Shabait.com (Asmara)
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
1 December 2006
document
Asmara — The Security Council is mulling over a draft resolution that purports to sanction military intervention by foreign forces to prop up one political entity in Somalia.
The Security Council is of course empowered to take effective measures to maintain and safeguard regional peace and security. The ill-advised resolution in question will however exacerbate the civil strife that has bedeviled Somalia for the past fifteen years and plunge the country into an intractable quagmire.
The legality of the purposed measure is also dubious. The fact is the "Transitional Government" never had popular legitimacy when it was constituted in the first place and does not have the support of the Somali people at this time. In the event, the Security Council cannot trample on the expressed choice of a sovereign people to impose a discredited political entity of its liking.
The contention that such a measure was recommended by IGAD is, again, not borne out by the facts. There is no consensus within IGAD as its seven member countries remain divided on polarized positions. As we have underlined on various occasions before, allegations that Somalia has become the "epicenter of fundamentalist terrorism" or an arena "for a proxy war between Eritrea and Ethiopia" are deliberate distortions peddled by certain forces who wish to perpetuate the chaos and turmoil in Somalia and to prevent its reconstitution as a viable and linked State.
In the circumstances, the Government of Eritrea calls on members of the Security Council to refrain from taking ill-advised measures fraught with dangerous implications for peace and security in Somalia.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Asmara
December 1, 2006
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