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From: YPFDJ Media & Info (media@youngpfdj.com)
Date: Fri Jul 08 2011 - 11:52:38 EDT
Eritrea Calls on the African Union to condemn Ethiopia’s illegal occupation
of Eritrean territory -Shaebia Commentary
Eritrea has called on the African Union to condemn Ethiopia’s continued
illegal occupation of sovereign Eritrean territory, nine years after the
internationally constituted Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission determined
the boundary between the two countries.
Eritrea’s appeal came in a statement, which was issued Wednesday by the
Eritrean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Eritrea’s Ambassador to the African
Union handed over the statement to the African Union Commission as well as
the AU Peace and Security Council.
In its statement, Eritrea dismissed as “unfounded,” Ethiopia’s accusations,
peddled under the name of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development
(IGAD), that Eritrea was “destabilizing” the Horn of Africa region. It
stressed that the real threat to regional peace and stability emanated from
Ethiopia’s violation of international law in regards to the boundary as well
as its open “threat to resort to force” to remove the government in Eritrea.
The charges against Eritrea were included in an IGAD Communiqué that was
issued at the end of the regional organization’s Summit held this week in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Sources close to the meeting revealed that the member
states were far from united in their views on Eritrea. As expected, the
Ethiopian Prime Minister resorted to improper language and wild accusations,
but the other leaders were decidedly cool, with Sudan formally registering
its reservations.
The IGAD Summit totally ignored the serious famine that is gripping the Horn
of Africa. It also sidestepped Ethiopia-Eritrea issue, which was taken up in
the recent African Union Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Instead, it
included a call for sanctions against Eritrea, which as the Eritrean
Statement stressed “runs counter to the spirit of African solidarity that
pervaded the latest Summit as well as the work of the African Union.”
Eritrea found the call for sanctions on “economic and mining sectors and the
Eritrean Diaspora, as particularly “sinister and detestable, in light of the
AU’s efforts –and Summit decisions- to promote economic development and
foster the contribution of African Diaspora Communities.”
Ethiopia had initially planned to call for these sanctions at the Malabo AU
Summit, and the IGAD Ministers had issued a Communiqué to that effect. It
was, however, compelled to abandon its plans as several delegations were
strongly opposed to them.
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