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July 13, 2019 Eritrea Hub News

Where’s the peace dividend? Eritrea’s gulag state is crumbling

“Silent protest is growing,” says another army officer. “When we meet in the military camps, we talk about the wrongdoings of this government.”

The Economist

Issaias Afwerki made peace a year ago. His people want the dividend

Jul 11th 2019 | ADDIS ABABA AND ASMARA

ABIY AHMED’S arrival in Asmara on July 8th last year was as colourful as it was historic. Thousands thronged the streets of the Eritrean capital to witness the first visit by an Ethiopian leader since the two countries fought a bloody war from 1998 to 2000. Both national flags fluttered along the boulevard from the airport; women carried plates of popcorn which they threw over the crowds in celebration. Eritrea’s ageing dictator, Issaias Afwerki, beamed as he embraced his young counterpart and signed a peace deal to end two decades of enmity. “There is no border between Ethiopia and Eritrea,” Abiy declared. “Instead we have built a bridge of love.”

The promise of peace was tantalising. Telephone lines and flights between the two countries were restored. Two months later the land border opened. For the first time in years Eritreans could leave their country freely. Many thought that, with the war over, Issaias would soon enact other reforms. They particularly hoped he would end the system of indefinite conscription that the UN likens to mass enslavement—and which has helped earn Eritrea the nickname “the North Korea of Africa”.

A year later Eritreans are still waiting. “Nothing has changed,” says Milena, a 16-year-old who faces being called up next year. The government has yet to say whether an old 18-month limit on conscription will be restored. Some recruits are now paid salaries and put to work in government offices, rather than brutal army bases in the desert. But there are no signs that Issaias will end conscription entirely.

Without explanation, Eritrea has once more closed all its border crossings with Ethiopia, ending a short-lived boom in cross-border trade. Food prices are rising. Markets in Asmara, which briefly bustled with Ethiopian traders, are quiet. Businesses and factories are closing, some because of a shortage of raw materials. Some water-bottlers, for instance, have shut for want of imported plastic.

Local authorities have stepped up the demolition of unlicensed homes. After the peace some residents began renovating or building new houses, wrongly assuming the government would loosen rules that effectively bar private construction. They are being bulldozed.

Even officials are perplexed. Some have stopped coming to work because they have not been told what to do. Their offices, in departments such as trade and education, stand empty. Issaias has held only one cabinet meeting since the peace deal.

Patience in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, is starting to wear a little thin. A draft trade agreement was sent to Asmara for comments late last year, according to insiders, but nothing has been heard of it since. Landlocked Ethiopia’s dream of using Eritrean ports, a huge potential benefit of the thaw, seems a long way off. The Eritrean Red Sea town of Massawa is “as dead as always”, remarks a visitor.

The most vexing issue of the peace deal, the physical demarcation of the border, appears to have been kicked into the long grass. Disputed areas such as Badme, the one-goat village over which the war started, remain under Ethiopian administration. Troops eye one another across the dusty frontier.

With neither a war to justify his repressive dictatorship, nor any promise of reforms to placate long-suffering citizens, Issaias’s grip on power seems to be weakening. For the first time in years, says a military officer, people are openly complaining in neighbourhood meetings, despite the threat of being denied state rations for doing so. “I see many people calling for his resignation,” he says. In recent weeks residents of Asmara have woken up to fresh graffiti calling for an end to conscription. Seditious pamphlets printed in Ethiopia, as well as two new television channels linked to the exiled opposition, are stirring anger. “Silent protest is growing,” says another army officer. “When we meet in the military camps, we talk about the wrongdoings of this government.”

But rather than taking to the streets, Eritreans are emigrating. Despite the closed border, many steal away. Soldiers, who once shot at those trying to sneak across the frontier, now turn a blind eye. More than 60,000 Eritreans have registered as refugees in Ethiopia since September.

Issaias does not face much international pressure. In November the UN lifted an arms embargo first imposed in 2009. He has also mended fences with Sudan and Somalia, and has drawn closer to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Even so, he seems concerned about the possibility of protests. He appears less frequently in public. He has shut down health centres run by the Catholic church (apparently because its bishops criticised him) and is arresting people at random. Social media have been blocked for weeks. Some internet cafés have been closed. “The government seems to fear the Sudan revolution might happen in Eritrea,” muses an employee at the agriculture ministry.

Yet unlike in Sudan, where protests forced out a veteran despot, Omar al-Bashir, there are few young folk left in Eritrea. Barely 1% of the population uses the internet, so it is hard to organise protests online. “It will not be done on the streets,” says Zecarias Gerrima, a former journalist who is now in exile. A coup is more likely, though Issaias may be able to hang on. His country, meanwhile, is emptying.

July 7, 2019 Martin Plaut News

Gail Orenstein | NurPhoto | AFP

Tobias Lehner Tobias Lehner-ACN | Jul 06, 2019

In mid-June, the Eritrean military forcibly closed down 21 Catholic hospitals and other medical facilities.

“The purpose of the brutal actions of the Eritrean government was to divest the Church of all services in the areas of education and health. Our work is to be restricted only to our places of worship,” an Eritrean priest told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).Father Mussie Zerai lives in Rome and coordinates pastoral work for Eritrea and Eritrean communities in Europe, which are steadily growing as thousands of people leave their homeland each year.

In mid-June, the Eritrean military forcibly closed down 21 Catholic hospitals and other medical facilities. Patients were more or less thrown out of their beds. The military smashed windows and doors and harassed staff, Father Zerai said. He reported that the director of a hospital in northern Eritrea, a Franciscan sister, was arrested when she resisted the closure.

Observers from outside of the country have suggested that, in the eyes of the government of President Isaias Aferwerki, the Church has become too self-confident in its efforts to further the peace process with Ethiopia, and they believe that the government wants to have sole control of the social sector. Said Father Zerai: “The government is obsessed with having control over everything and everyone. It sees the Catholic Church as a threat because we are part of an international network and ask questions.”

There are at most between 120,000 and 160,000 Catholics in Eritrea. Half of its population is Christian. In addition to Roman Catholicism and Sunni Islam, the Orthodox and Lutheran Churches are the only other religious denominations tolerated by the state. Unlike other countries in North Africa, Islam is not the state religion in Eritrea. The country has a “strong atheistic leaning. If it were up to the government, religion would not exist. Essentially, it follows the same school of thought as China,” said Father Zerai.

The priest is only able to speak freely because he lives outside of the country. He is no longer able to return to his homeland. The bishops in the country—there are four dioceses—are frequently pressured by the government. But this has not stopped them from vehemently protesting against the closure of the hospitals.

The priest said it is impossible to carry out opposition efforts against these and other human rights violations. “Any form of opposition, even the slightest sign of it, is immediately nipped in the bud,” he said. Thus, most of the reports of human rights violations in Eritrea come from refugees. International organizations are either refused entry into the country or it is made extremely difficult for them to function.

“Young Eritreans are leaving the country in growing numbers because there is no rule of law,” Father Zerai said. The country’s constitution has still not been fully implemented: “This is why people can just be picked up from their homes without reason. Military service has become legalized slavery,” he said.

The possibility of a future is taken away from the young,” Father Zerai said. Attempts by the international community to put pressure on Eritrea’s government because of its human rights record have failed. The country has largely isolated itself.

According to Father Zerai, freedom of religion is severely restricted and at the mercy of capriciousness: “A few are permitted to freely practice their religion, but not all.” Despite the current crisis the priest is certain that “the Catholic Church will continue its pastoral work, but also its social work. After all, it says in the Bible: faith without works is dead. Taking away the ability of the Church to carry out charitable works is like amputating one of its arms.”

July 8, 2019 Martin Plaut Ethiopia, News

Source: African Arguments

Since the historic accord last year, the border has closed again and little has changed. Patience among Eritreans is wearing thin.

Eritrea and Ethiopia. Credit: Fitsum Arega.

A year ago today, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed arrived in the Eritrea capital of Asmara. Eritreans lined the streets, ecstatic to greet the leader of the country with whom they had been locked in conflict for two decades.

It was a truly landmark visit, ending years of hostility. From 1998 to 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea had fought a border war in which some 100,000 people were killed. The resulting peace deal should have led to a renewal of relations as well as an exchange of prisoners and territory. But Ethiopia’s then Prime Minister Meles Zenawi refused to accept the loss of Badme, the village that had triggered the war, and there followed 20 years of stalemate. Troops from both countries stared across the thousand-kilometre border in a state of “no war, no peace”.

Prime Minister Abiy’s decision last year to recognise Badme as belonging to Eritrea opened the way for his visit to Asmara. His welcome could hardly have been warmer. Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki – renowned for hardly cracking a smile – was seen laughing and joking with his opposite number. Eritrean television showed Abiy meeting Isaias’s family and playing with his grandchildren.

Less than a week later, the Eritrean leader was in Addis Ababa where the welcome was just as warm. “This is a historic day for all of us,” President Isaias declared at a lunch with Abiy at the National Palace. “Anyone who thinks the people of Eritrea and Ethiopia are separated is considered as naïve from now on.”

In September, the relationship was then cemented by the formal signing of a peace deal in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, witnessed by the Saudi King and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Abiy and Isaias agreed that the Ethiopia-Eritrea borders would be opened, relations normalised, and the disputes of the past put behind them. What could possibly go wrong?

A year later

For a while, all went well. Ethiopians flew into Eritrea for joyous and tearful reunions with their families. Traders crossed the border to sell their goods in Eritrean towns. Businesses on both sides of the border boomed. Mebrhit Gebrehans, a middle-aged Ethiopian woman welcomed the transformation, telling the BBC: “What we fear is war. We love peace. When the Eritreans come to this market, I welcome them with a smiling face.” Eritreans were able to get into Ethiopia easily by taxi, and thousands made the journey, with up to 500 people a day leaving for a better life.

A year on, however, the situation has been reversed. The borders are officially closed. No explanation has been given for this decision, but it appears that Eritrean authorities feared that members of the opposition were crossing over from Ethiopia where they had been stationed for many years. The main remaining sign of the peace deal are the daily Ethiopian Airlines flights that are only available to well-off Eritreans, over the age of 50, with official clearance to leave the county.

Inside Eritrea, there have been few benefits from peace beyond the ability to find everyday items brought into the country by Ethiopian traders using unofficial trade routes. The government’s policy of indefinite national service for all Eritreans remains intact. There has been no apparent progress towards officially regulating the border, a task that was meant to be tackled by joint commission from both countries. And the Eritrean parliament, which was disbanded in February 2002, has not reassembled and has had no opportunity to scrutinise or ratify the treaty signed by President Isaias.

Meanwhile, some Eritreans are worrying about their country’s independence, won at such a high price in 1993. They watched nervously last year as Abiy and Isaias pledged to share the key Eritrean port of Assab, with the French promising to help Ethiopia rebuild its navy. They have also noted that some Ethiopians started producing unofficial maps of the region that didn’t recognise the sovereignty of Eritrea.

Growing frustrations

Today then, even Eritreans who had hitherto supported the government or at least refrained from criticising it, believing this to be the best approach to safeguarding Eritrea’s sovereignty, have begun changing their stand. Members of the diaspora have launched a campaign under the slogan ‘Enough!’ This has captured popular imagination, particularly among young people who were born and raised outside the country. The activists’ creativity has resulted in an unrelenting social media campaign calling for change. Rallies and unprecedentedly large gatherings of Eritreans abroad have taken up their call.

These campaigns have been echoed inside the country, with youths writing slogans on walls protesting against indefinite conscription. Thousands of leaflets have been distributed internally, while ordinary Eritreans now openly watch and debate issues covered by opposition radio and television shows broadcast from abroad to growing audiences.

The Eritrean government has retaliated by trying to identify and quash all potential sources of encouragement for popular protest. The regime has, for example, targeted religious groups, perhaps remembering the strong protests in 2017 when the government cracked down on a Muslim school in Asmara. It has disrupted Christian prayer meetings, arrested members of “unregistered” churches, and even detained outspoken priests and monks from the “registered” Orthodox church for supporting the Patriarch of the Orthodox church, who has been under house arrest since 2005. The government has also closed 33 hospitals, clinics and health stations run by the Catholic Church of Eritrea in apparent retaliation for pastoral remarks calling for a peace dividend for the people and the opening up of democratic space.

While Eritreans are growing restless, Ethiopians have their own problems to attend to. The northern region of Tigray has repeatedly refused to allow heavy artillery to be moved away from the border, fearing an Eritrean attack. Meanwhile, more than two million Ethiopians have been displaced by ethnic conflict and there was recently a largely unexplained apparent coup attempt in the Amhara region, with the simultaneous killing of the army chief of staff in Addis Ababa.

A year on, the euphoria of the Eritrea-Ethiopia peace deal has evaporated. A sullen, tense cloud now hangs over relations between Asmara and Addis Ababa, with both nations watching developments along the border with concern.