By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Eritrea accused the United Nations on Wednesday of making false accusations during a standoff over U.N. peacekeepers who have been trying to withdraw from the Eritrean-Ethiopian border. The U.N. mission, known as UNMEE, had been monitoring a border security zone between Eritrea and Ethiopia. It recently began regrouping in the Eritrean capital Asmara after Eritrea cut off peacekeepers' fuel and food, U.N. officials have said. "The press offices of the United Nations and other private media have been leveling unfounded accusations against Eritrea about UNMEE's situation in the country," the Eritrean mission to the United Nations said in a statement. The problems between Eritrea and the United Nations began in December with a fuel blockade and reached crisis point last week when Eritrea cut off food supplies to the U.N. troops, according to U.N. officials. The mission started work in 2000, at the end of a two-year border war that killed an estimated 70,000 people. U.N. officials have expressed fears that the peacekeepers' departure could spark a new conflict. Ethiopia and Eritrea insist they will not start another war, but both have moved tens of thousands of troops to the border because of the dispute over their 620-mile (1,000 km) frontier. "Eritrea has maintained all along that the issue of fuel is technical, which could have been resolved quietly without politicizing it," the statement said. It did not mention the issue of UNMEE's food supplies. Western diplomats have said they suspected one of the reasons Eritrean soldiers were making it difficult for UNMEE to withdraw was to get their hands on its equipment. The Eritrean mission also denied that allegation. Eritrea criticized the United Nations for what it described as a failure to give Asmara sufficient advance notice of UNMEE's movement plans. The peacekeepers on the border between the two Horn of Africa foes, Eritrea and Ethiopia, had been struggling for months to deal with the fuel blockade before finally being ordered by the United Nations to move out. They have been stationed in a 15.5-mile (25-km) buffer zone inside Eritrea. But Asmara has turned against the mission because of U.N. inability to enforce rulings by an independent boundary commission awarding chunks of Ethiopian-held territory, including the town of Badme, to Eritrea. This, the Eritrean statement said, was the core issue and had been ignored by the United Nations. "The government of Eritrea reiterates its request to receive a response from the Secretary General (Ban Ki-moon) regarding Ethiopia's occupation of Eritrean territories in violation of the U.N. Charter and the substantive provisions of the Algiers Peace Agreement," it said.
Kenya's Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai addresses the media in Nairobi February 20, 2008. Maathai, a lauded environmentalist and veteran of the Kenyan civil rights movement, said on Wednesday she has ...
