Eritrea imposes more restrictions on UN peacekeepers

Oct 24, 2005 (ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia) — Eritrea has imposed new restrictions on U.N. peacekeepers patrolling its disputed border with Ethiopia, adding on to already existing limitations on the peacekeepers’ patrols, a U.N. spokeswoman said Monday.

Without any explanation, Eritrea has ordered the U.N. mission in Eritrea to “confine its land vehicle movements to the main roads” in the 25-kilometer wide demilitarized buffer zone, U.N spokeswoman Gail Bindley-Taylor Sainte said.

Eritrea also offered no explanation earlier this month when it informed the U.N. that it was banning helicopter flights by U.N. peacekeepers in its airspace in the border buffer zone starting Oct. 5. It also banned U.N. patrol vehicles from operating at night on its side.

Diplomats have said Eritrea’s recent moves could be intended to force the international community into taking action against Ethiopia, which has refused to accept an international ruling on the border made in 2002.

In 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea ended a 2 1/2-year border war that killed 70,000 people and cost two of the poorest countries in the world an estimated $1 million a day each.

Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, head of the U.N Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, said last week the earlier restrictions meant his operations – meant to warn the world if a new war were to break out – were at best 40% useful.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a letter last week urging Eritrea to lift its ban on peacekeeping flights. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki rejected Annan’s appeal, telling him that he lacks the “humanitarian high ground on matters of law, the rule of law and humanitarian issues.” .

(AP/ST)