On 24th May 2020, it will be 29 years since Eritrea gained its independence!
Is this not, surely, a time for great rejoicing? With hard-won independence, we would expect, above all, this to be a day to celebrate Our Nation’s Freedom, Perhaps?
Freedom of movement:
Under normal circumstances, a truly free person has a right to live and go wherever they wish inside or outside their country….
Yet Eritreans enjoy less freedom than any other country’s citizens, except perhaps North Koreans. You are not even free to leave your own country…that basic human right…if you have the misfortune to be born in Eritrea. The exit drain of young people leaving Eritrea –5,000 a month- is greater than any comparable country on the African continent. There is indeed mass movement by the young people of Eritrea, but all of it is in a desperate attempt to escape the horrors of life in their native country!
The freedom to defend your own country!
After the noble independence struggle, you might expect every loyal young Eritrean to be proud to defend their country’s freedom….
But the prospect of the imposed slavery of conscription to unending National Military Service is the worst future any young Eritrean can contemplate. It starts before they leave school and from then onwards there is no end in sight. Not “Defending Our Proud Nation” but “Escaping the Evil clutches of National Service” has become the overriding priority for all young Eritreans.
Freedom of work:
Should we not expect a free human being to have the right to decide where and how to work?
Yet Eritreans have no right to the labour of their own bodies and minds—they belong to the state under the endless National Service to be ground down in slave-labour in mines, construction, administration, factories or fields-–until when? At the Age of 70, you may still be in slave labour, and die doing it…
Political freedom:
We would expect, in a newly-born state, that political freedom would be cherished and all the freedoms that stem from this…
Political freedom? – there is none: no political parties, no constitution, no parliament, no elections, no democracy, no free press, no unions, no alternative to the regime in power…
Religious freedom?
If a nation has been fighting for freedom to think and act independently, then, for sure, that must include their deepest thoughts and beliefs.
Freedom of belief? –there is none: over a thousand Eritreans in prison bear silent witness to the persecution for their faiths and beliefs…
Gender equality:
In the liberation struggle, all were equal, men and women fought side by side, women did all the jobs men did –they won freedom together—surely then we should now be celebrating that gender equality was won for all time?
Tell that to young women abused and raped in the army. Tell that to the displaced women begging on the streets of Asmara. See how many women feature in the cabinet of the President…an all-time low.
A new country with a reputation for protecting human rights?
Because their human rights went unrecognised and unprotected under previous colonisers and occupying regimes, surely a new country will give the highest value and prominence to protecting human rights and justice?
Tell that to the tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience detained without charge or trial for years and even decades in camps and detention centres all over Eritrea! Tell that to thousands of detainees who have experienced horrific torture sanctioned by the state and its so-called government.
New-found prosperity:
Well, perhaps the “people of a new state” can celebrate the good life, a well-fed population, real progress in child nutrition, and agricultural self-sufficiency?
Does a prosperous state have thousands of children dying of malnutrition?
Or endless water shortages even in its capital city?
Or a food rationing system imposed by the government, while large parts of the population cannot get the food they urgently need to live?
Or wages that are no more than pocket money for an enslaved labour force?
A great new infrastructure to develop the country:
New countries rebuild, and a new state usually plans a great New Deal of civic works to benefit its people. Surely, we can celebrate this for the new Eritrea–with its 100new dams?
Before accepting government boasts that such a large number of dams have been constructed, we should require independent external verification. As with numerous exploitative mineral extraction sites, the number actually in production is very much smaller than the number at the planning stage. Massive hydro-electric dams are notorious for damaging the environment whilst not contributing anything to agricultural irrigation. The damming and storage of naturally flowing streams can result in many adverse consequences for soil and underground water reserves. Like mineral extraction industries, construction of huge dams in Eritrea is largely achieved by the use of the forced labour of National Service conscripts. The benefits are never seen locally.
How can Eritrean agriculture be effectively developed if the majority of the workforce is conscripted into the military? Agriculture in rural areas depends on a younger generation working the farms which the elderly cannot now adequately maintain, but these younger workers have been removed by military conscription. This removal of a key workforce is happening in a country already suffering the effects of increasing desertification and unreliable rainfall. No wonder Eritrean agriculture is at a crisis point of under-production. So much for the claims about the government’s glorious civic achievements in Eritrea.
Celebration of a different kind…
In 29 years, much can be achieved in a new state, much built, a glorious new country founded. And yet…what can we celebrate on this Eritrean Independence Day?
What we can celebrate is not visible on the streets of Asmara— or anywhere else in the country. It lives silently in the hearts of a noble people.
Despite all their suffering, a heroic people have not given up. We must not forget…
- The sheer nobility of those who have opposed a cruel dictatorship;
- The martyrs who have lost their lives for their beliefs;
- The heroes who suffered torture, but still endured, to denounce the villainy at work in Eritrea to a sleeping world;
- The tenacity of those who will not give up, in the face of the apparent hopelessness of the struggle against a rampant evil.
Let us celebrate the spirit of a people who still struggle for justice, inside and outside their beloved country, because they will not give up their dream of a new land of love and laughter, joy and opportunity…. even while their families are held hostage in order to shut the mouths of the truth-tellers.
Unlikely as it may seem, their spirit will not be crushed, their freedom will not be lost for ever. When remembering a noble independence struggle won almost 30 years ago, we must recognise and celebrate what it proved.
- That No Nation can be kept forever in slavery!
- That No People will forever lose their hopes of freedom.
- You cannot enslave forever a good heart and a community of shared values.
- Truth will inexorably be told.
- A people’s voice cannot be choked forever.
The unsilenced spirits of the people, as they remember their past heroes, cannot be denied and closed down. The rallying-power of their former struggle continues to call to them. There still lives in their hearts the same spirit that dwelt in those who gave their lives to be the voice of hope for the future. And this spirit cannot be crushed out of existence; it will arise again with no less strength to reclaim its values and its land for an untarnished and noble future.
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE)
