|
|
|
|
| Last Updated: May 29, 2008 - 11:05:58 AM |
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
INTERVIEW-Eritrea says U.N. scaremongering on war risk
13 May 13, 2008 - 5:22:08 PM
|
ASMARA, May 13 (Reuters) - U.N. fears that a pullout of peacekeepers on
the Eritrea-Ethiopia border may lead to a new war are unfounded
scaremongering and a "gimmick" to cover the world body's failings,
Eritrea's leader said on Tuesday.
In a rare interview with
Western media, President Isaias Afwerki also told Reuters a United
Nations effort to broker peace talks for Somalia this week were a
U.S.-inspired attempt to undermine a legitimate resistance movement.
Eritrea and Ethiopia's long-running enmity, including a 1998-2000
border war, and the conflict in Somalia, have polarised the Horn of
Africa, one of the world's poorest and most conflict-riven regions.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last month the withdrawal of
the majority of 1,700 peacekeepers on the Eritrea-Ethiopia border,
following a fuel cutoff by Asmara, risked new hostilities on the
1,000-km (620 mile) frontier.
"It is a gimmick and a cover-up
for the failure of the (U.N.) Security Council and the
Secretary-General to do anything to close this chapter for good," said
the 62-year-old former guerrilla fighter, who won power in 1991.
"They are playing the scare game."
Asmara says the world body has long favoured regional power Ethiopia
and the latest manifestation of that is its failure to force Addis
Ababa to comply with a 2002 border ruling that gave the flashpoint town
of Badme to Eritrea.
The United Nations blames Eritrea for
forcing its peacekeepers to leave too early by measures like cutting
off fuel supplies and banning helicopter flights.
Isaias said a
November 2007 "virtual" demarcation of the border, by the same
independent commission that ruled in 2002, buried the issue. "The job
is finished. There won't be any reason for any one of us to assume that
tension may rise."
Ethiopia had no legal grounds to invade Eritrea, and was anyway tied up with internal divisions, Isaias said.
"How can one possibly assume Ethiopia finding an excuse to go for any
use of force? I frankly can't believe that regime has expansionist
dreams."
SOMALIA CONFLICT
Speaking at Asmara's colonial-era
presidential palace, Isaias also accused the United Nations of trying
to divide Somalia's opposition by hosting talks in Djibouti with the
Western-backed Somali government.
"I have no idea why they've
gone for this. It's part of a plan meant to weaken the Somali
resistance by dividing and weakening the Islamic Courts, dividing and
weakening the (opposition) alliance, and creating problems here and
there.
"No one seems to be interested in what the United
Nations, with pressures from Washington, is trying to do ... (It) may
not bring in any result at all."
Asmara hosts an umbrella group
of exiled Somali opposition leaders, and says insurgents fighting the
Ethiopian-backed government inside Somalia are a popular resistance
movement unfairly characterised as terrorists by Washington and others.
"It is part of the scare policy, intimidating people, finding an excuse
in terrorism to justify any wrongdoing," he added, accusing Washington
of trying to put a smokescreen over failed policies in Somalia and the
Horn of Africa in general.
The United States and United Nations
have accused Eritrea of fuelling the conflict in Somalia by sending
weapons to insurgents, and Washington has threatened to put it on a
list of state sponsors of terrorism.
"Trying to associate the
resistance of the Somali people with terrorism is a mere fabrication,"
Isaias said. He scorned the accusations against Eritrea as "lies" and
accused Washington of a post-9/11 "addiction" to terrorism claims.
The United States is a major ally of Ethiopia and has used air strikes
to try and kill what it says are al Qaeda suspects operating alongside
militant Islamists in Somalia.
Isaias said Somalis were
justified in turning to Islam as a way to move beyond failed clan-based
politics. "It is not some fanatic association ... There's nothing wrong
with adopting Islam as a solution, or Christianity for that matter."
Source:Reuters
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
