PRESS RELEASE

Eritreans in the UK to Stage Public Demonstration outside Downing Street on Monday, 12 December 2005

Action Group for Eritrea (AGE)

London, UK, 05/12/2005

Action Group for Eritrea, in collaboration with Eritrean communities in the UK, will stage a peace protest on December 12, 2005 from 2pm to 6pm outside 10 Downing Street.

The protesters will be expressing their frustration at the way the United Nations is handling the Eritrean Ethiopian crisis. In its latest resolution (1640/2005), rather than addressing the real cause of the present crisis between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the UN Security Council has unscrupulously set a dangerous precedent in the Horn of Africa instead.

In an overt abdication of its responsibility for maintaining peace and security, the Security Council has yet again failed to take firm measure against Ethiopia for rejecting a legal ruling enshrined in international rule of law. To date, Ethiopia’s unlawful behaviour has gone unchecked by the UN Security Council.

Notwithstanding a catalogue of unlawful actions by the Ethiopian government, the UN Security Council has, rather surreally, threatened Eritrea with economic sanctions. It is alarming that the Security Council should fail to suggest any concrete punitive action against Ethiopia for its unlawful refusal to implement the final and binding EEBC ruling.

Against this background, the demonstration will denounce the spirit and content of Resolution 1640/2005. It will condemn the UN Security Council’s seemingly partisan decision. The protest will also call upon the international community, and particularly the guarantors of the Algiers Agreement, to fulfil their treaty obligation in order to avert the potential fallout that will surely follow this negligent action by the UN Security Council.