allAfrica.com: Eritrea: Statement By His Excellency Mr. Osman Saleh Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Eritrea At the General Debate of the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (Page 1 of 2)

Eritrea: Statement By His Excellency Mr. Osman Saleh Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Eritrea At the General Debate of the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Mr. President,

Mr. Secretary-General,

Excellencies,

Distinguished delegates,

I wish to take this opportunity to warmly congratulate you on your election as President of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. You have the full support of my delegation and I wish you every success as you guide the important deliberations of this session at this most critical time.

I also wish to take this opportunity to express my delegation's appreciation to your predecessor, Dr. Sergjam Kerim, who successfully presided over the 62nd session of the General Assembly.

Mr. President,

These are turbulent times indeed. The world today is not getting safer by all standards. Alas, it seems like a vortex of perennial conflicts and crises. The fires in Afghanistan and Iraq have not been extinguished. To the contrary, they continue to smolder and intensify; punctuated by misleading, short-lived lulls. The intractable conflict situations in the Middle East are not nearer to a solution today. In Somalia, a humanitarian suffering of unparalleled magnitude continues to unfold although it remains largely ignored by the international media. Furthermore, the war in Georgia with its potential fall out for global polarization is symptomatic of, and underscores, the extremely fragile security environment that prevails in our troubled world today.

To add to this gloomy mix, the world is also witnessing volatile and speculative fluctuations in the value of fuel oil; unprecedented hike in food prices; and the recent spate of insolvency of financial corporations that in combination are driving the global economy towards recession. Rapid climatic changes resulting from progressive environmental degradation; the resulting spell of more frequent floods and droughts; as well as pandemics that are affecting millions of people complete the grid of the immense challenges that our global community is facing today.

These multi-faceted problems are, of course, rooted on multiple causes. At the same time, it cannot be denied that many of them have been exacerbated, if not instigated, by the misguided and domineering policies of the US Government. Indeed, the fingerprints of the sole super-power are discernible in most of the conflict situations that are raging in many parts of our globe with the deleterious economic, financial and humanitarian ramifications that they invariably entail.

The perplexing feature of this overarching and negative development is the emergence of "management by crisis" as a new tool of policy promotion. These days, candid efforts are not exerted to prevent and manage conflicts. On the contrary, crises are deliberately spawned and allowed to fester so that their "management" would provide the United States with the opportunity and latitude for control in a situation of permanent instability.

The absence of countervailing forces in a uni-polar world has only aggravated the situation. Principal among these is the weakness of the United Nations to pursue an independent line and act as a bulwark of robust multilateralism.

Mr. President,

The strong misgivings that I have expressed above are attested to by the multiple turbulences that continue to unfold in our part of the world. Allow me to illustrate this grim reality through a brief description of the causes and complications of these turbulences.

In the border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, both parties had ultimately agreed to resolve the dispute through binding arbitration on the legal basis of the sanctity of colonial boundaries. These are cardinal principles of international law enshrined in the UN Charter as well as in the Constitutive Act of the African Union. Furthermore, these commitments were solemnly enshrined in the Algiers Peace Agreement that was signed by the Parties in December 2000. The Algiers Agreement was comprehensive in details.Essentially, it had two components:

Confidence-building provisions and measures through the deployment of a modest UN peace-keeping force; and,

Settlement of the border dispute through a final and binding arbitration on the basis of the colonial treaties and international law.

As you all know, the parties went through a lengthy and meticulous legal litigation in The Hague in 2001. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission - a five member arbitration panel of international jurists - announced its unanimous final and binding Award on 13 April 2002 and made serious efforts, for five years, until the completion of its work in November 2007.

From November 2007 onwards in particular, Ethiopia's military presence in sovereign Eritrean territories is one of blatant occupation. This is so because the Boundary Commission has decided to complete its demarcation functions - which were disrupted and held hostage by Ethiopia for five long years - through precise representation of the boundary by coordinates.

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