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UN vacates posts in Ethiopian-Eritrean security zone due to Eritrean chopper ban

17 October 2005 – The United Nations today began vacating nearly half the 40 posts it maintains to monitor an accord ending a border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea because of an Eritrean ban on its helicopter flights, and Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that the mission was being jeopardized and its deployment might have to be reconsidered.

“Obviously we need all our tools, helicopters, trucks, communication to be able to operate,” Mr. Annan told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York. “We are placed in a situation where the government has not been cooperating and has limited the movements of our troops.

“Some were isolated in certain positions and so we’ve begun regrouping them and positioning ourselves in a manner that protects the men. Obviously our proceedings and operations have been impeded, and if this continues we will have to take some very hard and critical decisions as to the usefulness of staying there if we cannot operate.”

The five-year old UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said the Eritrean ban, for which it had received no explanation or indication of duration, has adversely affected the operational effectiveness and monitoring capability of its mandate to ensure observance of commitments ending the two-year border war between the two countries.

“It was deduced that the continuing occupation of small posts in isolated places has become untenable and operationally unviable,” the Mission said in a statement announcing the vacation of 18 posts in the Temporary Security Zone and one Team Site of military observers, beginning immediately.

Troops from these posts will be used to augment other posts in the Zone in order to make their strength operationally viable, it added.

Mr. Annan and the Security Council have already called on Eritrea to reverse the ban which has forced the UNMEE to suspend its lifesaving mine clearance activities in the country.

“We have not been able to get any explanation out of the Government,” he told reporters today. “You know that our relationship with the Eritrean Government has not been an easy one. And we are not the only organization or entity with difficult relations with that Government.”

On Friday Mr. Annan’s Special Representative, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, met with Colonel Zecarias Ogabagader, the Eritrean official who is the main contact for the mission, but received no clarification.