Djibouti asks World help to prevent conflict with Eritrea
May 6, 2008 (UNITED NATIONS) — The tiny port nation of Djibouti, a key U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa, has urged the U.N. Security Council to take immediate action to prevent a conflict with its northern neighbor Eritrea.
In a letter to the council president circulated Tuesday, Djibouti’s Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said Eritrea has launched a major military buildup on their border overlooking critical Red Sea shipping lanes.
He accused Eritrea of carrying out “an undisguised and naked provocation against my country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“We call on the council to deploy urgently all necessary measures toward preventing yet another conflict, under any guise, in a region long ravaged by mayhem, bloodshed and destruction,” Youssouf said.
More than 1,200 U.S troops are stationed in Djibouti, which hosts the base for an anti-terrorism task force in the Horn of Africa. France also has a base in Djibouti, its former colony.
Youssouf said he was bringing the Eritrean buildup to the council’s attention with “utmost urgency” because “for no ostensible reason or justification and, to our utter bewilderment, we have been witnessing a progressive growth of Eritrean troops at our common border since February 2008.”
The buildup has included “preparation of fortification and battlements, equipment flow, and well-armed Eritrean soldiers on our side of the promontory of the Ras Doumeira mountain range overlooking the busy Red Sea shipping lanes,” he said.
Djibouti has been forced to respond by sending troops to the border as well, Youssouf said.
“With maximum restraint on our part, resisting all temptations, and refraining from any forceful reaction, we embarked instead on quiet diplomacy, essentially encompassing direct bilateral contacts at every level, including at the highest,” Youssouf said.
But he said these efforts and the intercession of a key Gulf leader as well as raising the buildup with the African Union’s Peace and Security Council and Arab League “have failed to elicit any credible response.”
Eritrea’s U.N. Mission said no one was immediately available to respond to the foreign minister.
Youssouf recalled that in 1996 Eritrea floated “a false map … that incorporated the same northern border area into its territory, thus unilaterally redrawing the established border.”
“Concurrently, there was also an incursion by Eritrean troops into Djibouti territory,” he said.
But Youssouf said Djibouti suspects the immediate motivation behind Eritrea’s “unwarranted behavior” is the strategic location and panoramic view of the critical Red Sea shipping lanes from the border.
“Given that Djibouti is now rapidly becoming a regional services transshipment hub, with the construction of yet another modern port and a host of infrastructures and projects, Eritrea’s sinister actions should be a cause for alarm for the international community,” he said.
“At present, we sense a real danger of being drawn into an unwarranted confrontation with Eritrea, as both forces are at a heightened alert at the common border,” Youssouf said. “Our peaceful entreaties with Eritrea to remove its troops from the area and to clarify its concerns, if any, have so far fallen on deaf ears.”
(AP)