From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Oct 22 2009 - 09:36:50 EDT
INTERVIEW-Eritrean president says West against him
21 Oct 2009 14:42:32 GMT
Source: Reuters
* President Isaias dismisses bleak assessment of economy
* Isaias denies reports two in three malnourished
By Jeremy Clarke
ASMARA, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said on
Wednesday that Western intelligence agencies and special interest groups
were persecuting Eritrea by inventing lies, rumours and defamatory reports.
The Red Sea state, which has faced criticism in recent weeks from
international diplomatic and humanitarian organisations, denied any
wrongdoing.
"It's been the cause of the all problems we see all over the world ... it's
a network of (Western) intelligence agencies that serve special interest
groups globally," the long-serving Eritrean leader told Reuters in an
interview.
"It is sometimes very perplexing for me. Why all these lies? Why do you have
to go and cook such statistics and make statements about the reality in
Eritrea when you don't even know what's going on in this country?"
Isaias, a former rebel commander in power since 1991, said he was unmoved by
the criticism.
ERITREA MALNOURISHED?
The Food and Agriculture Organisation said in a report last week that
Eritrea was dangerously underfed. The U.N. agency said as many as two in
every three Eritreans were malnourished, something Isaias denied.
"It's not true, it's all lies. It's a fabrication," he said, adding that
humanitarian organisations were motivated by the business opportunities
crises and aid offer in other African countries.
"It's money-making for them. It's not solving problems. It's a collaboration
of domestically corrupt special interest groups with international mafia
that have a big interest in publicising hunger and other crises," the
63-year-old leader said.
A recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to Eritrea said the
economy had weakened significantly in the last 12 months due to a severe
drought in 2008 and the global crisis but Isaias had no time for such
assessments.
"They (the IMF) make judgments on very limited knowledge and the government
of Eritrea has been very sceptical all along of comments, judgments,
suggestions that come from the IMF. I personally don't take them seriously."
WHERE'S THE PROOF?
A separate report this week by international advocacy group Reporters
Without Borders named Eritrea, in an assessment of its press freedoms, as
the worst country in the world for a third year running.
It said that no independent media is tolerated in Eritrea and that 30
journalists were in prison -- as many as in China or Iran but with a much
smaller population.
But Asmara bristled at repeated accusations by rights groups that it puts
independent journalists and non-Orthodox Christians in jail, tortures
detainees, and keeps people indefinitely in military service.
The president insisted all such accusations, and his alleged role in
destabilising the region, were malicious fabrications designed to blacken
Eritrea's name.
"Why these accusations about Eritrea's role in this region when there is no
fact to prove what is being claimed?"
The former Marxist guerrilla leader has ruled one of Africa's smallest
economies since its 1993 formal independence from Ethiopia. For supporters,
he is a symbol of resistance and self-reliance, but critics say he is an
authoritarian whose government brooks no dissent. (Editing by Helen
Nyambura-Mwaura)
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