Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kuwait Ambassador Hamad Sulaiman Al-Masha’an, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs met with Ambassador for the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Toutounji to deliver a protest note following the alleged “infiltration of an armed group associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard into Bubiyan Island”. Photo: MFA Kuwait/X

Kuwait’s Ministry of Interior announced on Tuesday, May 12, the arrest of four people they say are affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), while they were allegedly trying to infiltrate the country.

The ministry added that during interrogation, the suspects confessed being tasked with sneaking into Bubiyan Island “to carry out hostile acts against Kuwait.”

**Iran rejects Kuwait’s accusations as “**utterly baseless”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Wednesday, May 13, condemning Kuwait’s “improper action” against the four Iranian personnel.

The ministry clarified that the personnel accidentally entered Kuwaiti territorial waters due to a navigational system malfunction, while on a routine naval patrol mission.

Tehran slammed the Gulf state for “politically and propagandistically exploiting” the incident, while reaffirming “its principled policy of respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries in the region, including Kuwait”.

It also urged the Kuwaiti authorities to immediately release the detained Iranian nationals, and called on the Arab country to “avoid hasty statements and baseless allegations”, and “to pursue the existing issues through official channels.”

US-backed Gulf states have seemingly adopted the same propaganda warfare

Kuwait’s accusations against Iran came a few days after Bahrain had announced the arrest of 41 individuals allegedly linked with the IRGC on its soil.

Analysts suggest that both Gulf states have resorted to accusing the IRGC of orchestrating security plots on their territories as part of a propaganda campaign, which potentially aims to influence public opinion and justify their involvement in the US-Israeli aggression against Iran. Qatar, the UAE, and Bahrain were quick to release their own statements echoing Kuwait’s accusations.

Like Bahrain and other US-backed Gulf states, Kuwait has cracked down on people who peacefully expressed their opinions about the unprovoked regional aggression on Iran on social media.

Dozens of citizens were arbitrarily arrested by Kuwait’s state security apparatus, including elderly people, women, and young children in need of care, according to rights groups. Prominent Kuwaiti-American journalist, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, was also arrested last March for the same reason.

It is worth noting that Kuwait hosts key US military installations including Camp Arifjan, Camp Buehring, Ali Al Salem Air Base and Kuwait Naval Base (Camp Patriot), which facilitate the movement, training, and logistics of US troops across the West Asia region.

April 13, 2012, marked the tenth year since the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, EEBC, gave its final and binding decision. And hence, the Ministry of Information hereby issues a series of articles entitled “A Decade of Legitimate Resistance vis-à-vis the Rule of the Jungle.” The first part of this article in the series tries to cast light on the following concepts to the letter and spirit for an explicit common understanding.

Terms that Necessitate Fundamental Rectification

1.    War Attributed to Border Dispute: U.S. policy ‘On the National Security Strategy’ issued in September 2002 postulates the need for establishing four anchor states in Africa, thereby investing TPLF’s Ethiopia as regional power in the Horn of Africa. Stable and strong Eritrea, as opposed to this national Security Strategy, was found discordant for the other side of the policy the U.S. Government pursued. That’s why the Administration in Washington declared a proxy war in 1998-2000 resorting to supplanting the Government of Eritrea through subduing the Eritrean people and to install a puppet and subservient to the TPLF regime.

•    The primary and far-fetched objective of the war: Having dwelt on ways to obliterating the Eritrean Defense Force and advancing up to Asmara, this same Administration worked on in vain to create an ill motived political situation in a bid to indulge the Eritrean people into internal conflict and thereby install a sub-servant regime to the EPLF regime. It also conspired to shatter Eritrea’s economy and put its infrastructure facilities in ruins with a view to materializing a country bereft of meaningful existence, and thus, mapped out an infamous action program with necessary personnel for the puppet government to carry out orders given to it by its masters.

•    The objective thought to achieve subsequent to the Eritrea’s downfall: Exploiting the Tigrian people portraying them as primary beneficiaries and proclaim falls promises that the era has come in which the Tigrian people overwhelming the Eritrean people could proudly live in Ethiopia (subjugating the Ethiopian people). To all intents and purposes, such heavy-handed move harbored an implied notion of communicating a tight rein on the Ethiopian people, other than the people of Tigray, while at the same time consolidating its political power under the preface of ‘democratic election’ during which the TPLF regime swindled amid the chaos a five-year ticket it envisaged.

As the time the proxy war was waged, the U.S. Administration participated uninvited at OAU’s meeting, which was held in Ouagadougou in June 1998, in an attempt to add fuel to the war it instigated against Eritrea by commandeering any possible peaceful solution. Prior to the launch of the Second Offensive, Washington called, in the end of 1998, a secret meeting through its Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, in a bid to deliberate on possibilities for staging a coup against the Government of Eritrea. With the rising temperature of successive offensives, the U.S. Government posed as an intermediary merely to take sides with the TPLF and press ahead for Eritrea to compromise.

While the proxy war was taking place, the United States, further than imposing unilateral sanctions against Eritrea, disseminated a well-coordinated diplomatic and media campaign that Eritrea would surrender itself to subjugation following a blowing defeat. Alongside the said pressure, acts of hostilities and propaganda, the U.S. Administration laid out a secret plan by which the ‘hardliners’ it branded could be removed and replaced by those it assumed are submissive. Huge financial and political support was earmarked in the effort to cause political turmoil throughout Eritrea. Beyond the intelligence and military support the U.S. Government extended to the TPLF clique during the Third Offensive, the Administration outlined, in the year 2000, a plan aimed at toppling the Eritrean Government.

Based on the aforementioned facts and many other details yet to be followed, attributing the Ethiopia-Eritrea war to a border dispute is but tantamount to a reckless or simplistic explanation. The Eritrea-Ethiopia war of 1998-2000 and all acts of hostility that ensued afterward are merely a proxy war the U.S. Government is waging against Eritrea via the TPLF’s servility.

2.    Incomplete demarcation of official Eritrea-Ethiopia borders: Such a catch phrase must in essence be put right. The official borders between Eritrea and Ethiopia are once and for all demarcated not to be reversed, as President Isaias Afwerki put it, “Even an earthquake that would change the topography of the area would not change the signals of the border and the lines indicating the border of the two countries.” Having virtually demarcated more than 1,000 km-long border between Eritrea and Ethiopia with geographic coordinates and indicating the exact coordinates on 45 maps where the pillars be erected, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, EEBC, submitted the copies of its undertakings for both parties and the UN Security Council, while at the same time finalizing its mission by presenting additional copies to the UN cartographic unit for public reference.

In its final report to the UN Security Council, the EEBC underscored: “The decision of 2002 and the virtual border demarcation of November 2007 applies to both parties as final and binding. Trying to evade and violating the decision is violating the law.” Hence, the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia now is not only clear but also prides to be the most crystal-clear on a planetary scale for its details and legal documents.

3.    Unsettled Ethio-Eritrea dispute: No conflict or political dispute whatsoever remains unsettled between Eritrea and Ethiopia other than the legal matters. Occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories, respect of territorial integrity and political independence are the lingering matters yet at stake.

4.    ‘Negotiation and talks’ as a solution: The Government of Eritrea has early recognized this trap and has prudently responded accordingly. Indeed, the EEBC ruling is final and binding. Article 14 of the Algiers Peace Agreement invokes Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter for “Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression”, and does not endorse negotiation or talks for the party that fails to abide by the letter and spirit of the agreement. Arbitration, implementation, and punitive action against the violating party are the terms solely embraced within the accord.

5.    The TPLF and its dream of emerging as a regional power: Such a dream at simplest amounts to a narcissistic mirage of an utter folly. In spite of the clique’s offences and shambles, those parties that have been providing the regime intensive political, diplomatic, and economic as well as  media nurturing are consciously despondent of its fiascos that now this same clique does by no means constitute a significant factor in the regional equation.

Acts of conspiracy being weaved, decisions being reached, excesses being committed, wars being waged, sanctions being imposed upon, nations being disintegrated, or, the uprisings flaring up within the Horn of Africa or the entire continent are all attributed to the Administration in Washington. The TPLF clique, let alone with the entire Horn region, even within the country it reigns over or the administrative region of which it takes pride, is merely an insignificant auxiliary. A series of articles shedding light on the aforementioned matters and other major issues shall thus be issued under the title: “A Decade of Legitimate Resistance vis-à-vis the Rule of the Jungle!”