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From: Asmara Asma (azzzmarino@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Sep 23 2010 - 16:33:30 EDT
The report does NOT say that Eritrea is a failed state or failing. In fact, the only time the phrase "failed state" is used is to suggest that the outcome is "possible" which is not difficult to spin an argument around that. What they actually DO say it is a "Siege state" without stating that the siege is being conducted by their bosses in Washington and London. But clearly the authors are hoping for a failed state.
>From Nairobi, ICG staff have been predicting (and hoping for) doom and gloom for Eritrea for a long time. They pray for drought every year but this year the rains have been good. They pray for economic collapse but gold prices have reached a record just as exports are about to ship--the analysts ICG hopefully anticipate that the gold "bonanza" will be wasted "mainly on armaments" ignoring the fact that Eritrea is a leader in health (particularly child and maternal health), education, and infrastructure development according to the same international organizations they worked with such as the World Bank and UN.
So what is the basis for this report? Simple. The NGO/African diplomat crowd just plain doesn't like the Eritrean government because they like to be treated like Viceroys or Hollywood celebrities as they are everywhere else in Africa but Eritrea said NO to this. This lack of cooperation been communicated to the bosses up high (mostly US/British/UN former officials) and now that dislike has put into practice by the minnows in Nairobi. They HAVE to prove that Africans need them because that is the basis of their existence.
Think of it as an industy lobbying group fighting for its legitamacy. Think about it, if a beggar refuses your money would you react "angrily"?? But if someone tells you that your whole livelihood is unnecessary and your work is counterproductive and unnecessary, who would definitely react "angrily." In fact, the report lays it out pretty clearly:
>From page 28:
Relations with the West have long been problematic, as
evidenced locally by interactions with the NGO sector.
Fierce espousal of self-reliance drew plaudits in the 1990s
but also led to a clash with some major NGOs.202 The Eritrean
position was that too much of the budgets of such
entities went to overhead and that they frequently infringed
on national sovereignty. The government welcomed funding
but demanded total control over its use. NGO workers
often mistook pride and sensitivity for hubris and misunderstood
the traumatic historical context they worked in.203
In the months before the war in 1998, most NGOs left the
country, some angrily; after 2000, many were asked to
return, but the relationship has deteriorated to the point
where no major NGOs are active. The government says it
has no use for culturally insensitive, political ignorant
Western charity, and there is no problem Eritreans cannot
solve.
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