African Port May Become U.S. Base

By ANDREW ENGLAND
Associated Press Writer

ASSAB, Eritrea (AP) — One of the largest ports on the Red Sea stands eerily idle, its huge cranes motionless in the oppressive heat. Yet this sleepy town on the southern tip of Eritrea could become a base for U.S. troops in the war on terrorism and Saddam Hussein.

Western diplomatic sources say U.S. military officials have already visited the remote, strategically located town to assess its value as a staging point for U.S. marines, Navy ships and troops.

Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, or CentCom, visited Eritrea in March, and the then defense minister, Sehat Ephrem, said his government would happily host a U.S. base. And on Oct. 29 Franks said the United States has ``security relationships or engagement opportunities'' in many Horn of Africa countries, including Eritrea.

The amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney is expected to arrive in about a month to serve as the Red Sea floating headquarters for a joint command U.S. task force for the Horn of Africa, said Maj. Pete Mitchell, a CentCom spokesman.

U.S. officials have said the headquarters, part of the war on terrorism, could later move ashore.

``U.S. forces in the region are making liaisons with a number of nations in the Horn of Africa. That liaison covers a variety of issues,'' Mitchell said when asked specifically about Assab.

The Eritrean government is said to be eager to have a U.S. presence to bolster its stature and inject cash into its struggling economy.

Eritrean officials would not say where things stand now, and U.S. authorities are still weighing Eritrea's military usefulness against lending credibility to an increasingly authoritarian government, said the diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Once admired in the West, the government of President Isaias Afwerki has come under fire for human rights abuses following Eritrea's 2 1/2 -year border war with Ethiopia.

Assab — before the war a busy port that served Ethiopia — would doubtless be useful to the United States as it increases its military presence in an unstable region cited as a possible terrorist haven.

``A base within the area is something that they must be considering,'' said Phillip Mitchell, ground forces analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Americans aren't getting enough help from Yemen, 60 miles across the Red Sea, he said, ``so anything bordering the Yemen area, which is where they want to go at some stage, would be absolutely ideal.''

The Horn also includes Muslim Somalia, which has had no effective government since 1991 and has been cited as a possible terrorist haven.

More than 1,500 U.S. Marines have been exercising in neighboring Djibouti, and some 800 U.S. troops, including special forces, are based at Le Monier camp in Djibouti town as part of the task force for the Horn. The task force will be bolstered by some 300 troops, mainly Marines and Navy, when the Mount Whitney arrives, Maj. Mitchell said.

But Djibouti authorities insist their country cannot be used for attacks in Yemen.

Massachusetts-sized Djibouti is also a base for 2,850 French troops, and is reaching saturation point, the sources said.

In contrast, Assab's port and hinterland are empty and there is ``no real enemy'' of the United States in the area, the IISS' Mitchell said.

After several cycles of drought and famine, international donors upgraded Assab's port to handle large food shipments. Assab was Ethiopian until 1993, when Eritrea gained its independence after a 30-year guerrilla war.

But since another war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea in May 1998, the border has been closed, and the port has had little business. Asmara, the capital, is 465 miles away on a dirt road through desert, rugged hills and jagged volcanic rock.

There has also been speculation that the Pentagon is looking to use the equally remote Dahlak archipelago off Eritrea in the Red Sea.

But Eritrea's domestic politics make it a questionable ally.

Last year, in a widespread crackdown on critics, two Eritrean members of the political and economic sections of the U.S. Embassy were arrested and are still held without charge, as are nine journalists, 11 ruling party dissidents and several businessmen. Eritrea's eight private newspapers have been shut since Sept. 2001.

Elections scheduled for last December were postponed indefinitely, and nearly two years after the border war ended, the demobilization of 200,000 soldiers has not begun.

The situation of the 3.5 million people in Eritrea, once praised for its probity and self-reliance, has not improved.

Young men speak in whispers that they want to escape, then complain that no one between 18 and 40 can get an exit visa.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, an advocacy group, accuses the government of closing dozens of evangelical and charismatic churches that were gathering spots for Asmara's restless youth. The population is about equally divided between Christians and Muslims.