Implement decision without preconditions, UN Security Council tells Eritrea

Mulugeta Alemu

5 February 2008

The president of the Security Council, Mr. Ricardo Alberto Arias, issued a rare and strongly worded statement against Eritrea on 4 February 2008 demanding that the Horn of Africa’s small nation immediately and without any preconditions lift restrictions it has imposed on the United Nations peacekeeping force. The presidential statement, recalling the Council’s resolution adopted on 30 January 2008 in which the Council extended the mandate of UNMEE for additional six months, expressed ‘serious concern’ of the members of the Council about Eritrea’s reluctance to lift its restrictions particularly the fuel embargo. Eritrea had frantically lobbied Council’s members not to extend UNMEE’s mandate arguing that the Border Commission has already completed its responsibilities.

It a direct rebuke to Eritrea’s politics of blackmail, the Council urged Eritrean government to urgently lift all restrictions without any precondition by allowing the force to buy fuel either from Eritrea or outside. Ban Ki-moon’s report to UN’s most powerful body earlier detailed Eritrea’s violations of its commitment under Algiers agreement.

Eritrea’s has not yet officially responded to the statement. But the Council’s resolution triggered Eritrea’s now familiar supercilious criticisms. No sooner the Council adopted resolution 1798 that Eritrea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press statement castigating the UN body for being an instrument of US’s hegemony and interest. Commentators note how Eritrean government’s undiplomatically and stubborn actions continue to undermine Eritrea’s own interest and the potential to solve its dispute with Ethiopia peacefully.