Several news stories on the renewed fighting between Eritrea and Ethiopia have reported that Salim A. Salim, the Secretary General of the OAU, had declared that Ethiopia's objective was "to return land occupied by Eritrea". This malevolent statement was made in spite of his full knowledge that no state or organization has officially made any determination on the legal ownership of the disputed region, and that no Ethiopian authority, including the Prime Minister, could indicate the disputed area on a map when requested by the OAU High Level Delegation and the media. He is also fully aware that the US-Rwanda Facilitators had asked Eritrea to withdraw from Badme only as a "facing saving scheme" for Ethiopia while the OAU High Level Delegation had also requested Eritrea to withdraw as a sign of "goodwill" since Ethiopia had constantly bemoaned its humiliation at the hand of Eritrea.

However, this does not come as a surprise to anybody who had followed Salim's machinations since the eruption of the conflict. Only now, he is showing his true colors by a premature celebration and expression of delight in the mistaken belief that Ethiopia had indeed won the war and that it would be too late for Eritrea to protest. Little did he know that his comrades-in-arms, who had other ideas, were to contradict him almost immediately after his obnoxious statement. Throughout this period, he has doggedly pursued a course of action which was designed either to legitimize, or detract attention from, Ethiopia's gross violations of international law and practice while he determinedly demonized Eritrea and deliberately spread misinformation regarding its policies, misrepresented its objectives and distorted its statements.

A few examples are in order. I offer a few gleaned from information received from reliable first-hand and secondary US, European, Ethiopian, Eritrean and other African as well as OAU sources.

1. It is axiomatic that any mediation effort should be based on private consultation at the highest possible level and in great confidentiality before any major proposals are made public. It is also true that a successful mediation requires a long and tedious pre-negotiation to narrow differences and to minimize the political risks that may be taken by the concerned parties.

   Salim had collaborated closely with the US in the formulation of the US-Rwanda Facilitators proposal. His contributions, it is reliably reported by a senior official of the OAU, were informed by extensive consultations with the Ethiopian government. Every request by Eritrea for a fact-finding mission, and particularly an on-the-spot investigation, were systematically circumvented by Salim and Susan Rice, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. He was aware that, while Ethiopia had, for the obvious reason that its interests were reflected through his agency, endorsed the proposals, Eritrea had made several basic reservations on the US-Rwanda Facilitators Proposal during pre-negotiation. He knows that a facilitator is, by definition, not an arbitrator who can impose a decision and consequently could not advance proposals without the prior approval of both parties. Nevertheless he, in collusion with Ethiopia and under pressure by the US, decided to take the unprecedented step of introducing the facilitators' proposal at the OAU Council of Ministers meeting in Ouagadougou in June 1998. He even managed to have the afternoon meeting during which the Eritrean-Ethiopian dispute was to be discussed postponed until the evening to ensure the participation of Susan Rice. The participation of a non-African country in an OAU meeting in any but a ceremonial nature was not only unprecedented but a flagrant violation of the Charter and the Rules of Procedure. Even worse, one of the Facilitators- and the non-African at that- was allowed to dominate the discussion from the podium. Such domination of the discussion, and some US lobbying, resulted in rushing the ministers into accepting the facilitators' formula.

2. According to UN sources in New York, Salim further went out of his way in assisting the US effort to ram the "OAU Proposal" through the Security Council's collective throat. It was only the judicious intervention of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who insisted that it would be counterproductive to bring before the Security Council a proposal which was facing strenuous objections from one of the concerned parties, that temporarily prevented its discussion by that organ. This, however, was to be only a temporary reprieve as the US (in the Security Council) and Salim (at the OAU) continued with their unremitting onslaught against Eritrea, and soon the US plan which became an OAU Framework ended up as a Security Council resolution. Such a diplomatic blitzkrieg is rare in the annals of OAU and UN diplomacy.

   It is for this reason that many Eritreans are now joining the ranks of many Africans who are disturbed by the crude bullying of a super-power to impose at the UN and other fora decisions which served not the genuine African interests but its own interests and the interests of its African clients. It is for this reason that they also have nostalgic memories of the Cold War.

   It is also reported by UN sources that Salim had collaborated with the US to torpedo a proposal by the UN Directors Committee which had, inter-alia, suggested mutual withdrawal from the disputed areas which would have been accepted to Eritrea but not to Ethiopia.

3. Sources at the first meeting of the OAU High Level Delegation which met at the Foreign Ministers level in Ouagadougou will confirm that Salim had in fact disgraced the Office of Secretary General of the OAU by turning himself into an errand-boy for the US Department of State by circulating a letter from Susan Rice to the Ministers which contained information on the US position on the matter. This happened in spite of the fact that the US-Rwanda Facilitation effort had been ended by Eritrean objections and Rwandan withdrawal. No such prostitution of office has ever happened at the OAU where many gallant Secretaries General had preserved the dignity of the Organization and the office of Secretary General at great personal political risk, particularly during the Cold War, when several attempts at control were made by one or the other superpower and at least one major power.

4. Salim, who recognizes that statements or opinions by him will assume enormous significance with third parties, has also manipulated the peace process by deliberate leaks of untruth to the press and calculated misrepresentation of the positions of the parties with a view to benefiting Ethiopia and/or undermining Eritrea. Journalists will tell you that much of the early bad press on Eritrea had the OAU, and particularly Salim, as its source.

   Many members of the EU delegation and a number of foreign representatives have been bewildered by his misrepresentation of the Eritrean case and have recently openly expressed their disgust at such deliberate falsifications and prevarications. Thus, he would for example dishonorably use the weight of his office to convince third parties that "both parties" violated human rights (even when it involved the deportation of members of his staff) and that "Eritrea had expelled just as many Ethiopians from Eritrea", that Ethiopia's violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic privileges was "necessary under the circumstances" and that he was therefore not in a position to take action beyond discussing the matter with the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry; and that "both sides" had bombed each other's towns- improbable as it was.

   By the way, he took his cue from Susan Rice who, at the Ouagadougou Conference, outrageously declared, when asked by the Eritrean delegation to inform the Council as to who started bombing, that "both had bombed each other". "At precisely the same time"? was the silent question of disbelief that was asked by many a delegate. By far the worst of his most nefarious misinformations is his confidential assertion to the EU and others that Eritrea had intimated it would accept certain proposals, thus ensuring the insistence by these delegations on Eritrean acceptance of such fabricated proposals. Any member of the EU delegation to Eritrea would tell you that.

   Salim has also used every cheap tactic he can possibly think of and seized every minor opportunity to handicap Eritrean diplomatic activity. For example, during the last OAU Summit in Ouagadougou, he managed to dupe Burkinabe protocol authorities to give the living quarters designated to the Eritrean delegation and ornamented by the Eritrean flag to the UN delegation led by Under-Secretary Susan Frechette. This was a juvenile attempt to deny the Eritrean delegation access to the other Heads of State and Government.

5. In the aftermath of the Cold War, there now exists in Africa the dialectical struggle between the forces of recolonization of the continent and the forces of the second liberation of Africa. Unfortunately, the first are at present in the ascendancy and, as Africa is being recolonized, it is losing its collective sovereignty as symbolized by the OAU.

   The recolonization process involves the adoption of client states, the capture of regional organizations and the recruitment of corruptible and controllable surrogates, preferably from among those who had been "taught their lessons" for their contrary views and intransigence in the past. Meles Zenawi's and Seyoum Mesfin's Ethiopia is, of course, a prime example. Nobody who has read Meles Zenawi's interview with the ex-CIA agent Paul Henze will have any doubts about the conscription of the ex-admirer of Albanian style Marxism by the latter. That interview could in fact have been entitled: "The Recruitment of a CIA Agent". Salim A. Salim, a profligate hedonist whose ambitions for higher office, including the Secretary Generalship of the UN, had been viciously and vengefully thwarted by the US for his childish display of joy by dancing in the General Assembly hall when the PCR joined the UN, is another good example. The Inter-Africa Group stationed in Addis Ababa and headed by Abdul Mohammed is also a good example of a CIA-affiliated NGO. The intrepid and incorruptable Africans like the president and leadership of Eritrea represent the opposite- the forces of the second liberation in Africa who wish to reconquer their own destines. Inevitably, the first two are required to ally against the latter and must perform the chores dictated by the new colonizers.

   These new colonizers are, like their predecessors, arrogant, insensitive and dictatorial and, like all dictatorships, commit monumental blunders. They demand absolute submission and obedience from their client states and subaltern agents. At the same time, they will support the misadventures and follies of their clients and ensure the support of the regional and international organizations which they are controlling. Conversely, they will do whatever possible to eliminate the others who devote their energy and creativity to the social and economic reconstruction of their countries. The more things change in Africa, the more they remain the same. This explains the game played by the relevant actors in the Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict.

6. Obviously, Salim A. Salim has thus criminalized the OAU since he has turned it into an agency of an extra-African power and the means of satisfying his ambitions and prurient interests. By any definition of the word, he is a mercenary in the service of Ethiopia (albeit at the instructions of the extra-African power) as are the foreign military personnel who are fighting on the side of the Ethiopian regime. As such, he has committed treason against Africa and caused incalculable damage to the image and influence of the premier African organization. Unless quick and effective action is taken to rescue the OAU from becoming an extension of the recolonization efforts of extra-African powers, the foreign control of African Affairs will be inevitable. The OAU thus must be saved from Salim A. Salim's treasonous acts if it is to make itself relevant to African socio-economic and political development in the next century.

7. What is to be done? The crisis in the OAU is not the particular concern of only those like Eritrea who are being directly affected by it now. Today, it is Eritrea, tomorrow it will be the rest of Africa. What is happening now in the Horn of Africa will sooner or later affect the relationships of the other states and peoples in our continent.

8. It is also evident that the Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict could have been limited to a border dispute and would not have resulted in open warfare causing much death and destruction if it had not been for Salim's follies. Salim has thus become an agent of death and destruction. To this end, steps must be taken to ensure the removal of Salim A. Salim from office on charges of treason consisting of:
   • turning the OAU into a dependency of an extra-African power;

   • causing the death and deprivation of tens of thousands of Ethiopians and Eritreans and the massive destruction of property;

   • non-action, while the rest of the international community reacted, in the face of the massive violation of the human rights of Africans on the basis of available evidence, although his African counterpart at the UN had denounced Ethiopia's violations both in a press statement and in his annual report;

   • dereliction of duty in the face of the flagrant violations of the Vienna Convention on the Relations of States with International Organizations and the OAU General Convention on Privileges and Immunities by the host country in respect to the privileges and immunities of a mission accredited to the OAU and the Permanent Representative of a member state to the OAU. Not one Word of disapprobation against the outrage was heard from SalimUs office.

9. Eritreans must realize that Salim A. Salim, and not the OAU, is the enemy of their country in so far as he personally constitutes a threat to their personal freedom and their country's independence. He is allied to Ethiopia. It is for this reason that he receives applauds for his treasonous acts from the Ethiopian government, including the Parliament. This is, of course, in consonance with the Amhara proverb: "Hulet Gimotch Shitaye, Shitaye Yibabalalu". (English near-equivalent: Birds of a feather flock together). They must accordingly take whatever action is necessary to safeguard their freedom and their countryUs independence.

10. Eritreans must also recognize that his actions against Eritreans and their country today set precedents against other African states and, as good Africans, must be ready to expose crimes against Africa. He must be exposed for selling the OAU to an extra-African power to satisfy his ambitions and needs. This anti-African must receive the punishment that fits his crimes.