Word: eritrea
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...which a mere 60,000 are getting it. And Somalia is of significant strategic interest. Pirates based there regularly strike ships heading to and from the Suez Canal, and attacks have rocketed this year. The conflict in Somalia - which pits Ethiopian and T.F.G. troops against Somali rebels, backed by Eritrea - also has the potential to ignite a larger regional war that engulfs the Horn of Africa. Last week, Ban Ki-Moon expressed serious concern about the military buildup along the Eritrea-Ethiopia border, while State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged Eritrea and Ethiopia to pull back troops from key border...
...certain, of course. Despite Meles' saber-rattling speech to parliament in June, in an interview with Time he described times in the past when his party forced him to adopt a more aggressive line with Eritrea than he would have preferred. "There were a number of times when I found myself in a minority and implementing decisions I was uncomfortable with." Asked what is his prime motivation, he answers: "It has always been fear." During the years of famine, it was "fear that this nation, which was great 1,000 years ago ... may be on the verge of total collapse...
...TIME: What do you make of the assessment that the invasion radicalized Somali nationalism into a much more dangerous, religion-inspired insurgency, and with Eritrea funding and supporting and there being links to those have already have a track record in international terror, that there is a monster being created here? Meles: If there is any monster now, it's been there for quite some time. What we tried to do was put it back in its cage. These groups had ties with al-Qaeda long before we intervened. The terrorist outrages in Kenya and Tanzania [the U.S. embassy bombings...
...TIME: Such as? Meles: Such as the war with Eritrea. There were a number of instances where I found myself in a minority and implementing decisions that I was uncomfortable with...
...beat about the bush. But I would suggest that when and where I have been direct, I have tried to be respectful. In policy we have not been confrontational. We have always sought the peaceful way out, even when we are on the receiving end of aggression. With Eritrea, it was very obvious that Eritrea invaded our country. And we sought a peaceful way out. The Americans and the Rwandans came up with a peaceful option. We accepted that. The Eritreans did not. At some stage I felt we could have gone a bit further in terms of being accommodative...