by Nick Freundlich
The Security Council of the United Nations recently urged Ethiopia and Eritrea to settle the dispute over their common border peacefully, referring to a 2002 delimitation decision by the Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commissioni and to the Algiers Agreement which ended the war between them. Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, declared that the only way for the Boundary Commission to proceed with the demarcation of the border is for the two countries to cooperate.
This article was very repetitive. It’s very similar to an article I posted about two weeks ago where the Security Council urged the various combating parties in Darfur to enter into a peace agreement. Also, there was an article just a couple of days ago in which Ban Ki-moon announced that a peacekeeping mission in Somalia is not “realistic or viable.” Appeals such as these make me question the power of the UN. It’s all well and good to ask warring countries or factions to make up and cooperate, but it’s not realistic, and without any follow through, as is shown by the inability to establish a peacekeeping mission in Somalia, nothing is being accomplished. The Secretary General seems entirely unsure of himself, and these failures make me fear for the future of the UN.
