http://ascenteq.com/project/epdp

In a memorandum addressed to Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, the Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) once more urged the regional body to save refugee lives from drowning in the immediate shores of Europe.

The EPDP Chairman, Mr. Menghesteab Asmerom, asked the EU Commission President to “join us in mourning yet another tragedy, another Lampedusa that occurred this week in the Mediterranean Sea – your sea”.

Copied also to Ms Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; Mr. Donald Tusk, President of the Council of EU; Mr. Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, as well as to Permanent Missions of 28 EU Member States, the EPDP memo of 17 April 2015 also urged the European organization no to go ahead with its intention of rewarding the dictatorship in Eritrea because doing so will not solve the problem. Printed below is the full text of the memorandum.

***

Your Excellency Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker,

I, the undersigned chairman of the Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), an organization in exile struggling for democratic change in Eritrea, am addressing this message to Your Excellency, with copies to your close work colleagues, to ask you to join us in mourning yet another tragedy, another Lampedusa, that occurred this week in the Mediterranean Sea – your sea - claiming over 400 lives. And as usual, many of them were from my distressed country, Eritrea.

Mr. Juncker,

Eritrea has become a human disaster and a situation similar to what is going on in Syria and other war-torn regions of the world. As you very well know, the cause of human displacement and suffering in Eritrea is not an ongoing war but the total absence of the rule of law and respect to human rights.

This week and in recent years, the vast majority of victims in the Mediterranean Sea were not “migrants” but genuine asylum seekers fleeing humanly intolerable situations in Eritrea, Somalia, Syria and a few other places. And needless to say, they are people who deserve protection until the situation that forced them to escape from home is changed to the better. Unfortunately, Sir, the EU is not responding appropriately to the plight of refugees. Instead, it joins others to describe asylum seekers from Eritrea, Syrian, Somalia and similar hard hit regions as “migrants” and wrongly believes that the death of many more of them will stop others from taking the risk. .

Dear Sir,

This memorandum aims to once again call upon your esteemed office to review the EU policy of not actively engaging in saving lives in the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, we request the EU

To kindly come with a meaningful operation like the now defunct Mare Nostrum to save lives.

We also believe that EU must launch a major support programme for Eritrean refugees with package programme in the Horn of Africa. As explained many times to the EU, this programme can provide academic education, skill training and scholarships and prepare young and disadvantaged Eritreans for a better future in post-dictatorship Eritrea. It can be financed mainly by the technical assistance funds suspended for over a decade by many countries because of the Asmara regime’s bad human rights record.

Your Excellency,

Allow me also to take this opportunity to reiterate our utter disappointment about the intended EU support to the incorrigible regime in Asmara that failed the EU and all well intentioned donors in the past several years. The money EU is intending to give to the regime will not stop the suffering of Eritreans, and their flight will continue until a positive change is realized in the country. We, therefore, ask the EU to reconsider and drop its intention of rewarding the dictatorship in Eritrea for its appalling human rights record as attested by experts of the UN Human Rights Council.