Eritrea
Writes to UN
Security
Council,
Ethiopia
Speaks With
Lyall Grant
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 16,
updated March
17 --
The day after
Ethiopia cross
the border
into
Eritrea in a
military
action against
three Eritrean
bases, Inner
City
Press asked
this month's
UN Security
Council
President, UK
Ambassador
Mark Lyall
Grant, what
the Council
would do.
Tens
of thousands
of people died
in the last
war; there was
a UNSC
sponsored
peacekeeping
mission there,
UNMEE, until
it
unceremoniously
decamped.
Lyall
Grant said
that he had
spoken with
Ethiopia's
Permanent
Representative.
To some
this seemed
similar to
when Kenya's
Permanent
Representative
quietly
informed the
Security
Council
presidency
that his
country had
gone
into Somalia,
which was
later
"regularized"
into the
UN-supported
AMISOM
mission.
Eritrea
put out a
press release
-- but also,
Lyall Grant
answered Inner
City Press,
wrote to the
Security
Council. Lyall
Grant said the
letter had
been
circulated but
no discussions
have been had.
Update:
Inner City
Press has
obtained
Eritrea's
letter and is
putting
it online,
here.
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
on March 15
had no answer,
saying, "let
me check." On
March 16 he
said that Ban
urged "both
sides" for
"restraint."
One close
observer noted
to Inner City
Press, "That's
just what the
US said."
Update
of March 17: by
contrast, UK
Minister for
Africa Henry
Bellingham put
out a statement
beginning "I
am deeply
concerned
about
Ethiopia's
incursion into
Eritrea on 15
March." From a
UN
perspective,
confirmed is
who Ban
Ki-moon really
works for, or
takes his
scripts from.
But will the
UK, president
of the Council
for this
month, even
arrange a
Department of
Political
Affairs
briefing of
the Council
about the
incursion?
Watch this
site.
Eritrea's
press release
snarks that
this is a
"situation
where the
culprit
'strikes but
cries first'
while all
along pleading
with its
protectors to
'disarm the
victim.'" (The
reason for the
multiple
quotation
marks is not
clear; we are
always ready
for
counter-snark.)
On
March 15,
Inner
City Press
asked US
Ambassador
Susan Rice
about Ethiopia
into
Eritrea; she
answered that
"I only hear
what's in the
press,
it's a short
story." So
will anything
be done?
Meanwhile
inside
the Security
Council
chamber on
Friday
afternoon,
Council
members'
experts met
with the
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations
about the
mission in
Cote d'Ivoire,
assessing its
efficiency.
Surprisingly,
the voting
irregularities
and violence
in Bonon and
Facobly
constituencies,
which UN envoy
Bert Koenders
ostensibly
wants the UN
to help
investigate,
were not
discussed at
all. Rather a
fine tuning
of the police.
And so it goes
at the UN.
, 
