Look Who Is Talking!

By: Abeba Isahac

For a people who had relinquished their responsibilities, breached their trust as guarantors and who in order to undermine their involvement, claim to have been only witnesses or just observers to the 2000 agreement that Eritrea had signed with her southern neighbor in Algiers, what about then is all that noise and fuss coming from the secretary general and security council of the United Nations as they suddenly seem to take a new position and interest, pretending to care about something they had completely neglected and abandoned for now over four years?

It is reported that Secretary-General Kofi Annan had said: “the incursion by the Eritrean military not only violated the integrity of the TSZ, but was in breach of the June 2000 agreement on cessation of hostilities.”

Well, well, well! Welcome to reality Mr. Secretary General! Is that not the problem Eritrea has been trying to bring to your attention for all of the past four years? Has the integrity of the TSZ not been violated since its inception, when, against the agreement on cessation of hostilities between the two nations, the Woyane, as ordered in order for the TSZ to be drawn, refused to withdraw their troops from undisputed Eritrean territory? At that time, not a peep was heard from your end, but rather, according to your then representative there, rather then make a fuss, it was decided for a new map to be drawn in order to accommodate the intransigent woyane. It was at that time, Mr. Secretary General, that the integrity of the TSZ was violated in breach of the June 2000 agreement. And then in 2002, when the woyane refused to accept the verdict of the international court, in breach of the 2000 agreement, again, the UN and its Security Council tried to accommodate them through envoys, dialogue and similar such jazz, while at the same time distancing themselves from the word ‘guarantors’ so as not to be expected to take any punitive action. Was that not a violation of the integrity of the June 2000 agreement where it states that the final findings of the court would be final and binding?

This, Mr. Secretary General is the root problem, and not what you call “incursion” by the Eritrean military in their own territory. Surely Mr. Annan, instead of creating and fueling trouble where there is none,

you can make some concessions for Eritreans too, as you do, and have always done so many times, for the lawless intransigent woyane.

According to the dictionary, an incursion is “a hostile entrance or a raid into a territory” How can a nation raid its own territory, leaving aside the inept and lawless peacekeepers who have unilaterally long lost the integrity of their mandate there? Besides the peacekeepers do not own the land as they are there merely to maintain a so-called peace between the two nations, which has so far been maintained, with no thanks to them, but because of the bottomless patience and dignity shown by the Eritrean government and its people, to the annoyance and fury of the USA State Department.

As was done in 1997, unbeknownst to the Eritrean administration and its people, now too, there is nothing that is not being tried to provoke a war between Eritrea and its southern neighbor. The last time it was the USA Ambassador to Ethiopia David Shinn, who we later found out was sitting there fuelling matters and poisoning the international community, and today, following her predecessor Susan Rice, it is our other African/American cousin, Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs who is trying to fuel the situation by her unsubstantiated and irresponsible following remarks “I think Eritrea is quite clearly attacking Ethiopia on another front. We have pretty clear evidence that's a fact and (they are) shipping arms into Somalia," This is a woman who never took the trouble to do a little home work, to study the situation about the problem of demarcation, before going to Ethiopia. As we listened to her interviews, upon her return, Eritreans were mortified to hear her misconstrue the Algiers agreement statement: “The Commission shall not have the power to make decisions ex aequo et bono” words which by now every school child in Eritrea knows the meaning of. So how much knowledge does she have about her accusations this time around, that Eritrea is attacking Ethiopia by shipping arms into Somalia? Or is she using her position as a vendetta for the Eritrean government not having welcomed her with open arms, but, as they had done with previous envoys ignored her coming, which, had she familiarized herself beforehand with what was going on regarding the question of demarcating the borders between the two nations, as well as Eritrea’s position with regard to envoys sent to convince them to deviate from their stance of final and binding verdict, she should not have been offended or taken it personally.

What is the matter with the present American administration anyway? They seem to need to go into a rehabilitation center, if there is such a place for those suffering from acute addiction to belligerence and wars. They have gotten out of control with their insatiable appetite for picking or pitting fights with or between far away lands, no matter how weak or small, always claiming either terrorism, preemptive self defence or democracy. What is there to say, and what can we do, except to wish them a quick recovery from this illusionary madness which makes them believe that they are destined to do and say as they pleased, without answering to anyone, while at the same time they try to deprive others the opportunity, freedom and right to live the way they see fits them.

Nevertheless, Eritrea will overcome and will continue to grow and to prosper, for she too has a date with destiny.

With truth as her only lethal weapon, Eritrea will always prevail.

October 23, 2006