Mr. Chairman

Your Excellencies

Allow me to begin by thanking President Blaise Compaore and the Government and people of Burkina Faso for the warm welcome and hospitality they have given us. I wish also to express Eritrea’s deep appreciation of President Compaore and the members of the OAU High-Level Delegation as well as members of the ministerial and ambassadorial committees for their tireless work for peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia. May I also express my gratitude to Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Government and Ministers, for your commitment and for making time to come here to Ouagadougou, to contribute to the peaceful resolution of Africa’s numerous conflicts.

Your Excellencies,

It is now six months since the unfortunate conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia came out into the open. Over this period there has developed a better understanding about the facts of, and issues surrounding, this conflict. Today, the OAU has a clearer picture of the conflict than when it met here in Ouagadougou. Let me briefly touch on four of these main issues.

The conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia is rooted in a border dispute. It has arisen because Ethiopia, in contravention of the OAU Charter and its sacrosanct principle of respecting boundaries inherited from colonialism, has flagrantly violated Eritrea’s inherited Italian colonial borders. Ethiopia’s aggression against Eritrea is manifested in an official Ethiopian map issued in July 1997, which Ethiopia has not yet rescinded, incorporating vast areas of Eritrea into Ethiopia. More ominously, Ethiopia has repeatedly used military force to bring under its occupation the areas in Eritrea that it coveted.

A lasting peaceful solution, therefore, requires that Ethiopia rescind its illegal claims on Eritrea, and declare without equivocation that it respects the colonial boundaries between the two countries that were delimited in accordance with the treaties of 1900, 1902 and 1908. It is these same boundaries that have constituted Eritrea’s frontiers since then. Although Ethiopia has paid lip service to respecting Eritrea’s borders, it has shown no intention of accepting and respecting them in practice. Towards this end, it has been pushing for a vague and ambiguous formulation, knowing full well that without a clear and unequivocal formulation the whole issue will be open to controversy and endless delay. This will mean that the technical work of demarcation, which is predicated on an unequivocal formulation, cannot be carried out expeditiously.

The OAU has been steadfast in its insistence on the wisdom of not tampering with the borders inherited from colonialism and this principle has been included in the "Elements for a Framework Agreement Submitted for Consideration of the Two Parties" that has been submitted to us. In light of Ethiopia’s intentions, however, I wish to bring to the attention of Your Excellencies that Eritrea is requesting of the OAU precise, legal language that will require the opinion of legal experts and ensure a speedy resolution, instead of leading to differing interpretations and endless controversy.

While Ethiopia has remained silent on the fundamental issue of colonial borders, it has been deafeningly noisy on the issue of the use of force. Not only has it accused Eritrea of aggression and of using force to create facts on the ground, it has gone as far as accusing Eritrea of "worshipping the gun," "having a fixation with the gun" and being obsessed with its "invincibility." In the Aide Memoir that was sent by Ethiopia to Your Excellencies and from which I quoted the previous phrases, they also accuse Eritrea of a "peculiar mentality," a "malady," "disdain of the OAU and international law" and "contempt for civilized behavior and civility," all in language that, to say the least, is far from civil.

Not content with misrepresenting the facts about the Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict, Ethiopia has also accused Eritrea of being a "source of tension and inter-state misunderstanding," citing as proof Eritrea’s relations with its neighbours. But as everyone knows, Eritrea’s relations with Sudan have not been different in any significant way from that of Ethiopia and others in the region. As far as the dispute with Yemen was concerned, Ethiopia, prior to Eritrea’s independence, considered the Hanish Islands as part and parcel of its sovereign territory. Indeed the evidence presented by Eritrea to the arbitration tribunal relied to a large measure on documents provided by the current Ethiopian government, including the exercise of criminal jurisdiction over acts committed on the islands, regulation of oil exploration activities, and, even, a video tape of an inspection tour by the former President of Ethiopia, Colonel Mengistu, aboard the flagship ‘Ethiopia.’ The current government’s 180 degree turn is not surprising as it fits the pattern of covering the weakness of its case by resorting to a smear campaign.

Your Excellencies,

Ethiopia’s shrill and offensive language is designed to drown the facts in a sea of accusations. It is the classical case of a thief crying "thief!" at the top of his voice. Otherwise, the facts speak for themselves. Thanks in part to the work of the High-Level Delegation, it has now become clear that the conflict did not erupt from the blue on May 12, 1998. It goes back at least ten months earlier, to July 12, 1997, when Ethiopia sent two battalions of its army and occupied the Adi Murug area of Eritrea, dismantled the administration there and set up a new administration, thereby creating facts on the ground by force. On the same day, but in an area hundreds of kilometers away, it intensified its incursions in the Badme area. These incursions involved evicting Eritreans from their villages by terrorizing them, destroying their houses and burning their crops and bringing Ethiopian settlers to inhabit those villages.

If we were "gun worshippers," as our Ethiopian colleagues who were our closest allies for 22 years have suddenly discovered, then we would have resorted to force to reverse the Ethiopian aggression. Instead, I wrote to the Ethiopian Prime Minister, whom I addressed as Comrade Meles in light of the closeness of our relationship and thinking, asking him to right the wrong and suggesting that we set up a Joint Border Commission to solve any border controversy bilaterally and amicably.

Ethiopia’s behavior was markedly different. Encouraged by Eritrea’s restraint, which it mistook for weakness, it continued its aggression by bringing more land under its control and displacing more and more people. Finally on May 6, 1998, it escalated its aggression by attacking an Eritrean unit. Ethiopia’s continued attacks over the next few days triggered a series of spiraling clashes until May 12 with both sides bringing reinforcements.

Ethiopia’s subsequent action was much worse. Unlike Eritrea, which for ten months patiently searched for a peaceful solution, Ethiopia, believing in its might as a big country and choosing the use of force, declared war on Eritrea on the morrow of the fighting. Concurrently, it stopped using Eritrean ports, cut air and telecommunication links, and deployed almost all its army along the Eritrean borders, including in areas where there were no border incidents. Two weeks later, it launched the ground war and, on June 5, it further escalated the border conflict by bombing the Eritrean capital Asmara. Once again, Eritrea was compelled to exercise its right of self-defense.

Even with the benefit of hindsight and Ethiopia’s subsequent actions, Eritrea does not regret the restrained and peaceful course of action that it took between July 1997 and May 1998. At the same time, it believes that Ethiopia should not be rewarded, by accepting its preconditions, for fomenting a crisis by, first, launching an attack, and, when this failed, for publicly declaring war and then waging war on Eritrea.

Your Excellencies,

I realize that in the face of opposing versions of events leading to the crisis, it might be difficult to pass judgement. That is why Eritrea has been calling from the outset for an independent investigation into those events, a position that has now been supported by the OAU High-Level Delegation. Regrettably, however, such an investigation has not been done and has not figured in the OAU’s framework.

Even without an investigation, however, one fact is beyond dispute—Ethiopia’s continued refusal to renounce the use of force. Indeed Ethiopia has mastered the use of the threat of force and warnings of imminent war in order to pressure the OAU and other concerned parties to impose its dictates on Eritrea. The pronouncement by Ethiopian officials on the eve of this Summit that unless a peaceful resolution is found soon, they will "bury Eritrea’s leaders in the holes that they themselves have dug" fits into that pattern.

Even more than Ethiopia’s aggression and its repeated use of force and continued threat to use force, what has done most damage to the relations between the two countries and threatens to poison them for many years to come is Ethiopia’s decision to uproot the Eritrean population in Ethiopia. So far many have been killed, thousands languish in detention camps, more than 1,500 of them in one camp near Awassa. Over 42,000 have been deported with their property estimated in hundreds of millions of dollars confiscated. The remainder of the Eritrean community lives terrorized, waiting for the moment when Ethiopian soldiers will knock at their doors in the middle of the night or pick them up from the streets, their workplaces or churches and mosques prior to deportation. Those deported include Eritreans working in the OAU, the UN office in Addis Ababa as well as for many African embassies.

As with other issues, so too in this humanitarian problem, Ethiopia has resorted to loud accusations and fabricated stories to hide that it only is carrying out the massive detention and deportation of civilians on account of their nationality. It has also attempted to justify its gross violation of our people’s human rights by branding them "spies." But here at least, Ethiopia cannot get away with empty accusations as the OAU High-Level Delegation has made it clear that there is no "systematic or official action directed against Ethiopians in Eritrea." I have asked that this fact be reflected in the OAU framework.

I am sure Your Excellencies will agree with me that the issues of redeployment and administration are closely linked with the location of the areas under consideration, whether they are in Eritrea or Ethiopia; and also with the causes of the conflict, that is, who used force, where and when. Since these vital questions have not been determined by an investigation, which Eritrea has been requesting for the past six months, any proposals for redeployment and administration need to take that fact into account.

In regard to redeployment, Eritrea holds that, with a cease-fire in place and military observers on the ground, demarcation can be done expeditiously without the complicated and time consuming disengagement of hundreds of thousands of troops. Eritrea, however, has no objection in principle to redeployment in the framework of demilitarization.

On the question of administration, Eritrea has repeatedly stated that, like all sovereign nations, it cannot countenance alien administration of its own territory and over its own population. Indeed, the question of administration cannot be separated from the issue of inherited colonial borders. Therefore for reasons of principle and the interest of not complicating and prolonging the conflict and practicality (since we are talking about a short period of six months), the suggestion of administration should be dropped altogether and focus placed on an expedited demarcation of the border, which will automatically solve the question of administration. In fact, Eritrea is convinced that, were it not for the preconditions and obstructions of Ethiopia, we could have moved, with a cease-fire in place, directly to demarcation and would have solved the problem by now, even without demilitarization.

Your Excellencies,

Even at the risk of taking too much of your time, I have spoken rather in length because so much confusion has been sown by Ethiopia. Last month here in Ouagadougou, I had given Eritrea’s initial, but considered opinion on the OAU’s "Elements of a Framework Agreement Submitted for the Consideration of the Two Parties." Since then we have been studying those elements in detail. As we needed clarification on a number of issues, some of which we have been seeking answers for since the start of the OAU peace effort, we asked the OAU Secretary General, H.E. Dr. Salim, to visit Asmara for consultations and submitted to him our queries. Yesterday, I presented our opinion to H.E. Blaise Compaore, which is predicated on the fact that clarification on some of the pertinent issues that I mentioned earlier is not yet available.

Your Excellencies,

In the opinion I presented, Eritrea has reaffirmed its commitment to the three cardinal principles that will be the basis of a peaceful solution. On the fundamental issue of borders, we have requested precise, legal language, which we believe should pose no problem if there is a genuine commitment to respect colonial boundaries. We have asked that the paragraph on humanitarian issues be given substance and reflect the fact that it is only one party, Ethiopia, that is culpable. We have asked for reasons of principle and the interests of not prolonging and complicating the problem, that the sentence on administration be dropped. And, although we believe, given a cessation of hostilities, that demarcation can be done expeditiously, we have expressed our readiness to redeploy our forces within the context of mutual demilitarization.

Your Excellencies,

As expressed in its Aide Memoir and the Prime Minister’s letter that prefaced it, Ethiopia’s intention is to browbeat the OAU into imposing its dictates on Eritrea. It is threatening dire consequences unless it gets its way. It has openly stated that failure to accept Ethiopia’s viewpoint would amount to "an abdication of responsibility by the Organization of African Unity." It has gone even to the extent of asserting that "not only the credibility of the OAU but that its very future is on the line." At a time when the OAU is grappling with a number of conflicts, to suggest that not taking a partisan course of action in regard to one of them will take it down the drain is, I believe, a measure of the pretensions of the Ethiopian government.

With its futile attempts at intimidation, Ethiopia is trying to forestall meaningful and exhaustive discussion. Its transparent hope is not that progress is made in this Summit towards peace, but that the OAU’s effort comes to a dead-end. I am confident that the OAU, which through the tireless efforts of President Compaore and his colleagues in the High-Level Delegation has come closer than any other party to bridging the gap between the parties, will stay the course and help us achieve peace.

I thank you.