In a recent interview with an Ethiopian journalist, the Premier of Ethiopia was asked about reported plans by Eritrea and Ethiopia to attack the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. In his answer, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed, denied the plan, and paid tributes to the Government of Eritrea, saying, “The world knows that the government of Eritrea is working for peace and development.” ‘’Peace and development’ for whom? His assertion begs the question since he did not elaborate whether his statement really applies to Eritrea or to other countries.
The world heard of the peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 2018, and many tributes were paid to Prime Minister Ahmed and President Afeworki for this ending of military tensions and warlike posturing between the neighboring countries in East Africa. It was for this that Premier Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace prize. Less attention has been paid to any actual practical peace-making changes which have followed.
The truth is that very little if anything in the way of practical peace-making has been evident from the Eritrean side. An initial opening of Eritrea’s borders led to such a huge outflow of Eritreans from their supposedly peaceful country that these borders were quickly closed again. The borders between the two countries (the cause of past hostilities) also appear not to have been demarcated. Is Ethiopia’s leader, Abiy Ahmed, deliberately ignoring the truth of what is going on in Eritrea?
If we look inside the supposedly peaceful state of Eritrea, we find the very opposite is true: President Isaias Afwerki has been oppressing, starving, torturing and enslaving Eritreans for the last 29 years. During the last four months, the Eritrean government has locked down the whole nation; no food has been distributed to the poor, the disabled, the elderly or families with children, so people are starving. The president upholds no peace with his people. Hundreds (even thousands) flee Eritrea every month.
Over 10,000 prisoners of conscience are detained incommunicado in more than 350 prisons without knowing their supposed misdeeds, without charges or court judgement. Eritrea is one big prison. This reality is far from anything the Ethiopian premier’s comments might suggest.
Still, looking at the issue through the eyes of the Prime Minister the reality is that apart from turmoil, disruption, death, migration and displacement, the Isaias Afwerki regime has no interest in peace, stability, development and growth. We can prove this with absolute certainty by just reflecting on the past 29 years of his rule.
Looking inside the country
Eritrea is hell for its citizens. We have already mentioned the 10,000+ prisoners of conscience detained incommunicado in more than 350 prisons without due legal process for their supposed ‘crimes’ in a country where it is a ‘crime’ to criticise the government or speak the truth about the inhuman conditions its citizens have to endure. It is also a ‘crime’ to try to leave the country for one where basic human rights might be observed. Eritrea has become a place where all young and old alike have for too long been living without human rights, without salaries, despite the shedding of their sweat and blood for the country. They cannot enjoy life as a family with a salary, but have instead become forced labourers under the indefinite system of national service.
In fact, Eritrea is a nation:
• without a single university for the entire population;
• where factories inherited from former colonisers are in ruins because of neglect;
• where two of its big ports provide no services;
• which has no passenger planes of its own;
• which has no parliament;
• which has no system of government with legislative, executive, judiciary branches; and
• where a duly ratified constitution keeps rotting in a cupboard.
Yes, Eritrea has gained nationhood but to describe it as a nation working for’ peace and development’ amounts to nothing less than a mockery, a statement of cynical disdain and callous arrogance. God save us if Eritrea’s so-called peace and development were to be imitated by other nations – only North Korea has a worse human rights record.
Looking at it from a different angle, wherever the Isaias Afewerki regime goes, disaster, disease, hunger and repression follow. Isn’t it true that, the African Union urged the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against Isaias Afewerki’s regime in 2009, because he was disrupting the peace in the region by causing chaos?
How can we forget the bloody inter-communal conflicts in Sudan and Somalia as a result of Afwerki’s interference in the affairs of those countries?
We Eritreans know only too well that since coming to power, the Isaias Afewerki regime has dragged the country into conflicts with all its neighboring states
When Isaias Afewerki speaks about his alleged peace, it is in fact a peace plan that excludes the Tigray Region as he does not recognize the Tigray region as part of Ethiopia; the plan follows no systematic peace procedures that embrace all of Ethiopia.
Even in other places of Ethiopia where Isaias Afewerki claims to have brought peace, has there ever been peace in the said surrounding areas since the very moment he set foot there.?
We recall the jailing in 2001 of all senior Eritrean government officials without due legal process. How can we ignore at the moment the fact that there is a similar scenario in the making in 2020 in Ethiopia where many political opponents are being detained, shunned and side-line? Isn’t Isaias Afewerki’s wicked hand behind all this?
What most of us Eritreans hoped for was that the small flickering light of democracy in Ethiopia would be spreading to Eritrea. We never expected that the barbaric Afewerki’s system would move from Eritrea to Ethiopia. Nor was it the expectation of Ethiopians and the rest of the world.
We believe that Ethiopia is truly in grave danger if the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Dr. Abiy, truly thinks that Afewerki’s brutal policy is a good initiative for peace and development whereas the most cursory examination reveals that the system was built to cause death and destruction, and hunger and chaos, to the majority of the ordinary people of those countries while turning a tidy profit in the private bank accounts of a few corrupt government officials.
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE)
