United Nations (New York)
24 October 2008
document
Speakers in the Security Council this morning called for the peaceful settlement of the border dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti, after they heard the President of Djibouti and the representative of Eritrea present their respective views on the crisis, which flared into deadly fighting this past 10 June.
As the Council began its 6000th meeting today, President Ismail Omar Guelleh, whose country requested the session, invited the Council to call on Eritrea to meet its international obligations, following the “sudden, inexplicable and ill-thought out occupation” of parts of his country and the subsequent condemnation by the 15-member body. He maintained that conclusions of the Council’s fact-finding mission to Djibouti had clearly shown the irresponsible behaviour of the Eritrean authorities, which had refused to cooperate with the United Nations.
Djibouti’s priority, he said, was demilitarization of the area and the re-establishment of mutual trust by reactivating existing bilateral mechanisms or by creating an arbitration mechanism to demarcate the border. He argued that Djibouti had reacted with calm that created space to solve the problem peacefully, but that all efforts in that regard had been in vain, as Eritrea merely continued to reinforce its troops and had refused to negotiate.
There was now no other choice but to mass troops at the border and defend the territory, he said. The good offices of the African Union, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and of the United Nations were being sought to resolve the dispute. His country was determined to recover the entirety of its territory, including Ras Doumeira and Doumeira Island. Djibouti’s forces had been withdrawn to their earlier positions in response to the Council’s presidential statement.
“The last thing the Horn of Africa needs is another conflict,” he said, adding that the Eritrean people did not want another conflict with Djibouti and were aware of that country’s friendship. He urged the Council to call on the two countries to devote themselves for a period of three weeks to solve the crisis. Any failure to apply that decision should give rise to sanctions by the Council.
Eritrea’s representative said that his country had already addressed Djibouti’s “unwarranted statements without any concrete evidence” at the Council’s meeting on the same issue in June. There were no new developments since the brief incident that month that had been instigated by the unprovoked attack unleashed by Djibouti against Eritrean units inside its own territory.
He went on to say that, despite the “negative campaigns”, Eritrea had exercised restraint and had not taken any land that belonged to Djibouti. Conceding that it did not concern the issue at hand, he then described Ethiopian military construction along its border and reminded the Council that Ethiopia continued to occupy sovereign Eritrean territories in violation of the United Nations Charter and the Algiers Peace Agreement.
As far as “this manufactured problem with Djibouti was concerned”, he said Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki had already called President Guelleh about the issue, when Eritrea was approached by the Emir of Qatar, and showed openness to solve any real or perceived problem. His country’s desire remained the restoration of good neighbourly relations with Djibouti on the basis of each other’s full respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty. “However, Eritrea will not allow itself to be dragged into and invited to engage in a diversionary and fabricated conflict,” he said.
Following the presentations of the two countries, representatives of all Council delegations took the floor to urge dialogue leading to peaceful adjudication of the border issue. Most speakers supported further efforts at mediation through the African Union and the Arab League, which had attempted to facilitate that dialogue, along with the use of the Secretary-General’s good offices. Some called on both parties equally to exercise utmost restraint and to cooperate with such mediation efforts. Others, however, addressed Eritrea more forcefully, urging it to withdraw its forces, cooperate with the United Nations and regional organizations and comply with the 12 June presidential statement.
France’s representative said that Eritrean authorities must recognize that there was a crisis in Doumeira, and he hoped the country would finally resume dialogue with the international community. The situation presented a serious threat to Djibouti and the region as a whole, and France intended to comply with all obligations that linked it to Djibouti.
He proposed urgent consultations to draft a Council text that would, among other things, reiterate its demands that Eritrea withdraw its forces to previous positions and to encourage the efforts of the African Union Presidency and the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Those demands should be accompanied by a clear timeline, he said.
The representatives of Burkina Faso, Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Russian Federation, South Africa, Croatia, Costa Rica, Viet Nam, Libya, Panama, United States and China also spoke.
The meeting, which opened at 10:05 a.m., closed at 11:30 a.m.
Background
The Security Council met this morning to hear Ismail Omar Guelleh, President of Djibouti, in connection with the Djibouti-Eritrea question, as requested in a note verbale dated 3 October from the Permanent Mission of Djibouti to the United Nations addressed to the Council’s President (document S/2008/635).
Between 10 and 12 June, serious clashes were reported between the Djibouti Armed Forces (DAF) and the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) along the unmarked border between the two countries in an area called Doumeira. The fighting, which left over 35 dead and dozens wounded, sparked some internal displacement in Djibouti.
On 12 June, the Security Council issued a presidential statement (S/PRST/2008/20) expressing its strong concern about incidents along the frontier between Djibouti and Eritrea, calling on both parties to commit to a ceasefire and urging Eritrea to withdraw its forces from the area. (See Press Release SC/9353.)
In that same statement, the Council urged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to use his good offices and reach out to both sides. Subsequently, the Secretary-General directed the Department of Political Affairs to dispatch a fact-finding mission to the two countries to assess the political, security and humanitarian situation in the area. Eritrean authorities, however, refused to issue visas to the United Nations team. The mission also visited Ethiopia, as that country shared a common border with both countries and is currently Chair of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD).
The Council had before it a letter dated 11 September from the Secretary-General to its President conveying the report of the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Djibouti-Eritrea crisis (document S/2008/602). The mission visited Addis Ababa from 28 to 31 July and from 4 to 6 August. It visited Djibouti from 1 to 4 August. It describes the history of the Djibouti-Eritrea border and implications for the status of Doumeira, and noted that the fact-finding team was able to establish that there were major divergences of opinion between the two countries about the border.
The exact position of the land boundary in Ras Doumeira is critical for establishing whether Eritrea has actually occupied Djibouti territory since March, as claimed by Djibouti authorities. The position of the borderline would also be critical if the two States were to negotiate their maritime boundary on the Red Sea. In 1996, Eritrea made an attempt to seize control of Ras Doumeira. The ensuing dispute was short-lived and was resolved through bilateral mechanisms, but the question of the borderline remained unresolved, the report says.
Among its conclusions, the mission underscores the need for “urgent political action to end the crisis between Djibouti and Eritrea”. It recommends that the offer of the Secretary-General’s good offices to defuse the tension between the two countries be made an “urgent priority”. Both countries must be made to believe that it is in their vested interest to have a balanced fact-finding mission, which would reach conclusions only after hearing from both sides.
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