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When Eritrea invaded Ethiopia in 1998, ARDUF declared solidarity with the Ethiopian Defense Forces. Its demand that the illegal annexation of Ethiopia’s Red Sea littoral be reversed was rejected by the TPLF regime. Photo shows the joint ARDUF-TPLF meeting in Dubti town, Afar region, Ethiopia (Photo: ARDUF)

ADDIS ABABA – An Afar rebel group on Thursday accused Eritrea for the second time in 10 days of being the mastermind behind the abductions of five Europeans whose 12-day ordeal ended two days ago.

The Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Party (ARDUF) – which fights both Asmara and Addis Ababa as two groups whose joint war resulted in the loss of Ethiopia’s Red Sea coast – dismissed as absurd an Eritrean government report that claimed the “five European citizens were abducted by an Ethiopian opposition front known as ARDUF.”

ARDUF, which has never recognized Eritrea as an independent state – first accused Asmara on March 5, saying the abductions were carried out by members of the Eritrean army who had crossed into Ethiopia and kidnapped the tourists and eight Ethiopians at gunpoint.

Released on Tuesday in Asmara, the Europeans were reunited with their families in Addis Ababa, although the eight Ethiopians remain missing.

In 1995, ARDUF kidnapped 13 Italian tourists who had ventured on a camel safari into the Danakil Desert from Eritrea. A few weeks later, ARDUF released the tourists unharmed, warning that their only crime was carrying an ‘Eritrean entry visa,’ instead of an Ethiopian.

ARDUF’s contempt for the Asmara authorities provoked the anger of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who responded in 1996 with earth-scorched military operations that levelled several Afar settlements.

When in 1998 Eritrea invaded Ethiopia, ARDUF declared its solidarity with the Ethiopian Defense Forces, and demanded the TPLF regime to re-consider restoring Ethiopia’s 1000-km coast spanning areas from Dahlak Islands in the north to Djibouti in the south. Meles rejected the proposal, claiming the entire Red Sea, including the Port of Assab, was a sovereign Eritrean territory.

After the war, which Meles aborted in favor of Eritrea, TPLF leaders accused Meles of being an Eritrean mercenary. However, the poorly-organized TPLF officials were no match for the powerful Eritrean group which purged, arrested and killed those who woke up to the crime. That group controls state power to this very day in Ethiopia.

In 1993, an ARDUF delegation traveled to New York City and lodged a protest with the United Nations. ARDUF warned the global body that it should not be an accomplice of two criminal groups that clearly fought for Eritrean independence, and vengefully turned Ethiopia into a landlocked nation.