A Response to Professor Joel Brinkley’s imprudent portrayal of the people of Eritrea
Dawit Gebremichael Habte
May 8, 2012
The San Francisco Chronicle has published an article submitted by Professor Joel Brinkley of Stanford University on its Sunday, April 29, 2012, edition. I take an exception to Professor Joel Brinkley’s portrayal of the State and people of Eritrea.
Professor Brinkley is correct in that Eritrea is "a tiny nation most people cannot even pinpoint on a map" and it is "about the size of Pennsylvania" that "lives in an ugly neighborhood on the Horn of Africa." However, Professor Brinkley’s linkage of Eritrea to Somalia is unfortunately misleading. Eritrea is bordered with Sudan to the West and North, Ethiopia and Djibouti to the South, and the Red Sea to the East. If someone is to claim Eritrea is in the neighborhood of Somalia, the person might as well mention Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and even the State of Israel. That way, people would have better perspective on the geo-political implications of the country and its geographical location.
Another point Professor Brinkley made that I agree with is: "as tyrannical as the neighbors might be, Eritrea is in a league of its own." Indeed Eritrea is "a league of its own" because it is the only nation in the neighborhood, for that matter one of the 3 countries in Africa, that has reached the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) in so far. According to the World Bank, "the general health status of Eritrea greatly improved after independence." Here are some facts the World Bank has presented in support of its positive assessment of Eritrea:
"Based on recent MDG indicators, infant mortality rate decreased from 55 deaths per 1,000 in 2000 to 40.8 deaths per 1,000 in 2008, under-five mortality rate dropped from 83 deaths per 1,000 in 2000 to 68 deaths per 1,000 in 2007, and the total fertility rate decreased from 6.1 to 4.8 births per woman on average. Success in some disease control programs, supported by the World Bank and other partners, is particularly impressive. While most other sub-Saharan African countries suffer from an increasing HIV epidemic, HIV prevalence in Eritrea is estimated to be low and under control at 1.3 percent of the adult population in 2009 compared to the sub-Saharan African average of 5 percent. Life expectancy was estimated to be 59 years of age in 2009, compared to the sub-Saharan Africa average of 51 years."
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/ERITREAEXT/0,,menuPK:351396~pagePK:141132~piPK:141107~theSitePK:351386,00.html
Not only this, Eritrea is also "a league on its own" for the fact that it is the only country in "an ugly neighborhood" whose population, though diverse in its composition, is enjoying a harmonious coexistence.
Let me ask Professor Brinkley the same rhetorical question he asked his readers "Why don't you know about this?" I have no reason to believe that the Professor has an ulterior motive to denigrate the people of Eritrea. I do believe, however, that the professor might have been a victim of selective perception syndrome. A concerted effort has been made to vilify the nation for no other reason but because of its principled stand against regional and global hegemony. As clearly acknowledged by Richard Reid, a man not known to be a supporter of the Eritrean government:
"The US preferred Ethiopia. It preferred Ethiopia for all sorts of reasons. Eritrea was seen as a bunker state; they were less easy to control. Ethiopia had a more reliable military perhaps. Their policy was more directable and perhaps predictable. Whereas Eritrea, from the mid 1990s, it was clearly seen unpredictable and couldn't be relied upon to do certain things that Washington might wanted to do...."
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/eritreas-external-relations
Professor Brinkley continued to state that "[t]he United Nations Security Council, utterly silent for so long, voted without a dissenting voice to order an arms embargo and take other punitive measures intended to end that assistance for Al Shabab." This over-loaded statement is not only distorted but misleading and ethically questionable. As a "professor of journalism at Stanford University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times", I am sure Professor Brinkley has the following facts at his disposal, but conveniently decided to omit them in his article:
In its November 2011 report to the Security Council, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea accused Eritrea of flying two airplanes loaded with military hardware and delivering them to Al-Shabaab.Using this as a pretext, on December 2, 2011, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2023 calling upon mining companies to limit their investments in Eritrea and restricting Eritrean expatriates from paying 2% national rehabilitation tax.About a month and half after UN Resolution 2023 had passed, on January 16, 2012, the same UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea said that the report on the flights from Eritrea to Somalia "were incorrect and that the alleged [military hardware] deliveries to Baidoa probably did not take place."
Even after the premise and the key factor for the UN Security Council’s action was found to be false, to this day the sanctions remain in effect. In a fair and just world, the UN sanctions would have been lifted with apologies to the people and government of Eritrea and the Monitoring group would have been disbanded immediately. But, such is the world we live in where facts to fit one’s agenda are manufactured on a daily basis and propagated blindly.
Professor Brinkley’s claim that the UN Security Council "voted without a dissenting voice" is also misleading and outright false. China and Russia abstained because there "wasn't given sufficient proof", as Vitaly Churkin, Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN, was quoted by the Inner City Press. Again, a person with Professor Brinkley’s statute and credentials should have known better. Even though cut-and-paste journalism is becoming modus operandi in the world of internet, professional journalists such as Professor Brinkley should resist the temptation.
It is true that "the ill-treatment of the media is just the most public symptom of a larger problem", but not for the reasons Professor Brinkley wants his readers to believe. The "larger problem" is actually something that started back in 1952 when John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, stated that: "from the point of view of justice, the opinions of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless the strategic interest of the United States in the Red Sea basin and the considerations of security and world peace make it necessary that the country has to be linked with our ally Ethiopia." Eritreans have been victims of successive US administrations' misguided policies ever after. The voice of Eritreans has been disregarded for so long they have finally declared "we don't want to be pushed around. Leave us alone." But, the people of Eritrea have yet to get justice in the halls of the UN or the White House.
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Received on Tue May 08 2012 - 10:37:37 EDT
