By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council is planning to disband its peacekeeping mission to the volatile border between Eritrea and Ethiopia after Eritrea forced out most of the U.N. troops, diplomats said on Tuesday.
The mandate for the 1,700-strong force expires on Thursday and a draft resolution circulated at the United Nations by Belgium calls for an end to the mission.
The resolution, which council diplomats said would be put to a vote on Wednesday, calls on the two sides “to show maximum restraint and refrain from any threat or use of force against each other, and to avoid provocative military activities.”
The United Nations withdrew its peacekeeping force from the border in February after Eritrea cut off fuel supplies. The force had been in place since 2000 after a two-year war between the Horn of Africa neighbours that killed some 70,000 people.
Eritrea is angry that the United Nations has been unable to enforce a ruling by an independent boundary commission awarding the bulk of disputed border territory to Eritrea.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned in April that the withdrawal of the peacekeepers could spark renewed conflict on the 1,000-km (620-mile) frontier.
Eritrea’s ambassador to the United Nations, Araya Desta, told Reuters Asmara did not want a military confrontation with Addis Ababa Woyanne but was fed up with what he described as an illegal occupation of Eritrean territory.
“We have a right to take our land, to do anything possible to take back our territories,” Desta said. “I don’t envisage at this stage any use of military force to do that.”
The Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group said last month the armies of the feuding neighbours were “less than a football pitch” apart, risking a catastrophic new war.
Asmara says a November 2007 “virtual demarcation” of the border by the now-defunct boundary commission ended the issue. Ethiopia Woyanne says Eritrea is illegally massing troops on the border in a supposedly demilitarized zone and it wants to discuss the border demarcation further.
The Eritrea-Ethiopia dispute is part of a set of regional tensions that extends into Somalia, where Ethiopian Woyanne troops are supporting an interim government, and into Djibouti, whose forces clashed with Eritrean troops last month.
(Editing by Chris Wilson)
2 thoughts on “U.N. council to disband Eritrea-Ethiopia peacekeeping force”
The upcoming end of the ineffective and Woyanne defender UNMEE is coming to an end, Eritrea will no allow any extension to their disgraceful mission. That is why Woyanne is nervous, they are scared they will have to face the mighty Eritrean defense forces if they don’t leave the illegally occupied sovereign Eritrean territory, as long as UNMEE was they thought they can stay in sovereign Eritrean territory indefinitely. The Eritrean goverment skillfully emasculated the UNMEE and made their stay impossible with sustained actions designed to kick them out for good.
Since its inception there is no place on earth where the UN military intervention resolved a conflict as a resutlt of their interference, they have been in the middle east for decades and the conflicts are still unresolved.
Of course the UN secretary general will try anything he can to keep some kind of UN presence to perpetuate the Woyanne occupation of sovereign Eritrean territory but Eritrea has already told him no UN force under any name is allowed in Eritrean territory or between Eritrea and Ethiopia anymore, I am sure that is why Woyanne’s masters are running around to replace the hapless Woyanne mercenary occupation army in Somalia, they are in a no win situation, no country in its right mind will send troops to occupy Somalia on behalf of the US and let their troops get slaughtered by the gallant ARS.
Woyanne’s hour glass is running out of sand and the Ethiopian people should get united and ready to kick this dispecable racist, foreign servant and fascist regime out of Ethiopia once and for all and live in peace forever. I urge Mr. Elias to push the G-7 movement to make a strong alliance with the armed and unarmed opposition movements for the sake of a peaceful Ethiopia that will be the center of stability and progress.
I say good riddance. they didn’t do us any good and they never do anywhere they go to. We do not need any foreigners to tell us what to do. I am sure it won’t be long when we will definetely live with our Eritrean and Ethiopian brothers and sisters side by side augumenting each others’ needs. Unless we do that, lijotch, the ferenjis will always play games on us. Are we that stupid? I know we are not; and I pray to God that he bestow upon us his wisdom to understand the sweetness of respecting each other than selling out to foreigner interests who do not care about any of us! they never cared before, they don’t care now and chances are they will never care about us. All they care is their own interest!