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East Africa: UN Demands Eritrea End Fuel Blockade
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The Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa)
6 February 2008
Posted to the web 6 February 2008
Addis Ababa
The Security Council demanded on Monday that Eritrea, which says U.N. peacekeepers have no right to remain on its border with Ethiopia, immediately allow struggling U.N. personnel access to fuel.
Last week the council renewed the mandate of the U.N. Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, or UNMEE, for six months and urged Eritrea to end its fuel blockade of U.N. staff.
Eritrea, which contends that a continued U.N. presence on the border would be tantamount to an occupation, ignored the demand, prompting Monday's warning from the council.
"The members of the Security Council reiterate their firm and unwavering demand that Eritrea (immediately) ... lift its restrictions on fuel deliveries so that UNMEE will be in a position to execute its extended mandate," the council said in a non-binding statement issued on Tuesday.
It made no mention of possible consequences if Eritrea refuses to comply.
Eritrea cut off fuel supplies to UNMEE troops on its side of the border in December, forcing them to drastically reduce patrols and demining activities.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote on Friday to the current council president, Panamanian U.N. Ambassador Ricardo Alberto Arias, warning him that UNMEE faces a "fuel crisis." Ban said if the fuel blockade was not over by Wednesday, he would begin moving UNMEE staff out of Eritrea.
Arias told reporters he wanted to meet with the Eritrean ambassador to discuss the situation but declined to speculate on steps the council might take if Eritrea remains defiant.
The 1,700-member United Nations force went to the border in 2000 at the end of a two-year war between the two countries in the Horn of Africa that killed 70,000 people.
An independent commission charged with marking the border after the war awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea in 2002, but Ethiopia did not withdraw.
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In November, the commission demarcated the line by map coordinates in a ruling that Eritrea accepted but Ethiopia rejected.
I think the U.N. and the United States and Ethiopia are playing games with a the democration of the Land that people respect and die for. I think they are playing game with Eritrean Government and I can see they are tired of it. Eritrea has the right to not supply anyone with fuel, when they seem to be there for nothing but a waste of time and money of the hard working Government of Eritrea. I am a proud Eritrean-American and I keep up with the new at all times. This is like North and South Korea situation in... [Read Full Text]
The demarcation of the border has ended the mandate of UNMEE. By its resence UNMEE is perpetuating the occupation of Eritrean territory by the ethiopian forces. One therefore confidently say that the UNMEE are there just representing those powers which have been supporting Ethiopian rejection of the rule of law. I think the Eritrean government has no obligation to provide fuel or facilitate fuel supply to UNMEE. UNMEE has now become a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution.
It's flabbergasting after the EEBC's completion of the demarcation,and Ethiopias'continous refusal to adhere to the Algiers Agreement that both countries signed as "Final and Binding,"the UN peacekeepers should have been out long ago.The TMZ(temporary Securiy Zone)is not a DMZ it is a swath of fertile Eritrean land that the people haven't been able to utilize for almost six years due to the UN failure to enforce the laws of the planet,instead the handful powerful members are dictating the fate of the many by thwarting justice to promote their expansionist ambitions,the many members of the UN will always lose their voice... [Read Full Text]
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