Eritrea: catch all

[davidbfpo]

A year since the last post this forgotten country gains an advocate in a retired DoS diplomat:http://africanarguments.org/2013/12/...by-hank-cohen/

[davidbfpo]

A series of articles in The Guardian on this forgotten country, where 3% of the population have fled, even though there is no war today, just a strict dictatorship.

Amongst the thousands of migrants / refugees trying to reach Western Europe are plenty from Eritrea; which may explain these articles and I have only linked two.

One ends:

But migrants tell a different story. Welde Giorgis left Eritrea in 2006 because he no longer believed internal reform was possible. The average Eritrean is now “a helpless victim”, he says. “And that’s why you see these large numbers of Eritreans leaving the country at great risk to their lives. Many die from dehydration in the Sahara. Many have drowned in the Mediterranean. Many have become victim to organ harvesters in the Sinai. But nobody cares. Eritrea has become an earthly hell, an earthly inferno for its people – and that’s why they are taking such huge risks to their personal lives to escape the situation. It’s become unliveable.”

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...-what-is-going

I did find this bizarre (from the same article):

Eritrea’s own government blames human trafficking networks for the exodus, and this week even asked the UN Security Council to help combat the smugglers who are “dispersing and debilitating our human resources”.

Why we left:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...-state-two-men

[davidbfpo]

Once again The Guardian report on Eritrea, this time from within:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ass-emigration

A taster:

The prosaic truth is that this is just another of the nasty regimes that persist in parts of the world. Eritrea is a one-party state with no elections, has had no functioning civil society since 2001 and, with at least 16 journalists currently behind bars, is ranked bottom of 180 countries assessed in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index. The regime sows paranoia and uncertainty, leading to divergent views over how far the limits of free speech can be tested.

A recent UN inquiry on human rights described extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, indefinite military conscription and forced labour. Its report found “a pervasive control system used in absolute arbitrariness to keep the population in a state of permanent anxiety”.

[davidbfpo]

IIRC Eritrea has been a rather lonely nation diplomatically, but the war in the Yemen may have changed this:

In May 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE concluded a new military security partnership agreement with Eritrea allowing the Gulf coalition to use its land, airspace, and territorial waters for Yemen operations. The agreement also included a thirty-year lease for the port of Assab, on Eritrea's coast, as a UAE naval logistics hub. Since September, the UAE has used Assab as a launchpad for amphibious operations against Yemen's Red Sea islands and in November began flying strike sorties over Yemen from Asmara International Airport -- strikes that followed an agreement with the Eritrean government to refurbish the airport. Four hundred Eritrean troops were also contracted to serve embedded with the UAE armed forces in Yemen.

Sudanese hold force for Aden. In mid-October, UAE landing craft transported two Sudanese battalions equipped with BTR-70 armored personnel carriers from Assab to Aden.

Link:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...the-ground-war

[davidbfpo]

Last month the BBC had a reporter in Eritrea, first to report on:

This week marks 25 years since Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in a conflict which lasted three decades. Rights groups criticise the East African nation for its lack of democracy, media freedom and its policy of forced conscription, which can last for many years. But the Eritrean government has organised huge celebrations.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36358235

A less restrained, wider report:

The migration crisis in Europe has thrust Eritrea under the spotlight. Last year, more people fled to Europe from this small, secretive nation than from any other African country.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36469286

[AdamG]

Profile of former Bucknell professor Berhanu Nega, leader of Ethiopian dissident rebel group Ginbot 7
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/ma...army.html?_r=0

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to WoTR for this article on the UAE's expanding role in Eritrea:http://warontherocks.com/2016/09/wes...arab-emirates/

A "taster":

As part of the partnership agreement, the United Arab Emirates concluded a 30-year lease agreement for military use of the mothballed deep-water port at Assab and the nearby hard-surface Assab airfield, with a 3,500-meter runway capable of landing large transport aircraft including the huge C-17 Globemaster transports flown by the Emirati air force.