<
http://50.7.16.234/hadas-eritrea/UNHCR2.PDF> UNHCR: Part of the Problem of
Illegal Migration.
20.11.2014
Early this week, the Ethiopian spokesperson of the UNHCR Office in Addis
Abeba announced that "6,200 Eritreans had crossed into Ethiopia" in the
months of October and November. This news has been picked up by various news
agencies to conjure up a non-existent image of Eritrea and/or as part and
parcel of the smear campaigns that are routinely waged against the country
and its government.
Leaving the sinister motives aside, what are the real facts?
1. Migration and population movements are complex continental and global
phenomena whose ebbs and flows are influenced by intertwined push and pull
factors.
2. In the case of Eritrea, the pull factors have been immensely augmented
in recent years by deliberate polices of certain governments and agencies
who chose to encourage, for sinister political purposes, the youth to defect
from the National Military Service as "slave or forced labour" was and is
peddled to spice up and rationalize these polices. What is conveniently
glossed over here is the fact that mandatory, 18-months period, National
Military Service is prolonged solely because of Ethiopia's occupation and
sovereign Eritrean territories and its continued belligerence in breach of
international law.
3. The deliberate policies of weaning the youth from the mandatory
National Services coupled with frantic activities by organized human
trafficking have resulted in the pull factors that eclipse normative and
cyclical economic push factors that prevail in every country at any given
point in time.
4. The UNHCR itself has become, for over ten years now, an unwitting
catalyst in bolstering the pull factors by invariably categorizing all
Eritrean migrants as "prima faice asylum seekers". In the event, it is odd
for the UNHCR to issue intermitten statements or shed crocodile tears "on
the increasing number of Eritrean asylum seekers".
5. The Government of Eritrea knows full well the origins, underlying
reasons and ultimate objectives of various machinations that have been set
in motion in the past years to induce illegal migration of the youth from
the country. That is why it requested the UN Secretary General to conduct a
comprehensive inquiry into the various facets of organized human
trafficking. This is also why it is currently involved in the regional
efforts at curbing illegal migration and human trafficking. The UNHCR can be
part of this constructive process if it is really prepared to review its
past, misguided, polices.
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Asmara
20 Novemeber 2014
Received on Thu Nov 20 2014 - 14:46:16 EST