UN alarmed by Eritrea-Ethiopia military buildup
November 7, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — Eritrea must withdraw its troops from a supposedly demilitarized zone on its border with Ethiopia and both countries should show the “utmost restraint,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.
A 1998-2000 war on the border between the two Horn of African neighbors killed 70,000 people and brought untold hardship to two of the world’s poorest countries.
Now analysts are warning of a repeat as troops build up ahead of an end-November deadline by an independent boundary commission for Ethiopia and Eritrea to mark out their border.
“The continued military buildup in the border area is a cause of serious concern, which has already resulted in shooting incidents that underscore the risk of further miscalculation,” Ban said in a report to the Security Council.
The United Nations has a peacekeeping force of 1,700 people charged with monitoring a security buffer zone on Eritrea’s side of the 1,000-km frontier. Under the terms of a June 2000 cease-fire, the zone is supposed to be demilitarized.
Ban said in his report that since early September, Eritrea had moved an estimated 1,000 additional troops and 10 heavy machine guns into a section of the buffer zone called Sector Centre, bringing troops in that sector to more than 2,580.
In a sector labeled Subsector East, Eritrea has around 600 troops, Ban said, while in Sector West, Eritrea moved in some 2,025 troops, tanks and artillery in October, adding to some 2,000 it had already in place.
“I … call on Eritrea to withdraw its forces and military equipment from the zone,” Ban said, adding that Eritrea should also lift restrictions it has imposed on the U.N. force.
Ethiopia, for its part, conducted training exercises and has been adding troops on its side of the border, Ban said.
Saturday, Eritrea accused Ethiopia for the third time in a week of planning an invasion, an allegation Addis Ababa has termed an “absurd” fabrication.
“Although the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea have repeatedly stated that they do not intend to initiate hostilities, the build-up of the forces on both sides of the border area is a cause of serious concern,” Ban said.
WARNINGS OF WAR
Earlier this week, the influential think tank International Crisis Group warned that war could erupt within weeks if there is no major international push to stop it.
Washington sees Ethiopia as its best ally in the region and accuses Eritrea of backing Somali Islamists.
Despite an offensive against insurgents in its east, and a foreign mission in Somalia where it is helping the government fight Islamist rebels, Ethiopia maintains 100,000 troops on its border with Eritrea, the group said, quoting U.S. estimates.
Ban’s report did not give an estimate of troop numbers on the Ethiopian side.
The neighbors have been in dispute since the independent boundary commission awarded Eritrea the town of Badme in a 2002 ruling. Although it now says it accepts the ruling, Ethiopia is still insisting on dialogue over implementation.
The boundary commission brought the two sides together for talks in September aimed at pushing forward measures to physically demarcate the border along the line established in 2002, but Ban said the talks made no progress.
Frustrated by the stalemate, the boundary commission says the countries have until the end of this month to mark the border physically or it will fix the border on maps and let it stand.
(Reuters)
Gerrie Lijam
UN alarmed by Eritrea-Ethiopia military buildup
Dear Editor,
AGAIN, for the second time in just 50 years the UN, the US and it’s allies are betraying and backstabbing Eritreans, by allowing Ethiopia to invade and occupy Eritrea and violate the Ethio-Eritrean “final & binding” Algiers’s agreement, refusing to demarcate the Ethio-Eritrean national borders as the UN and US signed and agreed to uphold.
Besides shedding crocodile tears to manipulate global public opinion to foreword their own strategic agenda, the false prophets of the UN and US would like the world to believe that they stand for “freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, territorial integrity, peace and economic development”, while depriving the Eritrean people’s right for self determination by declaring that, “From the point of view of justice, the opinion of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interests of the United States in the Red Sea Basin and world peace make it necessary that the country be linked with our ally Ethiopia.” (U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, 1952).
Dear Editor,
For Eritreans, after 50 years of betrayal and debilitating lonely war, the high price every Eritrean family had to pay to liberate and defend Eritrea, the very credibility, integrity and motivation of the UN and the US is very questionable.
The UN and US complacency and the Ethiopian transgression, invasion and war of occupation is far more a threat to peace and freedom loving nationalist Eritreans than luck off internal plural constitutional democracy, the old worn out US song, customary accusation, excuse and cover up for meddling in the internal state affair and conspiracy for instability and war.
As for Ethiopia, due to 50 years of war with Eritrea and Somalia, Ethiopia has been in huge mess with it’s own constant extrajudicial and illegal political prosecutions, economic nightmares, persistent famines, uncontrolled AIDS, Malaria, TB and other public health scrooge, internal political strife and ethnic civil wars in Ogadinia, Oromia, Afar, Somali and Amara provinces. If Ethiopia has never been able to clean up it’s won dirty laundry at home, how is it possible that Ethiopia will remotely be able to dust off internal strife and stabilize Somalia? Ethiopia should attend to it’s own internal strife, economic nightmare and ethnic civil wars.
After 50 years of war against Eritreans, one would hope, the UN, the US and Ethiopians have learned bitter lessons already,
After all, what’s there more to gain for Ethiopia from waging another 50 years of war against Eritrea or Somalia?
But, if the UN, US and the Ethiopian “governments” continue in insisting on waging wars against Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopian armed ethnic movements in Ogadinia, Oromia, Afar, Somali and Amara provinces, the war could back fire and break Ethiopia apart just like the ethnic civil wars of former Yugoslavia.
Therefore, the Ethiopian xenophobic tribal “politicians” need to be careful on what they pray for, because they might as well get it, bringing more misery to themselves and to the Ethiopian people, more than what Ethiopia and Ethiopians has been going through for the last “3000” years, as Ethiopians claim.
As for the incompetent mafia hierarchy of the United Nations and it’s masters in New York, they need to remember the UN Resolution 390a/v of 1952, forcibly federating Eritrea with Ethiopia against the Eritrean people’s free will and allowing Ethiopia to annex and occupy Eritrea has caused Eritreans much more Ethiopian wars, holocaust, death and destruction that Eritreans would never had to go through, if Eritreans have been allowed to stay free with out the US or UN’s approval seal of betrayal, as declared by John Foster Dulles in 1952.
Ultimately, the UN is responsible for all the 50 years of Ethio-Eritrean bloodshed, for it was the UN who forced the Ethio-Eritrean federation up on Eritreans and the annexation and occupation of Eritrea and consequent bloodshed that has been spilling to this day.
In the end, against all powerful odds and despite all excruciating painful challenges, the Ethiopian and Eritrean peace loving harmonious brotherly people will prevail, defeating their mortal internal and foreign enemies, over coming all man made and natural calamities to cordially live side by side in peace, as they had lived for centuries before.
Thank you
Gerrie Lijam
San Jose, Ca.
USA
Gerrie Lijam
UN alarmed by Eritrea-Ethiopia military buildup
Editor,
AGAIN, for the second time in just 50 years the UN, the US and it’s allies are betraying and backstabbing Eritreans, by allowing Ethiopia to invade and occupy Eritrea and violate the Ethio-Eritrean “final & binding” Algiers’s agreement, refusing to demarcate the Ethio-Eritrean national borders as the UN and US signed and agreed to uphold.
Besides shedding crocodile tears to manipulate global public opinion to foreword their own strategic agenda, the false prophets of the UN and US would like the world to believe that they stand for “freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, territorial integrity, peace and economic development”, while depriving the Eritrean people’s right for self determination by declaring that, “From the point of view of justice, the opinion of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interests of the United States in the Red Sea Basin and world peace make it necessary that the country be linked with our ally Ethiopia.” (U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, 1952).
Dear Editor,
For Eritreans, after 50 years of betrayal and debilitating lonely war, the high price every Eritrean family had to pay to liberate and defend Eritrea, the very credibility, integrity and motivation of the UN and the US is very questionable.
The UN and US complacency and the Ethiopian transgression, invasion and war of occupation is far more a threat to peace and freedom loving nationalist Eritreans than luck off internal plural constitutional democracy, the old worn out US song, customary accusation, excuse and cover up for meddling in the internal state affair and conspiracy for instability and war.
As for Ethiopia, due to 50 years of war with Eritrea and Somalia, Ethiopia has been in huge mess with it’s own constant extrajudicial and illegal political prosecutions, economic nightmares, persistent famines, uncontrolled AIDS, Malaria, TB and other public health scrooge, internal political strife and ethnic civil wars in Ogadinia, Oromia, Afar, Somali and Amara provinces. If Ethiopia has never been able to clean up it’s won dirty laundry at home, how is it possible that Ethiopia will remotely be able to dust off internal strife and stabilize Somalia? Ethiopia should attend to it’s own internal strife, economic nightmare and ethnic civil wars.
After 50 years of war against Eritreans, one would hope, the UN, the US and Ethiopians have learned bitter lessons already,
After all, what’s there more to gain for Ethiopia from waging another 50 years of war against Eritrea or Somalia?
But, if the UN, US and the Ethiopian “governments” continue in insisting on waging wars against Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopian armed ethnic movements in Ogadinia, Oromia, Afar, Somali and Amara provinces, the war could back fire and break Ethiopia apart just like the ethnic civil wars of former Yugoslavia.
Therefore, the Ethiopian xenophobic tribal “politicians” need to be careful on what they pray for, because they might as well get it, bringing more misery to themselves and to the Ethiopian people, more than what Ethiopia and Ethiopians has been going through for the last “3000” years, as Ethiopians claim.
As for the incompetent mafia hierarchy of the United Nations and it’s masters in New York, they need to remember the UN Resolution 390a/v of 1952, forcibly federating Eritrea with Ethiopia against the Eritrean people’s free will and allowing Ethiopia to annex and occupy Eritrea has caused Eritreans much more Ethiopian wars, holocaust, death and destruction that Eritreans would never had to go through, if Eritreans have been allowed to stay free with out the US or UN’s approval seal of betrayal, as declared by John Foster Dulles in 1952.
Ultimately, the UN is responsible for all the 50 years of Ethio-Eritrean bloodshed, for it was the UN who forced the Ethio-Eritrean federation up on Eritreans and the annexation and occupation of Eritrea and consequent bloodshed that has been spilling to this day.
In the end, against all powerful odds and despite all excruciating painful challenges, the Ethiopian and Eritrean peace loving harmonious brotherly people will prevail, defeating their mortal internal and foreign enemies, over coming all man made and natural calamities to cordially live side by side in peace, as they had lived for centuries before.
Thank you
Gerrie Lijam
San Jose, Ca.
USA