Government demands removal of UNMEE forces commander

The Ethiopia government has demanded that the military head of the United Nations peacekeepers be removed from his post after a row over the disputed border with Eritrea. It accused Maj-Gen Patrick Cammaert of "serious mistakes" after journalists were flown into a disputed village on the border. "He did not do his job properly, so we want him to be removed," Netsannet Asfaw, Minister of State for Information, told IRIN on Wednesday. "If he is doing his job properly, it is amazing that journalists would enter Ethiopian territory without a visa. What is he doing?" The row comes after the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) took the international journalists to the contested village of Badme, which is administered by Ethiopia. Badme was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting during the bloody two-year border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. An international tribunal in The Hague was set up to resolve the contested border issue once and for all, but confusion still surrounds the location of the tiny village. Each of the two countries claims it falls within its territory, and have been engaged in a war of words over who actually owns it. "It is wrong to go to Asmara and then to Badme," added Netsannet. "If he is responsible for that area, he should see to it that such things don’t happen. It is his job to do that. I don’t know whether it was negligence or deliberate or whatever, but I know that something extremely serious has happened, and he is the boss of the area. He is responsible to take care that such things don’t happen." The minister declined to reveal what action her government would take if UNMEE refused to remove him. "We will cross that bridge when we get there," she said. Ethiopia reacted furiously when the Badme trip came to light, and banned UNMEE from crossing its border for eight days, seriously hampering the peacekeeping operation. The ban was "suspended" on Monday, but the government is still insisting that the Dutch force commander be removed. Cammaert, a career soldier, joined the UNMEE on 1 November 2000, having been personally appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Sources close to Cammaert say he was unaware of the journalists' visit to Badme. "This was something that had been decided without his knowledge," one senior source told IRIN, adding that the major-general – a Royal Marine who has served in Bosnia-Herzegovina - had been "absolutely furious" when he learnt of the trip. UNMEE spokeswoman Gail Bindley-Taylor Sainte declined to comment on the demand by the Ethiopian government that Cammaert should be removed. She added, however, that the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, now considered the Badme issue "closed".