YouSaid · the spoken record

Osman Saleh Mohammed

lines on the record: 48
first: 2018-09-24
most recent: 2023-09-24
sittings or episodes: 6
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“In that spirit, we hope that the deliberations of the General Assembly this year and in the period ahead will examine those and other associated complex parameters in all their dimensions and depth.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The architecture of veto power and other institutional distortions that incapacitate the Security Council and prevent it from exercising its responsibilities on the basis of international law with impartiality and objectivity must be examined, with its historical track record as a guiding template. Members will agree with me that political horse-trading and the misuse of Security Council membership to advance narrow national interests are not compatible with the solemn responsibilities that they are entrusted with and that are expressly stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations. The criteria for membership should not be confined to or determined by mere political and economic clout, population size or other factors. Membership in the Security Council must reflect the wide spectrum of Member States in the United Nations.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The desired changes will, hopefully, be commensurate with the aspirations to justice and the rule of law; respect for national independence and sovereignty; and the advent of a new epoch of genuine partnership and shared prosperity. As the principal international platform, the United Nations must indeed be elevated - in terms of structure and mandate - to a cherished umbrella organization that can fulfil its historic mandate with efficacy and potency. From that perspective, the much-vaunted reform of the Security Council should not be perceived as nominal tampering that is limited to merely increasing the number and geographical representation of new members.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Though inexorable, the path will not be easy or attainable in a short span of time. But there is no doubt whatsoever that that destiny will ultimately be fulfilled. The new desired global order will have to be accompanied and cemented by far-reaching structural changes in the global governance architecture as well as various international and regional organizations An avoidable pitfall in that indispensable collective effort would be a tendency to cosmetic and nominal measures that would only engender false hope and apathy among the peoples and countries of the world that seek and aspire to genuine changes aimed at bringing about enduring peace, stability and prosperity. In tandem, the United Nations will be impelled to undergo the requisite structural changes and profound reforms.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“I am not referring to the distant past or the 1950s. in which Eritrea’s inalienable right to decolonization was sacrificed on the altar of the geostrategic interests of those Powers. We must recognize that the sanctions imposed on Eritrea from 2009 until 2018 were another recent act of transgression and deceit that requires full redress and accountability. Vigorous and persistent resistance — even if amorphous — by the peoples of the world have deterred the emergence and prevalence of the intended unipolar world order for global domination and hegemony. The vibrant trend— the invigorated resistance movements that are mushrooming in different parts of the world — indicate that we are on the cusp or threshold of a new reality, a historic crossroads that will augur a new world order. Obviously, that will not transpire tomorrow.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“From that perspective, it must be recognized that the resistance movements unfolding in Africa — manifested in different variants — are expressions and a continuation of the struggle against colonialism. They are defiant reactions to modern slavery, unremitting plunder and domination. Another dimension that is often glossed over is the fact that Al-Qaida. Da’esh. Al-Shabaab and other offshoots and franchise terrorist groups are criminal enterprises propped up and funded by the same forces of domination for political ends. They are ruthlessly instrumentalized to foment crises and provide plausible pretexts for military intervention. I have dwelt at some length on the legacy of the acts of destabilization unleashed by the forces of hegemony because my country has not been spared their fallout within the overall global context.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“which lasted for the subsequent 45 years, gave rise to a spiral of incessant conflicts and instability in many parts of the world, with all its detrimental consequences for enduring and inclusive prosperity. More ominously, the futile attempts to impose a unipolar world order in the last 30 years or so. in particular the crises spawned in those times aimed at reviving defunct alliances and military blocs, are increasingly pushing our global community towards the precipice of a much more perilous catastrophe. Within that calamitous global reality, the African continent has been, and remains, marginalized, compelled as it is to shoulder the brunt of those destructive policies.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Allow me first to express my warmest congratulations to Mr. Dennis Francis on his election as President of the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session. I am indeed honoured to convey the following message of President Isaias Afwerki to the Assembly. Seventy-eight years have elapsed since the historic establishment of the United Nations, on 24 October 1945. That historic event occurred on the ashes and in the aftermath of the Second World War. which caused unprecedented loss of life and devastation to humankind. Unfortunately, the poignant lessons drawn from that ferocious war did not usher in an era of enduring peace rooted in legality, justice and sustainable equilibrium in global terms. The cold war.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Lastly, selective and partial parameters that impede our collective well-being and the fostering of a compassionate social system will require thorough review.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We must recognize that the resources and technological know-how at the disposal of humankind are more than what is required if we set our minds to an inclusive and compassionate world order. In that respect and in our modest view, first, our global village and the United Nations system must devise a new international order that is anchored on consensus, with the full and equal participation of its constituents. Secondly, the sacrosanct principles of the equality of all Member States and respect for the sovereignty and political independence of nations and peoples must be upheld. Thirdly, the equitable representation of all Member States in all decision-making international bodies must be guaranteed through viable and sustainable modalities and mechanisms.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Eritrea has indeed borne the brunt of this unfair international order through illicit sanctions, the use of surrogate forces to create a situation of permanent conflict and instability, as well as the weaponization of human rights to isolate and ostracize the young nation. As we all agree, the gravity of the interlocking problems with which our global village must grapple is so immense that it warrants urgent and comprehensive remedial action. We are truly living on borrowed time. The prevailing global governance architecture has lost legitimacy and corroded the vital global equilibrium that is crucial for continuity and sustainability. In this respect, it behoves us to rise to the occasion to summon the requisite political will in order to roll back and rectify this dangerous trend.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“The extreme and ridiculous inequalities, whereby less than 1 per cent of the population owns 99 per cent of national wealth; unbridled consumerism, which has bred and continues to aggravate climate change; and the atomization of societies that has literally decimated social compassion and community care by fostering exclusive and unnatural individualism are dangerous trends that will ultimately undermine the social fabric and stability of individual countries and our global village at large. My rather extensive views on the flaws of the global governance structure do not stem solely from a general and abstract desire by my Government to seek timely and urgent remedies, as underlined in the theme of the current session of the General Assembly.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Indeed, all other sovereign peoples and nations are expected to fully adhere and kowtow, in their international relations and domestic policies alike, to the gold standards stipulated in the flimsy rules- based international order. In the final analysis, the costly wars of intervention, especially in Africa and the Middle East, in the past 30 years, the heavy-handed meddling in domestic affairs, the imposition of illicit and unilateral sanctions, the distortion and weaponization of human rights — in brief, all those episodes of international and regional instability — emanate from and are the direct derivatives of the faulty global governance architecture. The negative ramifications of this dysfunctional system are not confined to the sovereign nations and peoples of the global South.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“They are by-products and manifestations of the systemic failure of the unipolar world order that has prevailed for more than 30 years. In reality, the much-vaunted rules-based international order represents a skewed set of duplicitous, asymmetric and non-consensus-based norms and regulations. The fact is that it was essentially designed to advance and safeguard the privileges of its principal architects to the exclusion of the majority of other nations and peoples. Its rather monolithic and condescending ideological perspective leaves no room or space to historical context, distinct realities and cultures or, above all, to the independent policy choices of other sovereign peoples and nations.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“It has also introduced chronic economic difficulties and structural setbacks, through domestic economic downturns and the disruption of international supply chains. While the scourge persists, we are confronted these days with the equally perilous fallout of climate change and global warming, which exacerbates the already precarious situation. Furthermore, cyclical conflicts, which have assumed exceptionally dangerous and almost apocalyptic dimensions with the war in Ukraine, have ratcheted up the impending crisis to unprecedented levels. The COVID-19 pandemic aside, the other interlocking variables and dimensions of the crisis constitute the cumulative consequences and telltale symptoms of a tenuous and highly flawed global governance architecture.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“First, allow me to express our congratulations on your election as President of the General Assembly at its seventh-seventh session. I also want to congratulate His Excellency Mr. Abdullah Shahid on his successful stewardship of the Assembly during his presidency of hope at the seventh-sixth session. The annual session of the General Assembly, held under the fitting theme, “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges”, takes place at an exceedingly preoccupying time of profound, intertwined and multiple crises of epic proportions. Those calamities have already had an adverse impact on all coordinates of our global village. In the past two and a half years, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has exacted a considerable human toll across the globe.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Eritrea has suffered enormously by similar previous acts. These should not recur again. The injustices meted on Eritrea by powers who feel they can trample the sovereignty of nations and peoples at their whim must indeed come to an end. I thank you”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“The grave danger that this reckless and illicit acts by this rogue group to Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Horn of Africa region as a whole is too evident to merit further elaboration. But what we find inexcusable is the position of certain countries, notably the US and its European allies, to defend the TPLF’s illicit and dangerous acts of insurrection and mayhem and marshal all the tools in their disposal to rehabilitate it at any cost. I will not waste your time here to recount the false narratives they have floated to create moral equivalence between the principal culprit and those compelled to take deterrent and reactive action warranted by international law and established State practice. This act in itself underlines the structural inadequacy of the global governance system that I intimated earlier in my speech.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“Throughout this time, the TPLF continued to wage intermittent assaults against Eritrea in order to provoke a major war. And while the Eritrea-Ethiopia Peace Agreement stipulated Ethiopia’s unequivocal adherence to, and implementation of the EEBC Border Verdict, the TPLF continued to obstruct good-faith enforcement of this solemn agreement. In Ethiopia too, the TPLF resorted to various illicit subterfuges to roll back the positive process underway through popular will. And as a culmination and dangerous escalation of its subversive measures, it unleashed a massive War of Insurrection against Ethiopian’s Northern Command with the express aims of neutralizing this biggest contingent, confiscating its weaponry, to thereby forcefully seize power in Ethiopia. TPLF’s aims included subsequent military acts of aggression against Eritrea.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“President, As Your Excellency will recall, the Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship that Eritrea and Ethiopia signed in July 2018 had ushered in a new epoch of hope and optimism. The significance of this historic achievement was vividly visible in the massive euphoria that it generated among the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia. But the TPLF group could not accept and fathom the present realities. It thus embarked on multiple acts of subversion both to scuttle the Eritrea-Ethiopia peace process and to regain power in Ethiopia through forceful means. It must be recalled here that while in power in Ethiopia, the TPLF continued to occupy, for almost two decades, sovereign Eritrean territories in flagrant violation of international law and the Arbitral Award of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“To this one must also add growing tensions we have witnessed in the past months in the wider region on issues of border dispute and the Renaissance Dam. In Eritrea’s view, these are not intractable problems beyond direct resolution by the parties concerned through political goodwill and good-faith negotiations to advance mutual and long-term benefits to all the principal stakeholders. In regard to the Renaissance Dam in particular, acrimonious and internationalized forums will likely hinder an enduring and comprehensive arrangement that addresses the requirements of the principal riparian States — i.e. Ethiopia, the Sudan, and Egypt — within a framework of robust and long-term cooperation and available technological options and solutions. Mr.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“As we stated last year, the pursuit and ideals of enduring global peace, stability and prosperity are squarely predicated, and can only flourish, on the edifice of a robust global organization that can measure up to all these challenges. This indelible fact is more evident than ever before. In the event, allow me to renew our call for the strengthening and revamping of the UN system whose authority and efficacy have been corroded in past decades. Unfortunately, multilateral institutions have been rendered impotent, due to the unilateral actions of a select few. Mr. President In the Horn of Africa, economic problems due to the COVID pandemic have been compounded by a dangerous conflict that stems from decades of misguided policies by certain major players as I will elaborate later.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“But as you know well, the realities facing humanity today are dire and many. Let me take the opportunity to convey my condolences to and express my solidarity with all Member States and all the families of those who have lost loved ones due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Mr. President, Whether meeting internationally agreed development goals, combating the growing threat of climate change, or responding to the range of threats to international peace and security, the enormity of today’s global challenges call for a stronger United Nations that is more representative, transparent and most importantly, effective.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“At the international level, heavy-handed policies of containment and encirclement to forestall healthy strategic competition and mutual progress based on symmetric, equitable, and rules-based international system has, and is stoking, a climate of confrontation and instability with all the risks that this may entail in the period ahead. In the event, it is incumbent on all of us to climb down from our high horses and ponder on these issues in a holistic manner; with requisite earnestness and sincerity. As I intimated above, our world is still dealing with the deadly pandemic. The theme for the 76th Session — “Building resilience through hope — to recover from COVID19, rebuild sustainably, respond to the needs of the planet, respect the rights of people, and revitalize the United Nations” — is, in this sense, apt and optimistic.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“Leaving aside the deleterious consequences of the Cold-War, misguided policies pursued in its immediate aftermath by Special Interest Groups in the US and Europe to maintain and consolidate a Uni-Polar global order did not usher in a period of international stability and prosperity that would, as it was argued, cascade down to different parts of the world to promote steady social and economic progress. As it happened, even in advanced countries, income disparity between the rich few — less than 1 per cent of the population — and the majority of other citizens has become ludicrously huge and morally reprehensible with unhealthy social ramifications.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“Our global community is facing triple challenges of enormous gravity; i) the COVID-19 pandemic whose deadly virulence continues unabated in many places; ii) spiralling climate change that threatens our very survival; and, iii) growing risks of dangerous international rivalry and commotion rooted on dynamic changes in the global balance of power. These grave challenges have accentuated some basic truths. They have amplified the flaws and inadequacies of conventional wisdom on certain economic models. They have exposed structural deficiencies in the parameters of global and domestic governance hitherto portrayed as universal and unassailable both in terms of their universal validity and applicability.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“Your Excellency, Abdulla Shahid, President of the General Assembly; Your Excellency Antonio Guterres, Secretary general of the United Nations; Ladies and Gentlemen, It is an honour for me to address this august Assembly of States — albeit virtually — on behalf of the President of the State of Eritrea, H.E. Mr. Isaias Afwerki. In this regard, allow me to congratulate Your Excellency, on behalf of the Government and People of Eritrea, on your election as the President for the 76th Session of the United Nations. You have our full support as we are aware of the enormity of your responsibilities. I also wish to express our deepest gratitude to your predecessor, His Excellency Volkan Bozkir, for his astute leadership and successful conclusion of the 75th session. Mr. President, These are crucial, and in many respects, unprecedented times.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“This indelible fact is more evident than ever before. In the event, allow me to renew our call for the strengthening and revamping of the marginalized UN system whose authority and efficacy have been corroded in the past decades. I thank you”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“Alas, what is new in our world this year is the depressing calamity; the huge loss of life that COVID-19 has and continues to incur globally. And albeit its agonizing dimensions, the Pandemic has starkly exposed the structural flaws and deficiencies of the prevailing, precarious, economic and security “global order”. It has debunked the spurious explanations and narratives peddled in the past to embellish and rationalize a largely dysfunctional global order. Indeed, in a rather perverted sense, the Pandemic constitutes a wake-up call; a costly reminder for us to mend our ways. Distinguished Participants, The pursuit and ideals of enduring global peace, stability and prosperity are squarely predicated, and can only flourish, on the edifice of a robust global organization that can measure up to all these challenges.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“In terms of the situation in our neighbourhood — namely the Horn of Africa and Red Sea Region — the salient points underlined in my message of last year were: “The two regions have been immensely and inordinately afflicted in the past 25 years by externally instigated, intractable, internecine ethnic and clan conflicts, as well as discord and wars among neighbouring countries. This grim reality is in stark contrast to the promising events and hopes engendered in the early 1990s for regional integration. Here again, a large part of the blame falls on corrupt local actors.” Distinguished Participants, As we mull over current realities this year, what are the new, promising, tidings that we can invoke apart from the earnest pleas and petitions for higher efficacy that are emphasized solemnly almost every year.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“The economic power balance is inexorably changing, with a spike in attendant intense rivalries and upheavals”. In regard to Africa, my remarks were, and I quote, “Africa’s lot over the past quarter of a century has been onerous. Africa’s resources were plundered wantonly. Despite hollow phrases of ‘conflict prevention’ and ‘conflict resolution’, wars and upheavals continue to increase and fester. Almost 1 billion Africans remain marginalized through the collusion of external predators, their local surrogates and corrupt special-interest entities. This tragic reality requires utmost and urgent attention for effective remedies”.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“Your Excellency Ambassador Volkan Bozkir President of the General Assembly; Your Excellency Mr. Antonio Gueterres UN Secretary General; Honourable Participants, I have the honour to deliver this speech on behalf of the President of the State of Eritrea, H.E. Mr. Isaias Afwerki. The UN General Assembly is taking place this year at a critical juncture when the world is at a cross-roads on account of the vicious COVID-19 global pandemic that has inculcated an immense loss of life so far. As it may be recalled, I had underlined the following salient points in my message to the UN General Assembly last year. In as far as global trends is concerned, I had stated, and I quote, “the world is on the cusp of a new world order. All vital parameters indicate that the unipolar world order has come to an end or is in its twilight years.”
2020-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 75 (2020)
“In that regard, it is both timely and proper to reform and strengthen the United Nations so that it can shoulder its obligations and responsibilities with greater effectiveness.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“The Horn of Africa region is prone to drought and erratic rainfall. Eritrea’s soil and water conservation strategy to mitigate the effects of climate change and achieve food security include building small, medium and large dams across the country and terracing its mountainous topography. Eritrea has been able to harvest adequate water, but it will require incorporating innovative water technologies to distribute that water efficiently. Eritrea’s sustained tree-planting project, which also began in 1994, continues with the full participation of the population. The international community will have to glean important lessons from the recent past to ensure that the current period, which many have termed a transition towards a new global order, will lead to and enhance global stability and prosperity.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We are also intensifying our efforts and significantly increasing investment to ensure that all citizens throughout the country enjoy adequate basic services of water, health care, education and transport, as well as a decent livelihood. Eritrea has been making modest strides towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in their three dimensions — economic, social and environmental — with its long-standing policy of a balanced and integrated approach to development. In the past two decades, we have already achieved significant results in several pillars of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) despite limited material resources as well as crippling external adversity, including imposed war and sanctions. Most notable is Eritrea’s achievement in the four health-related MDGs.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“A new promising chapter is indeed likely again. As always, we in the region are ready to work more resolutely with the requisite political will and determination to promote our collective growth through robust coordination and cooperation. We therefore wish to underline that ill-advised, obstructive and detrimental external interferences must cease fully in order to allow the region to effectively address its own matters. In Eritrea, in addition to shouldering our regional responsibilities, we have embarked on a substantive and sustainable programme for economic and social development. We are building our human capital, improving our infrastructure and developing key productive and service sectors.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“As a result, they have been, and remain, hotbeds of instability and impoverishment. That grim reality is in stark contrast to the promising events and hopes engendered in the early 1990s. However, the external and internal complications have obstructed and reversed the laudable initiatives for regional cooperation and integration that were expected at the time. Furthermore, such conditions have created vacuums and favourable climates for terrorist and other subversive forces to proliferate and expand. Here again, a large part of the blame falls on corrupt local actors that avidly sought to promote their narrow interests at the expense of their peoples. All those tribulations notwithstanding, the numerous challenges and impediments that afflicted the Horn of Africa region have been overcome at this time.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“Africa’s lot over the past quarter of a century has indeed been onerous. Africa’s resources were plundered wantonly. Despite hollow phrases of “conflict prevention” and “conflict resolution”, wars and upheavals continue to increase and fester. Almost 1 billion Africans remain marginalized through the collusion of external predators, their local surrogates and corrupt special-interest entities. That tragic reality requires the utmost and urgent attention for effective remedies, beyond sincere expressions of concern and understanding. In that context, the Horn of Africa and Middle East regions have been immensely and inordinately afflicted in the past 25 years by externally instigated, intractable, internecine ethnic and clan conflicts, as well as discord and wars among neighbouring countries.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“The current General Assembly meeting is occurring at a very auspicious time for the Horn of Africa. Positive developments are under way in the region. The sad, painful chapter of domestic turmoil and regional conflicts is giving way to new vistas of internal resurgence and regional cooperation. In global terms, this is a sensitive and delicate period, when the world is at a crossroads — on the cusp of a new world order, so to speak. All vital parameters indicate that the unipolar world order has come to an end or is in its twilight years. The economic power balance is inexorably changing, with a spike in attendant intense rivalries and upheavals. The current session of the General Assembly cannot but grapple with such issues and chart out a viable path for the way forward.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“Over the past six decades, the Eritrean people have waged a long and difficult struggle to advance the cause of justice and foster a climate that is conducive to mutual security and stability in the region. Those robust convictions and that legacy have enabled them to withstand all the wrongs and scars imposed on them by the unfair sanctions. Through their characteristic resilience and hard toil, they have now vanquished the injustices inflicted on them. In conclusion, as I stressed earlier, the people of Eritrea have not committed any crime or transgression that impels them to seek clemency. As such, they are not only calling for the immediate rescinding of the sanctions but they are also asking, and deserve, amends for the damages incurred and opportunities forfeited.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“The sanctions imposed on Eritrea for the past nine years have resulted in considerable economic damage to the country and unnecessary hardships for our people. The related smear and defamation campaigns have done immeasurable damage to the country’s reputation and to the prospects and potential of investment. Perhaps the most significant damage is the regional instability and insecurity that this state of affairs has bred and exacerbated. The actual costs incurred and the opportunities forfeited, at both the national and regional levels, are therefore huge. In the light of the widely acclaimed peace and cooperation that have been brokered in the region, the fact that certain countries are choosing to ignore the stark truth and prolong the sanctions regime in Eritrea is astounding.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“In that context, too, one must remember that the Council failed to take any meaningful action against Ethiopia, despite the fact that previous Ethiopian regimes had flagrantly violated the Charter of the United Nations and the Algiers Agreement guaranteed by the same Security Council when they refused to abide by the final and binding decisions of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission of 13 April 2002. A third factor that drove the imposition of sanctions was the fact that the Governments in place at that time served the agenda of the major Powers. In the case of Eritrea, the principal architects of the sanctions against it resorted to regional Trojan horses designed to mask their resolutions with an African face.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“In that context, is worth remembering that certain officials in those Administrations had considered imposing similar sanctions on Eritrea in 1999 and 2000, at the height of the border war with Ethiopia, in order to impose asymmetrical arrangements by coercive means. The fabricated charges peddled in 2009 were in fact improvised attempts at implementing an overall agenda. The second reason for the imposition of sanctions was the inability of the United Nations system to prevent such wrongs from happening, in particular systemic flaws and political horse-trading in the operations of the Security Council.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“I will not burden the Assembly with the details of the incontrovertible facts of how and why the sanctions were imposed, since all the relevant information, including confidential communications, WikiLeaks and all, has long since been in the public domain and available for scrutiny. However, to sum up, the interplay of forces and factors that resulted in the sanctions was this. First, the principal architects of the sanctions were United States Administrations that felt that they could use their unassailable power and raw coercion to ram punitive measures against a small country and people through the Security Council in order to advance their misguided regional agenda.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“The transgressions against Eritrea are in many ways symptomatic of the hubris and perverse power games that have largely governed international relations in recent times. The spiralling crises, instability, wars and conflicts that have raged, and continue to do so, in various parts of the world are the inevitable consequences of an absence of justice. They are the attendant outcomes of an international power imbalance. When the rule of law is suppressed and supplanted by the logic of force, and when the global power balance is compromised, the inevitable outcomes are intractable crises and escalating wars. It was against that disconcerting global backdrop that Eritrea was first victimized and targeted by unlawful and unfair sanctions, on 23 December 2009.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“With the positive winds of peace blowing in our region, several Security Council members are now calling for the immediate lifting of those deplorable sanctions. However, the diplomatic discourse is not completely coherent. As it happens, some countries are coming up with procedural and other pretexts and preconditions with the apparent aim of moving the goalposts and maintaining the illegal sanctions on Eritrea. As an aggrieved party that has been on the receiving end of a miscarriage of justice for nine long years, Eritrea cannot and will not plead for clemency or magnanimity. The people and the Government of Eritrea will continue to stand up for their rights until justice is achieved and the wrongs done to them have been redressed.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“It has already given the peoples of both countries hope and optimism. The positive dividend for regional peace and security that it has generated is so clear that it does not need emphasis. It is clearly attested to by the new frameworks of all- around cooperation that have been set in motion in the past two months or are in the offing at the regional level. Eritrea would like to express its gratitude to the several countries that contributed in various ways and demonstrated their political goodwill in support of the success of the historical process under way. Let me now turn to a perplexing injustice that has afflicted my country for almost a decade. I am referring to the unwarranted sanctions that were imposed on Eritrea in 2009 and 2011.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)
“Let me join previous speakers in conveying our congratulations to the President for her election to lead the General Assembly at its seventy-third session. Every year, this forum provides a suitable platform for Member States to broach critical issues of international peace and security and their ramifications for national and human development. In that spirit, I would like to draw the Assembly’s attention to key matters of paramount importance to my country and our region as a whole. As those present are all aware, Eritrea and Ethiopia recently signed a historic peace agreement ending a dark two-decade chapter of war, constant tension and strife. This historic achievement, even if it is almost 16 years late, will enable both countries to funnel their resources, potential and positive energy exclusively towards much-needed development.”
2018-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 73 (2018)