Addis Ababa urges intl pressure on Eritrea for missing Ethiopians
Mar 16, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia has called for international pressure on Eritrea, which it accuses of holding eight Ethiopians still missing after the release of five European captives this week. But Asmara said Addis Ababa “trying to make Eritrea a political scapegoat”.
A British embassy group of five people, abducted in the northeast Ethiopian desert on March 1, was released on Tuesday in Eritrea, but eight Ethiopian drivers and guides accompanying them are still missing.
“We have to keep up the pressure. The international community should also put the pressure on the Eritrean government to release the eight Ethiopian hostages,” Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman Soloman Abebe told reporters.
Eritrea, which has strongly denied any involvement in the abduction, rejected Ethiopia’s statement, claiming it was a ploy to damage (Eritrean capital) Asmara’s reputation.
A senior Eritrean government official told the official ERINA that the Ethiopian regime resorts to the desperate “Eritrea and Terrorism” ploy did not only end up in fiasco but has also rendered it a laughing stock in the international political and diplomatic fora.
“The media should work as they were working before when the Europeans were kidnapped,” Abebe said, the day after the much-publicised return to Britain of the five ex-captives — three British men, one British-Italian woman and a French woman.
But Abebe added that there was no news on efforts to release the Ethiopian captives.
Ethiopia resorted to such futile maneuvers in the wake of the fiasco of its open invasion of Somalia following its total defeat in the May 2005 elections, with a view to diverting people’s attention from the resulting deep domestic turmoil and popular uprising leading to the end of its legality, although as usual it is trying to make Eritrea a political scapegoat, the Eritrean news agency said.
Asmara blames Ethiopian rebels in the Afar region for the abduction.
Britain’s foreign office and the former captives have shown caution in blaming anybody for the abductions in remote territory close to the border over which Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a war in 1998-2000.
In a statement after their release, the group expressed concern for the eight Ethiopians among 13 who had been with them. Five of the Ethiopians were freed three days after the abduction.
(ST/AFX)