UN protests arrest of 13 Eritreans working for UN mission

Feb 14, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — The United Nations said Tuesday it has protested the weekend arrests of 13 Eritreans working for the U.N. peacekeeping mission monitoring Eritrea’s tense border with Ethiopia.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the 30 other Eritreans working for the United Nations had gone into hiding for fear of being arrested by local authorities in the capital, Asmara.

“While we have protested this, the government of Eritrea still has not given us any official reason for these detentions,” Dujarric said.

A U.N. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said Eritreans who work for international organizations, and are therefore exempt from national service, have been arrested in recent months and sent to the army.

Last week, the U.N. Security Council put off deciding the fate of the 3,800-strong peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea to give the United States another month to resolve a longstanding border dispute between the two Horn of Africa nations.

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war, but a border was never agreed to. Violence erupted again in 1998 and ended 2 1/2 years later after tens of thousands of people had been killed.

Under the 2000 peace agreement, both countries agreed to abide by an independent commission’s ruling on the position of the disputed 621-mile (1000-kilometer) border, while U.N. troops patrolled a 15-mile (24-kilometer) buffer zone between the two countries.

But Ethiopia has refused to implement the international commission’s April 2002 ruling, which awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea. Eritrea late last year banned U.N. helicopter flights and expelled Western peacekeepers with the mission in apparent response.

The United States hopes that Eritrea will ease the restrictions on peacekeepers if the border dispute is settled. Otherwise, the Security Council will have to decide whether to scale back the peacekeeping mission or terminate it.

(ST/AP)