U.N. Security Council orders arms embargo on Eritrea

Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 24, 2009; A07

NEW YORK -- The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday imposed an arms embargo on the East African country of Eritrea and vowed to slap financial and travel restrictions on its leaders for arming Islamist militants in Somalia.

The resolution, which was introduced by Uganda, passed by a vote of 13 to 1 in the 15-nation council, with Libya voting "no" and China abstaining.

In opposing the vote, Libya's U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Dabbashi, said: "Libya was a victim of sanctions for many years and as such has committed itself to not be a party to the taking of sanctions against any African country whatsoever."

Image by met.e.o.r.a via Flickr

The embargo followed months of frustration by U.S., African and U.N. officials over Eritrea's alleged role in arming al-Shabaab, an Islamist group that is trying to overthrow Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government. The African Union, which has sent thousands of peacekeepers to Somalia, had urged the council to act.

Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States quietly pressed Eritrea in recent months to cease its support for Somali militants but had made little progress.

"The council acted today, not hastily, not aggressively, but with the aim quite sincerely of encouraging Eritrea to do as this council and so many of its members have repeatedly called upon it to do, which is not to continue actions which destabilize Somalia," Rice said after the vote. "We did not come to this decision with any joy -- or with anything other than a desire to support the stability of peace in the region."

Eritrea's U.N. ambassador, Araya Desta, denied that his country supports Somali militants, saying the resolution was based on "fabricated lies" concocted by Ethiopia, its neighbor and chief military adversary, and Ethiopia's chief foreign ally, the United States.

"The U.N. Security Council has today passed a shameful resolution imposing sanctions against Eritrea," he said after the vote, adding that Eritrea has never given military or financial support to the opposition in Somalia. "We don't want to take sides in Somalia."

Image via Wikipedia

In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki also dismissed the allegations as "fabricated" and accused the United States of pursuing years of failed policies in the region.

The resolution expresses "grave concern" over Eritrea's provision of "political, financial and logistical support to armed groups engaged in undermining peace and reconciliation in Somalia." It demands that Eritrea "cease all efforts to destabilize or overthrow, directly or indirectly," the transitional government.

The resolution calls on the U.N. sanctions committee to compile a list of political and military leaders who will be barred from traveling outside Eritrea and whose financial assets will be frozen.

The U.N. council has had an increasingly rocky relationship with Eritrea, which clashed in recent years with U.N. peacekeepers monitoring its border with Ethiopia and more recently refused to abide by U.N. demands to withdraw its troops from territory of its other neighbor, Djibouti. The resolution reiterates a demand that Eritrea withdraw its forces from Djibouti.

Image via Wikipedia

Desta denied that Eritrean troops are occupying any part of Djibouti. He also criticized the council for failing to enforce a 2003 resolution -- and a peace accord -- requiring Ethiopia to withdraw its troops from Eritrea. Ethiopia has never done so.

Related articles by Zemanta

• UN imposes sanctions on Eritrea (news.bbc.co.uk)
• U.N. Security Council hits Eritrea with sanctions (cnn.com)
• UN action shameful, says Eritrea (news.bbc.co.uk)
• World Briefing | Africa: Eritrea: U.N. Sanctions Imposed (nytimes.com)

Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi Allowed to Meet With Western Envoys - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

By Tim Johnston
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 10, 2009

BANGKOK, Oct. 9 -- Burma's military government granted detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi a rare meeting with Western diplomats Friday in the former capital, Rangoon.

Suu Kyi, who was sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest in August, met with diplomats from Australia, Britain and the United States in a government guesthouse, but strict conditions imposed by the ruling junta limited the conversation's scope.

Two representatives of Burma's Foreign Ministry also attended the hour-long meeting.

"It was a very interesting meeting, very focused on the subject at hand, which was sanctions. Daw Suu Kyi was very interested in all the details," said British Ambassador Andrew Heyn, using a term of respect for older women.

He said Suu Kyi, 64, appeared healthy and in good spirits.

"She was very clear that it was a fact-finding session, and she made absolutely explicit that she had not reached a policy on sanctions," he said. But Suu Kyi did ask, he said, under what conditions Western countries might lift sanctions, a topic that brought the fate of the 2,100 political prisoners held in Burmese jails into the conversation, along with free and fair elections next year and dialogue with Burma's ethnic minorities.

The United States has severe restrictions on doing business with Burma, while the European Union has targeted members of the regime, their families and their business associates.

The United States has recently undertaken a major review of its Burma policies and concluded that it will leave its sanctions in place but end the country's diplomatic isolation, a measure that critics fear might push the country further toward China.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in Burma's previous elections, in 1990. She has spent almost 14 of the intervening 19 years under house arrest, and analysts have said that her latest sentence, imposed after an American tourist swam across a lake to her house, is designed to keep her out of circulation until after the elections.

Despite her prolonged isolation, Suu Kyi remains the junta's most formidable opponent. But she has recently reached out to the generals, offering to discuss lending her moral authority to the drive to lift a catalogue of sanctions that are economically crippling and personally embarrassing for a military that still struggles for legitimacy 47 years after it toppled the last civilian government.

Clinton Pushes Kenyan Leaders to Follow Through on Promised Reforms

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 6, 2009

NAIROBI, Aug. 5 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton began a major trip to Africa on Wednesday by publicly urging Kenya, a strategic U.S. ally, to move faster to resolve tensions lingering from a disputed 2007 election that precipitated the country's worst crisis since it gained independence.

Clinton went further in a meeting with Kenyan leaders, urging them to fire the attorney general and the police chief, who have been accused of ignoring dozens of killings carried out by police death squads, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. Clinton also raised the possibility of banning some Kenyan officials from traveling to the United States if the government does not move more quickly to prosecute those responsible for post-election ethnic violence that left 1,300 people dead. The organizers are widely suspected to include senior officials and cabinet ministers, many of whom have family members in the United States.

"We are going to use whatever tools we need to use to ensure that there is justice," the official said. "We raised the possibility of visa bans and implied there could be more."

Clinton's public remarks were more gentle but still reflected the Obama administration's concern that Kenya, which has lent crucial support to U.S. humanitarian, diplomatic and military operations in this volatile region, could slip back into political and ethnic violence that brought it close to collapse last year.

President Mwai Kibaki and former opposition leader Raila Odinga, now the prime minister, ended the crisis with a power-sharing deal and a commitment to political reforms that would include prosecution of those suspected of participating in the post-election violence. But Clinton made clear that their coalition government has not followed through.

"The absence of strong and democratic institutions has permitted ongoing corruption, impunity, politically motivated violence, human rights abuses, lack of respect for the rule of law," Clinton said at a news conference after meeting with Kibaki, Odinga and security officials.

'They're Trying to Hide'

Kenyans remain deeply frustrated with the coalition government, which they say is bloated with well-paid officials concerned more with their own survival than with the welfare of the country, swaths of which are in the midst of a hunger crisis.

In the latest example of trouble with the peace deal, the Kenyan government stepped back in recent days from a commitment to establish a special tribunal to try people accused in connection with the post-election violence. The government said it would rely on a "reformed judicial system" instead.

But in a country with a history of sweeping corruption cases, political killings and other official misdeeds under the rug, human rights groups and ordinary Kenyans cast the move as a blatant bid by senior officials to avoid punishment.

"They're selfish, and they're trying to hide," said Caleb Onduso, 25, who was among a crowd at a convention center here Wednesday hoping to hear Clinton speak. "They've forgotten us."

The U.S. Embassy also condemned the government's move in a statement on the eve of Clinton's visit, saying it was "not a credible approach in the eyes of Kenyans and the international community."

If the government fails to establish the special tribunal, U.S. officials say, they will support prosecution of the suspects by the International Criminal Court.

Clinton's trip comes just three weeks after President Obama visited Ghana and laid out his emerging policy toward Africa. Like Obama, whose father was Kenyan, Clinton is emphasizing good governance and touting a $20 billion U.S.-led program to provide poor countries in Africa and elsewhere with agricultural aid aimed at small farmers.

Clinton aides said the trips marked the first time a president and a secretary of state had visited Africa so early in a new administration. Clinton is set to log 21,200 miles on her 11-day, seven-country tour.

Economic Growth

She began her visit Wednesday morning at the annual forum on the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, a program started by President Bill Clinton that allows enhanced U.S. market access for African products. Clinton said she wanted to emphasize Africa's success stories and move beyond the "stale and outdated" image of the continent as a place awash in poverty, disease and conflict.

Sub-Saharan Africa had economic growth averaging more than 5 percent for the five years leading up to 2009, the first such expansion in 45 years. But the continent is now feeling the pinch of shriveling trade and remittances due to the global economic crisis.

At the AGOA Forum, Clinton emphasized plans for U.S. development assistance to focus more on spurring business and trade. Meanwhile, she said, African countries must focus on good governance and adherence to the rule of law, conditions she called "essential to creating positive, predictable investment climates."

In her meeting with Kibaki and Odinga, Clinton delivered a "frank statement" from Obama pressing for greater progress on political reforms such as a new constitution and an overhaul of the police, she told reporters.

Kibaki appeared to bristle at some of the U.S. demands, saying at the conference that his government had introduced electoral reforms and was in the midst of a constitutional review.

"These and other reforms are genuinely Kenyan," he said. "And Kenyans are driving them forward in earnest, for the good of all."

But Odinga, who had accused Kibaki of stealing the 2007 presidential election, acknowledged that there were problems and praised Clinton.

She has "demonstrated she's a true democrat, in agreeing to work with her opponent," he said, referring to Obama. "That's a lesson Africa needs to take seriously."

N.Korean Allies Join Test Protest

Writer: ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT AND THANIDA TANSUBHAPOL

Published: 24/07/2009 at 12:00 AM

PHUKET : Russia and China have joined the US in pressuring North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, following Pyongyang's recent ballistic missile tests.

See no evil: Mrs Clinton and North Korean delegate Pak Kun-gwang ignore each other at the Phuket meeting.

Normally counting themselves as Pyongyang's allies, Russia and China expressed concern about the nuclear missile tests at the Asean Regional Forum yesterday.

The North Korean nuclear issue dominated security issues at talks held to wrap up the week-long meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The ARF urged North Korea to return to the six-party talks to end the regional nuclear threat, but North Korea immediately rejected the call.

The meeting also urged members of the United Nations to implement the UN Security Council's resolution to impose sanctions on North Korea.

The ARF would look at what it could do to promote peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said after the meeting.

Asean diplomatic sources said even Russia and China shared international concern about the issue.

But in a compromising note, China said it hoped sanctions against Pyongyang would not affect North Korean people, and that the six-nation talks could resume, the sources said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea faced strong international opposition over its missile testing programme.

"There is no place to go for North Korea as they have no friends left," Mrs Clinton said.

"There is a convergence of views that we are prepared to work with North Korea, but that North Korea has to change its behaviour," she said.

But Ri Hung-sik, who led the North Korean delegation at the meeting, said Pyongyang would not return to the negotiating table until the US changed its anti-North Korea attitude.

The six-party talks comprise China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the US.

Earlier, North Korea downgraded its representative attending the ARF from ambassador-at-large Pak Kun-gwang to Mr Ri, who is director-general of the International Organisations Department. It was the third time Pyongyang had sent a low-level representative to the ARF since 2000.

North Korea's insistence its position should be reflected in the ARF statement forced participants to delay issuing it for two hours.

The ARF members also called for joint efforts to fight terrorists and said the July 17 hotel bombings in Jakarta were a reminder terrorism was still a threat to the region.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said in addressing the terrorism problem, people should avoid singling out any country, race, religion or ethnicity.

"If terrorism is associated with religion, it will create animosity," Mr Anifah said.

The meeting also pledged to promote democracy and human rights in Burma, Mr Kasit said.

Burma is under pressure to release National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners to pave the way for national reconciliation before the country holds general elections next year.

Iran Cleric Says British Embassy Staff to Stand Trial

By JOHN F. BURNS and STEPHEN CASTLE

LONDON — A high-ranking Iranian cleric said Friday that Iran planned to put some of the detained British embassy staff members on trial, a move that could provoke a tightening of European sanctions against Iran, including the withdrawal of ambassadors.

The cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the influential Guardian Council, told worshipers at Friday Prayer in Tehran that the embassy employees had “made confessions” and would be tried for their role in inciting protests after last month’s disputed presidential election.

In London, the Foreign Office said it was urgently seeking clarification from the Iranian government as to whether the cleric’s remarks represented official policy.

“We are confident that our staff have not engaged in any improper or illegal behavior,” Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in a statement. “We remain deeply concerned about the two members of our staff who remain in detention in Iran.”

He said he planned to speak to the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki.

Of the nine staff members seized Sunday, five were released Monday after the first British and European protests, and Iranian state media said Wednesday that three more had been freed, leaving one in custody. British officials, however, said that two remained under arrest.

As local employees of the embassy, those arrested did not have diplomatic immunity. None are British citizens.

Although the Foreign Office has denied that it had any role in stirring the ferment in Iran, officials in London have said that the embassy in Tehran had not forbidden its local employees to participate in the protests as individuals. The Iranian authorities say they have video evidence of some embassy employees at the protests.

Hours after the threat of trials, the European Union seemed to hold back from an out-and-out showdown, resolving to summon Iranian ambassadors in all 27 of the group’s countries to send “a strong message of protest against the detention of British Embassy local staff and to demand their immediate release,” said a European diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity, following the group’s rules.

Other graduated measures — like a slowdown in issuing visas to Iranian officials seeking to visit Europe and a potential withdrawal of all European ambassadors — would be considered, the diplomat said. He said Iranian diplomats would be told that the arrest of the embassy employees and the threat of trials were considered a threat to all European Union diplomatic staff members in Iran.

The Iranian authorities accused the employees of fomenting and orchestrating the protests that drew tens of thousands of Iranians into Tehran’s streets after the June 12 election. The demonstrations provoked a security crackdown that had largely ended the public protests but not the political ferment over the elections. The hard-line incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been officially declared the winner by a landslide, but his main opponent, Mir Hussein Moussavi, has vowed to continue his campaign to have the official result declared fraudulent.

Ayatollah Jannati, who is an ally of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, did not say how many of the detainees would be tried or on what charges, news reports said. But, in unofficial translations provided by news agencies, he said that the British Embassy had a “presence” in the postelection unrest and that “some people” had been arrested. It was “inevitable” that they would face trial, he said.

The Guardian Council is an influential panel of 12 clerics whose responsibilities include vetting elections. On Monday it certified Mr. Ahmadinejad’s victory, a step that emboldened hard-line officials to warn of a harsher crackdown if protests continued.

Britain has sought diplomatic help from the European Union, which is thought to hold more sway with Iran. But some European countries, led by Germany, have been reluctant to risk worsening ties with Iran, particularly at a time when European diplomats have been pressing it for concessions over its nuclear program. They have argued that a withdrawal of envoys, a step urged by Britain, would leave few diplomatic options if the crisis deteriorated further.

But there were signs that the threat of trials had stiffened resolve in other countries.

“Our solidarity with Britain is total,” said President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, adding that France favored tightening sanctions.

The Iranian authorities have frequently blamed foreigners for the turmoil, but they have singled out the British as instigators. They cited Britain’s covert role in past political upheavals, including the toppling in 1941 of Reza Shah Pahlavi, suspected of having pro-German sympathies during World War II, and the ouster in 1953 of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh after his government nationalized Iran’s British-dominated oil industry.

At the same time, Tehran has sent mixed signals about the fate of the embassy employees.

Hassan Qashqavi, the foreign ministry spokesman, said Monday that Iran was eager to maintain normal diplomatic relations with the European Union, its biggest trading partner. “Reduction of ties is not on our agenda with any European country, including Britain,” he said.

But on Wednesday, the semiofficial Fars news agency said that one of the embassy employees, who was not identified by name, “had a remarkable role during the recent unrest in managing it behind the scenes.”

While Ayatollah Jannati is not a member of the government or the judiciary, his words as the head of the Guardian Council and a close associate of the supreme leader carry some weight.

At Friday Prayer — a forum Iran has often used to convey significant political messages — he accused Britain of trying to provoke a “velvet revolution.” As long ago as March, he said, the British Foreign Office had said street riots were possible during the June elections. “These are signs, revealed by themselves,” he said.

John F. Burns reported from London, and Stephen Castle from Brussels. Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris.