10.06.2005
Dear President:
Please, accept our greetings.
It was with surprise and dismay that we at the ELF-RC received your
statement in your Ethiopian trip report of 19 May 2005 in which you
said, inter alia, that: “After Meles [Zenawi] prevailed in 1991
and despite my concerns about Eritrean leadership, he granted Eritrea
complete independence in 1993, cutting Ethiopia off from the Red Sea and
making it the most populous landlocked nation in the world.”
Dear Mr. Carter, it is sad that you volunteered to touch issues that
went well beyond your mission of observing an election; issues that
concern another sovereign country; namely, Eritrea and Eritreans.
In this statement, we read an attempt to deny an already accomplished
right of the Eritrean people for self-determination and national
independence. In other words, we find your comment to be an uncalled for
encouragement to Ethiopian chauvinist forces to go ahead with their
wrong stance of opposition to Eritrea’s deserved accession to
independent statehood; your message, in subtle contradiction to the
efforts of the UN and other regional organisations, would amount to a
call for the renewal of hostilities between the two countries.
Genuine friends of the Eritrean and Ethiopian peoples believe that the
path taken by the EPRDF government in regard to the Eritrean cause was
correct and historical. For us Eritreans, independence was something
inevitable because of our determination to bring it about at very high
costs. It was not a gift from anyone. Independence was what the small
Eritrean nation wanted to enjoy and finally seized it against all heavy
challenges.
It is important to be fully aware of the fact that between 1941 and
1991, Eritrea and Ethiopia witnessed a costly struggle that deprived
peace, prosperity and stability to the two fraternal peoples. There were
high prospects of peaceful and prosperous co-existence of the two
peoples after 1991 were it not to the destructive behaviour of a
deranged militarist leader in Eritrea. Still, it is our strong
conviction that Eritrea and Ethiopia will live in good neighbourliness,
peace and prosperity when the whimsical dictator in Asmara is removed
and replaced by a democratic government of the people.
With best regards,
Tekle Melekin
Head of International Relations