ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AFP)–Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki has blamed the global economic slowdown on the “reckless policies” of some officials of the former U.S. administration.

“The reckless policies pursued by a ‘special interest’ group in the United States who believed that they were entrusted with a ‘providential mission’ to shape their own ‘world order’ had given rise to the eruption of violent conflagrations in various parts of the world,” Isaias said in a speech posted Monday on the Eritrea government Web site.

“This had, in turn, entailed immense destruction, spiraling economic crises and an overall bleak trend that was fraught with dangerous consequences,” he told thousands of supporters in the capital, Asmara.

Isaias, who didn’t name any individuals, has in the past accused aides of former U.S. president George W. Bush of trying to influence successor Barack Obama’s policies.

Ties between the two countries have been frosty in recent years, with Eritrea accusing the U.S. of backing its arch-foe Ethiopia in a long-running border dispute.

The U.S., in turn, has accused Eritrea of backing Islamist groups in Somalia, an allegation denied by the small Horn of Africa nation.

“It is against this backdrop that the American people, who were invariably affected by these reckless policies, elected Barack Obama…in a testimony of their rejection of arrogance and to bring about change,” Isaias said in the speech delivered Sunday.

Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after a costly 30-year war that claimed tens of thousands of lives.

A more recent war fought over disputed territory in the late 1990s is yet to be resolved, and Eritrea routinely blames the U.S. for backing its larger neighbor in its refusal to hand over a flashpoint town to Eritrea.

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