By Harvey Morris at the United Nations
Financial Times
The United Nations might be forced to evacuate its peacekeepers next month from the tense border zone between Ethiopia and Eritrea, removing the most visible deterrent to renewed warfare between the east African neighbours.
The UN Security Council was due on Wednesday to renew the mandate of the 1,700 peacekeepers for a further six months, despite the news that Eritrean restrictions on fuel supplies to the UN force made its situation untenable beyond February. Azouz Ennifar, UN special representative in the region, said last week the force would soon have only enough diesel stocks to stage a retreat.
The eight-year-old UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) was deployed after a 1998-2000 border war in which 70,000 people were killed. The crisis that has paralysed the mission is the latest sign of worsening relations between the two countries. It comes at a time when the outside world is preoccupied with the deteriorating situations in nearby Kenya and in Somalia, where both Ethiopia and Eritrea have a strategic interest.
The latest tension, in which thousands of troops from both sides have been deployed to the frontier zone in recent months, is ostensibly about implementation of an independent demarcation ruling on where the border lies. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, based in The Hague, disbanded itself last November after saying a line it had drawn on maps in 2002 was the only valid border in the absence of the possibility of setting up physical markers in the disputed zone.
Eritrea accepted the ruling, which awarded it the village of Badme, a focal point of the border war. But Ethiopia demanded more talks, with Meles Zenawi, its prime minister, describing what he called the virtual demarcation of the border as “legal nonsense”.
Isaias Afwerki, the Eritrean president, this month wrote to Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, saying that, since the border was now demarcated, the continued presence of UNMEE forces amounted to occupation. In December, Eritrea suspended all fuel supplies to the peacekeepers.
Underlying the dispute is the mutual distrust of the authoritarian regimes in Addis Ababa and Asmara about their wider strategies in the Horn of Africa. Each accuses the other of funding insurgencies aimed at unseating the rival regime, while Eritrea sees Ethiopia as seeking to establish its hegemony as a vanguard of US policy in the region.
Ethiopia lost its access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after a 30-year insurgency. Eritrea’s leaders fear its larger neighbour intends to re-establish its supremacy in the Horn by fostering the emergence of a more pliable regime in Asmara.
Their relations have deteriorated since Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 to prop up its western-backed government, justifying the intervention in part as a response to Eritrea’s supply of weaponry to Somalia’s Islamic Courts movement. The US, which regards Ethiopia as an ally in its war on terror, recently warned that it might declare Eritrea a state sponsor of terrorism because of its continued support for Somali insurgents.
”We believe the government in Asmara is well aware of our capabilities and another invasion would lead to their downfall,” Mr Meles told the Ethiopian parliament late last year.
Both sides have said they would not be the first to relaunch war. But international observers believe an isolated border incident could reignite the conflict.
The International Crisis Group estimated in November that the two sides had tens of thousands of troops dug in along their 620 mile frontier, inside a theoretical 25km-wide Temporary Security Zone that was to have been established following a peace agreement in 2000. It said some of the opposing forces were less than 100 yards apart.
Ethiopia last week said Eritrean forces opened fire on its own soldiers who were trying to defect to the Ethiopian lines, killing one and wounding another. The Ethiopian military reported the incident to UNMEE. Next time, the UN peacekeepers might not be there to deal with the complaint.
5 thoughts on “UN’s Ethiopia-Eritrea mission might be forced to evacuate”
Good!!
The ussless UNMEE can go to hell now. We will see who will save the coward agazee of the ugly minority regime from the wrath of the gallant Eritrean Defence forces.
The border was demarcated on maps, now everyone knows where the border is so there is no need for UNMEE to be there anymore. The so called border war was not about the border at all, it was all along about reversing Eritrea’s independence. Now UNMEE has no mission. They should just get out and let the Eritrean people kick the Woyane out of of sovereign Eritrean territory themselves. In the process the long suffering Ethiopian people will be free of Woyane occupation also. Yes there will be war in this scenario but there is no other option, Woyane’s nature is such that peace is not what they want, the only way they thought they can stay in power is by terrorizing everyone in Ethiopia and their neighbors, sometimes you get your wish even if it means your demise. It is a shame people have to die in the upcoming war but there seems to be no other option for Woyane will never accept peaceful life.
Atheist melese said in 1991 “55% of ethiopia’s ppl are muslim and after may election weyanes have said official orthodx religion belongs to Amhara.” So did melese see a new business in the name of orthodx religion? who has allowed to all the arab’s states to build 100 mosqees only in addis ababa with in 10 years? What is the hidden mission of alamudi ? Who has allowed to sauid arabia to take 5000 ethiopia’s youths and make them an exterimists? is not Atheist melse’s regime?
Dear friends,
Like walta and eritrawi stated correctly, there is no need for UNMEE. They did not do anything for us in the first place except to spy for wey ane. They should get out and I do not have any illusion that the Eritreans and Ethiopians will live in peace and cooperation thereafter for the wey ane will go with the UNMEE. Add to that the end of the long suffering Somali people and with a little help to get Sudan to clean up its acts, then you have a neighbourhood that is going to be the envy of the world. I am not going to insult the people of the horn by stating the “Envy of Africa” for the African leaders have nothing that would lift our spirit. All these leaders do is go to Addis and enjoy our poor women. That is all they care; and that is a fact.
Has any one thought of the 1998 Ethio-Eritra war was about the control of the redsea by UNMEE on behalf of US/EU rather than the border or Ethiopias desire to have access to the red sea or reoccupy Eritrea. Because, first there was agreement at the time of Eritrean independence which gives Ethiopia the previllege of using the ports as use-owner without legal claim. That means Ethiopia will use the ports as it were under Mengistu’s regime (covering operating cost only). That was the best arrangement Ethiopia can have less the full control of Eritrea and war will deny it all that previllege – if not complete blockage as for the last 10 years.
Second, we didn’t see Ethiopia pushing that claim to that effect in Algers agreement (neither ports or anexing Eritrea). It would look, for an Ethiopian, that the 50-100,000 soldiers died for nothing because at the end of their death, nothing substential (that is worth a squabble – let alone 50,000+ of their gallant sons and daughters) has been claimed against Eritrea by the Ethiopians. The biggest win for Ethiopians was the favour of US/EU and huge monitary and military aid. Remembering Minilik got the same deal from the Italians for relinquishing his claim for a land beyond Mereb. I might muse Meles got the same deal for bringing in UNMEE to Eritrea (again Mereb melash).
Again, if we note, for the last 3 years or so, Eritrea’s problem had been UNMEE than Ethiopia – the tension was more pronounced with the UN/US than with Ethiopia. And UN/US were more interested in keeping the UNMEE operation than solving the Ethio-Eritrea problem or enforcing international law – the verdict they made. Seeing the rapid military expansion of UN/US/EU I am think 19th century history is repeating itself.
Will Africa unite against Africom and what follows it? I don’t think so. As Eritrean, are Ethiopians our enemy? No. But they will not be by our side in the fight against our common enemy poverty and the yoke of the white man. The British and their descents are masters of divide and rule. That was how our fathers were colonized. With missionaries and advisers pitting us against each other. The way Susan Rice and the American advisors in Addis did.
In that light, no matter what government of Eritrea does, Meles will not be ready to make peace, because then UNMEE has to go. The solution is in Washington instead of Addis or Asmara.
The same goes with Somalia, or the Sudan. If America doesn’t want you to have peace, then it is just a matter of time, nobody can save you.
Our best solution is to go to the green pastures (North America and Europe) and fight life there. That way, we have a better chance of success than fighting each other.