The sovereign nation of Eritrea was established officially during an Apr 23-25, 1993 referendum process. The UN Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea believes it contributed to the peaceful transition to national independence.
Eritrea was born in a referendum held from 23 to 25 April, with the UN Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea (UNOVER) ensuring the impartiality of the process and helping to make the transition to independence smooth and peaceful.
"This was an example of a new generation of UN operations, combining peace, development and democracy", Samir Sanbar, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Eritrea, told the UN Chronicle.
The outcome of the referendum was hardly ambiguous: more than 90 per cent of those who registered had voted; 99 per cent of them said "yes" to the creation of an independent State. On 27 April, the Special Representative announced: "On the whole, the referendum process in Eritrea can be said to have been free and fair at every stage".
Investment in peace
Mr. Sanbar sees the UNOVER mission as an example of the new concept of post-conflict peace-building, developed by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. "In practice it involves creating an investment in peace; to arrange things in such a way that countries in conflict find peace better and more profitable", he said.
The role of UNOVER was not only to observe the vote, he said, but to help in a peaceful transformation by installing a sense of free choice and participation in voters and helping, through that process, to establish good relations between Eritrea and its neighbouring States.
UNOVER, he said, was not a case of peace-keepers with blue helmets going in to separate hostile parties, but helping a new nation find the path to development and democracy in a region that has had more than its fair share of wars and calamities in the last few decades.
Verify referendum
UNOVER was established by the General Assembly on 16 December 1992, after the Transitional Government of Ethiopia had asked that the UN play an active role in verifying that the referendum would be free and fair.
A core team of 21 observers, headed by Mr. Sanbar, set up headquarters in Asmara, Eritrea's capital city. Regional offices were established in the towns of Keren and Mendefera. Another 86 observers arrived in April for the last phase of the referendum process.
UNOVER faced many practical problems in a country devastated by 30 years war, with a difficult terrain, low levels of literacy, and a historical absence of voting practice.
For example, in some places there was opposition for cultural reasons to women being photographed for voter identification. After UNOVER consultations, village elders allowed an exception, as they felt it would be for a good cause.
UNOVER also arranged for members of the Eritrean Popular Liberation Army (EPLA) to vote in their barracks, as the presence of uniformed men carrying arms in voting booths might be seen as intimidating by some.
An important part of UNOVER's work was to register voters outside o Eritrea, some 300,000 of the 1.1 million registered Eritreans.
All in all, without UNOVER, the process of nation-building - an ever-important UN task - would not have been successfully completed.