UN General Assembly
1998

has to look at Eritrea’s track record of the past few years in our area. Eritrea’s propensity to aggression manifested itself first in its belligerent attitude towards its neighbours over the past seven years and has culminated in its most extreme form of aggression against Ethiopia. In the face of such a destructive attitude one may ask why such belligerence by Eritrea was tolerated for so long. The answer is that, since we believed that the transition from leading a liberation movement to running an independent State would take time, we somehow entertained the hope 11 that the Eritrean leadership would mature over time, as is the case in almost all other similar circumstances. But our hopes were finally dashed on 12 May 1998. In light of this, we have absolutely no doubt that, if we fail to tell the Eritrean authorities in no uncertain terms that their unruly behaviour cannot be tolerated any longer, the result will be even greater instability and interminable conflict in the subregion, and it will have enormous implications for peace