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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.”