Ethiopia, Eritrea close to war, UN urge action
Nov 3, 2005 (ASMARA) — Military moves by Ethiopia and Eritrea near their border have produced a crisis that needs urgent attention or the former foes could resume their 1998-2000 war, U.N. peacekeepers said on Thursday.
The leaders of the world body’s Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) told reporters they were concerned that moves in the past 10 to 15 days involving tanks, air defence missiles and troops could make the situation “more dangerous”.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday called on both sides to show restraint and asked the Security Council to take steps to defuse the situation in light of what he called extremely worrying reports of military movements.
UNMEE Force Commander Major-General Rajender Singh said: “I am not saying that things which are happening today will lead tomorrow to war. (But) a situation may in fact deteriorate to that level in which the worst can happen.
“And the worst is the war of course.”
Singh said UNMEE had good cooperation from both sides, but added: “When you have additional troops, additional activity and reduced monitoring on both sides, the chances of miscalculation increase and that is our greatest worry.”
Annan’s special representative to Eritrea and Ethiopia, UNMEE head Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, told the reporters it was up to the Security Council to produce a solution, although this might be a tough task.
“The secretary general called for urgent action on the crisis we face, in other words the Security Council has its work cut out,” Legwaila said.
UNMEE, which patrols a 15 mile (25 km) wide buffer zone along the 1,000 km (620 miles) long unmarked border, this week downgraded the situation on the ground to “tense” from “stable”.
Defending national pride, Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war over a border of scrubby plains and dusty villages in 1998, sending soldiers to die in World War One-style trench warfare.
The conflict, triggered mainly by a border dispute, killed an estimated 70,000 people.
Eritrea has been growing increasingly frustrated at the failure to implement a peace agreement with Ethiopia that was reached in December 2000.
In that agreement, both sides agreed to demarcate their border as decided by an independent commission. But when the commission made its ruling, deciding that the flashpoint town of Badme actually belonged to Eritrea, Ethiopia rejected the decision.
Diplomats say new conflict would hurt a region that was once used as a base by al Qaeda and that continues to suffer drought and famine and the destabilising effect of anarchy in Somalia.
(Reuters)