http://ascenteq.com/project/epdp

In a memorandum sent to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, who is currently in Addis Ababa, the Eritrean People's Democratic Party asked him to kindly remind the African Union about the mandate given them by the UN Human Rights Council in regard to the grave human rights violations in Eritrea which went on unabated from the early 1990's to the present.

The urgent EPDP message of 26 April 2018, also copied to the African Union Commission Chairman, Mr. Moussa Fakai Mahamat, regretted that all relevant UN organs and the African Union have not acted on the findings of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea that required urgent action to stop those violations and to serve justice to past abuses. 

On its part, the African Union was recommended to set up "an appropriate accountability mechanism" in order to "hold perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Eritrea accountable to secure justice and truth."

To this day, African Union has not acted on those annually repeated recommendations for action by the UN Human Rights Council.

Mr. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein and Mr. M. Faki Mahamad on 24 April co-chaired in Addis Ababa the first AU and UN High Level Dialogue on Human Rights as part of the commitment to strengthen ongoing collaboration between both institutions. The Addis Ababa AU-UN Dialogue reportedly presented a platform to explore and develop joint approaches to preventing and addressing human rights abuses and violations and building mechanisms in defense of human and peoples' rights.

Analyses

Sub-Saharan Africa has maintained its third place in the ranking by geographical region, with a slightly better overall indicator than in 2017. But there is a wide range of situations within the region, and journalists are often the victims of intimidation, physical violence, and arrest.
Namibia (26th), which has yet to adopt a promised law on access to information, has surrendered the title of best-ranked African country to Ghana (23rd). At the other end of the Index, Africa still has many news and information black holes. Press freedom is non-existent in Eritrea (second from last at 179th), Djibouti (173rd), Burundi (159th) and Somalia (168th), where four journalists were killed in terrorist attacks in 2017.

Reporting difficulties

Investigative reporting is very risky for journalists in Africa. This is the case, for example, in Tanzania (down ten places at 93rd, one of this year’s biggest falls), where President John Magufuli tolerates no criticism. A popular news forum’s founder was summoned to court dozens of times in the space of a year to name his sources, while a reporter who was investigating a series of murders of local officials went missing in November 2017.

In Madagascar (54th), a journalist was given a jail sentence (albeit suspended) for the first time in 40 years as a result of investigative reporting that exposed corruption. In Swaziland (152nd), a newspaper editor had to flee to South Africa after questioning a decision to award a licence to a local mobile phone company.

In Democratic Republic of Congo (154th), Journalist in Danger (JED), RSF’s partner organization, documented 121 cases of abuses against the media in 2017. Attacks, arbitrary arrests, and media closures constitute an organized system for preventing journalists from covering the Congolese regime’s dangerous authoritarianism.

Covering street protests is a delicate exercise in many African countries. In Togo (86th), the authorities withdrew the accreditation of an international TV broadcaster’s correspondent after she covered opposition protests. In Guinea (down three places at 104th), the president’s direct threats to close media outlets that interviewed a union leader helped create a climate of hostility towards the media. Radio stations were closed while journalists were sometimes targeted by protesters.

In response to threats and attacks on reporters during demonstrations in Chad (123rd), the country’s journalists staged a “Day without Press” protest in February 2018. Sudan (still near the bottom of the Index at 174th) continues to be one of the continent’s riskiest places for street reporting. In January 2018, 18 journalists were arrested and several media outlets were shut down amid protests against a bread price increase. In neighbouring South Sudan (144th), it has become almost impossible to cover the four-year-old civil war. In 2017, 20 foreign journalists were banned from the country and a freelance war reporter was fatally shot during conflict in the south.

Internet cuts or restrictions on access to online social networks are now widely used in Africa as censorship tools to gag dissent and prevent coverage of unrest within a sector of the population. They are systematically imposed on the eve of every street protest in Democratic Republic of Congo.

In Cameroon (129th), an unprecedented complaint was filed against the government before its own Constitutional Council after it disconnected the Internet for several months in two English-speaking regions that were protesting against discrimination. After falling 10 places in 2016, Uganda has fallen another five places to 117th, in part because it created a special security unit to closely monitor websites and social networks.

Some subjects still off limits

In a disturbing trend, journalists are encountering growing difficulties when covering subjects with national security ramifications. This is the case in Nigeria (119th) and Mali (115th), where journalists are often harassed by the authorities. They are accused of undermining troop morale when they refer to the difficulties of the security forces in combatting terrorism.

The Cameroonian journalist Ahmed Abba was released in December 2017 after being held for 29 months for covering the activities of the Jihadi armed group Boko Haram. In Côte d’Ivoire (82nd), the authorities detained eight journalists in order to ask them to name their sources for articles about sizeable army mutinies in 2017.

Mauritania (whose 17 place fall to 72nd was Africa’s largest decline) has passed a law making apostasy and blasphemy punishable by death even when the offender repents. The blogger Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mohamed is still detained despite having completed a two-year jail sentence for “heresy.” Slavery, which still exists in Mauritania although now illegal, is a highly sensitive subject that sometimes gets foreign reporters expelled.

A recent RSF report highlighted the fact that journalists who cover stories involving women’s rights or gender issues often suffer severe reprisals. In Somalia, journalists who interview rape victims are liable to be jailed on defamation charges. In Uganda, a journalist was abducted and beaten after pointing out that the president had not kept his promise to distribute tampons in schools.

More generally, any reporting critical of the authorities tends to get a poor reception in sub-Saharan Africa, as seen in the one-year jail sentence passed on appeal on Baba Alpha, a TV journalist in Niger (down two places at 63rd) who has a reputation for drawing attention to bad government practices. After completing his sentence, he was recently expelled to neighbouring Mali as a "threat to internal state security."

Restrictive laws

The new media laws adopted during the past year did not encourage more journalistic freedom and independence. The anticipated decriminalization of press offences in Senegal (up eight places at 50th), was not included in the new press code adopted in June 2017.

There are no longer any grounds for detaining journalists in the new media law approved by Côte d’Ivoire’s national assembly but journalists can still be the subject of prosecutions for insulting the president or for defamation. Terrorism laws are often used to arrest journalists in Ethiopia (150th) and Nigeria (119th).

The only good news in this domain came from Malawi (whose six-place rise to 64th was Africa’s second biggest) with the promulgation of a law facilitating access to information about elected officials and government institutions, 12 years after it began being debated.

Promising regime change?

The departure of some of the continent’s worst press freedom predators could open the way to a new era for journalism in the countries concerned.

In Gambia (which soared 21 places to 122nd), the new president has promised a less restrictive media law and the inclusion of free speech in the constitution. In Zimbabwe (up two places at 126th), Robert Mugabe’s successor, his former right-hand man, has also promised reforms and a “new democracy” in a country with especially draconian media laws.

The prospect of finally seeing the birth of free and independent journalism in Angola (up four places at 121st) is more uncertain. Joao Lourenço’s installation as president after 38 years of rule by the Dos Santos clan has not yet lead to any significant improvement in media freedom.

In these three countries, the promises made after the installation of new leaders need to be translated quickly into concrete measures that finally allow the freedom to inform.

Source=https://rsf.org/en/rsf-index-2018-dangers-reporting-africa

Africa, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Horn of Africa
 
Date: 25/04/2018
Author: Martin Plaut
0 Comments

Donald Yamamoto is the most senior African diplomat in the Trump administration.

His visit to Eritrea has ended (see below) but the State Department is making no comment on what was achieved until his trip to the Horn of Africa is over. This includes a visit to Djibouti and then Ethiopia on Thursday, 26th of April.

So what might have been on the table? Ethiopian sources speculate that his tour of the Horn might lead to a lifting of sanctions against Eritrea and support for peace talks between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The well-informed magazine, Jane’s, agrees.

They may be right. But it is important to remember the context.
 
Eritrea has – repeatedly – offered the US navy access to its ports. The American military have considered the option from time to time. [See below]

But Eritrea also has a history of harassing the United States diplomatic mission, by arresting and imprisoning dozens of Eritrean local staff. Ronald McMullen, who served as US ambassador to Eritrea from 2007-2010 revealed that “Forty eight of our Eritrean employees have been arrested from 2001 to 2010. Some have been arrested for many years; others were arrested for several weeks or months and kept in horrible conditions.” [See below]
 
So there could be gains for both sides. If President Isaias Afwerki is prepared to guarantee that the US can have normal diplomatic relations and its staff can work unhindered, then there might be movement on the rest of the agenda.

Certainly, progress on a resolution to the Eritrea – Ethiopia border dispute would be a huge gain for the people of both countries. Can Yamamoto make progress? He is a man of immense experience in Africa. Few are better placed, but the problems are extremely intractable.

Let’s see what happens.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Yamamoto Travel to East Africa
Source: Media Note: Office of the Spokesperson, US State Department
Washington, DC
April 21, 2018
 
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Ambassador Donald Y. Yamamoto will travel to Eritrea from April 22-24 for bilateral consultations with Eritrean government officials, to meet with the diplomatic community, and to visit the Embassy’s staff based in Asmara. He will then lead the U.S. delegation to the U.S.-Djibouti Binational Forum April 24-25 in Djibouti, our annual dialogue on matters of political, economic, assistance, and security cooperation. Ambassador Yamamoto will travel to Ethiopia on April 26 to meet with Ethiopian government officials to discuss shared interests and concerns.

Eritrea Pushes to Get U.S. Base
Source: Washington Post

By Judy SarasohnNovember 21, 2002

“Why Not Eritrea?” That’s what the government of Eritrea, a poor African country, wants to know and what it has its lobbyists asking in Washington.

The issue paper “Why Not Eritrea?” pushes the country’s plan for the United States to take advantage of its strategic location in the Horn of Africa as a military staging ground in the buildup toward a looming war with Iraq. After all, the surrounding nations are members of the Arab League and not what one would call very supportive of U.S. interests, the paper says. Even Djibouti, already host to about 3,200 U.S. troops who are being trained in desert warfare, has voiced reservations about U.S. intentions.

Eritrea notes that it is pro-American and half Christian, half Muslim.

U.S. officials are considering Eritrea’s offer, and Gen. Tommy Franks has visited the country.
But to help make sure its message gets heard — and accepted — Eritrea has hired Greenberg Traurig, the law firm that includes a lobbying team headed by Jack Abramoff, who has close ties to the new House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

According to Greenberg Traurig’s contract with Eritrea, included in the firm’s Foreign Agents Registration Act filing at the Justice Department, the country is paying Greenberg Traurig $50,000 a month for helping “in implementing its public policy goals in Washington.” That’s $600,000 for the yearlong engagement from April 15, 2002, to April 14, 2003.

By the way, the CIA World Factbook 2002 pegs Eritrea’s per-capita gross domestic product at about $740 for last year. Eritrea, which gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, went through a punishing war from 1998 to 2000 with its neighbor. Eighty thousand people were killed, and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

“Their biggest issue is they want to reach out to America and have better relations,” says Padgett Wilson, director of governmental affairs at Greenberg Traurig.

Wilson notes that having a U.S. base in Eritrea would bring in much-needed capital and encourage U.S. companies to do business there, helping the country develop a middle class and “providing economic stability for U.S. companies.”

The lobbyist acknowledges some U.S. officials believe Eritrea hasn’t moved fast enough toward democracy. There was a widespread crackdown on government critics last year, with some dissidents held without charges and private newspapers shut.

“They have problems; they have a way to go,” Wilson says, but Eritrea is working on it, and a closer relationship with the United States would help.

“Based on the current sentiment of the Arab community and the geography of the region, it is increasingly clear that failure to form an alliance with Eritrea is unconscionable,” the issue paper states.

Taking Foreign Policy to Stonebridge

Joy E. Drucker has left the Council on Foreign Relations, where she was deputy director of the Washington office, for Stonebridge International, the international strategy company started by former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger. In her new job as director of government and international affairs at Stonebridge, Drucker will be lobbying and handling foreign policy matters and communications on behalf of clients.

US Ambassador: Eritrea Arrested 48 of Our Staff
Source: The World News

Between 2001 and 2010, Eritrea arrested 48 Eritrean employees of the US embassy in Eritrea, according to former US ambassador to Eritrea,Ronald McMullen.

In an interview with Global Journalist on August 6,  Ambassador McMullen, who appeared on the show with representatives of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ),  disclosed “Forty eight of our Eritrean employees have been arrested from 2001 to 2010. Some have been arrested for many years; others were arrested for several weeks or months and kept in horrible conditions.”

Mr. Ronald McMullen served as ambassador from 2007-2010.

The ambassador went on to shed light on why the United States and Eritrea no longer have relationship at the ambassador level:

“It is very tough,” he explained, “Everyday was a challenge and we looked for small victories and in keeping the embassy open, and maintaining a platform for American values talking about human rights and democratization, and trying to promote regional stability in a very volatile part of the world.”

The ambassador said that his office had to give a 10-day notice to Eritrean officials to get a permit to leave the capital city, Asmara, and that of his 65 requests, only 14 were approved.

While using glowing terms to describe Asmara and the people of Eritrea, Ambassador McMullen said that the country “is very, very, repressed and the government of President Isaias [Afwerki] is highly centralized and very authoritarian and attempts to control all aspects of life.”

In Eritrea, diplomats are also prevented from having access to the local population. Ambassador McMullen explained, “For example, at one point, we were having a public lecture series in an auditorium; the Ministry of Communication prohibited us from having one evening’s lecture, actually physically locked.. chained the gates shut on the auditorium.”

Asked by the host, what the lecture was about, Ambassador McMullen said  “it was about anthropology, and how Eritrea had been the bridge for early homo sapiens to go from Africa across the Red Sea…”

The government of Isaias Afwerki tried  “to get the names of all the 150 Eritreans who were attending this lecture. They roughed up one of my junior officers, an American foreign services officer. In the end, we moved this lecture into the patio of the embassy and continued. But the Ministry of Communications didn’t want 150 Eritreans to listen to this lecture.”

“… we had a lot of Eritreans who were willing to talk with us, ministers of the government came to my house for dinner; we had regular discussions with the president’s political and economic advisers. We had relatively good access, but bad relations. I mean they closed down the defense attaché’s office; the peace corps has been closed, USAid kicked out, they seized diplomatic pouches in contravention of the Vienna convention. So it is really a tough place to be an American diplomat.”

In June 26, 2001, Gedab News contacted the Public Relations Officer at the American Embassy in Asmara, Ms. Colette Christian, who dismissed the reports saying, “there has been no problem between USAid and the government since 1996.”

In 2001, the Eritrean Government detained two employees of the American embassy. Relations between the Eritrean government and the USA has been bumpy since the government of Isaias Afwerki arrested Mr Ali Alamin and Mr Kiflom Gebremichael. The two have not been officially charged with any crimes but they were rumored to have translated for the embassy the documents of Eritrean opposition groups.

In the same year, the government arrested Mr Fitwi Gezae, who was the webmaster of the US embassy in Eritrea and Mr Biniam Girmay, who was its Facility Management Assistant, were detained by Eritrean security officials.

Amassador McMullen is now a visiting professor at the University of Iowa.

Each year, the US Department of State provides country reports and while its annual reports on Eritrea have always been negative, the ambassador is the first official to disclose that as many as forty eight Eritrean employees of the US embassy have been arrested and the case of only two embassy employees, Ali Alamin and Kiflom Gebremichael, had always been presented as an obstacle to normalizing relationship between the two countries.

EPDP delegation composed of Party Chairman Menghesteab Asmerom and UK Branch Chair Goitom Mebrahtu, met and discussed Eritrean issues on Monday, 23 April 2018, at Whitehall with Mr. Nick Hackett, head of the East Africa Division in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). Emphasis was given to the need for UK and international action to find lasting solution to the no-peace-no-war situation between Eritrea and Ethiopia by seizing the new political opportunity opening up in the region.

The delegation explained in great detail the plight of Eritrean refugees scattered all over the globe because of the unbearable situation in their country. In particular, the delegation underlined the urgency of help to thousands of Eritrean asylum seekers still left in limbo in Israel which continually threatens to forcibly send them to any third country or back to Eritrea where they are not welcome.

In the memorandum submitted by the delegation for the attention of UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Her Majesty's Government, the EPDP expressed its strong belief that the UK could "initiative and lead the world community" towards implementing several international decision in regard to the extremely bad situation in Eritrea. The memo, among other things, stated that "the EPDP and the rest of the pro-democracy forces in exile also deserve the attention and support of the UK Government in empowering them towards becoming alternative democratic actors" and build a stable state in post-dictatorship Eritrea.