US urges restraint by Ethiopia and Eritrea
November 10, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — The United States on Friday urged “maximum restraint” by Ethiopia and Eritrea amid concern over a new border war between the two east African foes.
“We are concerned about the military build-up and tension on the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
“We call on the governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia to exercise maximum restraint and avoid any actions that might further heighten tension or reignite conflict,” he said.
Ethiopia, which Washington sees as one of its closest allies in the region, said on Friday it had no plans to invade Eritrea, even as Asmara claimed for the fourth time in two weeks that Addis Ababa was preparing to launch an assault.
The United States has difficult relations with Eritrea, which it accuses of backing Somali Islamists. Eritrea, for its part, accuses the United States of fueling conflicts in the Horn of Africa region.
A 1998-2000 war on the border between the two neighbors killed 70,000 people and both sides accuse the other of preparing for a new war by moving troops closer to their disputed frontier area.
“We urge both governments to disengage militarily from the most critical locations along the border and to cooperate with the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea,” said McCormack.
McCormack said both governments must respect commitments made in a 2000 cease-fire deal, adding that they must embrace efforts by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to resolve their boundary impasse and normalize relations.
The United Nations has a peacekeeping force of 1,700 people charged with monitoring a security buffer zone on Eritrea’s side of the 1,000-km (620-mile) frontier. Under the terms of a June 2000 cease-fire, the zone is meant to be demilitarized.
(Reuters)
Kifly Merhu
US urges restraint by Ethiopia and Eritrea
In the 2000 peace deal is clearly defined, that the EEBC (under the UNSC) is the only party who mandated to demarcate the border. Unfortunatly the US is interfering in the issue and hindering the demarcation. Recently, Ms. Condeleeza Rice (US Sec. of State) claims, that Mr. Isaias Afwerki (Pr. of Eritrea) is not ready to talk with us regarding the border demarcation. One wonders, what behind the political chess game is.
Gerrie Lijam
US urges restraint by Ethiopia and 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