Ethiopia's Rejection of an Arms Embargo

In its official statement yesterday (February 15, 1999), Ethiopia accused the UN Security Council for "double standards" and for "rewarding Eritrea's dangerous gamble." The reason that has apparently aroused the regime's irrational fury is operative paragraph 7 of Security Council Resolution 1227 of February 10, 1999, which "strongly urges all states to end immediately all sales of arms and munitions to Ethiopia and Eritrea."

As it may be recalled, the Government of Eritrea has argued strongly that an isolated arms embargo on Ethiopia and Eritrea -- desirable as this might be in the context of the current conflict -- will only lead to dangerous imbalance if it is not applied simultaneously to States in the area whose agenda of regional destabilization is well known.

But Ethiopia's protest does not emanate from such cogent considerations. And, leaving aside the abusive language with which the Ethiopian regime has couched its case, why is Addis Abeba so lethargic to balanced arms control?

The Ethiopian regime opposes an arms embargo because it has an insatiable desire to occupy Eritrean territory by force. To achieve this, it believes that it must purchase weapons which will give it "superiority." It has spent around 400 million dollars in a weapons shopping spree in the past eight months. But it wants more, even as it is soliciting food aid to the tune of 100 million dollars from the World Food Programme.

While this is the transparent motive of its hollow protest, Ethiopia has tried to invoke international law to argue that the embargo should be targeted at Eritrea alone. Indeed, it has the audacity to claim that the United Nations is repeating history by "condemning aggressor and victim alike" as did the League of Nations when "Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935."

If there is one nation that deserves redress for a historical injustice meted to it at the hand of the United Nations, it is Eritrea. The United Nations imposed a "federation" between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1952 against the expressed wishes of the Eritrean people. Ethiopia unilaterally abrogated this international instrument to annex Eritrea in 1962. And, Eritrea had to struggle for 30 years to regain its national independence; paying precious sacrifices in the process, while it was ignored by the world body.

But this is history and Eritrea has forgotten and forgiven the historical injustice that it had suffered. The energies of the Eritrean Government are accordingly focused on resolving the current crisis with Ethiopia.

What are the origins of this crisis?

Ferocious confrontations -- much bigger in scale and intensity than the clashes that occurred in May/June last year -- have taken place last week on the Mereb-Setit and Alitena-Mereb fronts. Ethiopia has further unleashed attacks on the Burie front on February 14 and 15th, an act that is raising serious question of its motive as Addis Abeba does not have territorial claims on this part of Eritrea. In any case, the international community is well aware of the "bombing of AdiGrat" that Ethiopia fabricated -- rather ineptly -- to allow it to break the moratorium on air strikes and to justify the large scale offensives that it has and is launching since February 6, 1999. Hence it has become obvious to the international community, although belatedly, that Ethiopia's first and only option is war. The aggressor country is Ethiopia, which is not only bent on regaining "contested territory" by force but that seems to entertain other sinister designs on its neighbor.

But even in regard to the earlier incidents, the aggressor was Ethiopia as the following facts illustrate:
* Ethiopia used force to occupy the Eritrean village of Bada in August 1997 and to dismantle the administration there;
* Ethiopia violated the international boundary between the two countries to publish in October 1997 a new official map incorporating large chunks of Eritrean territory into the Administrative Zone of Tigray;
* Ethiopia carried out an unprovoked attack against a small unit of the Eritrean army on May 6, 1998, killing four officers and wounding three others. This led to a series of clashes until May 12, 1998.

These are wanton acts of aggression as defined by the relevant articles of the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation Among States as well as the resolution of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly. This is also the reason why Ethiopia has been resisting adamantly a comprehensive investigation of all the events that led to the current crisis.

Ethiopia falsely claims that "all third parties without exception that have at one time or another been seized with the crisis have realized that aggression was committed by Eritrea against Ethiopia." If the "Facilitators" had asked Eritrea to withdraw from "Badme," it was because they felt that a "face-saving" formula was vital for the Ethiopian regime which had ineptly cornered itself "into a box." Otherwise, they were categorical in stating in the document that they were not being judgmental on the origin of the crisis. If the OAU has repeated that plea in some varied form, the reason has again been the same. They asked Eritrea to show "goodwill" because Ethiopia had strenuously claimed that it had been "humiliated."

Eritrea has not accepted these arguments because in reality, it is Eritrea which has been humiliated by Ethiopia through repetitive acts of aggression as well as the perpetration of gross violation of human rights on its citizens that were resident in Ethiopia.

In conclusion, Ethiopia can certainly oppose the call for an arms embargo on both countries. But it must be true to itself to tell us the real reasons rather than coming out with silly arguments.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Asmara, 16 February 1999