The Commission�s decision to act beyond its restrictively defined terms of reference led it to use both the pre-1928 and the pre-1935 maps and that in violation of what is clearly said by the so-called colonial treaties. The Commission also tried to make analogies with the decisions of the international court of justice whereas, as an arbitration tribunal, its terms of reference were restrictively defined. While this is the case, the president of the Commission has arrantly lied by saying that the tribunal made the decision not on the basis of who administered Badme in recent years but according to the colonial treaties.

Again, the Commission has made it clear in its March 21 , 2003 ruling that Badme was given to Eritrea because the map presented by Ethiopia showed that Badme indeed was in Eritrean territory. While this is the fact, why does the EPRDF strongman looks for a �trial of strength� with the Commission by accusing it of having committed a miscarriage of justice? Isn�t he the very person who is the principal cause of the miscarriage of justice for which he is now shading crocodile tears? Aren�t he and his top lieutenants who barefacedly speak of Ethiopian colonialism contra mundum?

When the Commission says that Badme is Eritrean and that based on the evidence presented by the Eritrean prime minister�s lawyers and representatives, one should not forget that it is referring to the legal principle that the evidence produced by a party can serve as proof in favour of the other party. So the statement by the president of the Commission that made a legal decision and therefore any terminal crisis would vanish if Ethiopia complied with the decision is an arrogant mockery on his part on the right of Ethiopians to fight for the respect of their territorial sovereignty. The Commission decided in accordance with the wishes of EPRDF and not in accordance with international law. That is what is clearly written in the decision of the April 2002 decision.

I was also flabbergasted by the statements of an American law professor, advocate of Eritrea in The Hague. With the intention of defaming Ethiopia, he said that he had studied all arbitration decisions since the mid of the 19th century and added that it was, in his knowledge, Ethiopia which for the first time in the history of arbitration, refused to abide by an arbitration decision. This is not true. There are many countries which refused to be abided by an arbitration decision. Two examples can be given for the sake proving that the American lawyer did not tell the truth. Argentina�s refusal in the arbitration decision with Chile, and that of Nigeria�s refusal versus Cameroon. On the contrary, should we remind the American professor that he is the first lawyer in the history of international arbitration to have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing nothing in favor of Eritrea? I say he did nothing because the main job of Eritrea was done by the so-called Ethiopian government. Even the Commission did not have to toil as the �Ethiopian government� did the pleading for Eritrea. It took two years for the Commission to hear the so-called pleadings and counter pleadings and to write the one hundred and thirty five pages decision which , one should know, is not devoted to examining the case in detail but to interpreting colonial treaties, which as we showed above are null and void. The real decision is written in two pages.

What we are unable to understand is that how these international lawyers could deem relevant the application of general international law principles of interpretation to non-existent and void colonial treaties. They made it clear in the preamble to their decision that they would not enquire into the validity /invalidity of colonial treaties because they did not have jurisdiction to do so. But by applying general international law principles of interpretation to colonial treaties which are not valid in the eyes of international law, they recognized indirectly that those colonial treaties were valid. This is begging the question. One cannot apply to colonial treaties the principles of interpretation which can only apply to valid treaties.

From this, it follows that the only justification for America and British governments for insisting that Ethiopia should abide by The Hague based arbitrator�s decision is that the EPRDF strongman has agreed that the decision would be final and binding and that Ethiopia should now abide even though the decision is not based on international legality. What we are saying is that the Eritrean prime minister is not the territorial personification of Ethiopia unless American and British leaders espouse the undemocratic argument that he is the Ethiopian state as King Louis XIV is reported to have said that he was the French state. But we are in the 21st century and not in 17th century. Even then, it is very wrong to compare the incomparable because the great 17th century European state builder cannot be compared with the great 21st century nemesis of the Ethiopian state. From this point of view, no doubt that the members of the Commission have committed a shocking travesty of justice against Ethiopia. The American and British governments know that full well. The problem is that these governments refuse, for imperialistic reasons, to carry the torch of international rule of law against which they should have measured the legality of the weyane policy of Eritrea and of the Border Commission�s decision. If that was not the case, they cannot have accepted the weyane leader�s propaganda that Ethiopia colonized Eritrea. Wasn�t it the British administration which transferred Eritrea to Ethiopian sovereignty according to the resolution of the UN General Assembly? If they want to forget history and law, it is their problem. But it is unethical and illegal to ask Ethiopians to forget their history and to ignore their sovereign right.

So should one wonder if they insist on defending the commission that it decided according to �international law�? But all this sophistry is not coincidence. There are indications which lead us to think that the Ethiopian national debacle is in fact was orchestrated. In this regard, the choice of the members of the Commission seems to have been made in such a way as to give a semblance of legality to such unprecedented criminal activity against a sovereign and international law abiding nation.

It is essential to know that the decision to go to arbitration, the determination of the terms of reference of the arbitration tribunal and the appointment of the members of that tribunal is a well thought political decision. As such the decision serves some ulterior motives destined to promote one�s own national interest. This rationale in its negative aspect is not either absent in Ethiopia-Eritrea case. It can be figured out a posteriori from the Algiers conspiracy and from the April 13 decision that that logic was well thought and prepared in such a way as to promote fully Eritrea�s territorial aggrandizement by ceding Ethiopian territories in the name of international law. In order to ease the poverty of Italy provoked by population increase, Italian colonialists thought that there was a need for additional land for colonial settlers in Eritrea; and to do that they had to take more and more land from the rest of Ethiopia. Now the same logic pervades over the policy of Eritrean leaders and their few faithful servants from Tigray province. They are perfectly aware that Eritrea can not be a viable state in this era of globalization where, leave alone midget states like Eritrea, even relatively big countries like Ethiopia have many difficulties which they cannot solve alone. So the best way to do is to take Ethiopian territories with the help of their agents in Ethiopia, foreign governments, the United Nations and the seemingly independent border Commission. We have shown above how the Border Commission made its decision against Ethiopia by saying that if EPRDF said this or that it would follow it even if it was against the terms of reference restrictively defined.

In domestic litigation when a judge observes that a party has a problem in defending its cause, the judge orders that the party be given legal assistance. The reason is to avoid injustice. Moreover, when a judge observes that an advocate has failed to defend properly his client, the judge can order that the interested party hire another advocate. This is also to avoid injustice. Thus, if one accepts the truth that legality should be respected whether in international or domestic disputes, then it goes without saying that justice can not be said to have been done in the case under consideration ;because the Commission was interested only in the outcome of its decision irrespective of how that outcome is arrived at. The Commission knows that its decision impacts greatly on seventy million people. It knows also that the Ethiopian people, after sacrificing their sons, would certainly not say that Tserona, Fort Cadorna were Eritrean. They would not certainly produce evidence which show that Badme and a part of the Afar region, Gulo-mekeda , and a part of Irob belong to Eritrea. They would not certainly say that the 60 km distance from the coast should be defined as meaning a coastline of the continent.

Therefore, instead of making an ex-parte decision in favor of Eritrea, the members of the Commission should have tendered, in the name of ethics and respect for legality, their resignation when they discovered that they were made to commit injustice against a sovereign country under the pretext that a dictatorial regime pleads for a country which it says officially is its enemy. Instead what they have done is the exact opposite. They say that their illegal decision is legal because that is what the so-called Ethiopian government wants. But who are these lawyers who don�t care a straw about international ethics and rule of law? We know nothing about them save about some of them by their writings. Why were they chosen and why not others? It is very difficult to answer this question with precision. Nonetheless, we know the practice of states in international settlement disputes. Before making their choice public, states enquire into the nationality of the lawyer. This enables them to know his conception of international law. All countries don�t have the same conception of international law because of the divergence in their national interests. A British international lawyer is, as a rule, made to study the international law conception and practice of British governments. Even if the lawyer can have his own independent judgment, it is also a fact that a student cannot be completely outside the legal culture in which he has been trained. So the knowledge of the nationality of a would be arbitration judge helps to have a general view of his conception of international law and to have an idea of how he would dispose of the particular case. One can also enquire into the scientific writings of the would be arbitration judge, that is, his doctoral dissertation, his books, his articles published in international law journals if there are any, his pleadings if he has ever defended another country�s case, his concurring or dissenting opinions if he sat as a member of the international court of justice or of some other arbitration court et cetera. And finally, one can enquire into the would be judge�s and his government�s position toward the parties to the conflict. There can be lawyers who, for personal or national reasons, can have a bias in favor or against one of the parties. This is to say that all these elements are taken into consideration before a country chooses a lawyer to represent it, or before it agrees for a judge to be a member of an arbitration to which it is a party.

So my hypothesis (I repeat it is a mere hypothesis) is that the members of the Commission might have been appointed by taking the above mentioned points into consideration. And this hypothesis explains perhaps better the secret of the zero-sum game in favor of Eritrea. The same can be said about the so-called Ethiopian diplomats and lawyers. There are patriotic diplomats and lawyers who do everything possible to defend their country�s cause. There are also those who seek their personal career advancement and who, to this end, don�t hesitate to sell their soul to the devil. We know that in present day Ethiopia any Ethiopian who promotes primarily the well-being of the nation is in EPRDF�s bad graces. In other words, EPRDF can only appoint some one who are more interested in their personal financial well-being and who as a result are ready to sell the country. In view of this, the behaviour of the Ethiopian diplomats and lawyers in The Hague and after it can be the subject of different interpretation. One can say that they have deliberately hurt the country as some Ethiopians seem to argue. As far as the lawyers are concerned, one can also say that they had no choice but to respect the instruction they were given. In that case, shouldn�t have they tendered their resignation rather than being used as an instrument of injustice against the country which pays them a handsome salary?

Are the unpatriotic arguments of the Ethiopian lawyers a direct consequence of their incompetence? For us the answer is definitely no. Those individuals are not incompetent. The case is not either very difficult. It requires only a true commitment to defend the country�s sovereignty although it is absolutely impossible to defend Ethiopia�s right on the basis of the Algiers conspiracy. It gives unduly more importance to Eritrea�s sixty years of history under foreign rule than to two thousand years of its Ethiopianness and flouts international law by indirectly considering Ethiopia as the last colonial power in Eritrea. But, above all, the Ethiopian lawyers had an army of foreign international law advocates and cartographers as their consultants.

The question that Ethiopians pose is why are the American, British governments and the UN Security Council intimidating Ethiopia that she would face a punishment if she doesn�t accept passively the unprecedented injustice meted out to her by internal and external forces? Isn�t the decision of some American Congressmen to adopt a bill that aims to punish Ethiopians if they insist on demanding the unconditional respect of their sovereignty a blatant interference in the internal affairs of Ethiopia and that in total violation of international law which has set up non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states as one of the bedrock principles of international law? Why does the American Government want to impose on Ethiopia two immoral sanctions in a space of five years as if the Ethiopian people have ever acted against American interests? Why are they so interested and so involved in the demarcation process against Ethiopia? Why don�t they adopt a neutral position? America does not have any leg to stand on for imposing sanctions against Ethiopia unless it wants to help Eritrea illegally. America is really hypocritical to champion human rights and democracy and at the same time to be a proper-up and a paymaster of dictators. If America were really interested in the respect of democracy and human rights, it could use its influence to prod its client regime in Ethiopia to be respectful of human rights and democracy.

One should not however forget that the American government�s illegal and unfriendly behaviour towards Ethiopia is a function of EPRDF�s decision to make Ethiopia a satellite of the American government. Every body knows that Ethiopia�s rulers legitimacy is based not on the will of the Ethiopian people but on the support they get from some members of the CIA and the American administration. That is why EPRDF strong man says shamelessly that if Ethiopia does this or that, if Ethiopia doesn�t do this or that, America will be angry. Although the economic and political dependence of the so-called Third world countries on the Western states is a well-trodden subject by both proponents of dependency and world-system theories, Ethiopia�s dependence on America and on America dominated international financial institutions is very different in comparison to other countries because in Ethiopia there is a deliberate policy to make Ethiopia completely dependent on America. Very allergic to Ethiopian patriotism, EPRDF strongman has said good-bye to Ethiopian sovereignty. Arguably, he wants to raise the bogeyman of American economic sanction to intimidate Ethiopians into accepting his exceedingly Eritrea friendly policies without demur.

Since the downfall of the Dergue, Ethiopia has become completely dependent on Western economic aid to finance its military and civil bureaucracy and to feed its population. In other words, Ethiopia at present cannot rely on her own resources although there is no doubting that she has the potential to be the granary of at least half of the African continent. As a result, Robert Jackson�s quasi-state paradigm can be mutatis mutandis applicable to Ethiopia in as much as the present regime prefers banking on foreign aid to mobilizing the nation�s human and material resources with view to the developing the country�s productive forces. According to the above mentioned writer, a quasi state is not a sovereign state as long as it does not have the economic, political and military resources that enable it to fully enjoy all the attributes of state sovereignty (Robert H. Jackson: Quasi states: sovereignty, international relations and the third World, New York, Cambridge University Press). Although Jackson�s conclusions are totally untenable (because he advocates that the Western nations exercise political and economic tutorship on quasi-states ), there is no doubt that Ethiopia�s sovereignty even nominally has been abandoned by EPRDF strongman�s decision to make Ethiopia a satellite of America in exchange for America�s uncritical protection. The blatant interference of the American, British and Canadian governments on Ethiopia�s internal affairs and their audacity to present themselves as supra national legislators on Ethiopia ought to lead us, we Ethiopians, to ask ourselves if these countries are not sensitive to the arguments of Robert Jackson and to make Ethiopia their first experiment for their neo-imperial domination. Because they seem to be saying that Ethiopians should swallow their national pride and sovereignty as long as Western taxpayers continue pay for the economic and political bills of the regime in Ethiopia.

Needless to say, Ethiopians believe sincerely that they are proud and independent people. It is impossible for them to accept the idea that a foreign European/American governments can dare give orders to them. Because of this, some foreign scholars tend to believe that unlike many governments in Anglophone and Francophone Africa, Ethiopian governments don�t seek or accept orders from the West in a servile manner; but that unlike other African countries, Ethiopian governments manipulate the policies of Western governments to promote their individual interest or their stay in power. This analysis seems to be more or less plausible all the more so the American government�s decision to adopt a law which aims to impose economic sanctions against Ethiopia seems to have been lobbied by Ethiopia�s internal and external enemies.

Nothing demonstrates more the veracity of the deliberate neglect of Ethiopian sovereignty than the repeated warning by the regime that American will be angry if we do this or that, the IMF(the World Bank included ) will withhold loans for developmental projects if we do this or that ; Western donors will refuse to send food to famine stricken compatriots if we do this or that. Arguably, the neglect of Ethiopian sovereignty is intended to weaken the Ethiopian culture of self reliance and resilience. It is a fact that a nation which does not rely on its own human resources, on its capacity to solve its problems be it economical, political or military by itself and by its own limited means is sooner or later doomed to extinction or to be enslaved by others.

Thus, the reason why EPRDF strong man has decided to make Ethiopia deliberately dependent on America and America dominated international financial backers is that he is very unhappy about the pride of Ethiopians on their Ethiopianness and history. The arrant lying that Ethiopia is hundred years old, the denigration that the Ethiopian flag is a simple piece of rag, the defamation that Ethiopian kings were war mongering and that they are responsible for the present wide spread famine is part and parcel of the policy of weakening Ethiopian patriotism. That said, the absence of a wise American foreign policy towards Ethiopia during a long time has no doubt favored such a neglect of Ethiopia�s sovereignty. Nonetheless, given that the Ethiopian people are the most devoted friends of the American people, it is difficult to understand why American governments have been committing such diplomatic aggression against a friendly people who sent their sons to ensure American national interest in Korea. The possible answer to this might be that the incumbents in Washington don�t have a good grasp of international and regional politics or that they are completely insensitive to international law and ethics. They want to fight against terrorism in the Horn of Africa but one cannot say that they don�t know that Saudi wahabism has posed a great threat to Ethiopia�s peace and stability. American and British governments should be made to understand that the advent of a strong, patriotic and democratic government which has the full backing of the Ethiopian people is in their long term interest and in the interest even of the Eritrean people.

In sum, EPRDF strong man�s hobby horse that law prevails over Ethiopians is as usual the other way of saying that Eritrea�s interest prevails over that of Ethiopia. It is a fact that the rule of law is deeply ingrained in Ethiopian tradition. Arnaud d�Abbadie wrote in 1868: �Ethiopians have a great faculty of critical analysis and a deep legal knowledge; injustice is their worst enemy.� Because of this, no one can be impressed by the present trial of strength with The Hague based commission. The Commission has done what its political patrons expected it to do. But if the Commission now serves as a scapegoat, it is because the regime is afraid of the hostile public reaction against its high treason. Power should be kept by any means. That is why when the phony discourse on the observance of the rule of law has been rejected by Ethiopians, political negotiation to solve the �deadlock� has become the mantra du jour of the regime and its imperialist patrons in a bid to facilitate the cession of Ethiopian territories step by step so that any popular opposition can be curbed. That reminds us the adage �chi va piano, va sano�. Otherwise, if the process of demarcation were to be implemented as it was intended at the outset, the regimes in Ethiopia and Eritrea and their imperialist patrons know fully well that there will be no guarantee that Eritrea in general and Eritrean colonial settlers in particular can live peacefully in Ethiopian land while Ethiopians suffer from illegal dislocation. We fear lest the implementation of the illegal Algiers conspiracy spell a situation where Ethiopians, obliged by the unprecedented injustice imposed on them, are led to say �everybody will have peace or no one will have it.� That is why the Algiers Conspiracy is a divine visitation on the region. The international community should know that if EPRDF ignores and violates all international and Ethiopian laws which respect Ethiopia�s territorial sovereignty and its adequate access to the Red sea (the expression �adequate access to the Red sea� was used for the first time by the United Nations General Assembly in its Resolution 390 (V), then EPRDF and the UN are setting a very perilous precedent. No Ethiopian government after EPRDF will be bound by illegal acts of the EPRDF. Legally speaking, no amount of foreign support can make legal EPRDF�s illegal acts. Ethiopian sovereign right and its access to the sea is supra constitutional and can never be violated by the Algiers Conspiracy. So we cannot see the wisdom of the fuss by British and American governments to give a semblance of legality to an illegal act. If leaders of America and Great Britain are ready to respect the rule of law, we ask them to judge the so-called Ethiopian government according to the constitutional practices of their countries. In other words, they must work for the respect of democracy and rule of law in their international relations too.

Now, having demonstrated in detail the phony nature of the argument that Ethiopia fought for the respect of the rule of law and not to keep villages like the �godforsaken village� of Badme, we believe that the building of rule of law is the only means to save the country from political and economic quagmire. Part III (which is the last part of this series ) will be dedicated to a brief discussion of this issue.

Tesggai Mebrahtu

December 2, 2003