• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Office of the Government Spokesperson

May 24, 2000 (10:48 am local time)

Prime Minister Meles' Briefing to the Diplomatic Community

(Addis Ababa, 23 May 2000)

Good morning and first of all allow me to thank you all for coming to this briefing. I would like to focus on two issues. First, the decisions taken by the Security Council with regards to sanctions and secondly the state of play on the ground. As you all know, the Security Council has passed a resolution with regards to sanctions. It is true that it modified the proposed sanctions to some extent. The proposed sanctions as you all know were specifically directed at Ethiopia, including a travel ban on Ethiopian government officials and arms embargo, ostensibly on both sides but substantively on Ethiopia. We believe these sanctions have nothing to do with stopping the war. We are confident that the sponsors of the resolution knew very well that this had nothing to do with stopping the war, for a number of reasons. First, the war was caused by Eritrean aggression and the surest, quickest way of stopping it is by reversing that aggression. Nothing of substance has been said on reversing that aggression since day one, and therefore the sanctions did not address the root cause of the problem, which is the aggression. Short of addressing the root causes of the problem, there was no way the war could be stopped by the sanctions. Secondly, we are confident that the sponsors of the resolution have a more or less exact picture as to the stockpiles of arms and ammunition of the two parties. Assuming that the two parties have some rough idea of how to shoot straight, and assuming that they use these arms and ammunition at the right target, it would be very obvious for the sponsors of the resolution that the parties would run out of proper targets before they run out of ammunition. And so, the resolution had nothing to do with stopping the war. We believe it had everything to do with an attempt to intimidate Ethiopia to submit to the decision of the international community and the key members of that community, to sacrifice the rule of law in the interest of expediency. This is not the first time that this has happened to Ethiopia; this is the second time that an international organization of such stature has sacrificed Ethiopia on the altar of expediency. As they say, the first time it was a tragedy, this time it's a farce. And Ethiopia rejects this farce and has no intention of changing its decisions because of this Security Council resolution. Secondly, I would like to focus more in fact on the state of play on the ground. Our view, our strategy was that this war must come to an end and it must come to an end quickly. That is the central pillar of our strategy. Bringing this war to an end means reversing the aggression, expelling the aggressor lock, stock and barrel from our territory and securing that territory. So for us, this objective had to be achieved and had to be achieved quickly and thereby the war had to end and end quickly. We, as I said last time we met, cannot afford another year of state of war. Two years of living under a state of war is two years too many for Ethiopia. Now, we were aware that there are various methods of bringing this war to an end quickly. There is the method of logic, of reasoning, of dialogue, of negotiations. The six days of the Algiers proximity talks have conclusively proven to us that at that stage, the dialogue had transformed itself into a dialogue of the deaf. For six days the OAU was saying, begging, Eritrea please negotiate on substance. For six days Eritrea was saying: No, we won't negotiate on substance unless A, B, C, D are implemented. It is as though both Eritrea and the facilitators were stuck in a groove, going over and over and over the same song indefinitely for six days. So, it was apparent that the peace approach was not moving fast enough. We felt it had to at least be supplemented by another road, that of the non-peaceful approach. We felt that both roads should be pursued: the negotiation approach and the military approach. Whichever leads us to peace earlier, that will be the road that will finally take us to Rome, but we will follow all roads so long as they lead to Rome, to peace. As I said last time, in our view, the two roads are not mutually exclusive. Even after Algiers, we did not feel the peace approach should be closed permanently. And even after Barentu, we did not feel the peace approach should be closed permanently. We have tried to follow both approaches simultaneously. And we are still following both approaches simultaneously. Yesterday I had the opportunity to discuss these issues with the special envoy of our current chairman and also the envoy of the European Union. They have suggested that we restart the proximity talks in Algiers without preconditions. We have responded to them positively. We have told them that we are prepared to negotiate, so long as Eritrea is prepared to negotiate without preconditions. Both have suggested that in the meantime we engage in some sort of de facto cease-fire. We have suggested that we do not see any such possibility. We have suggested to them that we do not believe that the two roads are mutually exclusive. We have suggested to them that to the extent that the military option is closed, to that extent, the peace process, the dialogue, transforms itself into the dialogue of the deaf. And therefore we have suggested to them that the best way of speeding up the peace process is to keep up the military pressure. As a result, our army has launched another offensive this morning, early this morning and, as of ten o'clock this morning, had succeeded in controlling all the commanding heights, all the key points on the Aiga-Mereb defense line, that the EPLF had built over the past two years. Our assumption is that over the next hours, at most, over the next twenty-four hours, that defense line will also totally crumble. That means the biggest part of the territory occupied by Eritrea should be liberated within twenty-four hours. That will leave us with some chunks of territories still occupied in the Afar region. That leaves us with a possible attempt on the part of the leadership in Asmara to recover their crumbling defense lines on the northern front. We shall see how things develop over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Such developments, in our view, facilitate the proximity talks that are scheduled, that are expected to take place in Algiers. They do not hinder them; they facilitate them. This is where we are. Thank you for your attention. I would very much like to respond to any queries that you might have.

Since this is a unique opportunity for me to clear any misunderstandings that Your Excellencies might have, please give me the benefit of having the chance to clarify areas of lack of clarity.

 

Question: Thank you for inviting us to this meeting and for the very clear statement that you made. Now you said indeed that there's very substantive progress in Eritrea and I think that it is even more progress and is more substantive than the Badme battle of last year February. What I'm wondering is whether this is not the right moment--now you have proven, I think, which we all knew already, at least what I knew already, that Ethiopia is indeed the regional power, that Ethiopia is indeed in charge in the region, to be (if I may say so, if you will allow me) to be more proactive and to take the initiative yourself to start the negotiations and not waiting for the envoys and for people mediating, people traveling, but just, at this very moment, to announce it, I think it would be greatly appreciated in the region, but I'm sure it will also be greatly appreciated by the international community, which is very worried, especially about the humanitarian situation and my worry is that the victory will be overshadowed by the humanitarian crisis which is here in the region and which, you know, might need all the attention, all the resources, which are available, so that is actually my statement, whether it is to be a bit more in charge also on the negotiation table, and as I can see it, you mentioned just before that you would still like to have a diplomatic solution and I think that will be the one which is, personally, I feel the best one. Those words are not coming out of my head only, they are also coming out of my heart, as I have so much sympathy for this beautiful country. Thank you very much.

 

Response from Prime Minister Meles:

Well, at the risk of sounding idealistic to the point of naivete, I would like to stress that this war is not about proving Ethiopia's capacity to be the regional power. We would want to be a regional power, but not with guns. We would want to be a regional power with textile factories, modern farms, solid currency, good governance and all the rest. It may come as a surprise to you, coming from someone who has lived, unfortunately, with guns for much of his years on this earth. The more you know about these guns, the more you hate them. It was our fervent hope that this ugly music of the guns was dead, dead forever. And that's why we naively and unilaterally disarmed ourselves. We didn't think that was a path to greatness. We thought the path to greatness was by building schools, roads, farms and so on. So, in a way, it's about Ethiopia's regional role, but in an indirect way. We want to get rid of this war so that we can come back to rebuilding the roads, rebuilding the bridges, improving our farms and so on. When viewed from this angle, ending the war and ending it in as conclusive a manner as possible, so that the risks of its reemergence are minimized. That would, from our point of view, constitute a more secure way of allowing Ethiopia to play a positive regional role. So in the end, it comes down to this and to this only: Do we have peace? Is the war over? Is the war over in a relatively sustainable manner? That is our objective. That is our objective in this war and we believe we have taken the initiative in both directions. We have taken the initiative in the military direction and we have taken the initiative in the negotiation direction. We have insisted from day one, or shall we say, day one, D-day minus week, minus seven, when I talked to you all, that we will never close the peace option; that we are ready to negotiate. We have said that from day one and we have maintained that position. We have also said that we can't stop until we know for sure that this war is over. What does talking in mid-stream, so to speak, mean in actual fact? Past practice is a clear indication as to what the possible outcome is. February 1999, we began to supplement the dialogue, peace negotiations, with the dialogue of guns. Within forty-eight hours, Eritrea said it accepted the Framework Agreement. Soon thereafter, the dialogue of guns stalled. Then Eritrea began reinterpreting the Framework Agreement in such a manner that would make a mockery of the whole peace process. They suggested that the Framework Agreement simply requires them to withdraw from the areas that they had been pushed out from and that they can stick to the other parts of our territory that they had occupied. That was the case right up to June. I'm sure Your Excellencies will remember that on May 1999, when the then current chairman of the OAU, President Campaore, wrote a letter to Issaias suggesting to him that he should withdraw from all territories occupied, the Eritrean leadership tried to laugh the President of Burkina Faso out of the stage. Then we had the events of June, another defeat, and they accepted the modalities. Right up to October, November, those of you in the diplomatic community who had the opportunity to visit Asmara felt that Eritrea was reasonably malleable as far as the peace process is concerned. And then came the drought and then came the special attention of the international media and international community to Ethiopia and this time the malleability in Asmara disappeared. I am told that those of you who had prepared to visit Asmara were told, as recently as a few weeks, or even a few days before the start of the conflict, that the leadership in Asmara has prepared a very warm welcome for our army. I'm not complaining about the welcome our army received. But the point is, any lull in the fighting, any stalling of the pressure, has in the past resulted in the stalling of the peace process itself. That is why we had to act, and that is why we have to continue to act. There is a very simple question that I ask myself. After Barentu, the leadership in Asmara abandoned the whole Gash Setit region and the whole Barka region. Geographically this is roughly half, or more than half of Eritrea. We had no intention of being sucked into this vacuum that they had created in western Eritrea. But the point is, they did create such a vacuum. The area that they would have to withdraw from, the area that they have occupied from Ethiopia, is at most two or three percent of the region that they have evacuated in Eritrea. One would have thought it would have been more rational to have withdrawn from the areas that they have occupied from Ethiopia rather than abandon, practically half of Eritrea, that nobody contests is Eritrea. We have never contested that Barentu is indisputably Eritrean territory. There is no question about it. There is no question that Sawa is indisputably Eritrean territory. Instead of withdrawing from Zalambessa, instead of withdrawing from Bada, they chose to abandon two regions, two whole regions of Eritrea. Now obviously the residents in this region are not necessarily the most important constituents of the ruling group in Asmara. Perhaps they are expendable. As some of you might know, they are nomads. Now we are being told that these nomads are being gathered in Keren and Akordat. Let's suppose the whole population of Gash and Barka has fled to Karen and Akordat. That would still be less than half a million, if we exclude the camels, the goats and the cattle. It is a very sparsely populated part of Eritrea. We have not seen any reports that these nomads are flocking to Keren or Akordat; why should they? The EPLF has abandoned the area. We have not entered those areas; it's a vacuum and these people have always lived in a vacuum. There's nothing new in their living in a vacuum and they're still living there now. It is true that some of the urban centers have lost a very significant percentage of their population, urban centers such as Barentu, Teseney, Shambuko, Maidima. But suppose we assume that the total population, the total population of those urban centers, has been vacated. The total population of the urban centers in the lowlands of Eritrea is much less than 100,000. If half of these have gone to Sudan, and half of these have gone to Keren and Akordat, that would leave us with 50,000. But we know that the total population has not left; Teseney is still populated; Barentu is still populated; Maidima is still populated, and people are coming back. Just yesterday, I was talking to our people around Maidima, this is at the foothills of Araza and Mendefera and they are telling me that people are flocking back in big numbers. And do you know who is sending them back? The EPLF is sending them back. They are telling them they are cousins in the end, blood is thicker than water. So back, instead of creating havoc in Asmara and Mendefera and affecting our defense and logistics, you go back, and if you can, you create logistical problems for them and if not, you survive. Now, there is another group of people of significant numbers that may have been displaced, again. These are the ones that were displaced from the Badme region. They were placed in camps around Barentu, although our army has not reached the camps, did not go there, did not fire a single shot at that camp. It appears that many of them have been transported by the EPLF deeper inside. So first of all, I believe the humanitarian crisis has been exaggerated to the point of, has been very, very much exaggerated, and this is not a new thing. You know, in terms of caring, worrying about the victims of drought in Ethiopia, nobody could have surpassed the EPLF before the conflict started. They were shedding crocodile tears. They were telling everybody in the world that their hearts are bleeding for the victims of the drought, for the people who are dying. They had created a humanitarian baby to play with so as to overshadow the fundamental political and military issues. Now that their concern about the drought victims in Ethiopia rings very hollow, they have created another humanitarian baby to play with to overshadow the fundamental military and political issues. Now we have nothing against the international community providing all the assistance it can. Just the other day, some international organization, I don't know whether it's the World Food Program or somebody else, asked for our support and permission to fly dry rations from somewhere in Kenya or Uganda to Eritrea. There was no hesitation on our part. By all means, give them all the humanitarian assistance that you can. But I think that you should be aware that Eritrea is not beyond creating a humanitarian baby, playing around with it, for the purpose of overshadowing the fundamental problems, political and military. So in brief, and I thank you very much for giving me this excuse to engage in a wild monologue, in brief, we will stop when we have guarantees that this war has come to an end, and it appears that the military road is moving faster than the negotiation road. Whichever moves faster, we will follow, but we will never close any of the options. Any other questions?

 

Question: Thank you Mr. Prime Minister. I'm the Swedish Ambassador. Mr. Prime Minister, you have said repeatedly that you want a quick end to the conflict, but have you weighed the risks that despite the military successes that you've had, the conflict may not end so quickly? That Eritrea under its present government will remain hostile, that you will have to keep you army in a high state of readiness in the north for quite a long time to come? What do you think you can do to prevent that and to guard against the risks that in fact, despite your wishes, this conflict could drag on for some considerable time? Thank you.

Response from Prime Minister Meles:

Well, I think this issue has to be addressed at two levels. In terms of Eritrea continuing to have a hostile government for some time in the future, that's already an established fact. Nothing we do on the ground is going to change it. That happened on May 6, 1998 and the fact that the government in Eritrea is hostile to Ethiopia is an established fact. It can only change when that government has, or somehow succeeds in having a change of heart, or when the government is changed by another government. We have no significant role to play in either case. If it's a change of heart, it's their heart that will change, and we can do nothing to bring that about. If it's a change of government, it's the Eritrean people that will have to change the government, and we have nothing to contribute in that regard. So, the hostility in that sense is already there. The current fighting does not add or subtract from it. In terms of active hostilities, fighting, we believe we will not give them the opportunity to fight us. We are not going to occupy Eritrean territory. Much as they wish, we will not give them that pleasure. As soon as our mission is completed, we will evacuate every inch of Eritrean territory that we may be occupying now, every bloody inch of it. So we will not give them the opportunity to shoot at us inside Eritrea. We will assume that they will not make the mistake of attacking us in Ethiopia again. I'll correct that. We will hope that they will not attack us inside Ethiopia, and therefore at the very least we expect an uneasy and perhaps protracted truce along the border. That is not good enough, but that's as far as we can go, as a country, as a government. Beyond that lies the field of action for the Eritrean people. Even when the Eritrean people come to the conclusion that the society where more than ten percent of the total population is in the army, that there is something sick, something wrong about such a society, if and when the Eritrean people come to recognize that, if and when the Eritrean people come to recognize that a government which has not published its budget since independence, which has not published a budget since independence, a government which has no constitution, a government which is more active in black market activities, all the way from Congo to Geneva and everywhere in between, including the Beka valley. When the Eritrean people come to recognize that there is something sick about such an economic approach and take steps to correct it, then we will embrace each other. After all, as the Eritreans say jokingly, we are still cousins.

Another question, please.

Question: Thank you very much, Your Excellency, for the explanations, especially the information. I want to thank you also for the comments that you made and the explanations on the humanitarian picture. I just wanted to make an observation, suggestion, for consideration because it goes along the lines that you have most thoughtfully laid out for us. That is to say, in case there are populations that get caught in between, our hope is that the work of the community of humanitarian actors would be, at the appropriate time, when it's safe, brought into bear. I'm assuming that it may happen that Eritreans get caught behind the present positions. That is something for us not to know at the moment, not to judge, but I just wanted to express our own willingness to be ready, when such information is made available for us in terms of any support, action which we might be required to take. I thank you.

Response from Prime Minister Meles:

Two things really. First, the only reason why we have not publicized the fact that there is the vast majority of the population in the area, is still there, because we do not want to appear that we have taken responsibility of managing their affairs; that's not our business. This is just a temporary, military expediency. We are not there to administer that area, we are not there to provide humanitarian assistance in that area, but if the UNDP, for example, wants to provide assistance to the people in Barentu town, in Shambuko, in Maidima, and if you want to do it through Ethiopia, you are most welcome. We simply pretend that we are not there and that you are taking over, that we are not managing administrative affairs in Eritrea because that is not our business. Secondly, as a side note, some times NGOs, humanitarian organizations, military analysts, observers and so on and so forth, when they engage in these types of activities, some times they play a positive role, some times they play a negative role. In this instance, too, I'll give you two examples, one of a positive role and another one of a negative role. It appears that every military analyst worth his salt was suggesting that we'd be attacking through Araza to Mendefera. I would like to assure you that there was no such plan and there is no fighting in that front. If anything these analysts might have helped us in confusing the Eritrean leadership as to where the next attack might come, and it came in Aiga, it came in Zalambessa, it came in Tsorona, not Araza to Mendefera. That's sort of a positive thing from our side. I'm not sure whether the Eritreans would believe that to be positive. A negative one is, for example, your colleague in Asmara, has taken it upon himself to declare that there is an invasion on Eritrea, has taken it upon himself to declare that the Security Council should take urgent measures to stop it. Now, an international civil servant meddling in political and military affairs is not a pretty sight, and I'm sure that with your wisdom and knowledge of the region you will perhaps advise him to remain an international civil servant.

I hope that you will at least understand our position. We are not in any way planning to infringe on the sovereignty of Eritrea. We are not in any way trying to impose a political setup in Eritrea that is to our liking. We will never do any of this. We are simply covering our back, removing the aggressor and making sure, to the extent that we can, that the aggressor will not attack us again. We are open to negotiated settlements. We have not ruled out a military end. As a matter of fact, if things progress as they have progressed early this morning, the biggest chunk of our territory should be free, perhaps by the evening. That would leave us with bits and pieces of our territory in the eastern front that could perhaps be taken care of by either of the two options. I hope that you understand that we are not trying to be the bully of this region. That is not how we measure the greatness of our country. We do not believe that Ethiopia will be great so long as it is begging for food. Greatness for us would be achieved when we are food self-sufficient, when we are food secure. That is greatness. That is what we are fighting for. We are fighting now to remove the war agenda from our calendar and refocus, beginning with this rainy season, beginning with this rainy season, we want to refocus on our economic development. By all means, you may disagree with our methods, but I hope that you understand our objectives. Thank you very much.

Issued by the FDRE Office of Government Spokesperson on 24/05/00