Ethiopia says accepting UN call on border row with Eritrea
By Tesfa-alem Tekle
November 14, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia fully accepts the call of the UN Security Council President made late Tuesday on the situation between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Ministry of foreign Affairs said.
In its statement sent to Ethiopia news agency, the ministry said on Wednesday Ethiopia fully accepts the “Call of the President of the UN Security Council stressed the importance of the commitment of both parties to lay the foundation for sustainable peace in the region and urged the parties to implement immediately and without preconditions, the Delimitation Decision of April 2002”.
Addis Ababa and Asmara have been locked in a bitter dispute over their shared border after a 2002 decision by an independent boundary commission gave Eritrea the town of Badme.
“Ethiopia has repeatedly made clear its commitment to the demarcation according to international practice and norms, the statement said, adding Ethiopia fully accepts the President’s call the two parties to refrain from using force and to settle their disagreements by peaceful means, to normalize their relations, to promote stability, and to lay the foundation for sustainable peace in the region.”
The UN Security Council President’s statement noted the necessity to comply “fully with the Algiers Agreements and prior Security Council Resolutions,” the statement said, adding the statement also underscored the need to provide UNMEE with all necessary access, assistance, support and protection to fulfill its mandate.
Eritrea has long complained that the international community has done nothing to make Ethiopia accept the ruling. Addis Ababa says it accepts the ruling but wants dialogue about how demarcation should occur, which Asmara refuses.
In his latest report earlier this month, the UN Secretary General drew attention to the violations of the Algiers Agreements by Eritrea in its deployment of troops into the Temporary Security Zone and in the restrictions imposed on UNMEE, the statement noted.
The President’s statement that the primary responsibility for the resolution of the border issue and other differences now lies with Ethiopia and Eritrea, the statement said, adding Ethiopia believes that this is the only way to break the current stalemate and move the demarcation process forward.
Ethiopia also strongly supports the reference of the Presidential Statement to the efforts of the UN Secretary General to facilitate the process, it said; Ethiopia will fully support any such efforts.
Under a peace deal that ended the war, a U.N. peacekeeping force of 1,700 monitors a security buffer zone on Eritrea’s side of the 1,000-km (620-mile) frontier.
Eritrea has had strained relations with the force, and restricted helicopter flights and expelled western peacekeepers.
(ST)
Kifly Merhu
Ethiopia says accepting UN call on border row with Eritrea
Hi everyone,
How the devil could we believe those guys in Addis. They change their colours like a cameleon to misguide us and the world community.
lucio berhane
Ethiopia says accepting UN call on border row with Eritrea
It’s absolutely mind boggling,the Algiers agreement states clearly that both countries should honor the verdict of the EEBC and the flashpoint for the conflict Badme was awarded to Eritrea,end of the case.The UN and other guarantors of the agreement miserably failed in their responsibility in enforcing the rule and letting Ethiopia gallop all over at will.A Swath of Eritrea’s fertile land, so called buffer zone lay useless depriving the thousands of IDP’s and many more of vital food.Mind you,after four and five years of begging and pleading Eritrea had to resort to it’s practical and viable actions to go and utilize its land that was willingly relinquished as a buffer zone in order to bring lasting peace with the verdict put into action.Eritrea has paid enormous humanitarian and economic cost ,while Mr Ban Ki Moon comes lashing and demonizing Eritrea as it was the criminal of the “Algiers Agreement,”in short the UN has opened another new and shameful chapter.
Gerrie Lijam
Ethiopia says accepting UN call on border row with Eritrea
Dear Editor,
AGAIN, for the second time in just 50 years the UN, the US and it’s allies are betraying and backstabbing Eritreans, by allowing Ethiopia to invade and occupy Eritrea and violate the Ethio-Eritrean “final & binding” Algiers’s agreement, refusing to demarcate the Ethio-Eritrean national borders as the UN and US signed and agreed to uphold.
Besides shedding crocodile tears to manipulate global public opinion to foreword their own strategic agenda, the false prophets of the UN and US would like the world to believe that they stand for “freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, territorial integrity, peace and economic development”, while depriving the Eritrean people’s right for self determination by declaring that, “From the point of view of justice, the opinion of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interests of the United States in the Red Sea Basin and world peace make it necessary that the country be linked with our ally Ethiopia.” (U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, 1952).
Dear Editor,
For Eritreans, after 50 years of betrayal and debilitating lonely war, the high price every Eritrean family had to pay to liberate and defend Eritrea, the very credibility, integrity and motivation of the UN and the US is very questionable.
The UN and US complacency and the Ethiopian transgression, invasion and war of occupation is far more a threat to peace and freedom loving nationalist Eritreans than luck off internal plural constitutional democracy, the old worn out US song, customary accusation, excuse and cover up for meddling in the internal state affair and conspiracy for instability and war.
As for Ethiopia, due to 50 years of war with Eritrea and Somalia, Ethiopia has been in huge mess with it’s own constant extrajudicial and illegal political prosecutions, economic nightmares, persistent famines, uncontrolled AIDS, Malaria, TB and other public health scrooge, internal political strife and ethnic civil wars in Ogadinia, Oromia, Afar, Somali and Amara provinces. If Ethiopia has never been able to clean up it’s won dirty laundry at home, how is it possible that Ethiopia will remotely be able to dust off internal strife and stabilize Somalia? Ethiopia should attend to it’s own internal strife, economic nightmare and ethnic civil wars.
After 50 years of war against Eritreans, one would hope, the UN, the US and Ethiopians have learned bitter lessons already,
After all, what’s there more to gain for Ethiopia from waging another 50 years of war against Eritrea or Somalia?
But, if the UN, US and the Ethiopian “governments” continue in insisting on waging wars against Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopian armed ethnic movements in Ogadinia, Oromia, Afar, Somali and Amara provinces, the war could back fire and break Ethiopia apart just like the ethnic civil wars of former Yugoslavia.
Therefore, the Ethiopian xenophobic tribal “politicians” need to be careful on what they pray for, because they might as well get it, bringing more misery to themselves and to the Ethiopian people, more than what Ethiopia and Ethiopians has been going through for the last “3000” years, as Ethiopians claim.
As for the incompetent mafia hierarchy of the United Nations and it’s masters in New York, they need to remember the UN Resolution 390a/v of 1952, forcibly federating Eritrea with Ethiopia against the Eritrean people’s free will and allowing Ethiopia to annex and occupy Eritrea has caused Eritreans much more Ethiopian wars, holocaust, death and destruction that Eritreans would never had to go through, if Eritreans have been allowed to stay free with out the US or UN’s approval seal of betrayal, as declared by John Foster Dulles in 1952.
Ultimately, the UN is responsible for all the 50 years of Ethio-Eritrean bloodshed, for it was the UN who forced the Ethio-Eritrean federation up on Eritreans and the annexation and occupation of Eritrea and consequent bloodshed that has been spilling to this day.
In the end, against all powerful odds and despite all excruciating painful challenges, the Ethiopian and Eritrean peace loving harmonious brotherly people will prevail, defeating their mortal internal and foreign enemies, over coming all man made and natural calamities to cordially live side by side in peace, as they had lived for centuries before.
Thank you
Gerrie Lijam
San Jose, Ca.
USA