Posted on 12/15/2005 4:31:58 AM PST by cloud8
A first group of UN peacekeepers expelled from Eritrea left the UN headquarters in Asmara enroute to Addis Ababa.
The group of about 20, including a woman in tears, boarded a bus at the UN Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) offices in Asmara that headed to the airport for a temporary relocation in the Ethiopian capital.
A UN official, who asked to remain anonymous, said the team was relocating ahead of the Friday deadline imposed by Eritrean authorities.
They are expected to board three flights, the first one taking off at 11:00 am (0800 GMT), then 11:30 am and the final one at 4 pm , according to the same official.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council decided to temporarily relocate some of the peacekeepers monitoring a border dispute between the two countries, including those from the West whom Asmara wanted withdrawn.
The Eritrean order issued on December 6 targeted about 160 Western UNMEE civilian personnel and military observers from United States, Canada, Europe and Russia.
The majority of peacekeeping troops come from India, Jordan, Kenya and Bangladesh.
The Security Council did not specify the exact number of peacekeepers to be relocated, but earlier Wednesday diplomats told reporters that it would be between 180 and 200.
UNMEE has 3,794 peacekeepers and support staff on both sides of the 620-mile border, many of whom are based in Eritrea and patrol a 15-mile buffer zone inside Eritrean territory.
The council said the decision to relocate the peacekeepers stemmed from Eritrea's lack of cooperation with UNMEE, conditions on the ground and the inability of UNMEE to implement its mandate fully.
While stressing that it intended to keep up a military presence in Eritrea despite the shift, the UN Security Council made it clear that the number of those to be relocated would cover not just Westerners as demanded by Asmara but others as well.
Diplomats say the expulsions is a sign of Eritrea's increasing anger and frustration with the failure of world powers to push Ethiopia to accept an international ruling on the border in 2002 that awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Asmara.
The expulsions are the latest in a series of restrictive measures Eritrea has imposed on UNMEE, which says the moves have badly damaged its ability to monitor the border that is says is "tense and potentially volatile."
Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a bloody 1998-2000 war over the border that claimed some 80,000 lives and Asmara says new conflict is looming because Addis Ababa has rejected the binding border demarcation emanating from a peace accord.
Efforts by a pair of UN envoys -- Jean-Marie Guehenno, the head of UN peacekeeping operations, and military adviser General Randir Kumar Mehta -- deployed to two nations, failed to solve the crisis when Asmara snubbed them.
The free ride and the petty bureaucrat power is over.
Baseball?
Was this in response to them raping young girls? Or was that another country?
Gee, relocate 180 useless, powerless idiots, living off UN funds and doing nothing, from one place in Hell to another place in Hell.
Women in tears - sounds like a powerful deterrent there.
Epitomizes UN "power." - Women in tears. - Should be their new logo.
That's EVERY country where the UN has a peacekeeping presence. There seems to be a problem with some European and Islamic peacekeepers.
Google it and you will be suprised at all the information not reported by MSM.
I can't remember where it was, Indonesia somewhere, that even the goats aren't safe from horny Islamic "peacekeepers"
"...180 useless, powerless idiots, living off UN funds and doing nothing, from one place in Hell to another place in Hell."
I have always wondered what exactly a UN "peacekeeper" did.
Career bureaucrats doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, traveling from one God-forsaken outpost to another, all the while collecting big salaries.
They sit at the bar in the Hotel Intercontinental and drink Scotch Whiskey. Very peacefully, thank you very much...
A Tom Hanks quote from A League of Their Own. A thoroughly forgettable movie with the exception of the above referenced line and the fact that Geena Davis succeeds in making Madonna Circonne look short, dumpy and forgettable.
And then have a good cry.
I wonder if this is the first instance of the UN actually being thrown out.
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