First, the Iran-Contra Affair was a political scandal in which members of the Reagan administration sold weapons to Iran, an avowed enemy of the United States even at the time, in order to fund the Contras, a rebel group against the Sandinistas in retaliation for the latter having good relation with Cuba, with the profit generated from the operation. Volumes of documents were either destroyed or held illegally by officials in the Regan administration, who under pressure admitted that they did as affirmed later by Regan himself.

Second, in the current Iraq war, the Bush administration twisted Joseph Wilson’s finding that Iraq did not purchase or attempted to purchase a major ingredient of weapon of mass destruction from Niger since 1999, in order to justify its plan to invade Iraq. The truth of the matter came to surface when the commissioned investigator made it public that the fact was contrary to what the Bush administration claimed.

The result of the actions taken by the United States with the pretext of US-interest is loss of tens of thousands of lives and enormous economic devastation. The Contra war resulted in about 50,000 casualties including 25,527 dead. Casualty in the Iraq war runs in the thousands for the coalition and, by conservative estimate, tens of thousands for the Iraqis. Unfortunately, with the civil war going on, casualty of coalition and Iraqi troops and civilians killed and maimed is mounting by the day.

Let me come now to the third case in point. Currently, with little publicity, the United States, particularly the Department of State is secretly meddling with the demarcation process of Eritrean-Ethiopian border. Mr. John Bolton, former Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations, has in his recently-published book titled, “Surrender is not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad” (pp. 344-347) disclosed the meddling, misrepresentation and distortion of facts about the duties and operations of the United Nations Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE) by officials in the United Nations and the State Department to serve their ulterior motives. Let me digress, at this point, to reiterate the evolution of the border problem to reach the magnitude of complication that it has now reached.

A commission known as the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) was established on February 20, 2001 following the Algiers Agreement of December 12, 2000 that ended the two-year war of 1998-2000 between the two countries. The Agreement which was sponsored and witnessed by the United Nations, the African Union, The European Union and the United States, stipulated the establishment of a 25 km buffer within Eritrea called the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) between the two states that would be monitored by UNMEE; the establishment of the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission (EECC) mandated to investigate the claims and counter claims of the two parties; and most importantly, the establishment of a boundary commission (EEBC) to delimit and demarcate the border between the two countries. It was agreed by the two parties and witnessed by the sponsors of the Algiers Agreement that the ruling of the Commission would be “final and binding”. The EEBC handed the decision on delimitation on April 13, 2002 swapping some land claimed by Eritrea to Ethiopia and some claimed by Ethiopia to Eritrea including “Badme”, the flashpoint of the two-year war. However, demarcation which involves the actual planting of pillars on the ground consistent with the map coordinates defined in the delimitation process has stalled since 2002 because of Ethiopia’s refusal to accept the EEBC’s “final and binding” ruling. The fact remains that Ethiopia is complicating and perpetuating the problem by sticking to a delaying tactic best described as “no-peace, no-war” situation. It is obvious to anyone that Ethiopia would not stubbornly stick to this illegal delaying tactic without the blessing from the US and its surrogate, the United Nations. I should mention, at this point, that in the aftermath of the Hanish Islands conflict of 1995 with Yemen, Eritrea, as a law-abiding state accepted the “final and binding” ruling of a UN-mandated commission at The Hague that awarded most of the Islands to Yemen, without invoking delaying techniques to have the decision reversed as Ethiopia is trying to do now,.

For the last five years since the ruling of delimitation of the border, Eritrea has been rationalizing and expressing its reservation about Ethiopia’s motive behind delaying the demarcation process, and the failure of the signatories in general and the UN Security Council and the United States in particular to take corrective action . In fact, as of late, Eritrea has been critical of the State Department for literally blocking the demarcation process in order to reward the darling state of Ethiopia for its alleged and fake effort to fight global terrorism. The signatories of the Algiers Agreement did not show any sympathy to Eritrea’s complaints either for fear of offending the United States or on ground that Eritrea is too “tiny” a nation, as opposed to Ethiopia, to give importance to. Recognizing that Eritrea has the legal title to the land awarded it by EEBC, the only option left for State Department and the UN Security Council to derail Eritrea’s legitimate right to the land is to dictate UNMEE operation and extend its existence to serve their intended purpose.

Let us now come to Ambassador Bolton’s contention on the need of UNMEE in the area. At the outset, Bolton rejects the belief harbored by groups with ulterior motives that the continued presence of UNMEE is to deter hostilities between the two countries. Bolton contends that the existence of UNMEE is a face-saving technique that many countries and organizations including the State Department’s Africa bureau subscribe to to give the world the impression that something positive is being done. He asserts: “To me, this was simply further proof that UNMEE was now part of the problem, a pawn in the Ethiopia-Eritrea dispute, not an effective tool in resolving that dispute”. In fact, although for different reason, he echoes with the conviction of Eritrean government, that UNMEE presence in the area is more of a problem than a solution. Bolton’s disclosure of the US and the UN effort to change UNMEE’s true mission vindicates Eritrea of the series of bold and unpopular actions it took to curtain UNMEE operation in Eritrea. Recognizing that UNMEE’s presence is more of a problem than a solution, Ambassador Bolton seems to lament that his suggestion to have UNMEE presence terminated in order to give way to more important programs of the UN was not greeted enthusiastically.

Ambassador Bolton also takes shots at individuals in the United Nations and in the State Department. He takes a shot at Koffi Annan, the then General Secretary of the UN. Bolton contends that, lost in the details of UNMEE operation, Annan sided Ethiopia by suggesting that UNMEE can work on the Ethiopian side of the border. In doing so, according to Bolton, Annan rewarded Ethiopia for its three-year intransigence by implicitly placing the flap of the time on Eritrea. Bolton also observed that Annan had a personal ego to satisfy, as was reflected in his reaction when military experts leaned to total withdrawal of UNMEE. Paraphrasing Bolton’s statement, Annan taking this as a personal defeat for his vision of ever-greater UN peacekeeping operations, especially in Africa, tried to stop them from pursuing their logic. No wonder why the Eritrean government accorded him cool reception in his last visit to Asmara.

Eritrea, early on, sensed UNMEE’s deviation from the mission it was mandated with by the Algiers Agreement. Eritrea has all alone been telling the world community of UNMEE’s deviation from its true mission, interfering in the internal affair of the state, and even more so for taking unwarranted moves against Eritrea favoring Ethiopia. Eritrea vigorously pleaded with the world community in general and the signatories of the Algiers Agreement in particular to acknowledge UNMEE’s unwarranted conduct and take action. All it could receive was deaf ears. However, almost two years after he was relieved from his ambassadorship to the UN, Bolton states his position on the border issue saying:

Although this event occurred about nine months after Ambassador Bolton left office, the fact remains that Dr. Fraser is the one who as a proxy to the Ethiopian government, “changed course and asked early in February 2006 to reopen the 2002 EEBC decision.” It is my strong belief then that the distortion of fact in the briefing is a continuation of Dr. Fraser’s malicious intent of February 2006 to deliberately hurt Eritrea in retaliation for telling her bluntly early on that her mediation to resolve the border issue lacked integrity and therefore was unwanted.

The rhetorical question that I like to raise at this point is then what benefits Dr. Fraser and by extension the State Department gain by distorting the facts about the border issue? The answer is simply frustrating Eritrea by rewarding the darling state of Ethiopia with a chunk of Eritrean land that the Ethiopian government craves to get. Unfortunately, this will not in any way promote the long-term interest of the United States of stabilizing the political turmoil and fostering peace in the region. Instead it emboldens Ethiopia to resort to hostile action against Eritrea forgetting that justice is might. However, in the face of justice delayed, human, social and economic devastation in inevitable. I hope and pray that this will not happen. But if it did, as it happened in the Iran-Contra scandal and is currently happening in Iraq, the person to blame for funneling the hostilities between the two states is no other than Dr. Jandayi Fraser because her effort to bring that reality is on record – thanks to Ambassador John Bolton.

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