Press Release
Ethiopia: Lies As an Instrument of Policy

In its press statement of yesterday, April 5, 1999, Ethiopia accused the Eritrean government of "once again issuing a fabricated news release, alleging that the Ethiopian Speaker of the House recently called on the Islamic Republic of Iran to mediate a resolution of the Ethio-Eritrea conflict." This is patently false.

In the first place, the Government of Eritrea did not issue any official statement on the meeting between the Ethiopian Speaker of Parliament and the Iranian Ambassador to Ethiopia. An Eritrean Foreign Ministry official however gave his considered views when asked by the Eritrean News Agency to comment on the request by Ethiopia for Iranian mediation as reported by the Iranian News Agency on March 29.

Secondly, if the Iranian News Agency had misquoted, which it did not, the Ethiopian official, this is evidently a matter between him and the agency. The appropriate disclaimer, if any, should come from the Iranian News Agency.

Ethiopia further maintains that "such tactics of fabrication will be ... counterproductive," inhibiting "acts of good faith." Unfortunately, the fabrication of facts and events has been long employed by the Addis Abeba regime and remains an instrument of official policy in its diplomatic campaigns. If a few recent reminders are needed:
* On February 5 this year, Ethiopia fabricated a story accusing Eritrea of bombing AdiGrat in order to justify the offensive that it launched the next day in violation of the moratorium on air strikes and UNSC resolutions on the cessation of hostilities;
* After breaking into the residence of the Eritrean Ambassador accredited to Ethiopia and the OAU in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Headquarters Agreement with the OAU, Ethiopia fabricated a story accusing Eritrea's two man mission of illicit activities including the "organization of clandestine activities and printing of counterfeit money";
* Ethiopia denied the occurrence of any battle when it suffered a devastating defeat in the offensive that it launched in Tsorona from March 14-16 last month. However, it later claimed that it had "killed 9,000 Eritrean soldiers and destroyed 36 tanks" in a press statement it issued two weeks later on March 28.
* TPLF radio falsely claimed during this past weekend that "36 tabots (holy tablets prescribed to individual churches) were returned to Badme." This is an outrageous lie. In the first place, Badme is a small town of 300 families with only one church (Saint Mary's), not 36 churches! Secondly, Badme remains depopulated as the residents have been displaced by the recent fighting. This lie was in fact concocted to bolster an earlier fabrication in which Ethiopia had portrayed Badme as a "district in the Yirga Triangle with a constituency of 90,000 people."

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Asmara, 6 April 1999

NOTE: The full text of the report of the Iranian News Agency (IRNA) appeared on the website www.irna.com/headlines/ehead.html on Monday March 29. In addition, BBC monitoring on line picked up the text from the Iranian News Agency on the same day.