Eritrea: Minister Osman Saleh addresses United Nations (UN) General Assembly – African Business

Mr. Osman Saleh, Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed the 77th United Nations General Assembly today 26 September.

In his address, Minister Osman Saleh said that the annual session of the UN General Assembly, held under the fitting theme – “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges” – is taking place at an exceedingly preoccupying time of profound, intertwined, and multiple crises of epic proportion and these calamities have adversely impacted all corners of the global village.

Minister Osman continued by stating that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a great human toll worldwide over the past two and a half years and has caused structural and economic setbacks through economic downturns in the country and disruptions in international supply chains. He also stated that while this scourge continues, the world is now facing equally dangerous fallouts from climate change and global heating, which are further complicating an already fragile situation.

Minister Osman also stated that the cyclical conflict, which have taken on an extremely dangerous and almost apocalyptic dimension with the war in Ukraine have ratcheted-up the impending crises up to unprecedented levels. In addition to the Covid-19 pandemic and the other interlocking variables, the crises are the cumulative consequences and telltale symptoms of a fragile and highly flawed global governance structure. They are byproducts of systemic failures of the unipolar order that has ruled for more than thirty years

Minister Osman stressed that the much vaunted “rules-based international order” represents a skewed set of duplicitous, asymmetric and non-consensual norms and regulations and was essentially designed to advance and safeguard the privileges of its principal architects; to the exclusion of the majority of other nations and peoples and promote monolithic and condescending ideological perspective gives no room and space to historical context, distinct realities and cultures, and above all, to independent policy choices of other sovereign peoples and nations.

The cost-intensive wars of intervention, particularly in Africa and the Middle East over the past 30 years; heavy-handed meddling with domestic affairs; imposition illicit and unilateral sanctions; distortion, weaponization, and violation of human rights; all these episodes of international and regional instability emanate from, or are direct derivatives, Minister Osman stated.

Minister Osman stressed the fact that the negative effects of this dysfunctional system do not only affect the sovereign nations and peoples from the Global South.

Minister Osman stated that Eritrea has been the victim of the unfair international order. This includes the use of surrogate force forces to create a situation permanent conflict and instability, as well as the weaponization and abuse of human rights to isolate the young nation and to ostracize it.

Regarding Eritrea’s view Minister Osman underlined the need of the  global village and the UN system to devise a new international order that is anchored on consensus with the full and equal participation of its constituencies; the sacrosanct principles of the equality of all Member States and the respect of the sovereignty and political independence of nations and peoples to be upheld; equitable representation of all Member States in all decision- making international bodies to be guaranteed through viable and sustainable modalities and mechanisms; and selective and partial parameters that impede collective wellbeing and the fostering of a compassionate social system requires thorough review.

Distributed by APO Group for Ministry of Information, Eritrea