Mr. Hamid Drar, the Chairman of the Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP),  urged African leaders meeting in a Summit in 

In a memorandum addressed to the outgoing African Union President, Mr. Teodor Mbasogo, and to the Chairman of the AU Commission, Mr. Jean Ping, with copies to all the African Heads of State and Government attending the Summit, the EPDP Chairman reminded the African leaders that Eritreans are on the top list of their African brethren suffering under repressive regimes and anxiously looking forward for action as an African solution to ongoing problems.

The memorandum expressed appreciation for the previous initiatives by the AU and IGAD (Inter-Governmental Authority for Development) in realizing the imposition of targeted UN sanctions on the Eritrean regime. But the memo made no secret that the situation in Eritrea merits more than that. And without dwelling much on explaining the distressing situation inside Eritrea and the problems being created by the lawless regime in Asmara, the EPDP memorandum listed priority recommendations for African Union action which included the following:

1. .... We [Eritreans opposed to the Asmara regime] ask this AU Summit to do all what it takes to avert another bloody war between Eritrea and Ethiopia now. We are all aware of the belligerent and provocative behaviour of Isaias Afworki and his regime. Yet, resumption of armed hostilities will add only suffering to already adversely affected peoples in Eritrea and the rest of the Horn of Africa.
2. We believe AU can and should push for the immediate implementation of the “final and binding” arbitration ruling on the Eritrea-Ethiopia border issue which is still being exploited by the regime in Eritrea for its wrong domestic and foreign policies.
3. The vast majority of Eritreans are against the regime of President Isaias Afworki, and, given the right political and material support, they will be able to remove it themselves. Therefore, it is time for Africa to start empowering Eritrean non-state civil and political actors for democratic change.
4. To avert disintegration in Eritrea and to address the worsening tensions in the neighbourhood, the AU Summit can follow the Arab League initiative in regard to Syria. African Union Monitors are needed to see for themselves that Eritrea is at the brink of becoming to its people another tragic Cambodia of the cruel Khmer Rouge of the 1970s. It is high time for the AU to stop watching, and instead demand the Asmara regime to release political prisoners and submit to dialogue for unconditional transition from dictatorship to democratic rule.
5. It is also high time for the AU to activate its humanitarian and human rights organs to help the hundreds of thousands of Eritrean refugees, most of them young, languishing for long years in refugee camps in northern Ethiopia and the eastern Sudan, with many other Eritreans, Ethiopians and Sudanese suffering in the hands of human traffickers in the Egyptian Sinai for ransom and organ harvesting. This is, Madams and Sirs, one of the ongoing human tragedies and big emergencies in the continent, and it deserves your most immediate attention.

The EPDP Chairman’s memorandum was expected to reach all the delegations through the AU Commission which was the main addressee.  Copies of the memo were also sent to African Embassies in Addis Ababa to convey the message to their respective Heads of State and Government.

The AU Summit, opened today at its US$200m new building in Addis funded by China, is scheduled to discuss, among other issues, inter-African trade.