ERINA Update
(Eritrean News Agency,
Tel: ++291-1-117627, Fax: 127385)
Monday, April 19, 1999
1. A senior Eritrean government official, in an interview with the Eritrean
News Agency, responded to a statement from the Office of the Ethiopian Spokesperson which asserts that "Eritrea's military
expenditure has risen considerably since its independence in 1993 while Ethiopia's military expenditure has dropped significantly over
the past several years and is now the second lowest in Africa." The Ethiopian statement described "the amount of money going into
military expenditures relative to the funds spent in the social, health and economic sectors" in Eritrea as "appalling."
The Eritrean official pointed out that:
- Eritrea started from scratch in 1991 after a devastating thirty year
war of liberation. In spite of this, Eritrea has recorded a GDP growth rate
of 8-9% since 1995. Indeed, by 1997, Eritrea was ranked higher than Ethiopia
in the UN-compiled Human Development Report. The Human Development Index is
a composite index based on, among other indexes, GDP per capita, education
and life expectancy.
- The Ethiopian government had procured arms and an arsenal worth over
11 billion dollars and had the largest army in Sub-Saharan Africa under
Mengistu Hailemariam. The EPRDF regime inherited this massive arsenal in
1991. Considering that Eritrea's military expenditure before 1991 was close
to nil, even the most basic spending after liberation would register as an
increase. To suggest that Eritrea spent more on its military relative to
Ethiopia after 1991 is, in context, completely absurd.
- Ethiopia is the largest recipient of external assistance in Africa
from both the World Bank and the EU. In fact, the Ethiopian government
claimed a bumper crop of 11.69 million tons of crop for this year but has
still approached donors for 100 million US dollars in food aid because of a
food deficit. The WFP office in Ethiopia spoke in reference to Ethiopia's
food sufficiency when it stated that "over 40% of Ethiopia's farm households
are food insecure, and they do not produce enough food and income to meet
their household's basic nutritional requirements."
- Eritrea's focus on national development since 1991, as evidenced by
World Bank growth figures, is further underlined by the demobilization of
65% of Eritrea's liberation army by 1993 and accelerated spending on
education culminating in a 400% education index growth rate in 1997.
- The National Service Program in Eritrea, although it does contain
some military component, is geared primarily toward the mobilization of
human resources toward national development. Twelve of the 18 months in the
program are for work in projects of national development.
- In fact, the TPLF wanted to emulate Eritrea's National Service
Program but could not reconcile a nationwide program, which would have
included and trained all ethnic groups in Ethiopia, with its system of
ethnicity and its desire to dominate the military.
The official said that "nothing was more important to the Eritrean government than the development of its people and resources and
the continued peace and prosperity of the country." He added that "the TPLF's rabid military expenditure--to the tune of a billion US
dollars--and their willingness to expend thousands of their men in human waves on the battlefields is really what is at issue here."
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