Mereja Forum

[Right]

Eritrea faces societal collapse
Jean Shaoul
22 June 2015
A United Nations report has exposed the dreadful conditions in Eritrea, located in the Horn of Africa, that have prompted hundreds of thousands to flee the country. By mid-2014, there were nearly 360,000 Eritreans registered as refugees worldwide by the UN, out of a population of just 6.3 million.

Eritreans are victims, alongside migrants from other North African and Middle Eastern countries, of brutal wars stoked by US imperialism and its European allies in their bid to control the region’s energy resources. They are second in number only to Syrians seeking a safe refuge in Europe. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, nearly one in five of the 200,000 migrants who made the crossing to Europe last year were Eritreans.

The 484-page report by the UN’s Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) is the result of a year-long investigation. It was based on 550 interviews in third countries and 160 written submissions because the Eritrean government refused to cooperate. Many people declined to provide evidence to the OHCHR, even anonymously, fearing reprisal. It details “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations, forcing hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee the country.” These abuses were carried out by President Isaias Afwerki’s “totalitarian” government, which rules without accountability or the rule of law.

Afwerki has been in power since independence in 1993. Since then, there have been no elections, opposition parties have been banned and the media suppressed.

The report argued that, collectively, Afwerki’s ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice Party, the military, the national security office, the police, and government departments have operated a system that leads to arbitrary arrests and detention. Torture and even enforced disappearances are the norm. Even those who have committed no crime could end up in arduous and indefinite national service that amounts to forced labour.

Eritrea’s foreign ministry denounced the UN report as a “vile slander” and a “cynical political travesty.” It said that the allegations were “totally unfounded and devoid of all merit.” The report was, in addition, an attack “not so much on the government, but on a civilized people and society who cherish human values and dignity.”

The study found that the government’s policy of conscription can leave young people trapped indefinitely in the army. Some interviewees said they had served long terms as conscripts, including one who had served 17 years. Those who try to flee the country are treated as “traitors.” There is a shoot-to-kill policy on the border. The OHCHR said people were still being shot in 2014, including children, although the government says it has ended the policy.


Conditions at the military training camps are dire, and sexual violence against women and girls is rampant. Many underage students are subject to forced labour under the threat of death, leading the OHCHR to conclude that, “forced labour in this context is a practice similar to slavery.”

“The commission also finds that the violations in the areas of extrajudicial executions, torture (including sexual torture), national service and forced labour may constitute crimes against humanity,” it adds.

The UN report contradicted the controversial Danish report Eritrea—Drivers and Root Causes of Emigration that concluded that many Eritreans were fleeing for economic reasons. The report caused outrage and was widely discredited as politically-motivated, designed to deny asylum status to Eritreans, with the UK using it to argue that Eritreans are no longer in danger if they return home.

The OHCHR said that it was these conditions that caused hundreds of thousands to flee the country: “In desperation, they resort to deadly escape routes through deserts and neighbouring war-torn countries and across dangerous seas in search of safety... To ascribe their decision to leave solely to economic reasons is to ignore the dire situation of human rights in Eritrea and the very real suffering of its people.”

The desperate situation in Eritrea is part of the ongoing fragmentation and disintegration of the countries in the Horn of Africa, which includes Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti. The Horn is an arena of intense great power rivalry for the control of oil reserves in neighbouring countries and the sea route through the narrow Bab al-Mandeb straights through which much of Europe’s oil passes. The United States and its European allies are engaged in a ferocious struggle with China for control of the region’s oil resources.

Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia in 1993 after a bitter 30-year long civil war, but without a properly drawn up settlement or agreement about long sections of the borders. Both countries became client states of the US, with Ethiopia, home to 90 million people, becoming the biggest sub-Saharan recipient of US aid. America was one of only a handful of states to establish an embassy in Eritrea, in large part because its sea port Massawa occupies a strategic position immediately opposite Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea, commanding the route to and from the Suez Canal.

The economic paths of Ethiopia and Eritrea soon began to diverge, leading to disputes and a full-scale war—just five years after independence—over Badme, a remote but fertile area said to contain gold and industrial minerals. The war brought economic ruin to two of the poorest countries on the planet, as they spent millions re-arming. This had a devastating impact on living standards, with a widening gap between rich and poor and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.

The war spilled over into neighbouring Somalia, a country that all but disintegrated thanks to the political machinations of competing imperialist powers during the colonial and Cold War eras, and the IMF interventions in the 1980s that wrecked Somalia’s pastoral economy and led to the civil wars and famine that have bedevilled the country ever since. In their search for allies, Ethiopia and Eritrea supported opposing factions in Somalia, leading to a proxy war that was to continue until 2009, involving sponsoring rebel groups in each other’s countries.

Eritrea fell foul of the US, which backed Ethiopia as its key strategic ally in the region.

The Ethiopia-Eritrea war ended in 2000 after the loss of more than 100,000 lives, following an Algerian-brokered mediation and arbitration that largely ruled in Eritrea’s favour. Ethiopia never honoured the agreement, leading to a stalemate, occasional military flare-ups, and heavy militarisation on both sides of the border and the cessation of trade between the two countries, depriving landlocked Ethiopia of access to Eritrea’s Red Sea ports.

The “Ethiopian threat” served as a much-needed justification for Afwerki and his clique’s dictatorship, as they profited from the country’s mineral resources.

In 2008, US President George W Bush declared Eritrea a “state sponsor of terrorism” for its backing of al-Shabab in Somalia, which Ethiopia was then fighting on Washington’s behalf. This triggered US economic sanctions. The following year, at US behest, the UN passed Resolution 1907 imposing sanctions against Eritrea, leading Eritrea to become an international pariah.

This has had a devastating impact on the impoverished country, where the average per capita income is about $550 a year, according to the most recent World Bank figures.

[TesfaNews]

Eritrea home to 4 million?

Land of dictator (tyrant king)

Land of socialism (communism)

A country were building houses is illegal!

No constitution no election no democracy no freedom.

Isaias is modern day pharaoh

Internet is also illegal in Eritrea to 97% of its population!

Sidentya!

Go wack youself barya!

We are sick of you. Go get colonized by Italy they can modernize Asmara and massawa for you.

Leave our country and Ethiopian people alone. Get of our websites stop speaking our languages

Go back to your country you chigeram semi agame chigeramoch

Singapore sing a poor!

[Cigar]

Agames desperation has no boundaries.
They are too fu’cken desperate and went through all the bad news of Eritrea (in google) and are bringing a 10 years old west propaganda to try to fool themselves or ease their pain.
They can’t take it sitting down to see where Eritrea is heading as we speak.
Man shut the bell up. Besides the development which is going inside Eritrea, it is the only country which is at peace with itself in the region specially comparing with the cancer of the region Ethiopia.
You can’t deny that.
10 years old news is a distant past. That was when the slave woyane was ruling Ethiopia. Well in the 10 years we saw the complete demise of woman’s while Eritrea is still standing on its own two legs and shining.
Now you weasels agames be honest and compare that 10 years fake old story with what went in your agame land during that decade.

[wubebereha]

how can people who were italian slave since birth can be the proud and free Africa lion Abesha. don't flatter yourself you are Askari and you will always be that. a loyal slave promoted to be mercenary by its master. btw why are you leeches in our house 24/7!

[DivineMartial]

In the south of Somalia, we call a Bantu person a Habash as well.

I believe Habasha/Habesha, was the negro equivalent word of Arabs for Ethiopians.

Liar. Been ha sheegin we no somali calls bantus in Somalia habash. In the Somali conscious Bantus and habeshas are two very distinct groups. It is like calling Arabs white. A Preposterous notion.

[kerenite]

Agames desperation has no boundaries.
They are too fu’cken desperate and went through all the bad news of Eritrea (in google) and are bringing a 10 years old west propaganda to try to fool themselves or ease their pain.
They can’t take it sitting down to see where Eritrea is heading as we speak.
Man shut the bell up. Besides the development which is going inside Eritrea, it is the only country which is at peace with itself in the region specially comparing with the cancer of the region Ethiopia.
You can’t deny that.
10 years old news is a distant past. That was when the slave woyane was ruling Ethiopia. Well in the 10 years we saw the complete demise of woman’s while Eritrea is still standing on its own two legs and shining.
Now you weasels agames be honest and compare that 10 years fake old story with what went in your agame land during that decade.

One thing I can foretell,

In future, we will have multi-party system in Eritrea. Cigar will form and will have his own party and which will be an ultranationalist radical party. Of course he will have a lot of followers.

Believe me, if I am in Keren and tigriyans such as halafi mengedi or Degnet are in Keren and Cigar comes to power, I will hide them from him in my basement until I find a way how to sneak them back to their tigray.

I will belong to the moderate party.

[Dark Energy]

Everyone in Ethiopia is not Habesha. Everyone in Eritrea is not Habesha either. Then, who is Habesha ? Is that refer to a sub population of a country ?

Historically, the term "Habesha" represented northern Ethiopian Highlands Semitic speaking Orthodox Christians, while the Cushitic-speaking peoples such as Oromo and Agaw, as well as Semitic-speaking Muslims/Ethiopian Jews, were considered the periphery[/code]

Predominately Muslim ethnic groups in the Eritrean Highlands such as the Tigre have historically opposed the name Habesha; Muslim Tigrinya-speakers are usually referred to as Jeberti people. Another term for Muslims from the Horn of Africa was '"Al-Zaylai"', this applied to even the empress Eleni of Ethiopia due to her ties to the state of Hadiya.[21][22][23] At the turn of the 20th century, elites of the Solomonic dynasty employed the conversion of various ethnic groups to Orthodox Tewahedo Christianity and the imposition of the Amharic language to spread a common Habesha national identity.[24]

[Dark Energy]

BTW,

If Isayas was to declare that the Eritrea will be renamed Habesha hence forth, Cigar would be the first one to oppose him.

[Noble Amhara]

Habesha is a cultural term for christisn highlanders that wear that tewahado fabric the term also includes muslim highlanders that speak ethio semetic group and the term most refers to abysinnia highlands that stretch down to Gamo or Gurage

the thing is habesha is just a sub segment of the population not everyone can be fit into the steretypical habesha box due to the genetic and phenotypical diversity of the region. Some southerners like Welayta and Hadiya can look habesha.

Some are kushites that appear as Somali/Sudanese like that Eritrean soccer player Isaac. Some may appear as southerners like that mesay mekonen guy. The phenotypical diversity is great each ethnic I have come across has diversity including agews some look habesha some look Somali some look southern

[ethiopian]

Eritreans are slaves with huge slave mentality, they are Ascaris and low !!! Historically they are enslaved by us Ethiopians and another low life poor Italians

[Cigar]

Habesha=Abyssinia=Ethiopia. Deal with it you who hate your own dirty skins.
Don’t freaking include us in your assessment of northerners or skin tone and crap like that to promote yourselves to Eritreanism.
If you love your Ethiopinism, habeshanism and Abyssinianism, keep them and don’t share the ‘good’ thing you believe you acquire.
We are Eritreans, period.
Wow, man how desperate are you to make us look like you?
Don’t you freaking get it that we are telling that we don’t have anything in common with you?
You are Ethiopians and neighboring countries all over the world have some similarities but you as’s wipes are the only rats in the world who don’t want to accept that fact and come up with stupid ideas to belong to your master Eritreans aka shaebians.
Go screw your selves.
Have dignity and pride and stop indirectly begging us. You are not begging? Then tell us to fu’ck ourselves and tell us that you don’t want to share your stupid habeshanism with us.
Mother fu’ckers rats.

[ethiopian]

how can people who were italian slave since birth can be the proud and free Africa lion Abesha. don't flatter yourself you are Askari and you will always be that. a loyal slave promoted to be mercenary by its master. btw why are you leeches in our house 24/7!

answer that you Fa.cken ye Talian Gereds ! You are lower than us the proud BLACK Ethiopians !!! We defeated Italians despite our differences