[b] Press Statement: Eritrea’s Decision to freeze its Membership in IGAD[/b]
By Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Apr 26, 2007, 19:12
The historical ties of friendship and cooperation between the peoples of Eritrea and Somalia go back to centuries. These ties were particularly cemented towards the end of the 19th century through a common colonial experience. The subsequent, post World War II, historical juncture where the destiny of both peoples was subordinated to the perceived strategic interests of the United States in the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean further fostered the communality of, and solidarity between, their respective struggles.
This pattern has continued to prevail without basic alteration in our times. The fact is both peoples have again become victims of US strategy of domination after the end of the Cold War and at the advent of the new Millennium. This imposed reality has inevitably augmented the friendship and solidarity between their respective struggles.
In all these historical instances, ruling groups in Addis Ababa who do not represent the Ethiopian people have served as appendages to, and tools of, major powers.
The destruction and mayhem wrought in the Horn of Africa by US strategy of domination and the subservience of Ethiopian ruling regimes is immense indeed. This can only provoke resistance by, and aspirations for, independence and liberation through just peoples’ struggles. The recent invasion of Somalia and the resistance that it has engendered by the people of Somalia must indeed be seen from this perspective.
It must also be recalled that the United States was instrumental in complicating and exacerbating the border conflict between the Eritrean people and the TPLF regime as well as in obstructing the implementation of the Award of the Boundary Commission. The baseless accusations peddled these days by US Administration officials claiming that Eritrea is “involved in Somalia in order to frustrate Ethiopia†is prompted both by the desire to conceal these facts and to shirk responsibility.
The responsibility to redress the sufferings, destruction and crisis that is besetting the Horn of Africa as a result of domination and invasion does not lie on the shoulders of the Somali and Eritrean peoples alone. Primary responsibility for this duty rests with the peoples and Governments of the Horn of Africa countries as a whole.
In this connection, Governments in the region that are either condoning the invasion and domination of Somalia and the sufferings meted out to its people or that have chosen to keep silent, for reasons of narrow self-interest or due to lack of information cannot, ultimately, shrug their responsibilities.
For its part, Eritrea is not willing to endorse invasion and domination under the umbrella of IGAD and be party to the atrocities perpetrated against the Somali people in contravention of justice and truth.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Asmara
26 April 2007
