http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/09/eritrea-un-monitoring-group-report-eu-sanctions-aid
Eritrea faces day of reckoning as UN weighs choice between sanctions or aid
UN security council to assess expert report on alleged support for
subversive activity as EU moots possibility of increasing aid to
tackle migration problem
A report on Eritrea’s alleged support for subversive regional activity
comes with relations between the country’s government and the
international community at a crossroads. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Martin Plaut and Mirjam van Reisen
Friday 9 October 2015 02.00 EDT Last modified on Friday 9 October 2015 05.22 EDT
The UN security council will meet on Friday to consider a report on
Eritrea’s alleged support for subversion across the Horn of Africa.
The report, by the UN Monitoring Group on Eritrea and Somalia, will
play an important part in the global body’s decision on whether to
continue sanctions against the Eritrean regime.
Relations between President Isaias Afwerki’s government and the
international community are at a crossroads. The UN and the EU may
decide to embrace the regime despite its dire human rights record,
ploughing aid into the country and attempting to crack down on the
smugglers who have enabled tens of thousands of Eritreans to flee
their homeland.
Escaping Eritrea: 'If I die at sea, it's not a problem – at least I
won't be tortured'
Eritrea’s climate of repression, violence and paranoia, and its
indefinite national service, is prompting hundreds of people to flee
every day
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Equally, diplomats may conclude that until abuses in Eritrea end,
people will continue to cross state borders at the rate of 5,000 a
month. Should this be the case, pressure on Afwerki could be stepped
up, with the UN adopting a wider range of sanctions and the EU
refusing to consider Eritrea a suitable partner in its continuing
African dialogue.
Eritreans make up one of the largest groups of refugees arriving on
European shores – in April alone, more than 5,300 came ashore in
Italy, according to UN figures.
EU governments are attempting to come up with a battery of policies
aimed at sealing off “Fortress Europe” from unwanted migrants and
increasing the speed and volume of deportations for refused asylum
seekers.
According to 10 pages of draft decisions prepared for a meeting on
Thursday of this week, the European institutions and national
governments are to make a show of deporting refused asylum seekers in
what looks like a vain attempt to try to discourage others from making
the journey.
Eritreans are named among those against whom these measures could be taken.
The EU has also started Operation Sophia, under which a naval
taskforce headquartered in Rome will work to halt operations smuggling
people across the Mediterranean.
Six ships – including Britain’s HMS Bulwark – will be used to “start
to dismantle this business model by trying to apprehend some suspected
smugglers”, Rear Admiral Hervé Bléjean told the BBC.
This is what the Eritrean government, which is acutely embarrassed
that so many of its citizens are fleeing their country, has been
calling for. In December last year, Eritrea’s minister of foreign
affairs, Osman Saleh, told an EU–Horn of Africa conference that his
country was “determined to work with the EU and all European countries
to tackle irregular migration and human trafficking and to address
their root causes”.
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To stem the tide of Eritrean asylum seekers heading for Italy,
policymakers need to ensure the country is really on a path from
dictatorship to nascent democracy
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European ministers have been discussing bolstering these efforts by
increasing aid to Eritrea by €200m (£147m), in the hope that this
might relieve the poverty that could drive migration.
If Britain and its allies appear close to an accord with Eritrea,
there are also strong pressures in the opposite direction.
In June, a UN commission of inquiry into human rights in Eritrea
published a report accusing the regime of abuses so severe that they
“may constitute crimes against humanity”.
The commissioners said it was these atrocities – rather than
underdevelopment and poverty – that were behind Eritreans’ decisions
to risk all to leave their country.
There have since been further allegations that the Eritrean government
is continuing to destabilise its neighbours and nearby countries – the
issue that triggered the UN sanctions against it in the first place.
Afwerki is reported to have trained and equipped Houthi rebels in
their drive against the Yemeni government. The Eritreans are said to
have allowed Iran to use the Danakil islands in the Red Sea as a base
from which to arm and train the Houthis. Eritrea’s foreign ministry
has strongly denied these claims.
The UN security council will be well aware of these various issues
when it considers the report from its team of monitors. A great deal
will depend on what evidence the experts have been able to amass
concerning Eritrea’s undermining of its neighbours.
Received on Fri Oct 09 2015 - 19:09:16 EDT