Some Hasty Agenda!!

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ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: US HOLDS KEY TO PEACE, SAYS ITALY'S MANTICAAKI, Italy - 5 hours agoRome, 13 Jan. (AKI) - The current border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia is ... Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after a 30-year fight. ... ERITREA: ITALIAN OFFICIAL SLAMS SITUATION AKIall 2 related »
Ethiopia, Eritrea Tensions Cool DownPrensa Latina, Cuba - 4 hours agoLuanda, Jan 13 (Prensa Latina) Mounting tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea have eased after the two countries withdrew their troops from the common border. ...
Italian Official Denounces Eritrea's PolicyAllAfrica.com, Washington - 6 hours agoThe Italian Foreign Affairs Undersecretary, Alfredo Mantica, has denounced polices of the government of Eritrea noting that "choices made by the President ...

Bolton! - No Hidden Agenda, Please...

TALKS ON BOLSTERING PEACE SHOULD BE NEGOTIATED ON THIS PREMISE..." Do unto others as you would like countries do to you!"--- Bible..

----International News-----
Eritrea grumbles about 'legality' of US mission
Mail & Guardian Online, South Africa - 7 hours ago

Eritrea on Thursday said it doubted the "legality and political relevance" of a United States diplomatic mission being sent by Washington to ease simmering ...
Eritrea lukewarm on US border mediation mission ABC News

US holds the key to unlock Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict AngolaPress

Tensions Ease At Ethiopia, Eritrea Border, UN Says AllAfrica.com
UN News Centre - Los Angeles Times - all 119 related 

Talk Space on monstersandcritics Page

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Justic for Eritrea
Jan 10th, 2006 - 12:32:27 AM
Justic for Eritrea.......For godsake can anyone in the world can see how corrupt and bias Koffi Annan is. He supports the tyrant Meles Zenawi through his position and report false accustion agains Eritrea. Eritrea has the right to be furstrated after five years of awainging for UN to uphold the agreement and implement the border demarcation. But know biggo Koffi Annan appease the tyrant Meles Zenawi needs and stalles the demarction proccess.The boreder was awarded to Erirea and its final and binding decision.
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Nackfa
Jan 10th, 2006 - 07:11:53 AM
History repeatedly tells us that the UN & US always stand against mulish Eritrea favouring the so called “east African supper-power or (supper-poor)-Ethiopia. But, Eritreans make history eventually; regardless of what has been plotted by the great fantasizes of the world (UN & US). Thanks to our indomitable heroes and the great God of Eritrea, we are history makers not them.
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Badme
Jan 10th, 2006 - 09:26:43 AM
It is good news to hear that the UN & US want to end the deadlock in the peace process. Let’s hope that this special envoy will tell Ethiopia straight away that it has to swallow the bitter truth (Badme is gone once and for all). Let’s hope that this special envoy will also tell the Addis regime that they have to stop crying like a lost child for Badme and demarcate the border before it is too late.
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MiMi
Jan 10th, 2006 - 09:31:56 AM
Hey Nackfa!! What's wrong with you Nackfa? Ethiopia has never been a supper-power in east Africa, but only SUPPER-BEGGAR.
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Markiz Talhaoui
Jan 10th, 2006 - 03:41:36 PM
It is time of the un and thier boses to sheet in thier batalon,tanks our strong leaders and tanks god.
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Brother
Jan 10th, 2006 - 07:39:57 PM
UN,please do your attention for the people's of Eritrea.It is better to make sanction for the government of Eritrea that means from the diplomats of the regime there is no fly to all parts of the world.But Amnesty international and Humanitarians...etc, please do your focus for the kind and generous people of Eritrea.I hope your attention will be there.
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Indian Expatriate Teacher...
Jan 10th, 2006 - 07:56:53 PM
After the Badme's line is drawn...then what...will be the deal.???. thousands of young lives have been sucked, the land is soaked with blood...Answer PEACE MAKERS this-- WHEN,HOW AND WHY NOW---Why wasn't it then...Conscience splicers!your entry and exit has never been peaceful...Why the UN has towed a strange line of ...Why the US delegation through Bolton has entered now...
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Arma Ghedeon
Jan 10th, 2006 - 07:58:09 PM
Why worry about the international freak. Its just a joke. The guys pull up the rope whenever they think they have some problem and not whenever they think OTHERS have some problems. Ethiopians are bullshitting in the middle of these understandings and we ERIREANS should not sleep on our probelms.
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Indian Expatriate Teacher
Jan 10th, 2006 - 08:14:12 PM
Saw & SawnA poetic glance: Martyrs turning restless in the graves...

Strangely fearless...We rushed!
We rushed!Into the deaths crush
When… an alien shrapnel burst my brain
I froze death… murmuring my mothers name

My mother screamed, Freedom screamed…
Shaken…My shrill voiceless voice rose high
Awakening all others nearby
For a million flames saw I
Still bleeding in my mothers eye

Have u ever been in a medevial battle field..Never nor was I. But the Eritrea-Ethiopia wars have been medevial battlegrounds.. A war cry... And patriotic soldiers rush into nowhere into the blinding dust and horrific bloodbath.In the Coliseum, the watchers above, mutter in delight as the unknown patriotic gladiators die - Event 1998 closed. Begin Event 2006... Bloody watchers:
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U.S. envoys to Eritrea-Ethiopia

by William N Reilly

UNITED NATIONS, United States (UPI) --
The United Nations says it sees no immediate threat of war along the tense border between Eritrea and Ethiopia as the United States dispatches a diplomatic delegation to the Horn of Africa in an attempt to avert another clash between the neighboring nations.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton Monday said he told fellow members of the U.N. Security Council Washington was sending Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer and retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Carlton Fulford Jr. to the region within a week. Frazer is an assistant secretary of state, heading up the Bureau of African Affairs.
Bolton also said he had asked the council to hold off taking any action in the crisis for one month, to give diplomacy a chance to work.

Members of the panel of 15 said they agreed, following a closed-door briefing by the top U.N. peacekeeper, Undersecretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno, who later briefed reporters.U.N. peacekeepers have been monitoring the 620 mile border between the two nations for the last five years. More than 80,000 people were killed in a two-year border war between the two countries, ending in 2000. It is not yet fully demarcated.
Eritrea, increasingly upset at Ethiopia`s refusal to recognize a bilaterally approved border-drawing commission`s decisions, late last year grounded U.N. peacekeeping flights from its side of a temporary security zone along the frontier and ordered North American and European -- including Russian -- peacekeepers out. This has stymied the U.N.`s role.

Guehenno said last month the Eritrean restrictions and demands were 'unacceptable.'

Both countries moved troops close to the TSZ, raising fears of renewed warfare.

But, in his briefing Monday, Guehenno told the council 'The mission, with its degraded capacity, hasn`t seen any significant movements in the TSZ and the mission hasn`t seen any tanks or artillery in the TSZ. We cannot say without total assurance that there hasn`t been an introduction of troops from Eritrea, but our sense is that at the moment in the TSZ there is no, let`s say, deployment that could threaten a war.'

He lauded Washington for its diplomatic initiative.'The United States prepared to take the diplomatic risk and to engage itself to move the region away from war,' he said. 'That`s what`s needed.'Guehenno, who visited the region last month, said there had been a pullback on the Ethiopian side from positions taken as early as December 2004.

'The government of Eritrea claims it has not reintroduced troops into the TSZ,' he said, while acknowledging reports of troop sightings on the Eritrean side. However, he said, 'There are places where you will see small numbers (85-100 personnel) where you haven`t seen them' previously.

'The Eritreans would say they were militia,' the undersecretary-general said. 'Whether militia or troops is hard to tell; what we don`t see is a massive movement.'

Guehenno said in a report on his December visit to the Horn of Africa he was able to meet with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, but no senior Eritrean government official agreed to meet him, nor did the Eritrean authorities respond to two letters he sent them reminding the Asmara of its obligations and urging it to reconsider its damaging decision to request the withdrawal of certain UNMEE staff as well as the other restrictions it had imposed.

Only last week, in a report to the council, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan offered a number of options for coping with the current stalemate, ranging from redeployment of peacekeeping troops to the total withdrawal of the U.N. Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

'The government of Eritrea did not respond to my own calls to rescind the decision,' to remove the North Americans and Europeans, he said.

In the middle of last month the Security Council allowed UNMEE to temporarily redeploy 77 mission civilian staff and 61 military personnel from Eritrea to Ethiopia.

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

May the WARM COLOR OF THE SCRIPT enter the power corridors of United Nations and administrators elsewhere to ignite a spark for " the war for peace" on stony gray granites of the Hall of Peace.

"Let not the plowshares be beaten into swords and weapons of war anymore".

Let 2006 the Julian Christmas remind all that

the

"SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS IS LOVE"

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Post Script for Christmas!!!

"Ebony history" recalls that Saring, Caring, Honoring our neighbours have been the genetic code conscience of the races belonging to the cradle of civilization. This genetic conscience code was raped again and again throughout pre historic ages and remains unchanged into these modern times evolving a new genetic code of suspicion and aggression.

Selfish ebony countries reeling under the alcoholic addiction for sleazy funds and vile friends would naturally tilt to war against their own brothers within and without dangerously altering the future of the country . Result: Sky clad citizens. Enslavement: Begging bowl ironically forced upon them by United Nations and other Aiding countries Personality Trait: A new cycle of 'genetic splicing and conscience cloning'.

Thank the gods! Some good evolutionary genetic-crossing good sense is prevailing. Some revolutionary countries are standing up against international forced and croecive enslavement. The UN needs to thank the gods for them.

They are the real ones who stand for "PEACE". May the gods help them.

THOUGHTS ON 2006 JULIAN CHRISTMAS

"LET THE WORLD BODIES INVOLVED DO UNTO OTHERS AS THEY WOULD THAT MEN SHOULD DO UNTO THEM.

LET EBONY AND IVORY LIVE TOGETHER IN HARMONY"

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On December 14, 2005, John Bolton, US ambassador spoke...

by By Yohannes Woldemariam * in The Sudan Tribune

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On December 14, 2005, John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN said, One of the reasons we are in this dilemma is that the government of Ethiopia has never complied with its obligations under the 2000 agreement and the 2002 border demarcation... [And also because of] the council’s unwillingness or inability to confront Ethiopia’s three-year-long refusal to adhere to the very agreement it made in 2000. It is an example of what happens when the Security Council is not able to bring an international solution with a U.N. peacekeeping force to a prompt conclusion consistent with the wishes of the parties...It is incumbent on the council to use the contemporary dilemma over the Eritrean actions with regard to the peacekeepers to try to bring the underlying political dispute to a conclusion and to get the border dispute resolved rather than to drift as it has for the last three years.

Ambassador Bolton is referring to what Ethiopia and Eritrea signed in Algiers, on 18 June, 2000. It was the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities, which called upon the United Nations, in cooperation with the Organization of African Unity, to establish a peacekeeping operation to assist in the Agreement’s implementation. On 31 July, the Security Council created the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), to monitor the cessation of hostilities, the temporary security zone and the agreed repositioning of troops from both sides. It was also determined that Eritrean forces will remain at a distance of 25 kilometers from the new position of the Ethiopian troops. Every inch of the 25 kilometers is in Eritrean territory.
Subsequently, the Algiers agreement established among other things, that the Eritrea and Ethiopia Border Commission (EEBC) could decide once and for all where the border lies. Both countries agreed to abide by its ruling. There was no allowance for any revision or appeal. Yet, when the EEBC decision came in April 2002, Ethiopia after an initial praise and misrepresentation of the verdict decided to balk while Eritrea accepted the verdict in full. And hence the impasse! The Zenawi regime then began to bash the EEBC, forcing the chair, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht to respond as follows:

"... Ethiopia has continued to seek variations to the boundary line delimited in the April Decision, and has done so in terms that appear, despite protestations to the contrary, to undermine not only the April decision but also the peace process as a whole...it may be regrettable, but it is by no means unusual, for boundary delimitation and subsequent demarcation to divide communities..."

If Bolton’s statement above is motivated by a sincere desire to see the implementation of the EEBC verdict, then it stands to reason that the U.S. should apply its coercive sticks against the Zenawi regime. But Ethiopia continues to be the recipient of the most generous U.S. foreign aid for Africa, only next to Egypt.

It has already been over three years since the border decision and since demarcation was to take place. Ethiopian intransigence has prevented demarcation. As a result, 12% of Eritrea’s four million populations have been languishing in suspense along the border to defend the country and in anticipation of any eventualities. The intolerable stalemate has retarded economic progress in Eritrea while Zenaw’s regime continues to be a darling of the donor community. As preposterous as it is, Tony Blair even appointed Zenawi to be one of 17 commissioners in his “Commission for Africa.” Blair’s Commission for Africa urges rich countries - like medical doctors - to take a Hippocratic Oath on African policy. That is they should do no harm but help the continent. Yet, by appointing Zenawi in his Commission, harm is precisely what he did to Eritreans and Ethiopians.

Preoccupied by the war in Iraq and the events of September 11, the world forgot about the (1998-2000) poor people’s war in the Horn of Africa, which killed 70, 000 Eritreans and Ethiopians and disabled many more. In November 2005, Eritrea in frustration decided to restrict the movement of the UNMEE within certain parts of the demilitarized zone. Ethiopia had begun to move in its troops towards the border even earlier and it looks probable that a new war may erupt with disastrous consequences for the two countries and the region. But as the following exchange between Ms. Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa and Senator Russ Feingold shows, there is no sense of urgency to deal with the dangerous and fast moving developments. Even worse, Sen. Feingold is so ill informed about the details of the issue that the he is talking about a non existent AU force that is supposedly going to stabilize the situation.

According to a Nov. 17, 2005 transcript the exchange went on as follows:

SEN. FEINGOLD: Okay. How are we helping on the border of Ethiopia and Eritrea? UNMEE said that we’re on the cusp of warfare there and I understand the A.U. hopes to have a preventative force, I think it’s called the Africa Standby Force, ASF, in this region by next year. How quickly can this nascent ASF establish stability and where do the A.U. forces come into play here?

MS. FRAZER: On the Eritrea-Ethiopia border, Senator Feingold, I’ve been focusing my attention on getting UNMEE back up and running. As you know, President Isiais has grounded UNMEE. We think it’s critical that UNMEE be allowed to operate and I’ve been really concentrating my attention on trying to get that mission back up and operating. So I’m not certain about the timeline for an A.U. force or specifically what role an A.U. force would play on that in terms of the boundary. I think the important thing is to concentrate on the U.N. mission that’s already there that has the legitimacy that has the mandate.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Keep me informed if you could of whatever developments are in that regard. And you obviously noted that prevention and mitigation are important in ensuring that tension does not erupt into a conflict here. Are we engaged in political diplomacy to prevent Ethiopian-Eritrean conflicts?

MS. FRAZER: We are engaged in political diplomacy. We’ve had a number of consultations with Kofi Annan. He’s talked often with Secretary Rice on this issue. We feel that it’s extremely important to move towards demarcating the boundary. We believe that it’s also important to get both countries to reduce the tensions between them and we think it’s extremely important, as I said, to get UNMEE up and operating again. And so we’re working with the U.N. We’ve had conversations at a high level both with Ethiopia, Prime Minister Meles as well as with Eritrea. So there is definitely quite a lot of diplomacy taking place right now to try to lower the tension.

There is a way to break this impasse between Eritrea and Ethiopia and it has nothing to do with an AU force or a standby ASF force. I suspect that Senator Feingold is confusing Darfur and Eritrea and perhaps even assuming that they are one and the same. There is an ASF force organized by the AU with regards to Darfur but no such thing has ever been proposed for the Eritrea/Ethiopia border. What is really needed to break the impasse between Eritrea and Ethiopia is some tough love applied against the intransigent Ethiopian regime. In this regard the Dec. 30, 2005 action by the EU, World Bank and UK to withhold direct budgetary support of $375m is an encouraging start but far from adequate.

The United States and the guarantors of the Algiers agreement need to take a bold diplomatic offensive to compel Mr. Meles Zenawi’s compliance with the Hague verdict. Coercive diplomacy against the Zenawi regime is the best available way to change his behavior. That means cutting the flow of the so called foreign aid going to Ethiopia from the US, EU and the international financial institutions. The so called foreign aid is fungible in Ethiopia and there is no doubt that a significant portion of it is being used to buy expensive military gadgets from Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Russia and China.

Can the Zenawi regime be coerced?

The Zenawi regime like any other can be coerced. A single, overarching consideration drives his policy-Zenawi’s quest to remain in power. If there was any doubt about this before, his brutal actions against his domestic opponents gave us the irrefutable proof. Any distinction between his personal will and that of the Ethiopian state is an exercise in semantics. Therefore, if one seeks to coerce Zenawi’s regime, it is important to understand his psychological profile and the system he has created. Zenawi is not irrational. Rather, his record reveals that he is a judicious political calculator. His outlook is dominated by a messianic Marxist inspired vision of himself as the great struggler pursuing Tigray’s revolutionary destiny. In pursuit of this dream he is not constrained by conscience; his only loyalty is to Meles Zenawi. Thus, commitments and loyalty are matters of circumstance, and circumstances change. His willingness to use whatever force, including the extreme brutality witnessed against the unarmed Ethiopian demonstrators is part of an elaborate facade, masking a deep underlying insecurity driven by a strong paranoid orientation. This conspiratorial mindset enables Zenawi to believe himself surrounded by domestic and foreign enemies. It is this political personality—messianic ambition for unlimited power, absence of conscience, unconstrained aggression, and a paranoid outlook—that makes Zenawi so dangerous. His malignant narcissism and the destructive personality serve to unify and rally his downtrodden supporters by blaming outside Eritrean enemies and domestic Amhara, Oromo and Ogadeni rivals labeled by him as Interhamwe (The Rwandan genocidaires).
The system Meles Zenawi has created is dominated by a single, precarious social premise—the preferential treatment of Tigreans at the expense of the larger Oromo and Amhara populations. Because Tigreans could do his regime great harm, Zenawi goes to tremendous lengths to satisfy them. He relies heavily upon nepotism. Resources have been appropriated and concentrated and structured according to ties of region, bloodline and kinship in Ethiopia. Zenawi’s TPLF developed powerful commercial wings, interlocking investment and trading conglomerates. (For more on this, please see http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=9931 ) He has created a sinister special forces known locally as Agazzi and a repressive police state. The state-run media propagates his message, portraying him as the savior of the Ethiopian people. Most Ethiopians no longer listen to or read government media; instead they rely on foreign news services like VOA and Deuche Welle. The private press is severely crippled with most journalists in jail awaiting trial on tramped up treason charges. Furthermore, the regime vigorously vilifies Eritrea branding it as the true source of the country’s suffering, when Zenawi himself is the one obstructing an international verdict, preventing the demarcation of the border between the two countries.

The Hague Justice

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia is still the best and only way to solve the issue. But the ruling will only have clout if the guarantors manage to pursue it via the UN Security Council. Yet, the prospects for effective action against Ethiopia in the UN remain tenuous because the United States supports Ethiopia under the pretext of an alliance against the “War on Terror.” (For more on this, please see http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=12757)

The significant thing about what the ICJ did was that it was a verdict that was not dictated by the balance of power, by politics, or by exceptional pressures. It was a ruling that merely did what courts do when they carry out their duties: they stand for what is just and legal. But when the ruling is fair to “the weaker side”, the court may not be able to do anything to come to its rescue. And herein are the problem and the danger with the verdict of the ICJ. It ruled that the flashpoint of the conflict, the town of Badme belongs to Eritrea, which Ethiopia continues to occupy and refuses to give up. However, Badme is a mere pretext and Zenawi’s insistence on “dialogue” prior to demarcation is an endless mind game with a sinister intention of undoing the hard earned Eritrean independence.

Ethiopia initially tried to preempt The Hague’s ruling via a premature declaration of victory. Ethiopian ’justice’ collided with a more just international justice. But The Hague is a mere extension of the UN which is now paralyzed. It can point, and issue rulings; but it can neither follow up nor implement its rulings. Implementation brings us back to the real world of politics. But why is the United States-which initially supported and encouraged the resort to ICJ now refusing to go after the Zenawi regime? More to the point, what choices do Eritreans have now that all doors have been slammed shut in their faces? The problem is that the powers opposed to the ICJ’s ruling have the ability to violate it. They are the very same powers that make light of international legitimacy and believe that they have enough political and military power to transform their injustice into a fait accompli.

In the real world we live in, the power of international law in matters of this sort has never had the same reach as national laws. Koffi Annan through his hypocritical call for “dialogue” is in effect asking Eritreans to surrender to arbitrary and unjustified revision of the “final and binding” ICJ verdict. But the ICJ, the highest and most neutral and fair judicial body in the world have issued its unambiguous verdict. Moreover, the ICJ left it to the Security Council to ensure that its verdict is upheld. But the Security Council under the “leadership” of Koffi Annan will not do the right thing because it is under American control. For more on Koffi Annan’s role, please see http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=13099 for more on US double standard please see, http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=12182
Had the ICJ’s verdict been fairly implemented, the matter would have immediately been turned over to the UN Security Council based on Chapter Seven of the UN Charter resulting in a sanctions regime against the regime of Mr. Meles Zenawi. There are reasons to believe that the approach would succeed; yet even if it is doomed to failure, by making the attempt the United States would demonstrate that the Zenawi regime’s belligerent and intransigent attitude is the root of the problem. But the White House’s masters and spokesmen came out with newspeak and doublespeak. The latest statement (12/28/05) by Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Donald Yamamoto is a continuation of the same song that apologists for Ethiopia have been singing in the State department. He said, “Ethiopia is a cornerstone for US foreign policy and also for international policy in Africa. It is one of the four cornerstone countries in Africa not only for the US but for the international community because it is important not only for a strategic position but also because it is a chair for the African Union.”

The Bush administration has waived concerns about human rights and international law and provides Zenawi with millions in “counterterrorism assistance” irrespective of Zenaw’s domestic and international crimes. Once again, rhetorical support for democracy gives way in practice to an expansive view of the war on terrorism under which it seems that anyone anywhere grappling with a group of rebellious Muslim citizens can count on unconditional U.S. backing. Americans may or may not pay attention to such details. But the people of the world do pay attention to what America does in their neighborhoods, so it should hardly be surprising that this maze of contradictions has badly damaged U.S. credibility. To save the shaky and undemocratic Zenawi regime, Washington is now trying to turn The Hague’s rulings into nothing but ink on paper. U.S. inaction on the scandal caused by the Ethiopian intransigence illustrates its double standards and low regard for international law. We should now realize that Washington, which claims to be sponsoring the peace process as a guarantor is one of the main obstacles in this process, and indirectly a detonator of violence, war, extremism, and terrorism in the Horn of Africa.