…and by “how to speak” we mean “how to speak in public” because that’s not how government officials speak in private, among people they trust.

It’s not easy but you can do it.   Here’s how to practice:

“Khartoum’s [International Conference on Human Trafficking] has not curtailed border-crossing. Border-crossing continues. What can stop it is not Khartoum Process, but the policies undertaken in Europe. And that is: “political asylum to Eritreans ONLY!” must be removed from all countries, as a policy. Then, Eritreans…there is no violation of human rights in Eritrea. Nobody is leaving the country due to fear [of persecution.] It is not due to fear [that they are leaving.] It is because they were told, “come!” And so it is because they were told you will be given international salvation or international asylum that they are leaving. And this policy must be abandoned. Thus, to date, Khartoum process has not brought about any change for us.

“So now, at this moment, those who are called “National Service”, are being paid an appropriate salary. Just like the salaries that all workers get. Therefore, the number [of border-crossers] is gradually decreasing. And the National Service are being provided with jobs commensurate with the training they were given. And those without any craft are being enrolled in vocational training and they are acquiring a skill-set. And so, in that way, they are getting their salary working in their field of training.

“So now, once they finish secondary education, and pass their matriculation exam, are being referred to colleges.These don’t have to perform national service: they go straight to college and resume their education. The rest are not assigned to anything but vocational schools. Nobody who has completed secondary education is idling in the streets. Those who are already here [in exile], it is the wish of the Government of Eritrea for them to acquire a skill-set. All possible efforts should be made towards this. If the Khartoum Process could cooperate with us on this issue: that those who are in Europe acquire a skill set, any Eritrean who is here [outside Eritrea] should not be told you will be forcibly returned to Eritrea. We…if an Eritrean is to return, it must be of his own volition. [As for] the Khartoum Process to help us expand our workforce, we need investment. And in this regard, we are having discussions with the European Union and Germany.”

Words and melody by Eritrean Minister of Foreign Affairs Osman Saleh.

In short, there are no push factors from Eritrea resulting in hundreds of thousands of Eritreans leaving their country. Not indefinite military service. Not insufficient or low pay. Not the knowledge that you don’t own your life: that is owned by the government.  Not the grossed-up wages that, after deductions, result in the same net pay. Not confiscating people’s wealth and parceling it out in 5,000 Nakfa increments, if you accept their reason for withdrawing their own money.  Not a country without accountable governments where anyone with the right title (from party or government) can abuse youth and adults with impunity. Not a government which invites sanctions that freezes up investment resulting in no opportunities.  All these are fiction because: There is no violation of human rights in Eritrea.

No, it is all due to pull factors. It is all due to:

* the ease of asylum, due to miguided policies of Europe. (Osman Saleh)
* the human smuggling efforts of the United States (Isaias Afwerki)

But if this is true, why are so many spouses and children of government and party officials living in Diaspora, exempted from the harsh punishment the government inflicts on ordinary citizens?

New year, same old song. Government officials who can’t protect themselves from a tyrant cannot protect the people.

What is the state of healthcare in Eritrea? What is the “before” and what is the “after”? What are the objective ways to measure if the health of Eritreans is progressing, regressing or at a standstill? Is Eritrea as fit as a fiddle or as pale as death? What are the bitter pills we must swallow? What are the physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual health of Eritreans like, particularly the post-independence generation? We have just what the doctor ordered: Dr. Bereket Berhane Woldeab gave his diagnosis in a long two-part audio presentation at EMDHR Paltalk Room on December 23, 2016. This is a partial translation of his presentation; the original, in Tigrinya, is attached below:

History of Hospitals in Eritrea:  During the British Military and Emperor Haile Selasse administrations, 5 hospitals were built in Eritrea.  By 1991, at Eritrea’s independence, there were 16 hospitals (most of them in Asmara); 4 medical centers, and 106 health stations, which is the lowest form of healthcare.  By 2010, based on the report provided by the Ministry of Health, there was 170% increase in healthcare.  Hospitals increased from 16 to 28; health centers from 4 to 63; and health stations [from 106 to] 246.

Access to healthcare: In 1991, 40% of Eritreans had to travel 10 kilometers to access healthcare–hospitals, medical centers and health stations.  Based on the 2010 study, 60% of Eritreans can access healthcare–from one of the healthcare facilities–within 5 miles. This is a significant change.

Capacity Building: We can categorize healthcare professionals as skilled and unskilled.  From a medical doctor all the way down to a nursing assistant and drug dispensers.  The others would be administrators.  I will focus on the skilled professionals.  In 1991, the estimate of skilled healthcare professionals was around 250.  This was based on studies conducted in 1992 and 1995, as well as one done before the fall of the Derg era in 1989-90.  The quantity of healthcare professionals increased from 250 in 1992 to 1,350 in 2009.

Rates and Ratios:
(a) Mortality rate of under 1 year of age: decreased from 150/1,000 to 22/ 1,000, based on report prepared in 2010.  What this means is 1/24 of Eritreans die before they turn 1 year old.  [Editor: Well, actually, it is 1/44]

(b) Mortality rate of under 5 years of age: 1/16 of infants die before their 5th birthday. If one compares this with the independence era [1991] and just after, it is one where big changes were witnessed.

(c) Maternal mortality ratio: In 1991, this was 1,700/100,000.   If we look at the 2013 data, it is 380/100,000.  And this is very, very admirable—if true.  Related to this, the comparable figures for women who give birth in a medical setting is something that should be commended.

(d) If there is one thing that hasn’t shown any change, it is the nutritional status of infants. Not just lack of progress, but regression.  And we measure this by: height-compared-to-age and weight-compared-to-age.  One is called stunting and the other is wasting.  As of now, 50% of Eritrean children are stunted and wasted, and of those 39% are extreme.

(e) Referencing the Millennium Developmental Goals (MDGS),when it comes to malaria, in those areas where it is prevalent, 33% have mosquito nets; HIV prevalence rate is 2.3%. The prevalence rate is 1.13% for females, and 0.5% for males.

(f) Life expectancy has increased to the 60s.

Now we have to be able to critically assess what’s reported.

Let’s begin with the Millennium Developmental Goals (MDGS.)  They are not goals set in Asmara but Geneva and other international centers, and imposed on all countries, all members of the international community.  MDGs are developed with the common understanding that improvements in health are influenced by other factors– economic, political, policy-related, etc.  So if we look at MDG: 1, it deals with poverty and hunger.  It is predicated on the understanding outlined in 1989 that public health policy is based on child health policy.  As I mentioned previously, the situation of under-5-year-of-age infants, the stunting and wasting is very worrisome, approaching 50%.

One cause for skepticism in all these figures is that there has never been a census taken in Eritrea before or since 1991.  In my research, I looked at census of the “natives” (indigenous Eritreans) taken by Fascist Italy in the 1930s, and it was around 450,000.  In 2002, 2005 and 2010, there were projections made from a small sample size.  Excepting that, there hasn’t been an actual census taken.  And until one is published, [because all the figures published are ratios and rates], we should look at them with skepticism.

If that is the case, why do different countries and the UN accept them as facts? This is because reports are the responsibilities of sovereign countries: their governments prepare and publish, the others [UN, other countries] have no responsibility other than to accept.  So long as there are no demographics, one has to treat these figures with suspicion.

To conclude, the increase in the capacity of healthcare is extremely satisfying.  However, one has to look at these facilities–hospitals, clinics, health centers–and consider this: unless they are staffed properly, have adequate equipment and medicine, it doesn’t amount to much.  Based on conversations with people coming from Eritrea and external research, we can conclude that the current state of these facilities is dysfunctional.  Why?  Because there is lack of human resource and maladministration.

As an example, if we reference one of the factors I cited, human resources development–something very sad, shocking and worrisome is the case of an institution that the government–and we as well should be–is upbeat about: Orotta Medical School.   There is a six-month long study of the institution that we can cite as reference, as an eye-opener.

Based on the initiative taken by the late Saleh Meki [former Minister of Health], the school was opened in 2003-04.  Let’s look at the developments since.  Between 2009 to present, 112 graduates of the school have left the country.  From the first batch: of the 32 graduates, 21 are not in Eritrea.  From the second batch: of the 32 graduates, 20 are not in the country.  From the third batch: of the 39 graduates, 20 are not in the country.  From the fourth batch: of 49 graduates, 26 are not in the country.  It continues like that, and I have all the figures and names.  Similarly, from the dental school, of 10 graduates, 5 are not in the country.

Again, from 2009 to present, if we take a look at veteran physicians–veterans who are experienced, who know our society, who know all the varieties of illnesses…you can estimate the damage to the population when you lose one such physician.  Between 2009 and now, we have lost 38 veteran physicians who have left the country, bringing the sum total of physicians who have left the country to 150.  This doesn’t count the usual brain drain of people who don’t return from an assignment: what we are witnessing is not normal, never-been-seen-before development.

I interviewed about 20 of them, to inquire why they left.  There are some fundamental things a government has to do to retain people.  Most of them didn’t raise the issue of salary.  What else? Professional development training; job dissatisfaction; lack of supplies, burnout.  Opportunities for advanced education don’t exist: they are closed.  A few mentioned salary, improving their lifestyle.  If you recall, in December 2009, the government–via one of its customary proclamations–closed all the private clinics.  Perhaps this is related to the migration of the veteran doctors, in my view.  In 2011, all the articulation agreements that Orotta Medical School had with American and other institutions [of higher learning and hospitals] were voided, denying opportunities for graduates to take advanced classes.  This disheartens people to the point of almost pushing them out of the country.

In conclusion, Orotta Medical School, the institution we were hopeful about, is one that has graduated 100 physicians of whom 50 have left the country.  The consequences and magnitude of losing such skilled people, after 8 years of investing in their education, is not something that requires much analysis.  Beyond this, about a month ago, I was in Northern Ethiopia visiting the refugee camps, and I met 3 recent arrivals, not graduates, but who had dropped out from medical school in their 3rd, 4th and 5th year.  We can describe this as human resource mismanagement…

If you are claiming success in health, what is “health”? In 1948, the World Health Organization [WHO] described health not as presence or absence of illness.  Health is more comprehensive including body, mind and social wellness.

This is the true measure, using WHO standards: body, mind, social, emotional and spiritual wellness. Let’s use these standards to assess the health of [the post independence] generation of Eritreans.

Healthy Body: These we have mentioned above: under-1-age mortality rate; under-5-age mortality rate; maternal mortality ratio, and others.

Healthy Mind: Everyone should have full right to think, to inquire to their full potential.  This is greatly determined during pregnancy and shortly after the child is born.  Two years ago, UNICEF and other institutions released a report based on their research [which concluded that]  the first two to three years of infants lives, and the support they get–nutrition, other factors–greatly influence the kind of life they are going to have.

Social Health: We measure social life by one’s ability to form relationships.  They are things like growing up with your family; ability to get married; to collectively express sorrow in moments of grief; and to express joy with others in moments of happiness.

Emotional Health: Human beings have things that trigger their anger, happiness, sadness. If one can express anger on issues that cause anger; can shed a tear, in matters that cause sadness; can laugh when happy, then that person is said to be emotionally healthy.

Spiritual Health: when mankind is given the right to worship–be it religious or cultural–then we can say there is spiritual health.

Now let’s take a look at all five factors and assess the health of the new, post independence generation.  They are deficient in all.  And this is where the great failure of the government shows.

Looking at the health of children… WHO does not just look at presence of absence of measles and malaria.  The same five criteria above are used with this one more supplement: importance of families.  From the nuclear family, to the extended family, to the community, the neighborhood, the school the child attends.  If all of these are met, then children can meet their potential.  Let’s ask: what is the situation Eritrean children are in? Almost 50% of Eritrean children are being raised by a single parent: the mother.   Nearly 17% have neither parent.  And as I mentioned previously, using age-height and age-weight ratios, almost 50% of the children suffer from stunting or wasting.  How this will impact the child’s adulthood has already been mentioned….

This is your forecast for the week of January 9th, 2017. If you are traveling to Eritrea, be sure to “regularize” your relationship with the Government of Eritrea by filling out a repentance form. Its official name is “Immigration and Citizenship Services Request Form B4/4.2.” That is assuming you haven’t said anything negative against the government or its human rights record, its governance, or key individuals in a position to harm you, in which case, we have a strong advisory against traveling back to Eritrea.

1. Good news: the airline you are flying, Dubai, Turkish or EgyptAir, is not planning a sudden cancellation of all flights from and to Eritrea, so you should be ok.  But don’t drink alcohol even if it is complementary: really, is that the impression you want to give your folks, arrive in drunken stupor?
2. Fuel, which is called benzine, is a million nakfas a liter, or something.  So pay the taxi rate of 1,000 Nakfa from the airport with a smile. When you are an old man or woman and Eritrea is awash in fuel and natural gas you can bore your grand kids with your stories of how much you paid.
3. The Nakfa, which had seen a temporary uptick a year ago after the change in currency, is in rapid reversal. The exchange rate is now USD 100 –> Nakfa 3,000.  We forecast it will reach 4,000 before November, i.e., exactly where it was two year ago on the anniversary of the ballyhooed currency exchange.
4. There is no planned G’ffa (random round up of deserters and draft-dodgers) this week.  But carry your 2nd Country Passport everywhere you go, including the bathroom.  Seriously.  If you don’t have it, you will be rounded-up because the standard operating procedure (SOP) is “round up first, investigate later (when you get around to it)”
5. Don’t say stupid stuff you have heard on Facebook and depress people. Don’t lecture the youth (your age!) hiding from gffa about their “national obligations.”  Don’t say, “so, I hear our great government has pardoned prisoners!”  The government floats rumors that it will, every December for the last 25 years, but never pardons people, so you will just remind people of their misery.  Pardons require having empathy, and the Eritrean government does not like to import anything including humanity.
6. Eritreans are a tough, sturdy people.  And you know what? That is because they started out as tough sturdy kids.  So all the things you say and do that gets you complimented in your adopted country–the way you dress, the way you speak–don’t get your feelings all hurt if Eritrean children laugh at you.  And they will laugh at you.  Specially if you are sagging.   We call that jelgad.  You can’t be writing posts about “shet me’anta” (buckled up) and then be dragging.  What is wrong with you? Man up.  And you young ladies: don’t mention the brand name of your purses and jeans: nobody cares.
7. Now let’s look at your itinerary…You are going to go to Asmara. Good, good.  Wake up…go cruising…come home…go cruising…go clubbing.  Come home late.  Really?  That’s it?  You see those fat wads of Nakfa you have?  Take a look at those picture in the Nakfa.  Those people pictured: very few of them live in Asmara.  So rent a Landcruiser (3,000 Nakfa), fill it up (a million nakfa) and go driving north, east, and west young man.
8. Be different.  Repeat after me: Sembel.  Adi Abeito. Addi Keyih Detention Center. Fifth Police Station. Mai Serwa. Dahlak Kebir. Ella Ero. These are where some of your countrymen live.  Just ask your PFDJ Senior office to see them. It is a form of Zura Hagerka (tour your country.) I mean what’s the worst thing that can happen?  Clearly, our government treats its people, including prisoners, real well, and wouldn’t it be swell for you to come back to your country and tell everyone what you have seen?  The worst they will say is no.  They may say, “why, would you like to join them?”, but that’s just their sense of humor.
9. Remember this table below?  You read it in one of your YPFDJ media.  Now, you are going to be an eyewitness and actually document that all these dams have been built.   But you will go one step further and see for yourself that these great dams, designed personally by His Excellency President Isaias Afwerki, are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing: irrigating planation.  The one in Aligider, from the Italian era, was blown up by Weyane.  It will be so good if you come to tell us that it is working and actually now Eritrea is growing cotton, just like it did during the Italian era.
   

   Gergera Dam	Teramni, Eritrea	35 million cubic
   Tekera Dam	Undisclosed	20 million cubic
   Toker Dam	Berik, Eritrea	17 million cubic
   Aligider Dam	Aligider, Eritrea	7.5 million cubic

10. Watch our great Eritrean cyclists, at home doing their thing, and selam belelna! Tell them we are proud of them for carrying on, and improving on, Eritrea’s great tradition. We will see them in Paris!

In Eritrea, where the vast majority of livelihoods depend on subsistence agriculture and pastoralism, 80 per cent of the population is vulnerable to recurrent drought. Since 2015, Eritrea has experienced drought conditions caused by El Niño that further undermined household food and livelihood security, particularly for women and children, and contributed to a cholera outbreak across three of the country’s six regions. These dynamics have led to high levels of malnutrition among children under 5, pregnant women and lactating mothers, particularly in the lowland areas. According to the Nutrition Sentinel Site Surveillance System, malnutrition rates have increased over the past three years in four out of the country’s six regions, where malnutrition rates already exceeded emergency levels, with 22,700 children under 5 projected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in 2017.

Nutrition and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices are sub-optimal, with less than half of the rural population accessing safe drinking water and only 11.3 per cent of the overall population accessing improved sanitation. Half of all children in Eritrea are stunted,and as a result, these children are even more vulnerable to malnutrition and disease outbreaks.

Humanitarian strategy UNICEF and partners will continue to mainstream humanitarian response within
regular development programmes targeting the most vulnerable children and will apply an integrated multi-sectoral approach to lifesaving interventions in Eritrea, building on linkages between the humanitarian and development programmes. In 2017, UNICEF will support the Government to implement blanket supplementary feeding to prevent the further deterioration of the nutritional status of children under 5, pregnant women and lactating mothers. This will include procuring routine medicines for the management of SAM and moderate acute malnutrition (MAM). UNICEF will apply a multi-sectoral approach in drought-prone rural communities facing heightened risk of diarrhoea and cholera and high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition. Local capacities will be built in these communities through outreach and training programmes to support the provision of safe water and access to appropriate hygiene practices. UNICEF will strengthen health systems to support service delivery and will prioritize routine immunization coverage and community case management of childhood illnesses. Schools in the most-affected areas will offer programmes designed to raise children’s awareness of explosive remnants of war. UNICEF will also support the enrolment of 15,000 (currently out-of-school) nomadic children from drought-prone areas, working with the Ministry of Education, via advocacy campaigns, outreach and enrolment programmes to support children’s return to school. Communication for Development will be used to achieve programme results in all sectors.

Results from 2016

As of 31 October 2016, UNICEF had received US$7.8 million against the US$16 million appeal (49 per cent funded). Some 13,000 children under 5 with SAM and 34,000 children under 5 with MAM were treated and 376,000 children received vitamin A. In addition, 30,000 pregnant women and lactating mothers and children under 5 living in hard-to-reach areas benefited from blanket supplementary feeding (less than planned due to limited funding). Approximately 97,000 children were immunized against measles and 70,000 children affected by acute watery diarrhoea received life-saving curative interventions. UNICEF surpassed its targets for vitamin A and acute watery diarrhoea support by reprogramming regular programme funds and liaising with the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO). A total of 31,000 people benefited from improved access to safe water, including 10,500 people in seven communities with new solar-powered water supply schemes, and 20,500 people in cholera-affected regions through the provision of water treatment supplies for one month. Key preventative messages on protection, education, health and nutrition reached more than 1 million people in highrisk areas. While 5,000 children were reached with psychosocial support, fewer children than planned accessed mine risk education and basic education due to limited funding for child protection and education activities.

I am teary-eyed, and you may want to have some tissues ready because you will, too, by the time you are done with this article. It is about the impossible–democracy in Africa–and how 54 individuals are bringing it to Africa. For this Beta Version of Democracy, the aforementioned 54 Very Important Africans will also be the only ones voting, sacrificing themselves for Africans as they protect it from the scourge of democracy.

Like democracies elsewhere, this one has rules and candidates. It has a period for campaigning and coalition-building. Each candidate is required to give his or her vision and whether it aligns with that of the continent. Gifts and favor-exchanges are allowed. Because the 54 Visionaries have volunteered to be the only voters, there is no danger of hacking. Voting is done in secret, and the candidate has to get 2/3 of the votes to be declared a winner. The magic happens on January 19, 2017 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The Five Candidates

I couldn’t beat 2 but I can beat 4

1. Pelonomi Venson-Motoi is the Foreign Minister of Botswana. In the first run-off in July 2016, Ms Venson-Motoi had the most votes (23), but not 2/3 of the votes as the rules say (36/54), so the voting was….postponed. Back in July, she was only running against two candidates: now she will run against four. Many of our 54 Wise Voters who abstained from voting in July 2016 argued that none of the candidates (including Ms Venson-Moitoi) quite meet the qualification requirements for such an important post. Now, the same Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi is hoping that in comparison to the other four she will appear supremely qualified. A neo-liberal and HRW favorite: not popular with Our 54 Electors.

But for whatever it is worth, she has the support of the regional affiliation, the Southern African Development Community, and she is guaranteed at least 12 votes to start with, 14 if you count Seychelles and Mauritus.  And you should: they have a flag and everything.

I am a natural for this

2. Agapito Mba (his middle name, not his credential) Mokuy, the Foreign Minister of The Equatorial Guinea speaks Spanish, English, French, Portuguese and Fang. He was the other candidate who was also found unqualified by our esteemed 54, despite a resume full of UNESCO and UNDP and suchlike busybody work, but now that he is running in an even more competitive field, he should stand out.   He is not backed by any regional group, leaving him to campaign in Chad, Senegal and other decent countries which have the good sense to make French their official language. And he is from Equatorial Guinea: see map below.  No chance.

I speak French and you don’t

3. Mousa Faki Mahmat, Chad’s Foreign Minister, is also in the running, which kinda defeats Agapito Mokuy’s campaigning for the office in Chad.  Chad has got to go with the local favorite, no?   Mousa has been part of Chad’s ruling dynasty, one way or another, since 2003 including as its Prime Minister (3 times).  His party is named “Patriotic Salvation Movement” and how could you possibly go wrong with that? Unlike Pelonomi, he doesn’t appear to have gotten the endorsement of his regional organization–Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), map above— probably because Equatorial Guinea, and its candidate, are also a member of such an influential gathering of nations.

Straight from central casting

4. The fourth candidate, Abdoulaye Bathily, is Senegal’s candidate.  (We call it “Abdullahi” but, hey, that’s Arabic.) He too has been flying around West to East to build coalitions and serve his constituents. He is the Secretary-General of the Democratic League/Movement for the Labour Party (LD/MPT), and of course you are asking: what exactly is that? And more importantly (since we don’t expect to ever hear anything from this party ever again) can you tell us what its logo is and we will decide?  Sure:

comes in communist smell-o-vision

Where are our manners: he is actually Dr. Abdoulaye Bathily.  Senegal is the big dog in Francophone Africa so there will be a lot of politicking.

5. Dr Amina Mohammed is Kenya’s candidate, and the country’s Foreign Minister.  Like Botswana’s Pelonomi Venson-Motoi, Dr. Amina is supported by the regional affiliation Kenya is a part of.  This one:

I hear you like to lock horns

That’s the East African Community (EAC): big name, but few members.  This is why she had to expand her campaign to the Horn of Africa, and she has already gotten the endorsement of Sudan (ditching Chad) and Ethiopia (whose PM said “we should focus on the quality and not what area or region candidates come from” and then went for the regional favorite. Not officially, because as a host, he can’t.  Neither can many of the Peace & Security Council Africans like Egypt and Algeria.) Like Agapito, she is part of the UN family: she worked as an assistant to the undersecretary to the deputy of the UN or something.  Nigeria is for her (Anglophile Africans fighting the Francophone Africans.  Weird? No.) Djibouti should be a lock.  So should Somalia: Dr. Amina Mohammed is an ethnic Somali.  Well, who knows with Somalis: maybe she is from the “wrong” clan.  So is China.  Eritrea is a tough call and it may all boil down to a figurine of a rhino.

All these esteemed individuals are campaigning to be African Union Chairperson, to replace Her Excellency NKosazana Dlamini-Zuma who declined a second four-year term.  So very considerate, so self-restrained.  Also, she is going to run for president in South Africa.  The Southern African candidate has no chance (you can’t have two back-to-back AU chairpersons from same region: some unwritten rule.)  There are two candidates from Central Africa (they split the vote: they should have fielded one candidate.) One from Francophone West Africa.  One from Anglophile East Africa. And she is a woman: refer to AU Agenda 2063.   The electors will be the head of states (or their appointed delegates.)   Five candidates, fifty-four electors.  That very few of the electors were elected themselves but they  shot their way to power and refused to leave (by amending constitutions or ignoring them) does not diminish anything.  Nor does the fact that, behind the scenes, China, the US and the European Union are pushing their candidates.  Because we, who can’t elect, know who will win.

Viva Africa. 长寿非洲

The World Bank has come up with its forecast for 2017. It calls it Global Economic Prospects and it’s 276 pages.  You can read it here:

Here are the four most interesting tables, from its regional outlook. And, no, there is nothing about Eritrea.  And, apparently, Djibouti is not part of Sub-Saharan Africa but North Africa/Middleast.     The short version: Sub-Saharan Africa is behind and falling further behind.  The whys are: decline in commodities prices and oil prices, but that is just economist talk.  There is another explanation, which deals with the number of shooting wars in Africa and the Middle East: just refer to the Uppsala Conflict Data here which helps explain the World Bank’s economic forecasts, presented here in declining order:

(1) South Asia: Average GDP Growth for 2017: 7.1%

(2) East Asia and The Pacific: Average GDP Growth for 2017: 6.2%

(3) Middle East and North Africa : Average GDP Growth for 2017: 3.1%

(4) Sub Saharan Africa GDP Growth For 2017: 2.9%

“Such rankings may, of course, be distorted due to poor international perceptions of, or a lack of access to, the country. (For example, although donors and investors universally acknowledge that Eritrea has very little corruption, it is nevertheless ranked by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt in the world).[71] They may also reflect more on policy choices or attitudes expressed during implementation than actual capacity to govern.” – Seth Kaplan, Eritrea Ideology and Economy

So this is a common sentiment about Eritrea which, according to the usual “Africa experts”, is one of the least corrupt in Africa.  And it is a wrong sentiment based on outdated definition of corruption and stereotypical view of Africans.

Corruption, according to these experts, is petty theft, larceny and bribes.  You know, stuff Africans are guilty of. Wink.  And since that does not happen in Eritrea to Europeans and, well, you know, Caucasians, then, by golly, it doesn’t exist in Eritrea.

But that’s not the modern definition of corruption, which we will get to in a paragraph.  But even if it were, the Seth Kaplans are unlikely to encounter it in Eritrea because they don’t have family members they are trying to smuggle out of the country.  They don’t have nephews trapped in “National Service” for over a decade who need “moving permits” to travel from Point A to Point B in Eritrea.  They don’t have nieces who serve as concubines for entitled colonels and generals whose palms have to be greased to stop molesting them.  At some point, Africa is going to insist that any self-proclaimed “Africa expert” speak at least one African language and live in the damn country they pretend to be experts about.  But now now.

And that is not even the point.  The point is corruption is not just petty theft and bribes and larceny.  It is, according to Transparency International (the people who wrote the book on corruption)

“the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Corruption can be classified as grand, petty and political, depending on the amounts of money lost and the sector where it occurs.

It is the “and political” definition of corruption that the Seth Kaplans are missing. They don’t really miss it, they just assume that is what Africans deserve. It’s baked in, so its not corruption.  When later on, a decade or two later, they learn that the government they are claiming has a human rights record which is no worse than any of its contemporaries and peers (despite a Human Rights Council report saying that it actually does, in excruciating detail), maybe they will feel what George Bernard Shaw, Walter Duranty and Upton Sinclair felt about their defense of the monstrous Stalin. Or maybe they won’t: the ego is a stubborn thing.

So, what is political corruption? It is when those who are entrusted with power use their power to stay in power. They do this by arbitrarily changing constitutions or, in the case of Eritrea, pretending it doesn’t exist. They do this by enslaving their people, including underage children.  For the sole reason of staying in power, and ensuring that they perpetuate it and transfer it to their chosen heirs.  Because they and only they know what is good for their people.

That is the standard Transparency International used to rank Eritrea as one of the most corrupt in the world.  The absence of free press, which gives us (and the “Africa experts”) nothing but government propaganda (which the Africa Experts ignore, flattered as they are by “access” to power.)  It is the total and complete absence of independent judiciary.  It is the total and complete absence of any form of independent civil society.

Using this definition of corruption, Transparency International says that Eritrea is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.  On a scale of 1 for least corrupt (Denmark) and 176 for most corrupt (Somalia), Eritrea ranks number 164.  What that means in plain language: Eritrea is in the top 10% of the most corrupt countries in the world.

How did it get there?  And what is “there”?  Medrek is an Eritrean political organization in exile founded by very senior members of the Eritrean People Liberation Front (EPLF), i.e., the decades-long colleagues of President Isaias Afwerki and most of his remaining flunkies.  Emphasis on “remaining” because this is a fast-shrinking club, with yet another one, Abdu Heiji, made to disappear just last week. And this group has a website named Erimedrek.com because we Eritreans suck at coming up with names for websites because we think Eritrea is the center of the universe (Eritreadigest anyone?) And Erimedrek.com is reporting (in Tigrinya, a language that the “Africa experts” haven’t mastered) that President Isaias Afwerki is pulling a Kim il Sung: grooming his son to take over.   The tutoring of  Abraham Isaias Afwerki, son of Isaias Afwerki Abraham, has started.  Oh, it is the usual mercenaries: the tutors are Brit and a Belgian (for political science); a bunch from Russia and United Arab Emirates (in military science.) All in the secluded Asmara neighborhood of “Space 2001.”

Is this corruption?  Not according to the “Africa experts.”  Why?  Because they don’t know anything about it. Neither this, nor his former fast tracking in the Eritrean Airforce. Nor the fact that Isaias Afwerki’s daughter did her “national service” in the cushy Ministry of Information, far removed from hauling rocks in labor-intensive work. But, but but.  The “Africa experts” have tried to confirm this information with their only sources Yemane Gebreab and Yemane @hawelti Gebremeskel and the two totally, categorically deny it.  Really.  And the two should know because, like, they are senior and they have senior titles.  Yeah.  In the Government. But not in Isaias Afwerki, Inc, which is a whole separate entity and of which they have zero knowledge.

That’s the there.  But how did we get there?   The path to hell is paved by many, many, many rocky roads.  And here is another Eritrean, just this week, one of the tens of thousands of stories that never get heard, talking about how he was conscripted when he was underage, arrested when he was underage, sneaked to prison for the underage in the break of dawn and ordered to crouch in the van so Asmara residents (and all the visiting Mzungus and “Africa experts” in their morning jog) don’t witness a kid, Robel Berihu, 16, being hauled to jail.  And the harrowing and so-ordinary-its-banal story of his escape to Sudan then Ethiopia.

Anyway, meet the new boss.  Same as the old boss: Kim il Afwerki.  Good luck Eritreans.  Some new “Africa Experts” will tell you why he is so perfect for you.  Whatever you do, please don’t come back and say “I didn’t know.”

You don’t have to watch the annual interviews of President Isaias Afwerki to understand his viewpoint. Just apply the Isaias Afwerki Constant (iak) and you are there:

Domestic Affairs

A sector by sector analysis of everything in Eritrea shows that everything is bad.  Agricultural sector: bad. Transportation: worse.  Social services: substandard.  Energy: deficient.  Tourism: non-existent. Fisheries: Unacceptable. Housing: less than zero.

Regional Affairs

Ethiopia: government is in its last legs.   Somalia: So sad.  Djibouti: manipulated.   Middle East: abused.

International Affairs:

The uni-polar world that was envisioned by the United States was and is extremely dangerous, but it is being challenged by everyone.

The Future:

We have entered a new stage.  We have shifted to a new gear.  We have foiled our enemies. A bright future awaits.  Details will follow.

Parting Words, Message To The People:

Work as hard as I do.  And, in 25 years, you will be as big a failure as I am. But you can always blame your failure on somebody else and congratulate yourself for foiling your enemies.

Writing for Aljazeera, Hamza Mohammed gave a lot of reasons why Amina Mohammed, Kenya’s foreign minister, who was the favorite to win the Capo di tutti capi of the African Union, lose.  Here they are, in his own words:

1. Kenya did not make its stand on the disputed territory of Western Sahara clear. When lobbying the pro-Morocco camp Kenya, sources told us, said it was in favour of Morocco’s readmission to the AU. But when Kenyan officials met the pro-Polisario camp they said they were not. Kenyan officials refused to publicly clarify what their position was.
2. The Kenyan candidate has also been a fierce critic of the International Criminal Court and this did not sit well with the countries who are in favour of the Hague-based court, which has been often accused of bias against African nations.

   I speak French and you don’t

   Amina, who is not a career politician unlike her opponents, is a first-term foreign minister and lacks the weight and experience of dealing with major security matters, some analysts said.

3. In contrast, the winner, Moussa Faki, is a former Chadian prime minister and is currently foreign affairs minister at a time when N’Djamena is leading the regional fight against the armed group Boko Haram.
4. Some heads of state saw Amina as too close to President Kenyatta and questioned whether she could be truly neutral. Would she be able to stand up to Uhuru if elected, many asked?   Amina, who is not a career politician unlike her opponents, is a first-term foreign minister and lacks the weight and experience of dealing with major security matters, some analysts said.

While Hamza writes persuasively, he leaves out the most important one: the real reason she lost is because in the last round Djibouti switched sides.  And if you are superstitious, Amina was supported by Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki.  And that guy has the reverse-midas touch: everything he touches turns to ashes.

When you hear Horn of Africa all you are thinking is drought, famine and conflict. But wait: this is the birth of humanity. It is the area that ancient Egyptians called “Punt” (land of gods); it is where humans became humans more than 100,000 years ago; it is where the bridge, Bab el Mendeb, for the “Out of Africa” theory of human migration to the rest of the world was located; it is the capital of a number of civilizations including Axum, Dmt, and the Sultanates of Adal, Warsangali, Hobyo, Majerteen; it is the home for the earliest adopters of Christianity and Islam and it has numerous monasteries and shrines and walled towns to prove it…It is the producer of marathon runners and coffee and injera and…

But that was then.

How are the children of the Horn–Somalis, Djiboutians, Ethiopians and Eritreans–doing these days? How are they managing their democracy? Let’s do it counter-clockwise:

Somalia

Somalis just had an election and they elected a new president. Well, Somalis didn’t, it wasn’t one-adult-one-vote. What happened was some Somali elders from all its clans, appointed delegates (14,000 of them), and these delegates elected a parliament (328 of them), and this parliament elected a president. Because the Somalia constitution says the president had to get a 2/3 supermajority, there were three rounds. They started with 26 candidates, and by the time they got to the 2nd round, there were three candidates: the former incumbent, the incumbent, and the eventual winner; by the time they got to the 3rd round, there were two candidates standing: the incumbent and the eventual winner. The leader didn’t have the 2/3 majority but he was leading the number 2, the incumbent, by such a huge margin, the incumbent conceded and Somalia now has a new Head Cheese.

Over in the unrecognized breakaway republic of Somaliland, they had been doing this thing called elections for so long they must have been shaking their head at all the attention Somalia (non breakaway) was getting. In March, they will be having their 3rd multiparty election to directly elect a president for a 7-year term.

Ethiopia

If Somalia requires that the president have the support of 2/3 of the voters, Ethiopia requires that the winner have 50% plus 1. This is not exactly a good recipe for a diverse country of 90 million people with 88 languages. Not good, that is, for the governed: it is a sweet deal for the governors.  Ethiopia, which has a parliamentary system where parliamentarians elect a prime minister, last had Federal parliamentary elections in 2015. The gigantic, super-dominant party is not a party: it is People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, a coalition of parties which dominate each of the 9 regional states. The other parties, to the extent they are allowed to exist, are not competitive and in the extremely rare case where they are, the winner-takes-it-all formula continues to disenfranchise a large segment of the population with Ethiopia, every 5 years, claiming 97%, 98% and 100% wins.

To the surprise of nobody (except the ruling Front), this level of marginalization and disenfranchisement breeds resentment which boils over and becomes an uprising. So Ethiopia is now under a state of emergency.

Djibouti

In April of 2016, Djibouti had its presidential election and the winner received 87% of the vote. In the first draft.  In direct elections. And that was his fourth five-year term: he has been president since 1999. There were 7 candidates and if you think the 6 should have presented a united front: he received 8 times their combined total and it wouldn’t have helped.

Of course we could give you all sorts of conspiracies about France, France, France and France but we are not that kind of website.

Eritrea

The Government of Eritrea is also made up of a Front, this one being for Democracy and Justice. This Front has been in power ever since Eritrea became an independent state in 1991. In 2016, those who want to discuss Eritrean Democracy and Justice were invited by Eritrea’s president to pursue that in Mars or the Moon because multiparty elections will never happen in Eritrea. We regret that we have not received any updates from our correspondent to Mars and the Moon.

Sudan is sometimes included and sometimes excluded from the Horn of Africa. We will exclude them because their politics is just as depressing.

What was the whole point of this article? I guess we are saying the Children of the Horn have yet to find how to make Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea Great Again.   For now, Somalia has brought about election results that has made every Somali I know happy and hopeful so congratulations and may the scourge of Al-Shabab and all the reactionary dark forces be lifted of all our lands.

ED’s picks for the week “Pulse”, is harvested from all over, and deals with news and commentary on the Horn of Africa.

Human Rights in Eritrea: On March 12, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea presented her report to the 37th session of the Human Rights Council. Arbitrary arrests and death in custody go on. Freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, religion and belief remain severely curtailed. The economic rights of citizens are violated. The country remains closed to all but fawning fans. The report concludes with the Special Rapporteur, Ms. Sheila B. Keetharuth, asking those who have been calling for engagement with the Government of Eritrea: “what tangible progress has been achieved on the ground regarding the fundamental human rights I have dealt with in my update? What concrete steps have been taken for necessary transformation?” Source: OHCHR

Government of Eritrea replies to OHCHR:

During #HRC37 discussion on human rights situation in #Eritrea, delegation fails to even show up. No willingness to end rights abuses, or even engage. SR mandate crucial to ensure rights violations not ignored. pic.twitter.com/3hbgYzQlnC

— John Fisher (@JohnFisher_hrw) March 12, 2018

The Garden Among The Flames: A writer for awate.com, Burhan Ali, has a long and beautiful narration on Akhria of his youth which maintained its rebellious nature: “One morning, only weeks after planting the provocation, the small wild thorny trees (Cactus) where knocked down during the night and uprooted all left lying on the side along the road where they were challengingly standing and affronting the residents of Akria for few days. The police and the city went crazy, sniffing everywhere to trace those who have done the deed. It was to no avail, but every man, woman, and child in the neighborhood knew who has done it, and by the names too.” Source: Awate.com

The Arsonist Around The Flames: Meanwhile, to the surprise of nobody at all, “South Sudan President Salva Kiir has openly admitted his country has run out of cash and there was nothing that could be done to fix the economy unless war stops for peace and stability to return to the country in order for investors and other money-generating activities to resume.” – Sudan Tribune

The Prime Minister Has Resigned; Long Live The Prime Minister: A month after Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn submitted his resignation, Ethiopia has not named a new one. The ruling party, EPRDF, had reported that its executive committee was going to meet on March 11 and a new Prime Minister was widely expected to be named. But now, the word is that “we are not going to be rushed” which means we are not close to reaching a compromise candidate.  So, more punishment for the Prime Minister.

The DP Is In The Details: In 2000, the Djibouti Government gave DP World a 20 year concession to operate the Port of Djibouti and its Doraleh Container Terminal. Last month, Djibouti kicked out DP World (majority owned by the government of United Arab Emirates) alleging that it won the contract by making “illegal payments” (bribes.) This month, Somalia’s government announced that the 30-year concession DP World signed with the breakaway (but unrecognized) Republic of Somaliland in the Port of Berbera is “null and void.”  This means that DP World’s two locations in the Horn of Africa are now challenged which will have null impact on the company’s financial position (revenues of 4.2 billion and profits of 2.1 billion.)

The job duty of a foreign mission anywhere in the world is this: to represent the interest of their country to the host country. This requires meeting with government officials of the host country, i.e., diplomacy; meeting with the non-governmental sector of the host country, i.e., public diplomacy; and helping fellow compatriots in the host country, i.e., consular service. The government of Eritrea often brags that it has 28 embassies and 19 consulates abroad and, on the face of it, this is not too far off from countries its size. The problem is this: Eritrean embassies and consulates have redefined their job to focus on one and one thing only: to spy on Eritreans. Consequently, to the disappointment of the seasonal “let’s engage Eritrea” busybodies, Eritrean diplomacy has to, and always will, fail.

If one wants to test out the theory that “personnel is policy”, one needs look no further than the individuals picked by the Government of Eritrea to be the heads of mission. These are not people who are noted for their charm or powers of persuasion but their unquestioned loyalty and high degree of “yes-sir”ism. Whether it is Eritrea’s Ambassador to France, Hanna Simon, who told us that why her sister Ruth Simon was in prison is not her business; or, Eritrea’s ambassador to Kenya, Beyene Russom, who has nothing to say about the mother of his children (whom he had a hand in imprisoning), and her brother, made to disappear for over a decade; or, Eritrea’s Ambassador to Japan, Estifanos Afwerki, whose idea of diplomacy is tweeting all day about the greatness of Isaias Afwerki, and name-calling his compatriots. Pick anyone: Mohammed Ali Jabra, Mohammed Omar Mahmud, Yohannes Teklemichael, etc, etc:  it is one long miserable lot.

So, what is it that they do all day? Their primary task is to re-create the Eritrean dictatorship in the Diaspora. How do they do that? Their spy seven days a week on Eritreans and report on who said what in the paltalk rooms; who did not pay the 2% tax imposed by the government on Eritreans who reside in the Diaspora; who attended a meeting organized by the opposition.

This is then reported via the PFDJ Political Office to the security apparatus in Eritrea who take punitive measures against their families inside the country. These include some vague but ominous warning that the family should keep their exiled family member in check; revoking their business license, or even denying the ration of lentil or bread from the government-subsidized “fair store”, Dukan hidri.

So, technically, Eritreans in diaspora are still living under the shadows of the PFDJ’s proxy prisons. The prisons are virtual replica of Adi Abeto, Ala, Aderser etc. The virtual prisons are administrated by the heads of PFDJ mission. The crime list is similar to that of the crime list in Eritrea which include: saying unflattering things about the president; withholding money from the embassy–and this is not just the 2% tax but the myriad of resolutions passed, including tree-planting, orphan-raising, or “rebuffing” Weyane (17 years after the war with Ethiopia ended); sending remittances to family members via Hawala (not using government channels); attending any meeting organized by ‘Weytotat’ (opposition.) Moreover the line of report of the virtual prisons in diaspora is exactly like those in Eritrea. Nothing has due process in law or is presented in written statements.

Everything is verbal. The head of the mission will call Yemane Gebreab’s office and say “So-and-so has not paid the 2%… his father, so-and-so, resides in zone x, sub-zone y and based on revolutionary directive, it is best if a measure is taken against him. Victory to the masses!”

The crimes the government of Eritrea commits on a daily basis may, according to the UN’s Human Rights Council (HRC), amount to crimes against humanity.  These crimes are enslavement; imprisonment/severe deprivation of physical liberty; enforced disappearances; torture; persecution; rape and murder.  On all of these, some ordinary Eritreans and government officials may credibly claim that they have no knowledge about them. But on one of them, reprisals against third parties, neither the embassy staff nor those ordinary Eritreans in the Diaspora who “fulfill their national duty” under extreme duress can pretend not to know. They are part of the conspiracy of silence.  There are foreign “experts” who actually believe lies told with a straight face to them (lying is a form of patriotism, according to the ruling party) which is only a reflection of the foreigners’ naivete.

The diplomacy of the Gov of Eritrea fails because it is designed to fail.  It is inward-looking and focused on expanding the domain of the police state of Eritrea outside Eritrea.  This is why, in 26 years, there hasn’t been a single diplomatic breakthrough, no deals or treaties, no direct investment, not a single improvement in the country’s relationship with another country except at the very basic level. Somalia, which is barely picking itself up as a country, has 34 embassies and 8 consulates abroad and all its activities are in winning support for its cause–from foreigners and Somali’s alike. Unfortunately, in the same length of time, none of Eritrea’s opposition or civil society has made any progress in stepping into the vacuum and representing the interests of the Eritrean people.  This needs to be acknowledged and corrected.

Almost everything in this article published by State website shabait.com is wrong, misleading or false.

This would be beginning with the byline: the ministry it is attributed to, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Everyone knows, or should know, that any statement addressed to foreign governments or agencies is penned by only three people: President Isaias Afwerki, PFDJ Political Director Yemane Gebreab, and Presidential Office chief of staff (and pretend Minister of Information), Yemane Gebremeskel. The Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Osman Saleh, is lucky if he saw what was published ahead of whom it addressed.

On second thought, it is so bad, even by PFDJ standards, maybe he wrote it.

Next to the byline is the date, which is designed to confuse.  There is no date.  There is a Ref OM/043/18 in the letter, which may be referencing March 4, 2018, but that is an odd way of dating a document. But there are reasons to doubt it does because of the first paragraph in the statement:

I refer to a rather curious communication (Ref. AL ERI 2/2017) that was sent to me jointly by your good selves on 17 January last month.

Consider the shoddy diplomacy: the “good selves” referred to in the statement are Mr Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief (on whom the Gov of Eritrea hasn’t declared war—yet) and Ms. Sheila Keetharuth, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Eritrea. But because the Government of Eritrea is still having a temper tantrum about the fact that the UN keeps renewing her mandate, she is not addressed by name, thus displaying the PFDJ’s lack of professionalism and class.  But clearly, the “jointly” and “good selves” suggests that she was a co-writer of what the Ministry is responding to.

Back to the date: what does “17 January last month” mean? Is the Ministry trying to pretend that it wrote the reply in February but just couldn’t quite fudge the date? Did it receive whatever it is replying to in February and confuse it with January? Wouldn’t 17 January 2018 be clearer if the whole purpose of the communique is to clarify things? Unless the purpose is to obfuscate, of course.

And all of this is before we even get to the actual content! It must be a chore for the UN to even continue reading after they have been insulted (Keetharuth not addressed by name) and lied to (fake/confused date) in the first paragraph.  But let’s dive in:

On the early afternoon of 31 October 2017 around 100 youth (students from the Al Diaa Private School and others in the neighborhood) marched from Akheria [sic], a neighborhood in the northern periphery of Asmara to the al-Khulafa’ ar-Rashidun Mosque in the center of the city. After the prayers, the unruly group, who were chanting sectarian and inflammatory slogans all the way, proceeded to Liberation Avenue and the Ministry of Education. At this stage, they began to throw stones and to attack the Police. In the circumstances, the Police fired warning shots into the air and dispersed the crowd before they could incur damage to lives and property.

Is saying “Allahu Akber” (God Is Great!) in Eritrea “sectarian and inflammatory”? This in a country where the phrase is uttered 5 times a day by dozens of mosques? Or is chanting it in the streets that is inflammatory?  If that is the case, why does the government allow these guys to do it every year? Twice, in fact.

Moving on: there have been several videos sneaked out of the country from those who recorded the protest and there is no evidence for the claim that the children who were marching to protest the arrest of a 93 year old man “began to throw stones and to attack the police.” No wonder it took the Government of Eritrea two months to respond: it was making up a story.

The Police subsequently detained, for questioning, several people involved in illicit acts of vandalism as well as principal culprits behind the whole episode. These are indeed normative measures that the police in any country would take to ensure public safety by, in part, dispersing and apprehending people who have willingly engaged themselves in offences including the public disturbance of an otherwise peaceful city.

There is nothing “normative” about arresting citizens, including the underage, and denying their parents and their family visitation rights. There is nothing “normative” about denying them their constitutional right to defend themselves in a court of law. There is nothing “normative” about making people disappear and warning those who inquire on their whereabouts (mothers!) that they, too, could join them in prison. There is nothing to indicate that those imprisoned are 100 or 1,000 as the Government of Eritrea operates with total impunity and doesn’t have independent media or civil society or opposition parties to challenge its claims. Nor does it allow people like those addressed in the letter, Sheila Keetharuth and Ahmed Shaheed, access to independently verify the claims. Occasionally, it invites sympathetic “journalists,” fanboys and fangirls, and individuals who share its ideology to propagate its views, but none of these could seriously be considered impartial witnesses.

It must be underlined that this particular incident had nothing to do with freedom of expression or freedom of faith. Eritrea is a secular State where the freedom of religion is fully and solemnly enshrined in its laws. Furthermore, it has a fine and exemplary tradition of religious tolerance and co-existence nurtured over centuries.

The Ministry can underline all it wants but the detained were arrested for expressing their view that the government should not have arrested a senior school official. That is, by definition, freedom of expression. To summon the strength to do that in a police state which has no rule of law, they chanted “Allahu Akber” — that there is something more powerful than even a predatory government. Again, that is the very definition of faith, and they had that freedom, very briefly, before their detention. Furthermore, freedom of religion is neither fully nor solemnly enshrined into laws: additional proclamations have made all but Sunni Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Tewhado Christianity illegal in Eritrea. The “fine and exemplary tradition of religious tolerance and co-existence” owes its long presence to the people who existed in the country for centuries before the PFDJ existed.

In this perspective, Proclamation 73/1995, issued to “Clarify and Regulate Religions and Religious Institutions”, enshrines the principle of secularism by limiting government activities to the political administration of the country and religions/religious institutions to religious matters; without one crossing into the mandate of the other.

Eritrea’s education policy reflects, in part, this law by limiting religious institutions to providing religious education with the freedom to implement their curricula in accordance with the dictates of the respective faiths – and all non-religious schools, whether private or public, to providing education in secular fashion as required by the guidelines of the Ministry of Education.

Now, we are getting somewhere. This is Proclamation 73/1995. Can the ministry tell the world what specifically in the Proclamation empowers it to do what it did and which clause or statement prevents the school from doing what it is falsely accused of doing?  The problem has always been the government’s refusal to specifically cite articles within laws, statues, regulations that were violated. Instead, it makes a blanket reference to a document–including the Constitution of Eritrea, long shelved– as if merely mentioning it gives the government absolute power to do anything including overthrowing a duly appointed patriarch, arresting him and replacing him with someone more compliant to its dictates.  Can the ministry tell us which article in Proclamation 73/1995 allows it to do that?

Accordingly, all the faiths enjoy unrestricted rights to run and administer religious schools in their respective religious institutions and premises. They have unfettered rights to establish and operate purely religious schools at all levels; including at the tertiary level. Along the same line, religious teachings and/or exclusivist religious attires are not permitted in secular schools. Discriminatory or segregationist practices of refusing access and enrollment to individuals on the basis of their gender, religion or background are also prohibited in secular schools.

Since “religious institutions” have “unfettered rights to establish and operate purely religious schools at all levels” can the Ministry give us an example or two of such institutions?

Al Diaa is a private school that falls within the administrative jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. It is not an Islamic School, as your letter insinuates, affiliated in administrative and policy respects to the Muslim Faith in the country. (Indeed, it was first established in 1969 as “Berhan Elementary School” open to all inhabitants of the Akheria [sic] community without discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnicity)

There is so much to unravel here. First of all, “Al Diaa” (in Arabic) and “Berhan” (in Tigrinya) mean the exact same thing: “light.” Since its inception, the school was always (ALWAYS) known by both. The statement insinuates that if a school uses its Tigrinya name it is secular and if it uses its Arabic name it is religious. This is wrong and part of the rotten campaign the regime has used in its efforts to ensure that this rebellion by Eritreans to assert their rights is pigeonholed into a “Muslim” issue and, further an Akhria (or Akheria as they weirdly keep calling it) issue where there is a preponderance of a minority ethnic group.

What is the difference between a “private school” and an “Islamic school” if the private school has always, since its inception in the 1960s always taught Koran as a subject? Has the school ever enrolled non-Muslims into its schools? If it has, do they have the right to opt-out from the Koran classes? If so, does it affect their grades? The Ministry knows the answers to all these questions but caught breaking the law and, worse, shocked by actual resistance to its violation of law, it is making stuff up as it goes.

In subsequent years, and especially after independence, Al Diaa School began to gradually introduce practices that were in breach of the country’s secular education policy. Among other things: access to the school was restricted to followers of the Islamic faith only; it introduced segregation of classes on the basis of gender; it stopped teaching on Fridays; and it breached national school guidelines on dress code and school uniforms; and it hired foreign nationals without valid permits and approval of the Ministry of Education regarding their qualifications.

The problem with the Government of Eritrea, and why its statements fail to register with anyone but its faithful, is that it always assumes that just because it monopolizes the media in Eritrea, its narrative is the single truth. The Diaspora is full of alumni of the school who can speak to: whether the school totally or almost totally enrolled Muslim students since the 1960s; at what age were classes segregated into boys and girls and since when; what was the school uniform and since when?

It must be borne in mind that the transgression of Eritrea’s secular education policy and the inflammatory words and deeds of the School principal, and others implicated in the act, were wayward practices that merited appropriate action. The popular sentiment was perhaps better captured in the words of Sheikh Salim Ibrahim Al-Muktar, the Managing Director of Eritrea’s Mufti Office, who stated during the public celebrations of Mewlid Al-Nabi on 30 November 2017 that “Islam and Christianity have co-existed in harmony in Eritrea since ancient times. As such, externally induced religious extremism has no space in our country”

This is perhaps the most telling paragraph. The key difference between “the school principal” (Haji Musa Mohammed Nur) and the Managing Director of Eritrea’s Mufti Office (Sheikh Salim Ibrahim Al-Mukhtar) is that the former owes his position to the parents of the students and the Akhria community (the people) and the latter is appointed by the ruling party of Eritrea (the government.)  This was a case of a power center being created outside the absolute control of the control-freak government, which controls even those advertised as “civil society”: the youth groups, workers group, and women group. Otherwise, the former (Haji Musa Mohammed Nur), by virtue of his age and very public life, has a much longer track record of not just espousing but living the life of a patriotic man who truly believed in, and practiced, harmonious co-existence.

For reasons that defy explanation, external media reaction to this singular incident was mind boggling. A sinister story that originated from a subversive Ethiopia• based armed group, the so-called Eritrean Red Sea Afar Organization (RASDO)[sic], alleging “the killing of 28 civilians and wounding of 100 others”, went viral with prestigious media outlets gullibly recycling the story without minimum verification. Weeks later, some media outlets, including the ZDF TV Channel in Germany, retracted the story even if they have not apologized to Eritrea for their defamatory news coverage.

What defies explanation is not that people with minimal or no access to the country may have gotten the story wrong. It is that the State media (EriTV, shabait, Hadas Ertra and its satellites) had complete news blackout, as is the norm in Eritrea until the government decides what the spin is. In keeping with that tradition, neither the speech of the “school principal” (Mr Musa Mohammed Nur), nor his arrest, nor his death in prison, nor his burial ceremony, nor the arrest of hundreds of Eritrean youth, including youth as young as 9 years old following the burial ceremony, has been reported by the State media. To this date.

The lesson that the Government of Eritrea refuses to learn is that the days of a single narrative because you have total domination of media–as was the case when it was a guerrilla force in the field–are gone. In the age of satellites and encrypted media, it can still keep almost everything hidden. But not everything.

Eritrean children in refugee camps of Ethiopia

The world should not be surprised when it witnesses underage (not conscription-age) Eritreans  escaping the country: the predatory government of Eritrea has shown that there is no limit to its shameful behavior as it has arrested hundreds of children, some as young as 9 years old, for simply acting like 9 year olds anywhere in the world and forgetting that they are subjects of the self-declared rulers.

KENYA’S Daily Nation has the backgrounder which preceded the reconciliation between Kenyan President Uhuru and opposition leader Raila Odinga. It includes (1) elders of the the tribes the two politicians belong to (Kikuyu and Luo); (2) US ambassador Robert Godec; (3) Odinga’s decision to hold a swearing-in ceremony in defiance of Uhuru; (4) Retired Major General Philip Kameru persuading Uhuru not to escalate tensions and arrest Odinga; (5) a flailing economy; (6) National Assembly Minority Whip Junet Mohamed acting as go-between and, finally, (7) goodwill.

You were not wondering, but in case you were, none of these variables have any space or importance in Eritrea. The country’s political development is where Africa was during its post-independence Big Men era (1955-1975). We have decades to go to achieve the status of a mess.

Meanwhile, UN’s Human Rights Council had interactive dialogue on human rights in Eritrea. You can read the entire dialogue here. Speakers included:

Kate Gilmore, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights
Sheila B. Keetharuth, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights
Remy Nogy Lumbu, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
Veronica Almedom, Information Forum for Eritrea
Pamela Delargy, public health specialist.

GOs: European Union, Norway, Switzerland, United States, Australia, France, China, Greece, Venezuela, Sudan, Djibouti, United Kingdom, Ireland, Cuba,
NGOs: International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Article 19- International Centre against Censorship, Centre for Global Nonkilling, Human Rights Watch, East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project, Amnesty International, United Nations Watch, and Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

The alarm clock of Tesfamichael Gerahtu, the ambassador of the country of concern, didn’t go off, or he was too busy carrying out his main ambassadorial duty (spying on Eritrean Diaspora) and thus:

Eritrea was not present to take the floor as the concerned country.

Later, he showed up and read last year’s report with what Trump might call a Jeb Bush energy. These are the “diplomats” that are hoping to sway the UN and the US.

Sudan-Egypt:  Remember when Egypt was mad at Sudan because the latter was too cozy with Turkey and Ethiopia? Remember when Egyptian media attacked Sudan in sometimes racist tones? Remember when Sudanese media attacked Egyptian politicians? That was so three months ago. Before Omar Al Bashir learned of Isaias Afwerki’s plot to overthrow him. Now, things are back to the brotherly people routine: they actually recorded the plane landing in Egypt. And, oh, Al-Bashir endorsed Sisi for president in the upcoming elections which will be too close to call by nobody. Happy Nowruz Day, Iranians! That’s not how you say it, but Happy New Year.

Ethiopia still doesn’t have a Prime Minister because the EPRDF makes decisions “by consensus”–it is the “revolutionary democratic way”–and there is no consensus. Addis Standard said last week that there would be a meeting middle of this week and: “In the five days deliberations so far, only one party hasn’t delivered its report to the ongoing EC meeting, Shiferaw said, but it is not mentioned which of the four parties hasn’t completed delivering its performance report. Shiferaw said this party will deliver its report tomorrow.” Care to guess which the one unnamed party is?

Last Wednesday, March 21 ,2018, at the 10th extraordinary session of the African union, held at Rwanda’s capital Kigali, forty-seven (47) African countries signed their consent to make Africa continent a free-trade area (AfCFTA). This agreement, in the works for years, envisions a continent with free flow of people, goods and services. The instruments are the Kigali Declaration of 2003, the Free Movement Protocol (2017) and the Consolidated Text (2018.) Only five African countries did not sign any of the instruments: Burundi, Eritrea, Guinea-Bisau, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

The agreement is hailed as historic for it signals a radical gesture that can potentially disrupt the structural dependency of Africa on its former colonial powers. It is anticipated that removing tariffs, which constitutes a core principle of the agreement, could increase intra-Africa trade by 52 percent by 2022 from the current 10 percent level. The agreement is considered a first stepping stone towards a European Union style free trade area that allows free movement of people and a single currency. In a time of nationalist backlash against the increasingly intense articulation of national economies to globalisation, the African Union initiative looks a bold move against the current. One should quickly concede that the AfCFTA agreement can and should be subjected to critical scrutiny. One can throw legitimate questions as to the potential of the agreement to sufficiently destablise the structural problems that have been arresting African development. One might also see the agreement as a neoliberal ado signifying nothing. Most likely, people are debating these issues in the countries which signed or refused to sign the agreement. The country where no such debate is conducted is Eritrea. In the absence of any official statement from the Eritrean government, we offer our conjectures.

Why PFDJ’s Eritrea Did Not Sign the AfCFTA Agreement

In its long career, the ruling PFDJ party has made some extraordinarily sharp ideological and policy turns on ad hoc basis. Once, it was a darling of US hegemony “exhorting” the US to maintain its role in Africa (see here) and a willing volunteer in the nascent war on terror initiative, another time it waxes lyrical about the dangers of US hegemony and the destructive excesses of the war on terror. One time, it is all for constitutional governance with all the liberal trappings of free multi-party elections and free press, another time it withdraws to its Leninist vanguardist self preaching about how the masses are not yet mature to assume citizenry responsibilities.

The PFDJ swing to diametrically opposite extremes is also palpably clear on its economic policies. In one of its post-independence foundational economic policy document – the November 1994 Macro Policy document (attached here) – the PFDJ outlines a thorough neoliberal economic framework. The macroeconomic policy document states the establishment within two decades of “modern, technologically advanced and internationally competitive”, “knowledge and capital intensive”, and “export oriented” economy as the “overriding development objective” of the PFDJ government. The policy document envisages the achievement of this goal on the basis of unhindered external and internal private investment in “outward-oriented” manufacturing sector, irrigation based commercial agriculture, and the service sector. It envisions making Eritrea a hub of competitive international financial institutions, with “liberal internal and external trade regime” that enables the country to participate in “regional bilateral and multilateral trade and economic cooperation.”

What happened between then and now is, to use the hackneyed cliché, history. It is a common knowledge now that the PFDJ has made a sharp turn from its perhaps uncritical and wide-eyed embrace of glossy neoliberal economic agenda to an extremely autarkic black market dominated economy that inordinately banks its hope on a fledgling mining sector and mediocre irrigation projects. It is within this context that Eritrea’s absence in the AfCFTA agreement should be looked at. That said, one may still ask why the PFDJ has made the sharp turn in its economic outlook and shun major regional economic cooperation schemes. Did it experience a Road to Damascus moment, a kind of ideological epiphany that opened its eyes to the evil of neoliberal economy and compel it to delink/disarticulate the Eritrean economy from the vagaries of global Capital as suggested by heterodox economists like Samir Amin?

As much as one might want to exercise the principle of charity and give the PFDJ the benefit of ideological doubt as to the rationale for its shift in its economic policies, considering the spasmodic manner in which such policy shifts happen – usually according to the whims of its head Isaias Afewerki and without public and institutional debates – one should look elsewhere for an answer. One reason why the PFDJ is for a nationally sequestered economy is basically because it provides sinews to its power. As the current Chief of Staff General Filipos Weldeyohannes unequivocally stated in a meeting he conducted with government employees, who were forced for military training and dam construction at Gergera, in June 2015, the developmental and security goal of the government is to “control the population like the fingers of one’s hand.” The economy for the PFDJ is a site of governmentality. It is viscerally opposed to any ‘free’ economic regional schemes for it is afraid that that might destablise its propaganda projection of Eritrea as hortus conclusus where it wants to fixate Eritreans in juvenile celebration of mediocre projects such as this (video interview*)

Meanwhile, the PFDJ is intensifying what it has perfected so well – disappearing and jailing people en masse. After rounding up close to one thousand people during the funeral of Hajji Mussa, it has sent underage children to one of the notorious prison centres in Ala and the rest to Hashferay and Metkelabyot. It is ratcheting up its Islamic terror fear-mongering, talking about an unknown ‘radical’ preacher called Mohammed Jumma allegedly supported by Qatar and Sudan. The scene it is staging is reminiscent of 1993/94: Islam, Sudan, Jihad, Terror accompanied by massive disappearance and incarceration of Muslim Eritreans.

* See comments section for a summary of the surreal interview.

March 2011: Following the emergence of the Arab Spring, Mr. Mohammed Juma “Abu Rashid”, is interviewed by London-based Al-Hiwar TV. The Eritrea activist tells factual developments in Eritrea since independence and, among other things, says that part of the reason that the cause of the exiled Eritrean opposition is not amplified by Gulf Arab states (such as Qatar, he says specifically) is because of their friendly relationship with the Eritrean Government.

October 2011: The Qatari-funded road linking Eritrea and Sudan is inaugurated by Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Hamed Bin Khalifa Al Thani, and Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir.  The show is broadcast on state TV in Eritrea to showcase the close relationship between the three countries.

In short, the Eritrean opposition is ignored by all the Gulf Arab states, including Qatar, and President Isaias Afwerki and his regime have such a close relationship with Qatar, he frequently travels there and the Qatari Emir visits Eritrea. Their relationship is so good that when Eritrea and Djibouti had a border war, only Qatar stepped in to mediate (or was considered acceptable by both Djibouti and Eritrea), a move that was welcome by the UN after a couple of years by Eritrea declining to admit it had a border conflict with Djibouti, which is one of the reasons it was sanctioned.

December 2015: President Isaias Afwerki visits Saudi Arabia to join the “anti-terror coalition”, which he insists on calling an “initiative” because it is the “principled” stand of his regime never to join coalitions.  This “initiative” ends up being about lining up allies to isolate Qatar and bombing Yemen to the Stone Age. In this new order that defies history, the “terrorists” happen to be the marginalized Houthi Yemenis while the purses of the terrorists (the Saudis, UAE, Kuwait royalties) are now reformers and the voices of reason. Eventually, Isaias Afwerki agrees to provide the port of Asab to the Saudi Coalition (for undisclosed terms), which is using it as a military base for its air-raids in Yemen to predominantly kill civilians and break apart the country.

July 2017: Qatar, which had been mediating the Djibouti-Eritrea border conflict and maintaining a peace-keeping force for seven years, withdraws its troops from Djibouti-Eritrea border. The Government of Eritrea feigns surprise and expresses its confusion as to why Qatar would do such a thing.  

2018: The Saudi Alliance squeeze on Qatar continues, aided by the Trump Administration. Of their many preconditions for normalizing relations, one is that Qatar shut down Aljazeera TV. Qatar refuses. The United Arab Emirates, which dragged Saudi Arabia into the war with Yemen, doubles down and conducts co-ordinated campaigns on social media, including using the hashtag #Qatarileaks. In one of those, it accuses the aforementioned Eritrean citizen, Mohammed Juma (Abu Rashid), the same one last heard of complaining that Qatar’s Aljazeera does not provide sufficient coverage to the case of Eritrean opposition, as being the most influential Islamist in Eritrea who is bankrolled by Qatar. Lacking content, it fills its report with name-calling (Eritrea’s Qaradawi!) and dramatic audio and graphics:

2018: Eritrean State TV, for the first time in its history, identifies an Eritrean opposed to its dictatorship (Mohammed Jumaa ‘Abu Rashid”) by name, and repeats the accusation of UAE with a twist: he (a Londoner) is now in Sudan working for Sudanese intelligence. For good measure, it feigns amazement as to why Qatar has such hostile intentions against it. Both Qatar and Sudan deny the accusation.

In seven years, the Eritrean regime has broken off its relationship with Qatar; attempted the overthrow of Omar Al Bashir’s president; turned away from Iran with whom it had, according to its own media, signed bilateral agreements and counted Iran’s nuclear ambitions as a “point of pride for us”; joined the Saudi Alliance against Iran (despite its non-stop bragging that “Eritrea does not subscribe to polarizing policies of military alliances and blocs. As such it neither endorses nor joins such groupings.”;  leased the port of Asab to UAE (despite its oft-stated “principled” claims that “Eritrea does not allow its islands, ports and territory for lease or sale“); has become a facilitator in a senseless war against Yemen which mainly targets civilians.  Meanwhile, without a facilitator, the Eritrea-Djibouti border conflict remains in limbo and, throughout, the regime has expressed amazement that its actions would have a reaction and, in the process, accused an Eritrean exile of being an opposition leader plotting military attacks.  And, oh yes, it never seizes from complimenting itself for its “principled” and “progressive” stand and “independent political line.”

Copied: Wide-eyed part-time YPFDJ cadres, misty-eyed perfervid patriots, new atheists who speak in feverish secular fundamentalist tongues, epigones of modernity, Western ‘experts’ who are so incurably orientalist that they think we should squat in the waiting room of history until such time that we mature enough to deserve civil and political rights, & co.

Subject: What the Eritrean State law says about a non-government/private school offering non-credit religious education on top of government-approved curriculum.

Law/Proclamation referenced: Proclamation 1/1991 pertaining to the establishment and conduct of non-government schools authored by Department of Education of the Provisional Government of Eritrea.

In the letter the Eritrean Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, it references Proclamation 73/1995, which “clarifies and regulates religions and religious institutions”, to underline how clearly the Eritrean law delineates the boundary between the state and religious institutions. It goes on to state how Eritrea’s education policy “reflects” this law by “limiting religious institutions to providing religious education”, and non-religious schools – public and private – to “providing education in secular fashion as required by the guidelines of the Ministry of education.” It emphatically states that religious teachings and religious attires “are not permitted in secular schools.” It then charges the Al Diaa school principal, the late Hajji Mussa, for breaking this law and threatening the harmony of the multi-confessional Eritrean society.

For now, we are going to skip the uncritical adoption of the Western dichotomy and opposition between modernity and tradition, secularism and religion, national unity and embodied enactment of religious tradition, implied in the response of the PFDJ government and its supporters of which the letter of the Ministry of foreign Affairs is one latest example. We are not also going to attend fully to the telling invocation at the end of the letter referencing to the resurgent harassment of Muslim communities in some Western countries as a tu quoque argument that seems to insinuate that the PFDJ should be measured against the low, veil-banning, Islam-bashing standard seen in countries like France. We should also leave for another time the examination of how the PFDJ, with all its pretensions to charting independent path away from prevailing Western paradigm is, in a deeper sense, treading the beaten statist and Fukuyamayist – to throw at it its favorite bogeyman – path that centers the state as the only sovereign actor in the inexorable progression towards secular modernity modelled around the Western archetype.

One can also read the following two brilliant vivisections of the PFDJ handing of the Al Diaa affair here and here.

The aim of this brief piece is to show what pertinent Eritrean laws say about non-government schools providing religious education. The most pertinent proclamation in this regard is Proclamation 1/1991 whose provisions are not subjected to any amendment to this day. For our purpose, the most relevant part of the proclamation is article 5 on curriculum non-government schools are obliged to follow. Here is a free-style translation of the article:

5.1 Non-government schools shall follow the curriculum as set by the department of education of the Eritrean government
5.2. Non-government schools shall conduct themselves in accordance to the guidelines established by the department of education.
5.3 Non-government schools shall use textbooks published by the department of education.
5.4. Any non-government school which desires to provide religious education can do so. [It should be mentioned here that in article 4 of the proclamation, it is stated that this law does not apply to schools which are exclusively dedicated to only religious education. So, when article 5.4 says that non-government schools can provide religious education if they so desire, it is referring to those schools which want to provide additional religious education to the secular curriculum their offer.] 5.5. The form and frequency of religious education provided by non-government schools shall be subject to discussion [with relevant authorities], and religious education shall not be counted towards the credit of students.

Here you have it fixed for you folks. The PFDJ might try its best to pull a legal wool over our eyes. And its gullible supporters, who, as good cadres are supposed to do, should have schooled themselves, at least, in the foundational laws and political principles of the organization they purport to be members of, would be deceived anyway.

Publisher: This
Is Being
Published
Until The Author Starts Being:

It Knows You Are Deaf
By Desert Wasp

Resurrected 
Wounds
Don’t
Open
Up
To
Bleed

They
Stand
Tall
To
Announce
Your
Own
Death

When
GoD
Speaks
To
You
IT
Knows
You
Are 
Deaf

Little
Girls
Won’t
Jump
Ropes

Eating
Cotton
Candy
From
Tripoli
Is
Tooth
Ache

Buried
Under
Sand
Dunes
Praying
For
A
Drop
Of
Blood

Unloved
Bodies
Long
For
Immortality
In
A
Grave

Freedom
Is
Hard
Headed
Tickle
It
With
Tears

Fly
If
You
Can
But
First 
Die

Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Ambassador Donald Y. Yamamoto is scheduled to visit Eritrea, as part of his swing in the Horn between April 22nd and April 26. The itinerary, according to a press release from the State Department, is:

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Ambassador Donald Y. Yamamoto will travel to Eritrea from April 22-24 for bilateral consultations with Eritrean government officials, to meet with the diplomatic community, and to visit the Embassy’s staff based in Asmara. He will then lead the U.S. delegation to the U.S.-Djibouti Binational Forum April 24-25 in Djibouti, our annual dialogue on matters of political, economic, assistance, and security cooperation. Ambassador Yamamoto will travel to Ethiopia on April 26 to meet with Ethiopian government officials to discuss shared interests and concerns.

According to the supporters of the Government of Eritrea, this is great vindication for its policies because it is concession by the United States that all its prior policies– instigating wars, regime change, sanctions–have failed and the only way forward is engaging with the Government of Eritrea.

This, of course, assumes that most of the people who hear this do not know how to use Google. Because, the Obama Administration had attempted to engage directly with the Government of Eritrea and the reason it couldn’t was because the Eritrean president (a) refused to take the call of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for ten days (Source: wikileaks)  and (b) refused to grant a visa to Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson in 2009. (Source: VOA)

But, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has a long history of accepting the exact same offer after rudely rejecting it for months and years and subjecting the country to massive misery because he calculates (properly, it turns out) that people have very short memories. In this case, the US has made no changes to its policies while the Isaias Administration has made one huge change: disassociating itself from Al-Shabab.

While reasonable people may disagree on whether the Eritrean government provided military support to Al-Shabab, what is undeniable is that, from 2006 to 2012, the Eritrean government was the de-facto voice of Al Shebab calling them “Somali stakeholders” even after they pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. Its media was All Somalia All The Time, much of it embarrassing. After it received the second sanction (in 2012), it appears to have learned its lesson that that advocating for Alshabab and ridiculing the internationally-recognized Somali government is a dead-end and now its media never mentions Al-Shabab and when it does, it calls them “terrorists” (because its new benefactors, the Saudis and the UAEs call them that.  Its previous benefactor, Qatar, was suspected of being a funding source for Al Shabab)

In any event, in the bilateral discussions promised, Yamomoto is likely to lead with the same topic the US has been leading since 2001. No, it is not human rights. No, it is not democracy. It is, “can you tell us the whereabouts of our two embassy staffers: Ali Alamin and Kiflom Gebremichael?” And the Government of Eritrea will go on its circuitous talk because it doesn’t have good answers–or any answers for that matter–why people, including the embassy staff, continue to rot in prison (assuming they are alive) for a decade-and-half.

Yamomoto is likely to get a more positive input from the diplomatic community in Eritrea which has somehow found a way to fall in love with the fact that it has no freedom of movement and has come to dismiss massive human rights violations against Eritreans (including underage Eritreans) in front of its nose as an “African thing.”

As for faithful implementation of the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), it is something that the US should have instited on in 2004 and the fact that Ethiopia is now in post-TPLF governance, and the fact that President Trump is instinctively for reversing anything President Obama did AND the fact that his National Security Advisor, John Bolton, went on record (book) opposing the Obama Administration’s about-face on EEBC all bodes well for demarcating the Eritrea-Ethiopia border. But, the Isaias Administration has a sterling record of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory and now we await to see how it will mess this up too.

“The State of Eritrea presents its initial and combined reports that encompass eight periodic reports overdue since its accession to the Charter.” So begins the first sentence of a 100-page report provided by the State of Eritrea to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR). “Overdue” may be the one word that describes Eritrea. Setting time-limit on National Service and demobilization is overdue; the constitution is overdue; elections are overdue; freeing prisoners is overdue; ending undeclared state-of-emergency is overdue; and rule-of-law is overdue. So, of course, the report that the Government of Eritrea owed the African Charter is overdue. All because of (wait for it!) the Big Overdue: demarcation of the Eritrea-Ethiopia border and ending the state of quasi-war.

1. Article 62 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) states that “Each State Party shall undertake to submit every two years, from the date the present Charter comes into force, a report on the legislative or other measures taken, with a view to giving effect to the rights and freedoms recognised and guaranteed by the present Charter.”  Eritrea, which ratified the ACHPR in 1999 without reservations, just submitted its 1st periodic report, 17 years after its due date. Its attitude towards an agreement it has ratified willingly—gross negligence, indifference, defiance, impunity—is the same attitude it has displayed to the civil liberties of the Eritrean people since it came to power in 1991.

2. The Government of Eritrea is not new to ACHPR: it was a defendant in a complaint filed by an Eritrean citizen (Mussie Ephrem) and a colleague (Dr. Liesbeth Zegveld) from the Netherlands (250/02.) The complaint alleged that the State of Eritrea is in violation of Article 2 (enjoyment of rights and freedoms), 6 (liberty and security), 7(1) (right to trial and self-defense) and 9(2) (right to expression.)

3. Since then, Eritrea’s human rights record has only worsened warranting an appointment of Special Rapporteur on Human Rights by the UN’s Human Rights Council as well as an appointment of Commission of Inquiry which determined, after interviewing hundreds of exiled Eritreans, that their Government has committed offenses that amount to crimes against humanity. Whereas, in 2003, it was found in violation of Articles 2, 6, 7(1) and9(2)—because the compliant was on behalf on 11 individuals—now it has expanded its violations to include Article 3 (equality of individuals before the law), Article 4 (respect for life and refraining from arbitrary deprivation); Article 5 (torture, degrading punishment); Article 8 (Free practice of religion); Article 10 (free association), Article 11 (freedom of assembly); Article 12.1 (freedom of movement); Article 12.2 (right to leave or return); Article 13 (right to freely participate in government); Article 14 (right to property); and Article 15 (right to work under equitable and satisfactory conditions.)

4. With its 1st Periodic Report which was submitted on 22 February, 2018 the Government of Eritrea is offering more of the same rationale for the violations that the ACHPR found inadequate and unpersuasive when it ruled against it in 2003.

5. In the following pages, the author will try to demonstrate that the Government of the State of Eritrea is systematically violating several of the articles enshrined in the ACHPR. I will reference the reply it presented to the African Commission, which is no more than its practice of collaterizing the people of Eritrea until it receives satisfaction for wholly unrelated claims it has on the United Nations.

6. Article 2: Every individual shall be entitled to the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms recognised and guaranteed in the present Charter without distinction of any kind such as race, ethnic group, colour, sex, language, religion, political or any other opinion, national and social origin, fortune, birth or any status.

7. While there are thousands of Eritreans who make compelling cases that they have been discriminated against solely based on their national/social origin and the ethnic group they belong to—the Eritrean Kunama and the Eritrean Afar social groups in particular—this section will focus on individuals who have been targeted on the basis of their political and religious affiliation.

8. Here, it is instructive to note what the Government of Eritrea is stating in its first National Report as it relates to its treatment of Eritreans on the basis of their religious affiliation:

9. There is no discrimination, exclusion, restriction or preference made on the basis of ethnicity, religion, social status, language, opinion, gender and race (Para w2). Eritrea is a secular state and freedom of religion is protected by law….[T]he Government has shouldered the obligations to ensure that this centuries-old religious tolerance and harmony is not perturbed by externally-induced new trends of Islamic or Christian fundamentalism that corrode the social fabric. (Para 65). In general, religious bodies have their respective hierarchies, conduct their own elections for their respective hierarchies – the Synod, the Dar-al-Iftae, and other decision making organs without any intervention from any side, including from the Government. (Para 66.)

10. After congratulating itself for its role in nurturing Eritrea’s religious tolerance and harmony, it explains how and why it effectively banned “new faiths” (unmentioned) and why it took “appropriate measures” against Jehovah’s Witnesses.

12. In other words, the Government of Eritrea’s claims are self-contradictory: on the one hand, it says that there “…is no discrimination, exclusion, restriction or preference made on the basis of…religion”; on the other hand, it says that some religions are not permitted to be practiced in the country. While it has not mentioned the “new faiths”, it has described its decision to ban them due to their refusal to comply with registration requirements and external funding sources. The “new faiths” are Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic protestant churches and the actual reason for their ban is because the church elders were protecting the identity of their members whom the government arbitrarily labeled as enemies of the State. Many of the church elders have been arrested since 2002 and the State of Eritrea refuses to account for them.

13. The Government of Eritrea’s decision to revoke the citizenship of Eritrean members of Jehovah’s Witnesses dates back to 1995. It is important to state this because the State has explained every violation of Eritreans’ civil liberties within the context of the “external existential threat” posed by Ethiopia and there was no such threat, real or imagined, in 1995.  In accordance with their religious teaching, the Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to enlist in the military; consequently, the government dismissed them from government jobs, nationalized their businesses and made them stateless. To this date, 23 years later, they have no recourse and hundreds of their members remain in jail.

14. Contrary to its claims, the Government of Eritrea routinely interferes in the religious affairs of all religious bodies.  To cite just one example:  the Patriarch of the Eritrean Tewahdo Church, His Holiness Abune Antonios, has been under house arrest since 2007 for the simple reason that he insisted on the autonomy of the church. A government-appointed Patriarch was named as his replacement.

15. Article 3: Every individual shall be equal before the law. Every individual shall be entitled to equal protection of the law

16. To demonstrate its compliance with this article, the Government of Eritrea claims that “Equality before the law is guaranteed and the process and administration is based on an independent judiciary comprising of hierarchical courts and Public Prosecution institution headed by an Attorney General.” – Paragraph 39

17. The first question here is “what law”?  Most countries have a constitution which is ratified, and when a government passes a law, a citizen may challenge its constitutionality.  But Eritrea, almost 27 years after independence, has no constitution.  It is unclear whether the civil and penal codes the government published a few years ago are just published or in full effect (published in the Gazette of Eritrean laws) because the government frequently refers to proclamations that pre-date the publication of the codes.

18. Anyone with faint knowledge of the government knows that the hierarchy of the courts is irrelevant since they have no independence as the president’s office sits atop of the hierarchy and issues edicts arbitrarily.   Eritrea is a country of the favored (generals, colonels and the connected political functionaries) and the rest (the conscripts, the youth, the exiled, the civilians or “gebar”.) And, “the rest” have no mechanism to ask why they are in prison, much less to challenge the authority of those who arrested them or made them to disappear.

19. Article 4: Human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the integrity of his person. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of this right.

20. The government makes no mention of the sanctity of life and the integrity of human beings. To the extent “life” is mentioned, it is always in the context of quality of life (social services) but not in the sanctity of recognizing its inviolability. There is no process for the State to deprive life as many citizens are unaccounted for and, often, families have been told to bury a citizen who died in the State’s prisons.

21. As the UN Human Right Council’s Commission of Inquiry documented in its initial report, the government has no mechanism to regulate the use of deadly force. These extrajudicial killings began in 1991 in Adiquala (execution of “collaborators”) and they haven’t stopped since: targeting anyone vaguely accused of endangering national security whether that is summary execution of 150 Muslims from Keren, Agordat, Senafe, Asmara in 1994; Kunama “collaborators” in 2000; and youth attempting to “illegally” cross borders throughout 2000s.

22. Article 5: Every individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of his legal status. All forms of exploitation and degradation of man, particularly slavery, slave trade, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment shall be prohibited.

23. In paragraph 49, the Government of Eritrea says, “Torture of any kind is not condoned by Eritrea’s domestic laws and is punishable by law. Furthermore, the norm of a society that is founded on extended family and strong communal ties does not allow such reprehensible practices.”

24. Whenever the government of Eritrea is asked whether it is obeying its own laws, it cites its laws.  It is as if it doesn’t know that it is being accused of breaking its own laws or international treaties it has signed.  Leaving aside whether indefinite military conscription qualifies as slavery in its modern definition, there has been substantive testimony presented by Eritreans who have been subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment that meets the definition of torture.

25. For over a decade now, every country report on Eritrea conducted by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch etc has documented it. The world learned of the form of punishment the State inflicts on the citizens including cuffing and beating with chains and pipes; tying legs behind back and suspending citizens on a tree (“helicopter”) for days; hands behind back until elbows tied together and laying face down (Otto); spreading out hands and tying them to branches (“Jesus Christ”); tying by elbows to tree with toes barely touching ground (“Almaz”), Ferro, Gomma, etc. Victims gave descriptions that became sketch art, which has come to define Eritrea.  In 2015,  it was more comprehensively recorded for posterity by UN’s Human Rights Council based on the testimony of 300 Eritreans:

The recurrence, coherence, and similarities of the many torture incidents… is a clear indication of the existence of a deliberate policy to inflict torture in a routine manner in the context of investigations and interrogations as well as during national service

26. When the Government of Eritrea denies it commits torture routinely, one is left with the impression that it doesn’t know the legal definition of torture. Per the UN Convention Against Torture:

For the purpose of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

27. Article 6: Every individual shall have the right to liberty and to the security of his person. No one may be deprived of his freedom except for reasons and conditions previously laid down by law. In particular, no one may be arbitrarily arrested or detained

28. The Government of Eritrea responds: “There are also ample provisions in the Transitional Penal Code (for instance provisions that punish all forms of physical injury [Articles 538, 539, 544 etc.]) that protect the person and liberty of any person…” (Paragraph 308)  “The Government did not arbitrarily arrest the 11 persons. The National Assembly at its 14th Session, held from 29 January to 2nd February 2002, discussed a report concerning the nature of the criminal acts committed by these people. The National Assembly deplored the grave acts perpetrated by the detainees and mandated the Government to handle the matter appropriately.” (Paragraph 294)

29. Of note, the word “freedom” rarely appears in the document except with the accompaniment of “fighter” (freedom fighter), just like “integrity” doesn’t appear without “territorial” (as in territorial integrity.)  Eritrea: A Land of Freedom Fighters Fighting For Territorial Integrity.

30. As for the case of the arbitrary arrest of the G-15 (“11 persons”), the Government of Eritrea must have forgotten that in response to the complaint filed by Mussie Ephrem, it had lost the case: the African Commission ruled that the State of Eritrea is indeed in violation of all the articles cited, demanded the release of the prisoners on whose behalf the complaint was filed and further recommended, “the State of Eritrea compensates the above-mentioned persons.”  One hopes that the African Commission, unlike the State of Eritrea, has institutions and institutional memory.

31. Article 7: Every individual shall have the right to have his cause heard. This comprises: The right to an appeal to competent national organs against acts of violating his fundamental rights as recognized and guaranteed by conventions, laws, regulations and customs in force; The right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty by a competent court or tribunal; The right to defence, including the right to be defended by counsel of his choice; The right to be tried within a reasonable time by an impartial court or tribunal.

32. According to its report, the Government of Eritrea has “enacted and implemented 178 proclamations and 125 legal notices (72 proclamations and 82 legal notices of these enacted during the reporting period). These served as other sources of law and also reflected the relevant internationally accepted norms. The commitment to strengthen the State through viable governance is thus apparent. This is in fact reflected in the prevailing social cohesion and harmony, peace and stability, dignified life, enjoyment of rights and the responsible participation of citizens.” (Para 16.) The government provides defendants their own counsel, it provides interpreters including sign language for the hearing-impaired.

33. This may indeed be the case for crimes committed by citizens against their compatriots (theft, manslaughter, murder, embezzlement, etc.) The problem is when the crime is alleged to be against the State.

34.  This was partly addressed in the complaint brought forth by Mussie et al, a case where the African Commission held the view that “the lawfulness and necessity of holding someone in custody must be determined by a court or other appropriate judicial authority. The decision to keep a person in detention should be open to review periodically so that the grounds justifying the detention can be assessed. In any event, detention should not continue beyond the period for which the State can provide appropriate justification. Therefore, persons suspected of committing any crime must be promptly charged with legitimate criminal offences and the State should initiate legal proceedings that should comply with fair trial standards as stipulated by the African Commission in its Resolution on the Right to Recourse and Fair Trial and elaborated upon in its Guidelines on the Right to Fair Trial and Legal Assistance in Africa.”   Nothing has changed since 2003, except the magnitude of the crimes.

35. Article 8:Freedom of conscience, the profession and free practice of religion shall be guaranteed. No one may, subject to law and order, be submitted to measures restricting the exercise of these freedoms.

36. We have already covered this in Article 2 above. The State of Eritrea is in violation of this article of the African Charter as well.

37. Article 9: Every individual shall have the right to receive information. Every individual shall have the right to express and disseminate his opinions within the law.

38. The State replies: “The fundamental principle in the National Charter, Eritrea’s Constitution of 1997 [sic] and the national codes and proclamations is that citizens have the right for lawful expression and opinion without interference. Citizens are both participants and beneficiaries of information and ideas and the ground is leveled without discrimination. This, however, demands responsibility from every citizen and is related to the collective interest of the nation and the society. Hence, it is bound by Eritrean Law and demands protection of national security, public order and the basic values of the nation as well as respect to others. In this regard, public media has been strengthened and reflects the truth and reality of national development.”

39. The government further goes on to state that Eritreans enjoy unrestricted access to satellite TV and unrestricted, albeit slow, access to the Internet, specially social media.

40. The problem with the answer is that it is either incomplete or false. What, for example, is the nation’s budget? What is its census? Both are Information 101 for a citizen but they have been a closely-held secret for decades. One of them–census–just became unclassified by the State–and only because it serves the interest of the government.

41. The first time a census of Eritrea was taken was in 1947. That’s when the Four Power Commission visited Eritrea and told us the population was 850,000. Throughout the armed struggle period, the Front’s literature said Eritrea’s population was 2.5 million. In 1993, when Eritrea held its referendum, 1,200,997 were registered worldwide to vote, of whom 861,074 were living inside Eritrea. If (given the overwhelming enthusiasm) one makes the assumption that only 5% of those who were eligible to register to vote didn’t register (eligible= at least 18 year old Eritrean) , then we can estimate the over-18 population of Eritreans living in Eritrea was 906,394. If one uses UNICEF ratio of under-18 to over-18 for the period (1:1), then we could say Eritrea’s total population in 1993 (resident Eritreans) was double that of 906,394, ie 1,812,787.

42. In 1997, the Government of Eritrea conducted a survey (not a census) of Eritrea and reported that the population is estimated to be between 2.5 million and 3.5 million. Thus, one can assume that every estimate which was given to us since then by the New York Times in 1996 that it was more than 3 million (here) or the CIA World Factbook telling us the July 2017 population estimate is 5.9 million (here) appears to be a SWAG. A scientific wild ass guess.

43.  Now we learn “The Government’s estimate of the resident population is 3.65 million (2015).” But only by way of disputing the World Bank’s estimate of the population of Eritreans in Eritrea (5.1 million) which would deflate Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. To make this point, they provide the only link in the entire report. Ok. So, if the population of Eritreans in Eritrea is 3.65 million and, a few years ago, in response to the UN’s Commission of Inquiry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) told us that Eritreans who live outside the country are “one million strong“, what does that say about a country which has exiled and/or not made to feel welcome over 27% of its population?

44. Article 10:Every individual shall have the right to free association provided that he abides by the law. Subject to the obligation of solidarity provided for in Article 29, no one may be compelled to join an association.

45. Article 11: Every individual shall have the right to assemble freely with others. The exercise of this right shall be subject only to necessary restrictions provided for by law, in particular those enacted in the interest of national security, the safety, health, ethics and rights and freedoms of others

46. The Government says: “Freedom of association and assembly is also respected by law. The Legal Notice No 5 of 1992 on “Registration of non-government national organizations and associations” also set the right conditions for their establishment and operation. During the reporting period more
than 33 national organizations are operational. Eritrea’s labor Proclamation also upholds
workers’ rights and there are about 190 trade unions functioning at present.”

47. Here, the government can credibly argue it is in compliance with the African Charter because the African Charter is weak when it comes to freedom of association and assembly since it defers to the State to define what is lawful and what is not. Suffice to say that every association in Eritrea–every trade union, every youth organization, every women’s organization, every association for the visually impaired, hearing impaired–is controlled by the ruling party and, thus, the government and, therefore, does not fit the definition of “civil society.” As for freedom to assemble freely with others, because the African Charter qualifies it “subject only to necessary restrictions provided by law”, the government can define that law in times of “external existential crisis” and severely restrict it to the point that the freedom is non-existent.

48. Article 12: Every individual shall have the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of a State provided he abides by the law. Every individual shall have the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country. This right may only be subject to restrictions, provided for by law for the protection of national security, law and order, public health or morality. Every individual shall have the right, when persecuted, to seek and obtain asylum in other countries in accordance with the law of those countries and international conventions.

49. At a time when over 27% of Eritrea’s population lives in exile, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Eritreans live in refugee camps of Sudan and Ethiopia, at a time when tens of thousands of Eritreans live uncertain lives in Israel, at a time it is acknowledging Eritrea’s resident population is only 3.65 million, the Government of Eritrea says, “…irrespective of the manipulated statistics sensationally forecasted to tarnish the image of Eritrea, the real number of illegal Eritrean migrants is at its lowest. This is a result of the promising Eritrea‟s progress, continuous advocacy, strong law enforcement and the exposure of the illusions tangled to migrant “heavenly western life” expectations propagated in the failed campaign. Eritrea‟s engagement with some western countries to rectify their immigration policies on Eritreans has also played a part.

50. According to the government, the Eritrean youth continue to serve in indefinite National Service because of “external existential threat”, and those who have left the country did so because of conspiracies by the United States and other pull factors designed to tarnish the image of Eritrea.  It is everybody else’s fault but its own.

51. Article 13: Every citizen shall have the right to participate freely in the government of his country, either directly or through freely chosen representatives in accordance with the provisions of the law. Every citizen shall have the right of equal access to the public service of the country. Every individual shall have the right of access to public property and services in strict equality of all persons before the law.

52. You may be thinking that a government and party whose chief says that those who wish to create a political environment outside the People’s Front can do so in the moon or other planets has categorically rejected their right to “participate freely in the government of his country”? You may be thinking that those who call for constitutionalism and elections being called enemies of the State and foreign agents are being denied their right of “equal access to the public service of the country”? You may be right.  You are right.  But let’s see what the Government of Eritrea has to say about it: “The basic values of liberation, freedom and democracy continue to be the core for the nation building process… (para 38) and “Since its inception, the Sawa Education and Training center has graduated over 500,000 national service members and played a dynamic role in national defense, national development and the promotion of the basic values of liberation, freedom and democracy.”  Freedom and democracy just got redefined to mean constricted movement and taking orders.

53. But wait, there is more:

54. Furthermore, the right to elect and be elected in the assemblies at all levels is respected and protected on the basis of Proclamation 86/1996. Accordingly, the citizens living in each of the six administrative regions are represented by members of elected assemblies. Through regular yearly meetings, the elected members at each level assess the situation and issue guidelines to the local and regional administrations. They also represent their constituency in national policy and development issues and serve as a means through which the demands and needs of the people are communicated to higher authorities. The role of the people in state building through elected representatives has evolved. However, further strengthening of the institutional capacity and organizational basis of the
assemblies still remains a major task. Furthermore, and as has been mentioned earlier, existential external threats have adversely affected the pace of the political process.

Conclusion

55. ACHPR, the African version of the bill of rights, was the last one to arrive–-long after European and South American–-and the drafters explained that when they were writing it that they would neither copy the existing European structure, nor “be original for the sake of originality.”  But they were.  Unlike the European, Asian and South American instruments, this one has individual and group rights (human and Peoples to recognize Africa’s collectivism and unique colonial history) and, also unlike the European and American ones, this one imposes a DUTY on individuals and groups. Duty to family, the nation, to pay taxes and to promote African Unity. Unusual for a document that is supposed to highlight rights. A lot of the rights have many qualifiers– “provided that he abides by law”, “except for reasons and conditions previously laid down by law”, “subject to law and order”, “within law”– that any old dictator can render null and void. Still, STILL, even by those low standards the PFDJ is failing. But because the African Union never got around to creating and funding its own African Court, it has no way to enforce its decisions.

56. So, in the end, all we have learned from this 100-page document is that Eritrea’s resident population is 3.65 million. We learned this indirectly (reply to ACHPR), and for entirely self-serving reasons the Government has (we are good stewards of the economy.)  Just as we learned three years ago that Eritrea’s Diaspora population was one million: indirectly (reply to CoI) and for self-serving reasons (we are not blackmailing ALL of them.)   But here’s something sad: not counting the 250,000 IDPS, in 1992, on the eve of referendum, the IOM estimated the population of Eritreans in the Diaspora was as follows:

Sudan: 530,000
Ethiopia: 300,000
Saudi Arabia: 60,000
Europe: 40,000
North America: 20,000

57. Since there has been no attempt to invite Eritreans in Sudan to their country (Yemane Gebreab disingenuously said this is because  “Sudan is their second home”), since Eritreans in Saudi Arabia are being forced to “self-deport” because of Saudi Arabia’s brutal immigration policies (with many re-migrating to Egypt, Turkey, Sudan but few to Eritrea), the most dramatic change since 1992 is likely to be a significant increase in Eritrean population in Europe and North America.  So, Eritrea under PFDJ, 26 years later, has only one core competence: disappearing and exiling its people.  And arresting underage citizens.  What Eritreans are facing is, to borrow a phrase, “internal existential threat.”