Recognition
After the end of the Cold War, the United States played a facilitative role in the peace talks in Washington, D.C. during the months leading up to the May 1991 fall of the Mengistu regime. In mid-May, Mengistu resigned as head of the Ethiopian government and went into exile in Zimbabwe, leaving a caretaker government in Addis Ababa. A high-level U.S. delegation also was present in Addis Ababa for the 1–5 July 1991 conference that established a transitional government in Ethiopia. Having defeated the Ethiopian forces in Eritrea, the EPLF attended as an observer and held talks with the new transitional government regarding Eritrea's relationship to Ethiopia. The outcome of those talks was an agreement in which the Ethiopians recognized the right of the Eritreans to hold a referendum on independence. The referendum helped in April 1993 when the Eritrean people voted almost unanimously in favour of independence and this was verified by the UN Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea (UNOVER). On 28 May 1993, the United Nations formally admitted Eritrea to its membership. Below are the results from the referendum:
| Region | Do you want Eritrea to be an independent and sovereign country? | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | No | uncounted | ||
| Asmara | 128,443 | 144 | 33 | 128,620 |
| Barka | 4,425 | 47 | 0 | 4,472 |
| Denkalia | 25,907 | 91 | 29 | 26,027 |
| Gash-Setit | 73,236 | 270 | 0 | 73,506 |
| Hamasien | 76,654 | 59 | 3 | 76,716 |
| Akkele Guzay | 92,465 | 147 | 22 | 92,634 |
| Sahel | 51,015 | 141 | 31 | 51,187 |
| Semhar | 33,596 | 113 | 41 | 33,750 |
| Seraye | 124,725 | 72 | 12 | 124,809 |
| Senhit | 78,513 | 26 | 1 | 78,540 |
| Freedom fighters | 77,512 | 21 | 46 | 77,579 |
| Sudan | 153,706 | 352 | 0 | 154,058 |
| Ethiopia | 57,466 | 204 | 36 | 57,706 |
| Other | 82,597 | 135 | 74 | 82,806 |
| % | 99.79 | 0.17 | 0.03 | |
Read more about this topic: Eritrean War Of Independence
Famous quotes containing the word recognition:
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“Justice begins with the recognition of the necessity of sharing. The oldest law is that which regulates it, and this is still the most important law today and, as such, has remained the basic concern of all movements which have at heart the community of human activities and of human existence in general.”
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“I waited and worked, and watched the inferior exalted for nearly thirty years; and when recognition came at last, it was too late to alter events, or to make a difference in living.”
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