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Editorial:
On
Posting the �Official� Statement of the Government of Meles Zenawi
By Tecola Hagos
For the sake of
information and in trying to have, as far as possible, a fair reading of
political development taking place in Ethiopia, our Website is posting the
Statement released by the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA), which is the
nearest thing to an official �Press Release� by the Government of
Meles Zenawi, on Sudan�s annexation of Ethiopian territory. The
Ethiopian Government has issued through its Propaganda outlet the ENA
condemning the opposition and other �irresponsible� bodies for
disseminating news and comments about the Ethiopian Government�s
activities in alienating Ethiopian territory. �The ministry of foreign
affairs said some mass media and irresponsible bodies have been
disseminating groundless information by saying that the government has
given a part of Ethiopia�s territory to Sudan.� The responsible course
of action for the Government of Meles is to be transparent in all of its
activities and publish what it has done in the Ethiopia-Sudan border
situation/conflict rather than accuse patriotic Ethiopians for defending
the interest of Ethiopia.
The Government of Meles
Zenawi is once again involved in a Catch-22 type circular argument, a kind
of semantics to cover its deceptions and its anti-Ethiopia policy. By
designating that Sudan, a non existing entity at the time of the
negotiation of what is claimed to be 1907 and 1908 conventions, as an
entity that has some how original title to the territory being ceded to
it, the Government of Meles is arguing a circular argument by claiming
that Meles is not giving away Ethiopian territory but returning what is
already Sudanese Territory. The Government�s statement has several
fallacious arguments meant to cover the treason being committed against
Ethiopia. Yeleba eynederq lib yaderq!
What
is paramount to this case of loss of Ethiopian territory is the fact that
Ethiopia for over four hundred years has incorporated a piece of territory
legitimately by conquest and/or occupation, and/or annexation of land not
from the Sudan because there was no �Sudan� in existence at the time,
but from existing tribal areas or terra
nullius. There may have been contending forces, including Arab
dominated new settlers non-Africans in the area that came much later in
the seventeenth century whose claim to that part of the territory in
dispute was no better than those of Ethiopia but very much less to
nothing. Those contending tribes and nomadic new settlers were all in the
process of conversion into Islam and trying to forge a nation, so was
Ethiopia albeit in its advanced form. One is no better entitled than the
other. It is a matter of who ends up in Sovereign control. Therefore,
there is no reason for us to give up land that we have controlled for
several centuries, the recent being from the time of Emperor Tewodros II,
a century and a half ago.
The
acquisition of territory by conquest was the accepted norm of
international law at the time the territory now being ceded by Meles
Zenawi Zenawi come under the Sovereign control of Ethiopia. The act of
�Sovereign� power exercise over a territory was the only single
standard in international law that was applicable and dispositive of our
claim or that of any one that challenges our Ethiopian Sovereignty. [See
the Island of Palmas case, defined the prerequisites for the
acquisition of sovereignty; see the award of April 1928 in UN Reports
of International Arbitral Awards II; �Legal Status of Eastern
Greenland Case� P.C.I.J (1933); R.Y. Jennings, The Acquisition of
Territory in International Law (New York, NY: Oceana Publications,
1963).] The intertemporal principle of international law is applicable to
our Ethiopian claim of sovereignty on the Ethiopian territories being
illegally annexed by Sudan with the consent of Meles Zenawi in violation
of the Ethiopian Constitutional provisions. The Island
of Palmas (1928) case holds, �As regards the question which of
different legal systems prevailing at successive periods is to be applied
in a particular case (the so-called intertemporal law), a distinction must
be made between the creation of rights and the existence of rights. The
same principle which subjects the act creative of a right to the law in
force at the time the right arises, demands that the existence of the
right, in other words its continued manifestation, shall follow the
conditions required by the evolution of law.�
For
example, in addition to the Island of Palmas (1928) case that laid
out the scope of the principle of temporality, the draft provision by the
Institute of International Law, in Article 1 provides the doctrine of
intertemporal norm in international law. In Article 1 it stated, �Unless
otherwise indicated, the temporal sphere of application of any norm of
public international law shall be determined in accordance with the
general principle of law by which any fact, action or situation must be
assessed in the light of the rules of law that are contemporaneous with
it.� [The Institute of International
Law, Eleventh Commission, 11 August 1975]
The
fact that there was negotiation and dispute or challenge by Sudan in the
past does not completely negate the principle of territorial acquisition
as laid out above, which entitles Ethiopia with the rights and privileges
of a Sovereign to all the territory that is illegally being annexed by
Sudan now. Meles�s Government has repeatedly shown its skewed ideas of
what is meant by negotiation in international conflicts in the Sudan as
well as the Eritrea border disputes. There is no �absolute� in
international claims of limited starting point, except what one claims to
be the case. Thus, the Ethiopian government must claim as extensively as
it is possible even to the extent of all land all the way to ancient Meroe,
rather than assume these stupid pretentions of judiciousness at the
expense of our interest. I
shall elaborate all the issues raised in this Editorial and elsewhere in
other essays I have written dealing with the issue of Ethiopian territory
and Sovereignty, in my upcoming article �Ethiopian Territorial Integrity
and Ethiopiawinet: Sudan
annexing Ethiopian Territory: Part Two.�
Tecola W. Hagos
Washington
DC
May
11, 2008
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