November 11, 2014-Geeskaafrika reports that “Eritrea has gone on the defensive against the UN’s Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group.” According to geeskaafrika, Eritrea might or might not have engineered the dismissal of a member of the Somalia and Eritrea UN Monitoring Group (SEMG). Or he might have resigned.

Dinesh Mahtani wrote a letter on behalf of Eritrea’s former Minister of Information Ali Abdu, who might have cooperated with the SEMG while he was in Nairobi. Although the SEMG was unable to find evidence of Eritrea’s support for al-Shabaab, the UN monitors were able to show that in 2011, Eritrea’s embassy in Nairobi had overtly supported al-Shabaab. However, this was prior to UN Resolution 1907. Mr. Mahtani, presumably at the request of Mr. Abdu, wrote a letter noting Mr. Abdu’s cooperation with the SEMG. Mr. Mahtani “extends his support for Mr. Abdu’s asylum request, travel and visa requests.” The letter goes on to suggest that Mr. Abdu could play a moderate role in a future government of Eritrea. And that’s when Inner City Press stepped in.

Inner City Press, said to have close ties or even be financed by the Government of Eritrea, accused Mr. Mahtani of advocating for a regime change in Eritrea. Mr. Mahtani either was fired or resigned. In a curious twist, however, Inner City Press published a transcription of an interview conducted by Matthew Russell Lee, a reporter for inner City Press, with UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant about Mr. Mahani and the letter. Although Ambassador Grant declined to talk about Mr. Mahtani, he had a great deal to say about Eritrea’s support for al-Shabaab.

Inner City Press: I wanted to about the Eritrea Sanctions and also about the Monitoring Group. On the sanctions, is there from your point of view evidence of Eritrea still supporting Al Shabaab because what they seem to say is if there is no evidence, why should they let them in? It’s kind of like guilty until proven innocent. And the other thing I wanted to ask you about was the Monitoring Group. There was a letter that emerged from one of the experts Dinesh Mahtani in which he basically sort of tried to pick a new leader for the country. He basically said he’d be a good leader for the country. He’s now resigned and I wonder what are the implications of that given that he worked on the report. What have you learned in terms of training for experts in the future. Is there any follow-up I guess on this resignation from what some people call a regime-change letter?

Ambasssador Grant: I don’t have any comment to make on this particular expert. As you say he has been disciplined by the UN system and he’s resigned his position. He clearly exceeded his authority in issuing that particular letter.

On the wider point, there has been very clear evidence in successive Monitoring Group reports on support for Al Shabaab from Eritrea. In the latest report there is much less evidence and that is encouraging but because the Monitoring Group has not been allowed to visit Asmara, they have said very clearly that they have not been able to investigate various strands of evidence that comes their way. So if Eritrea is no longer supporting Al Shabaab then why do they not allow the Monitoring Group to visit and talk to whoever they want to talk to and then no doubt the Monitoring Group will report that there is no further evidence of Eritrea supporting Al Shabaab. In that case, the United Kingdom would be one of the first countries to suggest that sanctions be lifted. So I think the solution to this problem lies in the hands of the government of Eritrea.

Geeskaafrika raises three fundamental questions about Inner City Press and this story.

How did Eritrea land its hands on a UN confidential letter and what interest would Eritrea have in using the letter to engineer Mahtani’s firing? Why was the letter leaked to an Eritrean funded blog? Why have the mainstream media and serious blogs refused to carry the Mahtani ‘story’?

According to Geeskaafrika, releasing the letter to Inner City Press was a bungled plot by Eritrea to undermine the recent report of the Monitoring Group and to smear the UN.

More importantly, however, is the transcript of Ambassador Grant. He clearly states that there has been clear evidence for linking al-Shabaab to Eritrea. That is the headline.