Is the International Community financing the Ethiopian regime to both occupy and create fact on the ground by bringing in new settlers into sovereign Eritrean territory?
By: Naizghi Zekarias
October 29, 2004

The international community should not be surprised if the Ethiopian regime comes up with yet another fictitious position on the implementation of the EEBC’s decision. Right from the start of the conflict, this regime has been shifting its positions in order to avoid any peaceful solution to the problem it created. It is no secret that it financed the war through the money it received as food aid from the international community. It is also an open secret that this regime is not interested in peace unless the international community explicitly demands that it complies with the agreement it signed as final and binding. The guarantors of the peace agreement have been sending mixed messages to this regime that it does not even believe the seriousness of their demands anymore. This has become like a lion that is always ready to mount an attack at a group of impalas but the impalas don’t even bother to flee because they know that the lion hates running after them. In fact it considers their silence as a green light for it to do what ever it pleases. And that is why we hear that it is bringing in more settlers into Badme. It should now be clear to all the skeptics that the current Ethiopian regime was never interested in any peaceful solution to the situation and that it is not about to change its behavior now.

It is becoming clear that the TPLF’s major agenda is to try and destroy the economy of Eritrea by denying peace to the Eritrean people. This, it hopes, will bring the Eritrean government down so it can have a veto power on the Eritrean people. The main objective of continuing to occupy Eritrean land by refusing to cooperate with the EEBC decision is to guarantee perpetual conflict between the Eritrean and Ethiopian peoples. The question is how long the international community will tolerate this kind of behavior. This regime is getting hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of food aid, which it is using not only to buy more weapons but also to occupy land that the international court has said does not belong to it. It is imperative for the international community to take concrete actions not only for the sake of the Eritrean people who have suffered injustices under successive Ethiopian regimes for half a century, but also for the sake of peace in the whole region.