Eritrea

February 27, 2013

On 25 February 2013, in the middle of the night, three Eritrean community centers in Stockholm, Sweden, were set on fire.  According to a statement issued by Eritrean Communities in Stockholm, these centers were places where the community gathered for all forms of its social life. These were centers where children took lesson in their mother tongue during the weekends, and "women’s gatherings, family celebrations, community meetings and all sorts of social functions" also took place at these centers.

A little over six months ago, three key members, including two of the 5 permanent representatives, of the UN Security Council raised serious questions about the integrity and veracity of the 2011 report on Eritrea of the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group. The challenges from the Russian, Chinese and South African representatives questioned the veracity of the key charges by the group against the young African nations, and some of them urged the monitoring group to do a better job in its future report.

We are once again writing you to ask you to stop another potential bloodbath between Eritrea and Ethiopia before it is too late by enforcing the rule of international law. Not only does the U.S. have an obligation and responsibility to do so, but it is also the only power capable of bringing Ethiopia to its senses. As you remember well the US, under President Clinton’s leadership, had played a constructive role in bringing the 1998-2000 war to an end by serving as a facilitator between the two countries and authoring the 2000 Algiers Agreement.

As Americans of Eritrean descent, once again, we would like to express our profound regret that 10 years after the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission’s (EEBC) final and binding ruling on the border, the Eritrea-Ethiopia border remains physically undemarcated and Ethiopia is still occupying sovereign Eritrean territories in defiance of the EEBC’s delimitation and demarcation decisions. Not only is this a violation of the Dec. 12, 2000 Algiers Agreement, which the UN was a guarantor, it also continues to be at the heart of the threat to peace and security to the entire Horn of Africa region.

The Organization of Eritrean Americans, on behalf of Eritreans living in the United States, wishes to express its deepest condolences on the untimely death of the Honorable Congressman Donald M. Payne (D-NJ), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on the Committee for Foreign Affairs. Congressman Payne gave his state and his nation nearly a quarter of a century of dedicated service as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was first elected to Congress in 1988 as the first African American congressman from the state of New Jersey.