Eritrea appeals to UN in bid to prevent sanctions

08 November, 2011 | Times of Oman
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    UN: Eritrea's president has asked for a
    personal hearing before the UN Security
    Council in a bid to head off new sanctions
    over alleged support for Somalia's
    Islamist rebels, diplomats said.

    Rival Ethiopia has been calling for tougher
    action against Eritrea for several months
    after its neighbor was linked to a plot to
    bomb an African Union summit in Addis
    Ababa.

Kenya is now accusing Eritrea of arming Somali Islamist rebels and
UN Security Council members Nigeria and Gabon have tabled a
resolution calling for sanctions on Eritrea's mining industry and
remissions from abroad.

Eritrea's President Issaias Afeworki has asked to speak to the 15-
nation Security Council in New York in a move opposed by the
United States.

Some Western nations oppose new sanctions, fearing such
restrictions could harm the civilian population, diplomats said.

Afeworki has denied Kenya's accusations that his country arms
Shebab rebels in Somalia and that it was involved in a plot, outlined
in a UN sanctions committee report, to bomb the summit in the
Ethiopian capital in January.

The Security Council has not yet formally replied to the president,
but diplomats said the United States and other council members
feared that his presence at a meeting would only increase tensions.

"If Afeworki is at a meeting, then how could we stop the leaders of
Ethiopia and other countries coming," one Western diplomat said.

The United States has in the past spoken out in favor of new
sanctions. But envoys from other members of the council say action
against mining -- the mainstay of Eritrea's tiny, crippled economy --
would only harm the country's five million people.
No date has yet been set for a meeting on Eritrea, but the six-nation
Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, an East African
regional bloc, is stepping up pressure for a decision, diplomats said.

The draft resolution calls on all states to "prohibit investment" in
Eritrea's key mining industry and ban the imports of gold and other
resources from Eritrea, according to a copy of a draft resolution
seen by AFP.

The action would also seek to ban the collection of a two percent
tax on money sent home by Eritreans abroad.

In December 2009, the Security Council imposed an arms embargo,
travel restrictions and asset freezes on Eritrean leaders for their
alleged support to Shebab in the civil war against Somalia's Western-
backed transitional government.

Eritrea's Foreign Minister Osman Saleh said in a letter to the
Security Council last week that giving Ethiopia and "other powers
that harbor belligerent intentions" the right to inspect any cargo
heading for Eritrea "is fraught with dangerous security implications."
Action against the mining industry would "cripple future economic
growth," said the minister.

He went on to slam the travel ban against officials as a bid to
"reinforce the image of a 'pariah state' that Eritrea’s enemies have
been peddling."

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