http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail/?lng=en&id=192621
August 2015
Eritrea – Paths Out of Isolation
Eritrean female soldiers marching in a parade.
Annette Weber thinks that Eritrea should be reintegrated into Africa’s
regional structures, especially those that focus on conflict mediation
and economic development. Such a move, she argues, will help build
trust and neutralize Eritrean narratives that stress Ethiopian
aggression and international conspiracies.
By Annette Weber for SWP
________________________________
This article was originally published by the German Institute for
International and Security Affairs on July 2015.
Two decades after achieving independence from Ethiopia, Eritrea is
back in the European headlines above –all for a wave of refugees
arriving in Europe. At the same time, a recent United Nations
Commission on Human Rights report accuses the Eritrean regime of gross
human rights violations. President Isayas Afewerki sees Eritrea’s
regional and international isolation since its war with neighbouring
Ethiopia (1998–2000) as evidence of a conspiracy between Ethiopia and
influential Western states. Every month between three and five
thousand Eritreans attempt to flee the total mobilisation instituted
for national defence. Reintegrating the country in regional structures
could build trust and neutralise the Eritrean narrative of Ethiopian
aggression and international conspiracy
In 2014, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 360,000
refugees left Eritrea, 37,000 of whom came to Europe. Altogether, more
than 6 percent of the population have fled the country, despite
Eritrea suffering neither famine nor war nor terrorism. It would
therefore appear that emigration is driven by other motives. The main
cause is in fact the potentially unlimited military service that was
introduced in 2002. Both men and women are obliged to complete this
“national service”, which must officially be completed between the
ages of eighteen and fifty. While the duration is supposed to be
limited to eighteen months, it can in reality last ten years or more.
Apart from national defence, citizens may be ordered to work in
agriculture, roadbuilding or mining. For the Eritrean government in
Asmara, national service therefore represents a significant economic
factor.
In the interests of creating a national identity transcending ethnic
ties, the government has taken to rotating conscripts between
locations (a strategy already applied by the Eritrean People’s
Liberation Front from which today’s governing PFDJ emerged). In
combination with the lack of a time limit, however, the concept leaves
young people spending long periods far from home without contact to
their families. Where they are rewarded at all, conscripts are also so
poorly paid that they are unable to provide for a family or make any
kind of investment in their future.
The government, on the other hand, regards compulsory service as a
vital safeguard for Eritrea’s national defence and independence. For
the ideologists of the SWP Comments ruling party, the country’s
defence and autonomy form an imperative more important than individual
liberties. Fleeing the service is tantamount to treason, so returnees
must expect persecution and imprisonment. Because it is more or less
impossible to leave the country legally, a dense network of organised
traffickers has arisen specifically serving Eritreans. A range of
methods are involved. In “normal” trafficking, refugees are taken to
Israel or Libya via Sudan. But traffickers also make money by kid
napping refugees and blackmailing their families in Eritrea. A string
of beneficiaries, including members of the border police and the
Eritrean and Sudanese armed forces, members of nomadic groups in
eastern Sudan and the Sinai, and trans-African trafficking networks,
profit enormously from Eritrean asylum seekers, whose journey and
ransom cost upwards of $10,000.
Background
Eritrea achieved independence in 1993, after thirty years of fighting
against Ethiopian rule. The Eritrean and Ethiopean liberation
movements were originally closely linked, having jointly toppled
communist military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. This led to
hopes of peaceful coexistence following Eritrea’s secession, for which
ideal preconditions appeared to exist. The two states shared an
interest in regional trade, while Ethiopia wished to use the Eritrean
ports of Massawa and Assab after losing its access to the Red Sea
through the secession.
But only five years after Eritrean independence, war broke out between
the two allies– over exactly those supposedly shared interests, such
as Ethiopian access to the sea. The conflict quickly escalated, with
border disputes leading to occupation of territory by both parties and
air strikes on each other’s airfields. The war lasted two years and
cost about one hundred thousand lives, before ending as a “frozen
conflict”.
The Algiers Agreement of 2000 and the 2002 decision of the Eritrea
Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) delimiting the border created the
formal preconditions for peace. Yet Ethiopia refuses to this day to
recognise the proposed border line and continues to occupy Eritrean
territory. Neither the African Union nor the UN nor bilateral partners
demand that Addis Abeba observe the agreements and implement binding
decisions. Ethiopia is one of the West’s closest allies in the “war on
terror” and valued as a stable (albeit repressive) regional power in
the Horn of Africa. The AU even has its headquarters in Addis Abeba.
Ethiopian preeminence creates a situation where the West is much more
conciliatory towards Ethiopia than to other countries in the Horn of
Africa, generally turning a blind eye to repression, human rights
violations and anti-democratic measures. In fact the states in the
region are not far apart in the relevant indices of human rights,
political freedoms and democratisation. The Asmara government, in
turn, sees Ethiopia’s refusal to implement valid agreements, in
conjunction with the attitude of Western states, as a wholesale
betrayal.
Human Rights and Liberties
Repression spiralled in Eritrea following the war of 1998 to 2000,
with Isayas Afewerki instrumentalising the external enemy Ethiopia and
the West’s “complicity” to largely suspend civil liberties, democratic
mechanisms and rule of law structures. Instead, Afewerki established
an autocratic one party regime under his rule. He was, like his cousin
Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, initially the leader of the national
liberation movement before assuming the presidency after independence
in 1993. The parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for
2001 were cancelled, and the constitution adopted in 1997 never came
into force. To this day political decisions are promulgated by
presidential decree. Shortly after the war a group of Afewerki’s
closest advisers, the so-called G15, criticised his policies as
“illegal and unconstitutional”. Eleven of them were detained, and it
remains a mystery where they are being held, whether they will ever
face charges, and whether they are even still alive. According to the
UNHCR report, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are
common practice in Eritrea.
In 2001 President Afewerki closed all independent newspapers and had a
number of journalists arrested. According to Reporters without
Borders, sixteen journalists were still in prison in 2015, and Eritrea
has occupied last place in its regular World Press Freedom Index for
the past s even years.
The Economy
Investment in the future of the population has been sacrificed to the
imperative of security. As in the rest of the continent, the Eritrean
population is young, with more than 60 percent under 35 years of age.
As already mentioned, many regard military service as an odious burden
rather than a legitimate and necessary patriotic duty.
More than 70 percent of the population work in agriculture, which
contributes less than 10 percent of GDP. Eritreans live largely from
subsistence farming, livestock herding and fishing. Conscripts doing
their national service also work on state-run farms. The mining sector
has grown rapidly in recent years, with China and Canada most strongly
involved in the country’s gold and copper mines. Russia and Turkey
have also shown interest in the sector. The mining expansion was
responsible for a jump in GDP growth from 1.3 percent in 2013 to 4.5
percent in 2014. The relatively high price of gold and copper in 2015
means that the government in Asmara can expect strong foreign exchange
revenues. But with almost all resources channelled into the defence
budget, Eritrea’s economy lags far behind its potential. The inflation
rate is estimated to be 11 percent.
Remittances from migrants represent an important source of revenues,
both for private households and for the government. In that context,
growing numbers of Eritrean refugees arriving in Europe guarantee a
steady flow of cash to the homeland. Eritrea introduced a diaspora tax
to fund national reconstruction, and for a time this represented an
important pillar of the government budget. The levy took 2 percent of
the income of diaspora Eritreans, mostly collected by embassies
without violating international law. But when the UN imposed sanctions
in 2011, it became illegal to collect taxes abroad. The regime now
instead demands payments to be made in Eritrea itself, treating the
tax as a development levy enabling the state to invest in
infrastructure without becoming dependent on foreign donors.
Regional Situation and Outlook
In the Horn of Africa the Intergovernmental Authority on Development
(IGAD) is an important regional organisation, especially as a conflict
mediator and integration motor. However, Eritrea suspended its
membership of IGAD in protest after Ethiopia’s 2006 military
intervention in the Somali civil war. Asmara applied to rejoin in
2011, but has yet to be readmitted. In response to the Ethiopian
intervention, Eritrea gran ted asylum to the leadership of the
“Islamic Courts Union”, which governed Somalia from June to December
2006. The UN Monitoring Group on Eritrea and Somalia also accuses the
Eritrean government of having supplied military and financial support
to the jihadist al-Shabaab militia in Somalia. This led to UN and EU
sanctions against Eritrea. Eritrea has thus acted as a spoiler in the
region, whose other states support the anti-Shabaab mission of the
African Union (AMISOM).
The conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia is deadlocked and it is
unlikely that they will be able to “thaw” it themselves in the
foreseeable future. In view of the large proved. The country is part
of a region, and use should be made of the regional mechanisms both
for conflict mediation and for trade and economic integration.
Regional integration of Eritrea could defuse the threat scenario of
external intervention and thus delegitimise the regime’s policies.
This would contribute to transforming Eritrea from regional spoiler to
constructive actor. The African Union could assume an important
function by for example assuming a security guarantee for Eritrea. The
international community would need to increase pressure on Ethiopia to
implement the Algiers agreements. In return Eritrea could be expected
to curtail its military service and engage constructively in the
region. The international community could assume the role of a
guarantor of regional integration, and should work to neutralize the
Eritrean conspiracy narrative. But to reduce Eritrea’s mistrust the
West will have to pursue a more balanced policy towards the different
countries in the Horn of Africa numbers of refugees, however, a
solution for Eritrea is urgently needed. Above all, the lives of the
population need to be improved.
The country is part of a region, anduse should be made of the regional
mechanisms both for conflict mediation and for trade and economic
integration. Regional integration of Eritrea could defuse the threat
scenario of external intervention and thus delegitimise the regime’s
policies. This would contribute to transforming Eritrea from regional
spoiler to constructive actor.
The African Union could assume an important function by for example
assuming a security guarantee for Eritrea. The international community
would need to increase pressure on Ethiopia to implement the Algiers
agreements. In return Eritrea could be expected to curtail its
military service and engage constructively in the region. The
international community could assume the role of a guarantor of
regional integration, and should work to neutralize the Eritrean
conspiracy narrative. But to reduce Eritrea’s mistrust the West will
have to pursue a more balanced policy towards the different countries
in the Horn of Africa.
________________________________
Annette Weber is a Senior Fellow of the German Institute for
International and Security Affairs.
Received on Tue Aug 04 2015 - 09:15:50 EDT