Ethiopia and Eritrea are primarily responsible for settling their border dispute and must follow up on the commitments they made in an accord in 2000, the top United Nations peacekeeping official stressed today.
Given Eritrea's announcement today that it no longer supports the UN peacekeeping presence, known as UNMEE, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guéhenno told reporters following a closed Security Council meeting on the situation between the Horn of Africa neighbours that "now we are reaching the end of what peacekeeping can achieve."
He noted that peacekeeping can only make a difference if the countries involved have made a political commitment.
Eight years after the signing of the Algiers Agreements which ended the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, "it is essential that the parties recommit themselves to that process, that they complete what they started in Algiers," Mr. Guéhenno stated.
He added that the authority of the Council regarding peacekeepers has been challenged in this case, which has implications for other operations.
In a special report to the 15-member body on UNMEE released earlier this month, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon laid out four options for the future of the peacekeeping operation, including the possibility of axing the mission, because of restrictions imposed by Eritrea on its side of the disputed border.
He warned in the report that none of the options are ideal as they all bear serious risks and would not resolve the impasse created by the Eritrean restrictions. Ending the mission could result in a return to open hostilities, for example, he wrote.
"Yet the prevailing circumstances seriously limit the available courses of action," Mr. Ban noted.
The decision was made to temporarily move UN personnel and equipment out of Eritrea in March after the country cut off fuel supplies to UNMEE, paralyzing the operation on that side of the disputed border with Ethiopia.
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Qatar 'surprised' at rift with Ethiopia Wed Apr 23, 3:57 AM ET
Qatar said on Wednesday it was surprised by Ethiopia's decision to cut diplomatic ties with the Gulf state, and rejected as unfounded the accusation that it sought to destabilise the Horn of Africa.
The official QNA news agency cited a foreign ministry spokesman as saying Doha was "surprised" by Addis Ababa's "unfounded and untruthful allegations," and saw them as "a deliberate attempt to justify its own erroneous policies."
On Monday, Ethiopia announced it was severing ties with Qatar, accusing the Doha government of supporting armed opposition groups across the Horn of Africa and citing Qatar's "strong ties" with Ethiopia's arch foe Eritrea.
QNA quoted the spokesman as calling on Ethiopia "to refrain from implicating Qatar in regional differences," and adding that "the Ethiopian government made similar allegations in the past, charges to which Qatar preferred not to respond in the hope that such erroneous behaviour might cease."
On Monday, the Addis Ababa government said in a statement that it had "displayed considerable patience towards Qatar's attempts to destabilise our sub-region and, in particular, its hostile behaviour towards Ethiopia.
"Qatar has now, however, become a major source of instability in the Horn of Africa and more widely," it added.
The statement accused Qatar of using its "media outlets" to undermine Ethiopia.
On April 11, the foreign ministry in Addis Ababa sharply criticised the Qatar-based news network Al-Jazeera for broadcasting TV reports on Ethiopia's restive Ogaden region.
Ethiopia imposed a news blackout on the vast area which has an ethnic Somali majority and has seen a long-running separatist rebellion by the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
"It is hard to ignore the fact that Al-Jazeera broadcasts out of Doha, the capital of Qatar. Qatar is a close ally of Eritrea. It would be totally unrealistic to imagine that any Al-Jazeera programme on Ethiopia could be anything other than seriously biased," the Addis Ababa government said.
With 3000 years of war, death, destruction, genocide and holocaust in their back yard, the self serving European marauding bounty hunters has never been interested in the well being of humanity, least of Africans. Though, shedding crocodile tears in the name of God, Christianity, human rights or democracy, the West's vested interest still is enslaving the defenseless Africans & looting Africa, directly or indirectly by hiring slave-driver African foot-soldiers like Ethiopia's Zenawi. Isn't so?