ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN ENVOY TO VISIT ZONE AS TENSION MOUNTS

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN ENVOY TO VISIT ZONE AS TENSION MOUNTS


New York, 4 Nov. (AKI) - A special UN envoy is to visit Eritrea and Ethiopia amid growing international concern about the movement of troops and weapons around the contested border between the two African nations. The UN Security Council on Thursday urged Eritrea and Ethiopia to refrain from threats or the use of force as tension between the two former warring neighbours remains high. Reports from the UN peacekeeping mission in the area (UNMEE) indicate military movements in both countries advancing towards the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ), which divides the two nations.The chairman of the Security Council's Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations, Ambassador Kenzo Oshima , will visit UNMEE from next Sunday to next Wednesday.Amid troops movements and tension, Eritrea has maintained its flight ban against the UN, hampering peace operations and prompting questions about whether the mission can remain viable without the cooperation of one of the parties. Secretary general Kofi Annan who briefed the 15-member Council in a closed session, said afterwards that all are appealing for calm and are in contact with the leaders concerned.He told journalists that he had spoken to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and would personally go to the region if necessary."Obviously if we had been able right from the beginning to implement the decision of the Border Commission we wouldn't be here now, but we are caught in a stalemate" he added. Under the agreement that ended the two-year war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, an independent panel in the Hague ruled on the demarcation of their common border giving the symbolically sensitive town of Badme, where the 1998 war started, to Eritrea. However that has been challenged by Ethiopia.In the Eritrean capital, Asmara, the UNMEE chief, Ambassador Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, and Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Rajender Singh described for journalists the military changes on both sides of the TSZ between the two Horn of Africa countries.General Singh said that in Ethiopia the concentration of troops has increased and they have moved about 20 to 30 kilometres closer to the Zone. Tanks which had been located deep inside Ethiopia have advanced about 10 kilometres closer to the TSZ, while other tanks have been seen in areas where they were not previously located.On the Eritrean side, he said, the restrictions on freedom of movement expand daily, as well as incursions into the TSZ by armed personnel who identify themselves as militia but are unwilling to show the required identity cards.Legwaila stressed that if the peacekeepers are not allowed to do their job, the UN will have to make some hard decisions, such as determining whether consent for the Mission to operate in its assigned area is being withdrawn by one of the parties. "The Council must decide: is it useful to keep pouring $200 million into maintaining a mission which is not allowed to do its work?" he said.
(Fmk/Aki)
04-Nov-05 10:00