit claims on their own behalf and on behalf of their nationals (including both natural and legal persons), or in appropriate circumstances, persons of Ethiopian or Eritrean origin who were not nationals.
The Commission was seated in The Hague with the Permanent Court of Arbitration serving as registry.
Between July 2001 and August 2001, the Commission held hearings on significant questions related to jurisdiction, procedure and possible remedies. The Commission addressed these issues in Decisions 1-5, issued in August 2001.
In October 2001, the Commission adopted its Rules of Procedure following consultation with the Parties. These rules were based on the Permanent Court of Arbitration Optional Rules for Arbitration Disputes Between Two States.
The Parties filed their claims by 12 December 2001, addressing matters including the conduct of military operations in the front zones, treatment of prisoners of war, treatment of civilians and their property, diplomatic immunities and the economic impact of certain government actions during the conflict.
The Commission decided to bifurcate proceedings, dealing first with issues of liability and reserving the determination of damages for a later stage. The Commission heard: the prisoner of war claims in December 2002; the Central Front claims in November 2003; the Home Front claims in March 2004; and the remaining liability claims in April 2005. The Commission held two rounds of hearings on damages in April 2007 and May 2008.
In total, the Commission delivered 15 partial and final awards on liability and concluded its work on 17 August 2009, when it delivered its final awards on damages.