From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Mar 15 2010 - 07:40:30 EST
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Eritrea-is-Unjustly-Criminalized-Says-Official--87627647.html
Eritrea
is Unjustly Criminalized, Says Official
A top official of Eritrea’s government says the administration is vindicated
after a United Nations report said Asmara’s support for hard line Somali
insurgents had either diminished or become less visible.
Peter Clottey
14 March 2010
A top official of Eritrea’s government says the administration is vindicated
after a United Nations report said Asmara’s support for hard line Somali
insurgents had either diminished or become less visible.
Girma Asmerom, Eritrea’s ambassador to Belgium denied President Isaias
Afewerki’s administration had been supporting Islamic insurgents who have
vowed to overthrow the internationally-backed Somali Transitional Federal
Government (TFG).
“We are not only vindicated that is the reality and that is what we’ve been
saying. And we have never ever supplied any ammunition or financial support
to anybody in Somalia. So, we have been criminalized and unjustly accused
for our thinking out of the box, for just simply saying that Somalis must be
left alone and they should resolve their problem through their internal
dynamic reconciliation conference,” he said.
The report compiled by the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia is
scheduled to be presented to the UN Security Council this week.
It said Asmara violated a 2008 arms embargo against various armed groups in
Somalia by supporting insurgents fighting the TFG.
The report said Eritrea supported hard line insurgents despite being under
United Nations sanctions.
It said President Afewerki’s government appears to have scaled down its
military assistance while continuing to provide political, diplomatic and
possibly financial support to insurgents.
But ambassador Asmerom dismissed the report as untrue.
“This is a watered down resolution. If you look at the resolution in the
UN-Security Council illegal sanctions…clearly that’s what it says because in
the past we were accused of military support. (But) finally when we started
challenging them that they don’t have any evidence, they started watering it
down to diplomatic and political support kind of thing,” Asmerom said.
Last year, the United Nations Security Council imposed arms and travel
sanctions on Eritrea for allegedly supporting hard line Somali insurgents --
a charge Eritrea denies.
The Security Council also expressed concern in the resolution over Asmara’s
rejection of the UN-backed 2008 Djibouti Agreement between the Somali
Transitional Federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of
Somalia (ARS).
Eritrea has often accused the United States of masterminding the recent
UN-imposed sanctions. But diplomats reportedly said Uganda, which has
peacekeeping troops in Somalia, drafted the resolution after the African
Union called on the Council in May 2009 to punish Eritrea over its role in
Somalia.
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