At
UN,
Eritrea Gets “Bashed” Despite Badme Land Claim,
Sanctions Threatened
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 19 -- Last month Eritrea asked
the UN Security Council
to meet with it, and on Tuesday the meeting was granted. Also
present, however, were representatives from Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya
and Uganda, who “bashed Eritrea” as one Permanent Representative
leaving the meeting told Inner City Press.
The
Council wanted
the meeting to be closed to the press and public, but cannot invite
non Council members into its consultations. So it was called an
interactive dialogue and was held not in the Council chambers but on
the second floor of the UN's temporary North Lawn building.
Chinese
Deputy
Permanent Representative Wang shook his head and told Inner City
Press he did not think the Council could solve this problem.
In
the middle of
the meeting, French Ambassador Gerard Araud emerged, bought a pastry
and stood eating it while studying a three dimensional carving of the
1269 B.C. treaty of Hattusilis and Ramses II, given to the UN by
Turkey in 1970. Next to him was a stone carving given to the UN by
Syria, a topic he's said to have raised in the Council's
consultations on July 18.
Passing
to
reporters, Araud quipped of the Eritrea meeting, “They are not
kissing each other.”
Another
Permanent
Representative bemoaned the format that developed for the meeting,
saying that further “Eritrea bashing is not productive."
Eritrea Perm Rep Araya Desta, present at the meeting
Another
added, of Eritrea, “they are isolated in their neighborhood, their
neighbors do not
like their foreign policy including in Somalia.”
Inside
Eritrea
emphasized that while it had won a court decision that Badme and
other land belongs to it and not Ethiopia, the decision has not been
implemented. One Council member said that additional sanctions may be
imposed on Eritrea.
This
seems like a
spiral: where will it end? Watch this site.
Footnote: the last
we heard from Eritrea at the UN, one of their representatives gave a
long speech at dawn before the meeting to approve the UN Peacekeeping
budget could be approved. Eritrea at the UN is always well spoken....
* * *
At
UN
on
Eritrea, Badme Is In Eye of Beholder, Meles Ego Blocks a Deal?
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July
18 -- On Eritrea's request the UN Security Council will
meet on July 19. But the meeting is now turned against Eritrea, with
not only Ethiopia
and
Somalia but also Djibouti, Uganda and other set
to attend.
“Eritrea
is going to get its [behind] kicked,” a
Security Council member told Inner City Press on Monday night.
“They're not going to know what hit them.”
When
Eritrea's
president
met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on July 8, he asked
for “three hours” to make his case, including against sanctions.
But sanctions aren't set by Ban Ki-moon, but rather by the Council.
Just
like
last
September, when Eritrea got thrown out of a meeting on Somalia at the
last minute at the insistence of Uganda, now it will be barrage on
Tuesday afternoon.
But
as more than
one Council member told Inner City Press, why not pressure Ethiopia
to give back the strip of land in Badme that Eritrea won? “They
they'd have no leg to stand on,” as one member put it. “Meles
Zenawi is ready to give it back, but he doesn't want Eritrea gloating
about it.”
This from a
person who called Eritrea repressive, accusing it of not giving
passports to any male between 20 and 40 years old.
Will
the
solution
to this problem have to await the next generation of leaders? Watch
this site.
, 
in