http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/opinion/its-bad-in-eritrea-but-not-that-bad.html?_r=2
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
It's Bad in Eritrea, but Not That Bad
By BRONWYN BRUTONJUNE 23, 2016
WASHINGTON — On June 8, a special U.N. commission released a report
accusing the leadership of Eritrea of crimes against humanity. It
cites cases of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture,
rape and extrajudicial killing. It claims that up to 400,000 Eritreans
have been enslaved in a vast conscription program, forced to work in
the army or the bureaucracy for next to nothing, often for a decade or
more.
Isaias Afwerki, a former rebel hero, has ruled Eritrea since its
independence in 1993. A constitution drafted in 1997 has yet to be
implemented. National elections have never been held. Opposition
political parties are illegal. Many dissidents have been arrested and
have not been heard from since. There are few civil society
organizations and no independent media. It is tortuously difficult for
Eritreans to obtain formal authorization to leave the country.
The Eritrean government deserves to be called out for these practices.
But the criticism, to be credible and effective, must be scrupulously
fair, and the commission’s report is not. It extrapolates from
anecdotal examples — like instances of rape by military forces — to
allege systemic abuses and blame them on state policy.
The commission recommends that its findings be referred to the
International Criminal Court. This is ill-advised, and would backfire.
Initiating a formal criminal investigation would give the Isaias
government more reason to retrench into its righteous isolation — a
primary cause of poor governance and economic atrophy in Eritrea,
which engender abuses in the first place.
I’ve visited Eritrea for research several times over the past year,
talking to senior government officials, including Mr. Isaias; foreign
diplomats; local and foreign businesspeople; and ordinary Eritreans.
No doubt, the human rights situation there is frightful, and hundreds
or thousands of cases of torture, rape or unjust imprisonment probably
escaped the commission’s attention. At the same time, things aren’t as
bad as the report claims.
Eritrea is not the North Korea of Africa. It, too, is isolated and
secretive, but satellite dishes carrying the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera
can be seen throughout the country. Though connections are very slow,
the internet is accessible and appears to be unfiltered. Radio
programs from abroad that are critical of the Isaias administration
are widely listened to.
The quality of education and healthcare is good considering that
Eritrea is one of the poorest countries in the world. The foreign
diplomats and U.N. personnel I met in Asmara often pointed that out,
and many praised the absence of corruption. The United Nations
Development Program gives Eritrea high marks for its progress on
several Millennium Development Goals.
But you wouldn’t know this from reading the U.N. report. And no
wonder: The commissioners relied primarily on the testimony of about
800 Eritrean refugees living outside Eritrea. They were inevitably
hamstrung after the Isaias government ignored their requests to visit
Eritrea, but their research also suffered from selection bias, and
that was their doing.
The commissioners didn’t interview Western diplomats or U.N. staff
based in Eritrea. By their own admission, they did not consult the
relevant academic literature. They discarded tens of thousands of
testimonials from Eritreans defending the Isaias regime, claiming
these were irrelevant or inauthentic.
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The result is a seriously flawed report that entrenches the skewed
perspective long dominant in policy circles and the media in the West.
Eritrea and Ethiopia have been locked in a dangerous stalemate for
over a decade, after Ethiopia refused to recognize a 2002 arbitration
decision settling the border over which they fought a devastating war
from 1998 to 2000. But Washington, along with other major Western
governments, has allowed the Ethiopian government to flout the ruling:
Since at least the mid-1990s, U.S. policy toward the region has been
driven by an almost single-minded preoccupation with counterterrorism,
and Washington considers Ethiopia to be its main security partner in
the Horn of Africa.
The Eritrean government didn’t help its case by giving military
support to Al Shabab, a Somalia-based affiliate of Al Qaeda; it’s been
under sanctions as a result. But it has very good reason to feel
betrayed, especially by the West’s failure to enforce the boundary
decision.
The effects of that failure have been terrible. Eritrea and Ethiopia
have been needling each other, including by proxy via various rebel
groups throughout the region. The Ethiopian government, no less than
the Isaias administration, has used instability in the Horn of Africa
as an excuse to crack down on political opponents at home. Eritrea may
top the Committee to Protect Journalists’ list of 10 Most Censored
Countries, but Ethiopia is number 4.
Yet if Eritrea has received plenty of criticism, Ethiopia has not
received enough. And this remains the case even though there are signs
of change in Eritrea and the West’s strategic interests would be
better served by a softer position toward the Isaias government.
The war in Yemen has underscored the benefits of having access to
Eritrea’s long coast along the Red Sea. The migrant crisis has given
European countries an urgent reason to keep Eritreans from leaving
home: The European Union has pledged €200 million to help Eritrea
reduce poverty, develop its energy network and improve living
conditions.
Such engagement is the only way to help Eritrea reform. The
conscription program, for example, needs to be rethought, and the term
of service reduced to a fixed and reasonable length. This will require
converting the many jobs currently performed by conscripts — farming,
construction, teaching — into formal civil-service or private-sector
positions. Eritrea does not have the resources to manage such a
comprehensive overhaul on its own. But foreign companies are wary of
getting involved for fear they’ll be accused of profiting from slave
labor, and Eritrea doesn’t trust Western governments to help.
Shrill condemnation of the Isaias government also risks alienating the
Eritreans best positioned to push it toward sustainable change. Many
older members of the diaspora still support Mr. Isaias, and through
vast remittances and impassioned community organizing abroad, they
offer essential support to his regime. Asmara’s small business
community has some influence on his decision-making, if behind closed
doors. But the scathing attacks on his administration can seem
overblown to his sympathizers, making it easier for them to dismiss
uncomfortable truths about its real shortcomings.
Mr. Isaias’s distrust of Western governments has hindered change in
Eritrea. The United Nations’ shoddy human rights report will only make
matters worse. Just days after it was released, there was an alarming
skirmish at the border, apparently initiated by the Ethiopian
government, which had made blatant threats in the past.
Write A Comment
The U.N. Human Rights Council is expected to vote on the commission’s
report before the end of the month. While recognizing the seriousness
of the situation in Eritrea, it should approach the report’s findings
with caution. In particular, it should vote against the recommendation
to refer them to the U.N. Security Council and later the I.C.C. —
otherwise, it will only help prolong the repression it was set up to
prevent.
Bronwyn Bruton is deputy director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic
Council, in Washington.
Received on Sun Jun 26 2016 - 17:19:26 EDT