A Fool’s Errand

Mogos Tekeste

The People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) is set to demonstrate against the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) Resolution 1907 through massive showings of its followers in the streets of Washington DC, San Francisco, Melbourne and Geneva on February 22, 2010. The questions that arise are: what are the demonstrations for and why are they not set in New York City?

Background

The UNSC is composed of five veto-wielding permanent and ten non veto-wielding non-permanent nations. The five veto-wielding members are: (1) the USA; (2) the UK; (3) France; (4) Russia and (5) China, and for the 2009-term, the ten non-permanent members of the Security Council were: (1) Burkina Faso;(2) Libya; (3) Uganda;(4) Vietnam; (5) Japan;(6) Costa Rica; (7) Mexico; (8) Turkey;(9) Austria; and (10) Croatia. Source: 2009 SC

The UNSC’s Resolution 1907 is a legal verdict, under Chapter VII and it complied with article 27 of the United Nations (UN) Charter, which states that: “Security Council decisions on all substantive matters require the affirmative votes of nine members. A negative vote or veto … by a permanent member prevents adoption of a proposal, even if it has received the required number of affirmative votes (9).” Source: Security Council. The resolution was adopted by a 13 “yes” votes, 1 “no” vote by a non-veto wielding member, and 1 “abstention.” This means there is no other higher international legal authority that Eritrea can appeal to in order to annul the resolution. The only thing left for Eritrea is to strictly comply with all the directives and requirements of the resolution, and at best only then will the sanctions be lifted. The time for petitions, street demonstrations and politics are already gone.

Why not New York City?

Of all places the PFDJ has no plans to demonstrate its displeasure of the Resolution 1907 in front of the UN headquarters in New York City -- the very city where the sanctions against Eritrea took place. And yet there are plans of demonstrations in places as odd as Melbourne, Australia – a nation that is not a permanent member of the UNSC nor a non-permanent member of the 2010 term, and San Francisco, California – it looks just for the heck of it. There seems to be no rationale and logic.

New York City is the permanent home of the UNSC, and since its inception the UNSC is in a continuous secession. “Security Council members must always be present at UN headquarters in New York so that the Security Council can meet at any time. This requirement of the United Nations Charter was adopted to address a weakness of the League of Nations since that organization was often unable to respond quickly to a crisis.” Source: Security Council.

The Resolution 1907 cannot be annulled through a show of demonstration. Still, if the PFDJ wants to demonstrate, then it is illogical to avoid New York City. The plan to demonstrate in Washington DC and not in New York City may have originated from several misconceptions.

First, by going to Washington DC the PFDJ may believe that it can influence the State Department, president Obama and Congress, all, at the same time on the necessity of the “annulment” of the Resolution 1907. It is wrong on all counts.

Congress has oversight but no direct and active role on the conduct of the foreign policy of the USA – that role strictly resides with the executive branch of the government. The State Department though it has overall coordination of the foreign policy of the USA, when it comes to the UN and UNSC, the permanent representative of the USA to the UN has complete control.

The ambassador of the USA to the UN directly reports to the president bypassing the State Department. This is not the Bush Administration whose disrespect for international institutions had no bounds. The PFDJ may have wrongly assumed that the representative of the USA to the UN in the Obama Administration continues as is without qualitative reporting changes from that of the Bush Administration. How wrong they are. This is extremely elementary, yet the PFDJ does not have a grasp even of basic facts. Susan Rice who is head of the USA mission to the UN has a cabinet post just like Hillary Clinton of the State Department, and both of them directly report to president Obama. This means that Susan Rice has complete control of the Resolution 1907 as far as the USA is concerned. See Susan Rice.

Second, dictators assume that all leaders are like them, and that they wrongly believe that even democratic leaders may overturn a carefully studied decision willy-nilly. President Isaias may have assumed that president Obama behaves like the way the president of Eritrea behaves – that is contradict and overturn a policy today despite the fact the very same policy was initiated by him only yesterday. Moreover, in the USA the president respects the wisdom of his cabinet secretaries (ministers), unlike the ministers in Eritrea. The cabinet secretaries have complete freedom to pursue policies that advance the national interests of the USA. A decision is achieved basically through a methodical serious study by cabinet ministers in their respective jurisdictions with the final blessings and tweaking of the president. There is a delegation of responsibilities. This is not a nation ruled by one man. More, it is “a nation of laws and not men.” And the Resolution 1907 is a law.

Third, even if we assume that president Obama were going to have second thoughts about the wisdom of the Resolution 1907, there is nothing he or the USA can do now. The Resolution 1907 has become a law. And a president cannot overturn a law be it in his own national jurisdiction or otherwise.

The Resolution 1907 is in the international jurisdiction and is owned by all members of the UN and UNSC; the USA has no longer full control of it. That is why New York City is more important than Washington DC. France and the UK compared to the USA are economically small nations; they cannot have a strong influence as the USA has in the international arena; the only place they are on equal footing with the USA is in the UNSC; the veto powers of France and the UK are as strong as the veto power of the USA. The same goes with Russia and China; in addition historically they had always been at odds with the USA in the UNSC. All this seems to be lost among the supporters of the PFDJ regime. Influencing only the USA will not do. The other four veto-wielding power nations at the UNSC are as influential as the USA. Staging demonstrations against the Resolution 1907 in Washington DC, Geneva, Melbourne and San Francisco is nothing but a fool’s errand.

Ineptitude in Diplomacy

The PFDJ alleges that it is not guilty as charged by the Resolution 1907. If so then how was it unable to extricate itself from the “trap?” Does this mean that the PFDJ is openly admitting that it is not capable to legally and diplomatically defend itself in the international arena? To speak for myself, yes it is true that the PFDJ is incompetent in the fields of international law and diplomacy and most of its practices at home and abroad are illegal. The PFDJ’s inherent nature of illegality had more to do with its undoing at the UNSC than its diplomatic awkwardness.

Still, an elaboration of the PFDJ’s diplomatic ineptitude using a very simplistic possible scenario (many other scenarios could be proposed) is necessary to illustrate that the PFDJ does not do any wise calculation ahead of time before it suddenly finds itself into a quandary. Out of the ten non-permanent nations of the UNSC only Uganda, if at all, may be antagonistic to Eritrea, since its role in Somalia is opposite to that of Eritrea. The rest, at most, are neutral to what is going on in the Horn of Africa. Since Eritrea was assured of a “no” vote from Libya, it only needed to convince the other eight non-permanent members of the UNSC to simply take a neutral stand of abstention (this is ignoring Uganda); they do not even have to cast a “no” vote to the Resolution 1907. In that case, the Resolution 1907 would not have passed. The result would have been: five “yes,” one “no” and nine “abstentions;” and this would not have fulfilled the requirements of Article 27 of the Charter. Not only is the PFDJ diplomatically inept, but it is also clueless about figures and numbers. Simple common sense dictates that one does such a calculation and gets assurances from some nations before the Resolution 1907 come to the casting of votes. One is not supposed to leave it to simple chance. This was in the air for a very long time. That the PFDJ could not get abstentions from Burkina Faso, Japan, Costa Rica, Mexico, Turkey, Austria, and Croatia is astounding.

The PFDJ is isolated from the power shakers and movers of the world – the USA, the UK, France, Russia and China. It is also isolated from the rest of the world as the votes of the non-permanent nations of the UNSC clearly show. This is a teaching moment for those Eritreans who are still sitting in the fence instead of opposing the PFDJ regime.

The Ramification of Chapter VII

The Resolution 1907 was passed under Chapter VII. This is the most serious legal penalty that the UNSC can impose on a nation. To put this in perspective, “from 1967 to 1989 the UNSC passed 131 resolutions directly addressing the Arab-Israel conflict,” none was passed explicitly stating Chapter VII, despite the fact that the Arab-Israel conflict is a very serious matter. See: Resolution on Israel

Resolutions passed under Chapter VII are also legally binding on all members of the UN. The UNSC gave Eritrea ample time to mend its erroneous ways. We, Eritreans, have to understand the gravity and ramifications of Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Chapter VII in part is as follows:

· “Under Chapter Seven, the Council has broader power to decide what measures are to be taken in situations involving ‘threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression’. In such situations, the Council is not limited to recommendations but may take action, including the use of armed force ‘to maintain or restore international peace and security’. This was the basis for UN armed action in Korea in 1950 during the Korean War and the use of coalition forces in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. Decisions taken under Chapter Seven, such as economic sanctions, are binding on UN members.” [emphasis mine] Source: Security Council.

· “The UN Charter's prohibition of member states of the UN attacking other UN member states is central to the purpose for which the UN was founded in the wake of the destruction of World II: to prevent war. This overriding concern is also reflected in the Nuremberg Trials' concept of a crime against peace "starting or waging a war against the territorial integrity, political independence or sovereignty of a state, or in violation of international treaties or agreements..." (crime against peace), which was held to be the crime that makes all war crimes possible.” Source: Chapter VII

The implementation of the Resolution 1907 is “within 120 days of the adoption” of the resolution. See Paragraph 20 of the Resolution 1907. According to my calculation, the drop date of the implementation is by April 21, 2010 or thereabouts. By April 21, 2010, all members of the UN have to report to the UNSC and show clearly how they plan to implement the Resolution 1907 in their respective jurisdictions. As for Eritrea, it has to prove to the UNSC that it has completely complied with all the directives.

Absent of that, on top of the economic sanctions, the UNSC has now a legal cover under Chapter VII to use the threat of a military force, if it so desires, to compel Eritrea to abide by its orders. This is an extremely grim situation for Eritrea. The remedy is not though by a show of a mob and cult followers aka Hitler in the streets, nor is it by conducting petitions, nor is it by appealing to president Obama, as the followers of the PFDJ plan to do on February 22, 2010. Since it is a legal requirement, and there is no other superior legal organ that one can appeal to, one is left with a single recourse -- simply comply with all the directives in their entirety. This is akin to the situation when the Supreme Court of the USA passes a verdict on a certain issue; once the verdict is issued, then it is not appealable, one is forced to abide by the decision. The question that follows then what comes next?

On the surface, it may appear that once Eritrea complies with the Resolution 1907 then everything will return back to normal. I believe the reality is yes and no. At its best, the sanctions will be lifted from Eritrea, and in that case, yes, everything will be back to normal.

When it comes to the fates of the Eritrean leaders though it is a completely different matter, based on the Resolution 1907, the UNSC has already tacitly charged the Eritrean leaders as guilty in the destruction of properties and the loss of lives in both Somalia and Djibouti either as auxiliaries or as active and direct participants. This is an important concealed message in the resolution. This verdict of guilty will hover over the Eritrean leaders’ heads. This means that the UNSC has already done all the important leg works and indispensable documentation for any international lawyer or human rights activist to bring those said leaders in a court of law to be charged for crimes against humanity. The Eritrean leaders will not be able to avoid this, and it appears that finally they are legally caught for all their bad deeds not in Eritrea but in the international arena. Charles Taylor of Liberia was brought to detention legally not for his crimes against his own people, but in the role he played outside his nation in Sierra Leone. It appears there are some similarities here. See Charles Taylor

Maybe this tacit charge that is embedded in the Resolution 1907 is haunting the Eritrean leaders that from their perspective whether they comply with the 1907 resolution or not become irrelevant, since they have already put themselves in a no win situation. Consequently, they may have cruelly decided to take the whole Eritrean nation to the ditch with them. The only wise thing we, Eritreans, have to do, particularly those of us who are also American citizens, is to distance ourselves from the PFDJ and completely wash our hands from its sins.

All past posts are compiled at: http://www.eritreamereb.blogspot.com/