Global Policy Forum

By Evelyn Leopold

U.N. helicopters in Eritrea were grounded on Wednesday, jeopardizing U.N. peacekeeping operations along the border with Ethiopia, U.N. officials said. Eritrea told the United Nations on Tuesday the flights, which resupply peacekeepers, conduct aerial reconnaissance and evacuate the sick, had to stop immediately. No reason was given but U.N. officials suspect Eritrea objected to the reconnaissance flights. "We had no choice. We can't do that against their orders," said chief U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Should the ban on helicopters continue, U.N. peacekeepers would have to be withdrawn as roads are too difficult for supplies to reach them, U.N. officials said. The world body has also shut down mine clearance operations because no helicopters are available to fly out the wounded, U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said. The 15-member Security Council warned Ethiopia and Eritrea on Tuesday not to restart their two-year-old border war and demanded Eritrea reverse its decision and allow the U.N. helicopter flights. "I hope the Eritrean government will reverse its decision to ground all the U.N. helicopters, placing the U.N. peacekeepers at risk," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters on Wednesday.

"The government has a responsibility to support and ensure the protection of these peacekeepers and I hope that the message has got through and they will not move forward with the decision they have taken," Annan said. Jean-Marie Guehenno, the head of U.N. peacekeeping, told reporters the reconnaissance flights were important, especially in a country with few roads. "If we are not able to move around effectively with our helicopters, we will have much less visibility on what is going on on the ground, which can in turn create suspicions and create more instability," he said.

Helicopters are the main supply avenue for the 3,000 peacekeepers, organized in the U.N. Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, known as UNMEE. The flight ban, however, does not cover fixed-wing U.N. aircraft flying between the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa and the Eritrean capital of Asmara, via Nairobi, Kenya. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton used the controversy to stress that U.N. peacekeeping missions could not go on forever. "We need to use this as a pivot point to find a way to end, to resolve the boundary dispute ... and move on rather than have an indefinite peacekeeping force," Bolton said late on Tuesday.

Under a December 2000 peace deal ending the war that killed more than 70,000 people, Ethiopia and Eritrea agreed to accept the conclusions of the panel, which issued them in April 2002. But the process of marking out the new boundary broke down after Ethiopia objected that the flash point town of Badme had been awarded to Eritrea. The border war began when Ethiopia accused Eritrea of invading Badme.

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