Lift restrictions on UN peacekeepers, Annan urges

The United Nations Secretary-General has strongly urged Eritrea to lift restrictions it imposed on UN peacekeepers patrolling its disputed border with Ethiopia, saying the measures placed the lives of the blue berets at risk. Kofi Annan's appeal followed the death on Wednesday of an Indian peacekeeper who, according to the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), had suffered a cardiac arrest in the Temporary Security Zone. He was pronounced dead after having been evacuated to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. "The Secretary-General is particularly troubled that the death occurred in the circumstances when, because of the inadmissible restrictions imposed by Eritrea, the medical evacuation of the sick peacekeeper to a hospital required the use of a longer route," Annan's spokesman said in a statement. Eritrea banned helicopter flights by UN peacekeepers in its airspace on 5 October. It later banned UN vehicles from patrolling at night on its side of the border zone, prompting the UN to vacate 18 of its 40 posts. In December, Eritrea expelled 180 UNMEE staff from 18 of the 44 nationalities that comprise the 3,300-strong peacekeeping force. They included staff from Europe, Canada, the United States and the Russian Federation. Last week, the UN Security Council urged Ethiopia and Eritrea to define their common border in accordance with a decision made by an independent commission and meet with the group charged with implementing the demarcation. Eritrea rejected the proposed meeting. "Any attempts to derail the dispensation of the border demarcation from its legal course or even entertain other alternative mechanisms suggestive of dragging behind or holding up the process will have no legal bearing or serve any other purpose than to prompt events that would set off a dangerous precedent," said a statement issued by the Eritrean government on Monday. Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war, but the boundary between the two countries was never formally demarcated. A war over the border broke out in 1998 and claimed tens of thousands of lives. In December 2000, the two countries agreed to allow an independent commission to rule on the border dispute while UN troops patrolled a 25 km buffer zone. Ethiopia, however, refused to accept the ruling made in April 2002. They have been locked in a tense standoff ever since.