*Letter from H.E. Osman Saleh, Foreign Minister, to H.E. MR. Baso Sangqu,
President of the United Nation’s Security Council *
http://74.63.78.28/dec2011/letter%20of%20H.E.%20Osman.pdf
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ref: M0/009/2012
H.E. Mr. Baso Sangqu
President of the United Nations Security Council
New York
Excellency,
In its letter of 18 January to the UN Security Council, the Government
of Ethiopia misconstrues the tragic events of the deplorable killing
of five foreign tourists in northern Ethiopia by armed gunmen to
falsely accuse Eritrea of "direct involvement". Furthermore, the
Ethiopian regime ratchets these trumped up charges to goad the UN
Security Council to take punitive measures against Eritrea and warns
that "it will, (otherwise), be obliged to take whatever action is
necessary to stop the activities of the Eritrea regime once and for
all".
Eritrea will not dwell much, in this letter, on the utterly groundless
accusations deliberately peddled by the Ethiopian regime to serve
other ulterior motives and objectives as it has already pronounced its
position through its press statement earlier last week. However,
Eritrea wishes to underline that the cynical posturing of the Addis
Abeba regime that it has every right to invoke Article 51 of the UN
Charter "In self-defense" and launch another war of aggression against
Eritrea is not only legally hollow but carries the potential seeds of
grave regional destabilization and conflagration. In the event,
Eritrea wishes to emphasize and bring to the attention of the UN
Security Council the following cogent points:
I. The Ethiopian regime has flaunted international law, the UN
Charter, and its treaty obligations to occupy sovereign Eritrean
territories for the last ten years. The authorities in Addis Abeba
continue to flagrantly violate the provisions of Article 33.1 of the
UN Charter on peaceful and arbitral settlement of disputes among UN
member States to effectively reject the final and binding delimitation
and demarcation decisions of the Eritrean Ethiopia Boundary Commission
to occupy by force the sovereign Eritrean town of Badme and other
territories. It is patently clear that Ethiopia's dangerous acts
constitute a grave violation of international law and impinge on
regional peace and security. However, the excesses of the Ethiopian
regime remain tolerated with impunity to-date for reasons that we
shall revert to later.
2. As we underlined in our press statement of January 18, the
ill-advised attempts of the Ethiopian regime to take the senseless and
cowardly killing of innocent civilians as a blessing in disguise to
vilify Eritrea is not only morally reprehensible but its threat to use
force against another UN Member State on trumped up charges is a
violation of Article 2.4 of the UN Charter. Eritrea maintains that
this behavior is not acceptable and should not be tolerated any more.
3. As Eritrea had emphasized through its several communications to the
Security Council before, the unfair and unfounded resolutions (1907
and 2023) that have imposed various sanctions against Eritrea,
including an arms embargo, carry the risk of emboldening Ethiopia to
contemplate reckless acts. Its current sabre rattling is indeed a
vivid corroboration of what may be in stock unless the UN Security
Council takes appropriate remedial action.
4. Ethiopia's hollow accusations should not and cannot be taken in
isolation. In the past two months, Eritrea had spent a lot of time and
energy to dispel the equally preposterous allegations emanating from
Kenya accusing it of supplying three plane loads of arms to Al-Shebaab
through the town of Baidoa. Those accusations were timed and
synchronized with impending discussions of the UNSC on draft
resolution 2023. The current accusations of Ethiopia have also
occurred few weeks before the forthcoming AU Summit in Addis Abeba,
where Eritrea's representation will not be through its highest
authorities. One can thus easily see the concerted and subtle
subterfuges that have been set in motion to entrap Eritrea.
5. As we intimated before, the UN Security Council's kid glove
treatment of Ethiopia; the unfair punitive sanctions that have been
imposed against Eritrea; and, the myriad accusations that are woven
day-in and day-out to sully Eritrea's image are not all the workings
and machinations of the Ethiopian regime alone. Although Eritrea does
not prefer to go into greater details at this juncture, it nonetheless
wishes to underline that the whole jigsaw cannot be understood in
isolation without factoring the unprovoked hostility of the United
States which has taken the position that it has to promote its
perceived interests in the region.
6. The repeated harpings of the Ethiopian regime to implicate and
portray Eritrea as the main culprit in the military activities of its
multiple opposition movements; to repackage as "conceived, planned and
executed by Eritrea" is risible and really difficult to fathom. The
Ethiopian regime does not, in fact, mince its words in as far as its
declared intentions and actions are concerned for creating and
propping up armed insurgents to topple the Government of Eritrea in
pursuit of its avowed objective of "forcible regime change" in
Eritrea. As mentioned in our letter of January 4 to the UN SC, the
advisor to Ethiopia's Prime Minister and a senior member of the ruling
Political Bureau, openly announced in the Awasa Conference that
"Ethiopia welcomes the timely convening of the conference to formulate
new strategies to topple the Eritrean go emment ...and that Ethiopia
will
provide them with all the support they need to achieve the goals of
(their) struggle".
Indeed, as the attached Reuters news dispatch from Addis Abeba
elucidates, these subversive groups make forays into Eritrea from
Ethiopia to launch terrorist activities from time to time. Eritrea has
not chosen to dwell on these events because they will only eclipse and
divert attention from the profound and critical issues at stake. But
it has never been driven to take, and does not subscribe to,
reciprocal action as a matter of quid pro quo.
In conclusion, Eritrea wishes to urge the UN Security Council to
re-examine, in the interests of peace and justice, the multi-faceted
situation that is prevailing in our area in its entirety and
complexity. In this respect, Eritrea further urges the UN Security
Council to ensure Ethiopia's prompt compliance with its treaty
obligations and to respect international law.
Osman Saleh
The State of Eritrea
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Asmara, 23 January 2012
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Received on Tue Jan 24 2012 - 14:29:54 EST
