ALEXANDRA HUDSON OF REUTERS GOT IT ALL WRONG

I am writing to let you know that your news report by Alexandra Hudson titled "Ethiopia-Eritrea commission ends, border unresolved " published on Fri 30 Nov 2007, 23:20 GMT (URL: http://africa.reuters.com/country/ER/news/usnL3048408.html ) has contextual error.

In paragraph four of your news report, the author wrote: "Until such time as the boundary is finally demarcated, the delimitation decision of 13 April 2002 continues as the only valid legal description of the boundary," quoting only part of a paragraph from the statement by the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) led by Sir Elihu Lauterpacht on 30 November 2007. This, an out of context quote, is misleading and misrepresenting the fact.

The fact is the EEBC has stated that by the end of November 2007 "the boundary will automatically stand as demarcated by the boundary points listed in the Annex hereto and that the mandate of the Commission can then be regarded as fulfilled." This was part of the same paragraph of the Commission's statement and has been over looked by your reporter. Therefore from 1 December 2007, the border has been demarcated by those co-ordinates referred to in the EEBC statement replacing co-ordinates previously published in the delimitation decision of 13 April 2002 by the same Commission.

Here below is a demonstration of how your reporter has made an out of context quotation of the statement by the EEBC.

On 30 November 2007 the Commission issued a statement referring to paragraph 22 of a previous statement issued a year ago on 27 November 2006 Here is the paragraph in its entirely :

 

"As the Commission evidently cannot remain in existence indefinitely, it proposes that the Parties should, over the next twelve months, terminating at the end of November 2007, consider their positions and seek to reach agreement on the emplacement pillars. If, by the end of that period, the Parties have not by themselves reached the necessary agreement and proceeded significantly to implement it, or have not requested and enabled the Commission to resume its activity, the Commission hereby determines that the boundary will automatically stand as demarcated by the boundary points listed in the Annex hereto and that the mandate of the Commission can then be regarded as fulfilled. Until that time, however, it must be emphasised that the Commission remains in existence and its mandate to demarcate has not been discharged. Until such time as the boundary is finally demarcated, the Delimitation Decision of 13 April 2002 continues as the only valid legal description of the boundary."

Let's analysis the first part of the above paragraph:

"As the Commission evidently cannot remain in existence indefinitely, it proposes that the Parties should, over the next twelve months, terminating at the end of November 2007, consider their positions and seek to reach agreement on the emplacement pillars. If, by the end of that period, the Parties have not by themselves reached the necessary agreement and proceeded significantly to implement it, or have not requested and enabled the Commission to resume its activity, the Commission hereby determines that the boundary will automatically stand as demarcated by the boundary points listed in the Annex hereto and that the mandate of the Commission can then be regarded as fulfilled".

The last part of this section reads "the boundary will automatically stand as demarcated by the boundary points listed in the Annex hereto and that the mandate of the Commission can then be regarded as fulfilled".

Please note that these boundary points referred to in this section are the coordinates / boundary points that were appended to the Statement published on 27 November 2006 (a year ago). This means that at the end of the 12 Month period (starting from end of November 2006 to end of November 2007) the boundary stand as demarcated by those co-ordinate points.

The second part of the paragraph reads "Until that time, however, it must be emphasised that the Commission remains in existence and its mandate to demarcate has not been discharged. Until such time as the boundary is finally demarcated, the Delimitation Decision of 13 April 2002 continues as the only valid legal description of the boundary."

There reference to "until such time" is the reference to the 12 month interim period between end of November 2006 and end of November 2007. However your reporter does not seem to have closely examined the statement therefore concluded that the last part of the paragraph was the most important part and then decided to include it in his news report.

I therefore request that you amend your previous news report to include the first part of the paragraph which states "the boundary will automatically stand as demarcated by the boundary points listed in the Annex hereto and that the mandate of the Commission can then be regarded as fulfilled". Even though this may seem to you a trivial matter I must point out to you that the lives of close to 80 million people are affected by any misinterpretation of the Commission's Statement.

Regards,

Daniel Abraham
(5 December 2007)