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UN criticizes Eritrea over mission

The UN Security Council has strongly condemned Eritrea's lack of cooperation with the UN peacekeeping mission monitoring the border with Ethiopia and demanded that it resume providing diesel fuel and food and allow troops to move freely.

Council members said on Friday they would consider "further appropriate steps" -- which they didn't specify -- for the safety and protection of the peacekeepers.

The council met in emergency session after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's office said the peacekeeping mission has been trapped in a dangerous situation inside Eritrea, denied enough food or fuel to keep operating for much longer.

"The government of Eritrea has created a situation in which a temporary relocation of personnel and equipment from Eritrea has been rendered inevitable," the council said in a statement read by its president, Panama's UN Ambassador Ricardo Arias.

"The Security Council strongly condemns the lack of cooperation from the government of Eritrea," the statement said. "The Security Council holds Eritrea responsible for the safety and security of the mission and its personnel. The Security Council demands that the government of Eritrea resume full cooperation."

Relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia have been consistently strained since Eritrea gained its independence from the Addis Ababa government in 1993 following a 30-year guerrilla war. The border between the countries was never officially demarcated, which led to a two-and-a-half-year war that ended in 2000.

Under the ceasefire agreement that ended the fighting, both sides agreed to allow an international boundary commission rule on the disputed border. The commission ruling in April 2002 awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea -- but Ethiopia has refused to hand over any territory.

In apparent frustration at Ethiopia's refusal to implement the ruling, and the lack of UN action to press Ethiopia to comply, Eritrea banned UN helicopter flights in its airspace in October 2005. Two months later, it banned UN night patrols and expelled Western peacekeepers -- and recently it started restricting fuel supplies.

Last Monday, Ban ordered UN peacekeepers to leave Eritrea temporarily and move to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa -- but Eritrean authorities allowed no more than six UN vehicles to cross the increasingly militarized border, UN deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.

She said there had been one incident in which UN personnel were threatened and their equipment seized. Other vehicles were stopped by Eritrean defense forces and prevented from entering Ethiopia, Okabe said.

Okabe also said an Eritrean company that was supplying food to the peacekeepers had told the UN mission that it could no longer fulfill that contract.
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