Warsay Slave Labor

Eritrean Conscripts Are Not Slaves

Recently, the Information Minister of Eritrea, Mr Yemane Gebermeskel, confirmed that indefinite National Service is going to remain without fundamental change, but that the government is planning to increase the present very low wages paid to conscripts: Eritrea won’t shorten national service despite migration fears.

Eritrea Won’t Shorten National Service Despite Migration Fears

(reuters.com, Edmund Blair, Feb 25, 2016) Eritrea is not prepared to stop forcing its youth into lengthy stretches of work as soldiers and civil servants, a conscription policy that is driving waves of refugees to make the perilous trip across the Sahara desert and Mediterranean Sea…

Nevsun in Eritrea: Dealing With a Dictator

(thefifthestate.com, Mark Kelley, Feb 12, 2016) When a small Vancouver mining company struck gold in a remote corner of Africa, it started with so much promise. In remote Eritrea, Nevsun built a mine that was generating $700 million in profits in its first four years of…

The Roots and Evo­lu­tions of YPFDJ, in search for 2nd gen­er­a­tion cadres

(fithinews.com, Biniam Yohannes, Feb 10, 2016) A decade after inde­pen­dence, the Eritrean People’s Lib­er­a­tion Front (EPLF), which won the war of inde­pen­dence from Ethiopian coloni­sa­tion in 1991, had started becom­ing the very enemy it drove out dur­ing its 30-​year pop­u­lar strug­gle. In 1994, a year after…

Eritrea: Freedom House Rating (2014)

OVERVIEW: President Isaias Afwerki’s personal authority was publically challenged in 2013 for the first time in more than a decade when, on January 21, more than 100 soldiers occupied the Ministry of Information, took over the state-run television channel, Eri-TV, and demanded democratic reforms, including the…