UN Fails Again

The UN is ending its peacekeeping mission along the Eritrea-Ethiopia border, claiming that Eritrea is hampering peacekeeping activities.

Council members and other diplomats said the U.N. had little choice but to withdraw its 1,700-strong force that has been monitoring a 15-mile-wide, 620-mile-long buffer zone between the two nations.

The vote means the entire mission will be terminated on Thursday, Vietnam's U.N. ambassador, Le Luong Minh, told reporters after the vote.

Belgian Ambassador Jan Grauls told the council that the mission, known as UNMEE, "had become impossible to implement" because Eritreans progressively limited peacekeepers' movements -- including restricting night patrols, supply routes and diesel fuel -- and Ethiopians refused to accept an independent boundary commission's 2002 decision to award the key town of Badme to Eritrea.

"The border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea remains total, and the United Nations is withdrawing without having been able to assist the two countries in finding a common ground, in spite of having tried all to achieve it," Grauls said.

Eritrea and Ethiopia have been feuding over their border since Eritrea gained independence in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war. The U.N. entered under a 2000 peace agreement that ended the 2½-year border war.

So, instead of taking action against the Eritrean government, they're giving up, and the threat of a conflict between the two countries increases.