Eritrea accuses UN of failing to abide by mandate
ASMARA, March 11 (AFP) — A UN force patrolling a buffer zone on Eritrea’s tense border with Ethiopia has failed to abide by its mandate, an Eritrean official charged Thursday, explaining restrictions imposed on the mission.
“We put into place these restrictions because during two weeks, from 7:00 pm to 5:00 am they stationed in this area and registered any EDF (Eritrean Defence Forces) vehicle passing,” said Abrahaley Kifle, commissioner of the Commission for Coordination with the UN peacekeeping mission
The Horn of Africa neighbours fought a fierce border war between 1998 and 2000. The UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) has been deployed to keep the peace and oversee demarcation of a definitive border.
However, the peace process enshrined in an accord signed in Algiers in December 2000 has come to a halt amid a row over whether the border town of Badme — where the war began — lies in Eritrea or Ethiopia.
Since March 5, UNMEE has been banned from taking one highway out of the capital, where it had set up the checkpoints, which forces its troops to use a dusty track which doubles travel time to western regions where most of the force is based.
The Eritrean commissioner said that the checks the UN forces had been conducting had “no relevance with their mandate, it is a violation of the Algiers agreement..
“There have been some misunderstandings. That is natural. But this is a very serious issue.”
The buffer zone lies along the Eritrean side of the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) border and UNMEE has complained about the restrictions imposed on its personnel’s freedom of movement.
The UNMEE force commander, British Major General Robert Gordon, on Thursday told a press conference: “There are a lot of implications for us which is why we find this restriction unacceptable.”
The special envoy to the region of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, “has written a strong letter of protest to the commissioner here in Eritrea,” Gordon said, adding that the UN Security Council was to be briefed during the day.
“There is a disagreement” on what the UN mandate is, he added. “It is something that is being negotiated between us and the commission here and also in New York.”
In a report received by AFP on Tuesday, Annan warned that the stalemate in the peace process between Ethiopia and Eritrea “has the potential to become dangerous”.
“Regrettably, overall cooperation with the parties on the ground has shown signs of gradual deterioration over the last few months,” Annan’s report said.