Afar rebels claim Ethiopia abductions
March 19, 2007 (ASMARA) — Rebels in the remote Afar region on the Ethiopian-Eritrean border have claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of five Europeans released last week in an interview on Eritrean state media.
Armed men claiming to be from the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF) made their statement in a broadcast on Eritrean television late Sunday, including the first pictures of the release of the European hostages.
“The main reason we took the hostages is because the TPLF (Ethiopia) claims that ARDUF has been wiped out, and we needed to expose the regime’s false propaganda and declare our existence,” an unnamed ARDUF spokesman said in the Afar language.
“ARDUF is still fighting and will go on fighting.”
The 20-minute interview included the first footage of the five European hostages being released last Tuesday in Eritrea.
It showed the three men and two women shaking hands with and waving to about a dozen armed men in desert military fatigues before being led away by Afar elders.
The five were then shown boarding an Eritrean military helicopter.
The report made no mention of eight Ethiopians who accompanied the British embassy-linked group captured in Ethiopia’s northeast desert on March 1 and still missing.
Eritrea has already said that the group was kidnapped by separatist rebel group ARDUF, which opposes the division of the Afar people among Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. ARDUF reached a peace deal in 2003 with Addis Ababa but a dissident wing of the group is still active.
The Ethiopian government on Monday denied that Afar rebels were behind the abduction despite the Eritrean television pictures, and once again laid the blame on Eritrea.
“The outcomes of our investigations show that Eritrean intelligence has been involved,” Foreign Minister Solomon Abebe told a news conference.
“The reports about ARDUF are categorically unfounded. Afar people have no reason to get involved in such an act.”
Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a bitter territorial war between 1998 and 2000 and are still deeply at odds over their border.
Eritrea has strongly rejected Ethiopian accusations that it masterminded the kidnapping.
During Monday’s news conference, Solomon said Ethiopia had launched a diplomatic offensive to help free the Ethiopian captives.
Heads of missions of various countries and representatives of international and regional organisations met with top foreign ministry officials on Monday in Addis Ababa, he said.
“Members of the (UN) Security Council should push and pressure the Eritrean regime to accept the safe release of the eight Ethiopians,” he said, adding that his government “will not take war as an option.”
In Ethiopia, heads of the four leading religious groups on Sunday called for the release of the Ethiopians and said they feared that tensions could be revived between the neighbouring countries.
“The fact that the kidnapping had taken place very near the Eritrean border is cause to be apprehensive of fresh disputes between the two countries.
“It can yet be another hurdle in the way of the peace efforts being exerted for years now,” said heads of the Ethiopian Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical churches, along with the Islamic Affairs Council, in a statement broadcast on state television.
(AFP)