The letter was sent to the Secretary-General the day after the President of Djibouti had addressed the Security Council on Eritrea’s seizure of Djibouti territory earlier in the year and its attack on Djibouti forces in June. President Issayas’ response, typically, makes virtually no effort to respond to President Ismail Omar Guellah but devotes almost all the content to a report from the former Chairman of the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission to the Secretary-General in September outlining the completion of the Commission’s administrative tasks.

In fact, the Boundary Commission dissolved itself a year ago and any attempt by Eritrea to resurrect it cannot be sustained. Indeed, this final report, and its circulation, was ill-advised. It has allowed Eritrea to try and use the EEBC, despite the termination of its mandate, to continue to obstruct any valid demarcation of the border in accordance with international law.

It is now clear that Eritrea’s obsession with the detail of the boundary is designed to avoid the comprehensive and lasting peaceful settlement of the dispute which was called for in the Algiers Agreements and is necessary for the peace and stability to which Ethiopia is committed.

Eritrea deliberately enforced the humiliating withdrawal of the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea in early 2007, illegally occupying the Temporary Security Zone and violating the Algiers Agreements which ended the war started by Eritrea in May 1998.

Eritrea also now appears to be using the defunct EEBC, despite its dissolution last year, as a means to divert attention from its increasing exposure as a centre of destabilization in the Horn of Africa. In his letter to the Secretary General, President Issayas devotes nine paragraphs to the EEBC and no more than two to Djibouti, despite President Ismail’s detailed itemization of the invasion of Djibouti by Eritrea earlier in the year and Eritrea’s subsequent refusal to respond to any and all efforts to persuade it to withdraw its forces from Djibouti territory.

Eritrea has not only refused to withdraw, it has refused to accept a UN fact-finding mission, and made a series of futile and, indeed, outrageous assertions against Ethiopia and other parties. This is typical of President Issayas’ approach to such criticisms, not disputing the claims against Eritrea but merely ignoring them and making other irrelevant allegations.

Ethiopia believes that the time has come that the international community can no longer accept Eritrea’s attempts to avoid its responsibilities for regional destabilization. Eritrea really must now abide by the decisions of the United Nations Security Council and the African Union, and withdraw its forces from Djibouti, or face the consequences outlined by the Security Council.
What is most important is that the international community now takes seriously the destabilization activities of Eritrea and the acts of terrorism which Eritrea continue to support, not only in Somalia but in Ethiopia as well.

Source:

Woyane´s  A Week in the Horn
07/11/2008 

http://www.mfa.gov.et/Press_Section/Week_Horn_Africa_November_07_2008.htm

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