Commentary:

Integrity takes a back seat

Dear Netters:

Back in the early days of the war I had the naive idea that Ethiopians and Eritreans would be able to debate issues rather than trade propaganda. In this spirit I wrote the main Eritrean website and informed them that the information they had posted about the Ethio-Italian treaties was factually wrong. (see Attachment #2 below)

Needless to say the Eritrean intellectuals were not about to let facts disrupt their cultish obsequiousness towards their dictator. He said that the border was a straight line, and come what may, they were going to repeat that mantra as long as their dictator did. Forget the facts, forget integrity.

Digression:
Note: This is similar to the Hanish case. The Eritrean dictator falsely informed his people that the Turks had transferred the islands to Italy in 1923. Here is what he said:

"Under the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, Turkey was subjected to relinquish terrritories under its rule and the title over these islands was directly transferred to Italy. There are many known evidences proving this truth."

For more information, see the article: “The Eritrea -Yemen Arbitration: How Eritrea Lost the Hanish Islands and the Implications for Final Settlement of the Ethiopia-Eritrea Border”.

Below is another example of the self-degrading behavior of the Eritrean elites. In this case it is a brazen lie and the author must have known he would be caught. The author is one of the prominent writers on the Eritrean websites; Sal Younis. In an article from Aug 29, he writes that in its request for clarifications on the OAU Technical Arrangements, Ethiopia was demanding an Eritrean withdrawal before a cessation of hostilities.

But this is completely false. Anyone can ascertain this themselves (see attachment #1 below). The issue that Ethiopia was discussing was the “verification of lines of redeployment” (prior specification of how and where the Eritrean withdrawals would take place).

The modalities called for a cessation of hostilities followed by an ”immediate” Eritrean withdrawal. However, the technical arrangements specify an Eritrean withdrawal 50 days after the cessation of hostilities.

The Ethiopian side requested clarification on this inconsistency, and why “immediate redeployment” became stretched into a nearly two month delay. The Ethiopian side proposed ways in which the verification of lines of redeployment could be performed expeditiously in order to speed up the schedule for the Eritrean withdrawal after cessation of hostilites.

However, with no barrier to lies, Mr. Younis feigns outrage by asking:

Why is the Ethiopian Government so anti-cessation of hostilities that it would even go to the length of proposing that the redeployment of troops "take place before cessation of hostilities"?

He knows perfectly well that this is a lie. Yet he continues prattling on for several pages denouncing this fake issue that he has created.

Eritreans who rely on the internet for information were completely misled by this article, but it is nothing new. This is how it has gone all along in the Ethio-Eritrean conflict.

I suppose with these infantile tactics, the Eritrean intellectuals manage to ingratiate themselves with their dictator and prove their nationalism. But for most observers, this behavior only elicits contempt.

- Dagmawi

Attachment 1: Excerpt from Ethiopia’s request for clarifications (Letter by Meles Zenawi)

The Modalities in paragraph 4 provide that the redeployment of troops shall "commence immediately after the cessation of hostilities". In this connection, in my letter of July 29, 1999 to Your Excellency I had suggested that the OAU establish a team of verifiers through consultation with the parties. The team would then collect evidence and undertake consultations with tem in order to arrive at an agreed list of areas from with redeployment is to take place on the basis of paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Modalities.

In my discussion with your Special Envoy I had indicated that the verification of lines of redeployment can take place before cessation of hostilities. In fact, the process followed by the Committee of Ambassadors of the OAU High Level Delegation to determine who administrated Badme and its environs before 6 May 1998 can easily be followed. It will be recalled that the committee visited both capitals, heard from both sides, collected evidence including from relevant third parties and arrived at the conclusion that Badme and its environs was administrated by Ethiopia before 6 May 1998 in less than two weeks.

In my discussion with your Special Envoy I had also suggested that if the verifiers need to go to the area, full security can be obtained from both parties. Why was the option I put forth not preferred? Instead, under Annex IV to the Technical Arrangements redeployment of Eritrean troops will commence 50 days after the D-day. Is this not contrary to paragraph four of the modalities with provides for "immediate" commencement of redeployment of following cessation of hostilities?

Attachment 2: Discussion of False Information Being Provided By Eritrean Government and Dehai Website (article posted last year)

June 28, 1998

Dear Netters:

I am writing this article because of the demonstrably false information being posted at the Eritrean Dehai website. Some of this false information has also been included in official statements from the Eritrean government.

The false information can be summarized in the following three statements:

1. A statement that the May 15, 1902 Italy-Ethiopia treaty annex specifies a straight line between the Tekeze and Mereb rivers.

This is easily disproven by reading the english version texts. Every reader can verify this for themselves. It is a mystery why Dehai thinks it can get away with such blatant misrepresentation.

2. A statement that the Eritrea-Ethiopia colonial borders are clear and unamabiguous. [The Eritrean dictator claimed that that they were among the most well known and well defined borders in Africa]

Please note that the Eritrea-Ethiopia boundary is marked with the label "boundary in dispute" on a National Geographic map from 1935. The League of Nations was trying to mediate the border dispute between Italy and Ethiopia in 1935. Ethiopia was requesting a joint survey party to delimit the ill-defined border areas. The mediation failed because of Italian intransigence. [Additional note - prominent observers (eg New York Times)have recently described the treaties as "laugably imprecise."]

3. A statement that Eritrea's borders have been unchanged for 92 years. (92 years since the 1906 treaty which dealt mainly with the Afar areas).

Eritrea's borders were changed in 1987. I will shortly post a map showing those borders. Secondly, Eritrea became an internal province of Ethiopia in 1962 and was no longer recognised internationally. [Additional note - Eritrea's borders were also changed in 1938 - click here for the map]