Starting Points: Eritrea

Showing posts with label Eritrea. Show all posts

Jun 19, 2010

In Eritrea, the Young Dream of Leaving

AMMAN, Jordan — Long before he learned to dunk on warped wooden backboards, Awet Eyob nursed a dream: to play basketball in America.

He is 6-foot-8, built like an oak tree, and seems to have mastered a behind-the-back dribble and crisp passes from the corner of his eye.

But one big problem stood between him and his dream: his homeland, Eritrea, an isolated, secretive nation in the Horn of Africa that is refusing to let its young people leave.

Eritrea, which fought its way to independence nearly 20 years ago, is ruled by hard-as-nails former guerrilla fighters who have held firm to their revolutionary Marxist policies and who demand that all young people work for the government, sometimes until their 40s. Anyone who tries to buck this national program, according to human rights groups, is subject to cruelly inventive tortures.

So this January, in great secrecy, Mr. Awet gathered four pairs of boxers, two pairs of socks, his high school transcript, his Air Jordans and some cash to pay a gang of human traffickers (or coyotes, as he calls them).

“I remember that first call,” he said. “The coyote said: ‘Hello, this is Sunshine.’ I answered, ‘This is Thunder.’ ”

Mr. Awet, 20, who is now living in Amman, Jordan, is the embodiment of Eritrea’s lost generation. This tiny country is spawning more refugees per capita than just about anywhere else in the world, according to United Nations statistics, and most of them are young men, and often the country’s most promising ones at that.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that hundreds of thousands of people have fled Eritrea in recent years — the total population is less than five million — and nearly every day, 100 new Eritreans risk their lives to cross into Sudan.

The New York Times

Hundreds of thousands have fled Eritrea in recent years.

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Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

Many young Eritreans complain of being chained to government jobs in Asmara.

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Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

Mr. Awet, 20, fled Eritrea and is now staying in an American family’s home in Amman, below. He hopes to get into an American college or prep school.

Some of these defections have been hard to miss. In December, more than 10 players from the Eritrean national soccer team absconded to Kenya during a tournament. In 2004, some Eritrean refugees being sent home from Libya were so desperate not to return that they hijacked the plane.

Many never make it out. One of Mr. Awet’s friends recently won a four-year, $200,000 scholarship to a prestigious American university. “He should have been sent out with a garland of flowers,” said the boy’s father, with tears in his eyes.

Instead, the boy was arrested trying to defect in time to register for classes. He was drafted into the military and deployed near Eritrea’s southern border, one of the hottest places on earth.

Mr. Awet was lucky. Dressed in an extra, extra large gallebeyah (a long flowing gown common in the Muslim world), he sneaked through Sudan and then on to Kenya and Dubai. He is now camped out in the basement of an American family’s home here, doing push-ups, working on his jump shot, playing on a Wii set with the family’s children and trying to get into an American college or prep school.

A big reason why he has gotten this far is Matthew Smith, a gregarious, athletic American diplomat who befriended Mr. Awet a couple years ago on a basketball court in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, where Mr. Smith was working. Mr. Smith was impressed by the young man’s game, but more than that, he was moved by Mr. Awet’s burning ambition to break out of his hermetically sealed world.

“He wanted more, and I could relate to that,” said Mr. Smith, whose father was a taxi driver in Brooklyn. “Who would’ve ever thought the kid of a cabbie and nanny could be a diplomat?”

Mr. Smith matched up Mr. Awet with an American basketball coach in Amman who is now training him.

“His skills were better than I expected,” said the coach, Robert Taylor, who was sitting next to Mr. Awet on a stack of exercise mats in a high school gym. “No offense, Awet, but Eritrea isn’t exactly known for its basketball.”

If Eritrea is especially well-known for anything these days, it is for being a troublemaker in a very volatile neighborhood. The nation has been accused of invading Djibouti in 2008 and fueling chaos in Somalia by arming insurgent groups, prompting sanctions from the United Nations Security Council.

But Eritrea has a proud history, fighting a grueling 30-year guerrilla war to break away from Ethiopia.

Mr. Awet’s name, in fact, means victory. He was born at home, by candlelight, in February 1990, on the eve of independence, right after a legendary battle.

He was always big. He was selected to play for the national basketball team when he was 15, and earned the nickname King A. By Eritrean standards, he had an enviable life, with a wealthy merchant father, good grades and a touch of fame.

But Dan Franch, his high school literature teacher, could tell he was not happy.

“I knew he wanted to leave, and I didn’t blame him,” Mr. Franch said. “This place is becoming inert. You encourage students to apply to college overseas but their chances of going are one in a gazillion.”

On the surface, life for young Eritreans does not look so bad. Asmara is littered with chrome-lined Art Deco cafes where young people sip cappuccinos and munch on pizza. But many young people complain (quietly) of being chained to dead-end government jobs. By law, mandatory national service is supposed to last 18 months. In reality, it is often indefinite, and few can get permits to exit the country until they are done serving. The government justifies this because of a highly militarized, unresolved border dispute with its neighbor, Ethiopia, nearly 20 times its size.

Mr. Awet says he probably will not see his parents for years because now that he has escaped, it will be dangerous to go back home.

At night, when he cannot sleep, he takes out a tiny prayer book his mother gave him — the cover is literally the size of a postage stamp — and thinks of her. Or he stretches out on a single bed with his feet nearly dangling off, listening to rap songs on his MP3 player and nurturing his dream.

“I used to dream about the money and the cars and the girls,” he sings. “But now I see, because I’m sitting on top of the world.”

Dec 24, 2009

U.N. Security Council orders arms embargo on Eritrea

Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 24, 2009; A07

NEW YORK -- The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday imposed an arms embargo on the East African country of Eritrea and vowed to slap financial and travel restrictions on its leaders for arming Islamist militants in Somalia.

The resolution, which was introduced by Uganda, passed by a vote of 13 to 1 in the 15-nation council, with Libya voting "no" and China abstaining.

In opposing the vote, Libya's U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Dabbashi, said: "Libya was a victim of sanctions for many years and as such has committed itself to not be a party to the taking of sanctions against any African country whatsoever."

Image by met.e.o.r.a via Flickr

The embargo followed months of frustration by U.S., African and U.N. officials over Eritrea's alleged role in arming al-Shabaab, an Islamist group that is trying to overthrow Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government. The African Union, which has sent thousands of peacekeepers to Somalia, had urged the council to act.

Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States quietly pressed Eritrea in recent months to cease its support for Somali militants but had made little progress.

"The council acted today, not hastily, not aggressively, but with the aim quite sincerely of encouraging Eritrea to do as this council and so many of its members have repeatedly called upon it to do, which is not to continue actions which destabilize Somalia," Rice said after the vote. "We did not come to this decision with any joy -- or with anything other than a desire to support the stability of peace in the region."

Eritrea's U.N. ambassador, Araya Desta, denied that his country supports Somali militants, saying the resolution was based on "fabricated lies" concocted by Ethiopia, its neighbor and chief military adversary, and Ethiopia's chief foreign ally, the United States.

"The U.N. Security Council has today passed a shameful resolution imposing sanctions against Eritrea," he said after the vote, adding that Eritrea has never given military or financial support to the opposition in Somalia. "We don't want to take sides in Somalia."

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In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki also dismissed the allegations as "fabricated" and accused the United States of pursuing years of failed policies in the region.

The resolution expresses "grave concern" over Eritrea's provision of "political, financial and logistical support to armed groups engaged in undermining peace and reconciliation in Somalia." It demands that Eritrea "cease all efforts to destabilize or overthrow, directly or indirectly," the transitional government.

The resolution calls on the U.N. sanctions committee to compile a list of political and military leaders who will be barred from traveling outside Eritrea and whose financial assets will be frozen.

The U.N. council has had an increasingly rocky relationship with Eritrea, which clashed in recent years with U.N. peacekeepers monitoring its border with Ethiopia and more recently refused to abide by U.N. demands to withdraw its troops from territory of its other neighbor, Djibouti. The resolution reiterates a demand that Eritrea withdraw its forces from Djibouti.

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Desta denied that Eritrean troops are occupying any part of Djibouti. He also criticized the council for failing to enforce a 2003 resolution -- and a peace accord -- requiring Ethiopia to withdraw its troops from Eritrea. Ethiopia has never done so.

Dec 18, 2009

Eritrea's national soccer team seeks asylum in Kenya

Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr

By Barney Jopson
Friday, December 18, 2009; A14

KAMPALA, UGANDA -- Eritrea's entire national soccer team is seeking asylum in Kenya, joining tens of thousands of compatriots who have fled one of Africa's most repressive governments.

The team absconded after traveling to Nairobi for a regional tournament. Eritrea, with only about 4 million people, was the second-biggest source of asylum seekers in the world last year, and the missing players are probably the highest-profile defectors since the country won independence in 1993.

The 11 players and one substitute were reported missing over the weekend when the team plane returned to Eritrea without them after a match against Tanzania.

After going into hiding, the players contacted the U.N. refugee agency in Nairobi, which directed them to file asylum applications at Kenya's Immigration Ministry.

Nicholas Musonye, a Kenyan soccer official who first alerted the authorities to the missing players, said: "I have been informed by the tour guide who was with them that they are in Nairobi and have been seeking political asylum."

The number of Eritrean asylum seekers worldwide last year was second only to the total from Zimbabwe, according to the United Nations.

People are fleeing a combination of political repression, food shortages, open-ended military service and a moribund economy.

More than half of them, about 34,000, fled overland to Sudan, braving harsh terrain and army shoot-to-kill orders. But many more are likely to have escaped without registering with the U.N. refugee agency.

Musonye, the general secretary of the Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations, said he had spoken to officials at the Eritrean National Football Federation, who were "a bit upset."

"The federation has a responsibility to bring the players home, so they have a lot to explain," he said.

Individual players have gone missing from the Eritrean national team before. Musonye said six absconded three years ago after a match in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Ali Abdu, Eritrea's information minister, told the BBC that the players would get a "good welcome" if they returned home in spite of "betraying" their country.

Human rights groups say failed defectors and critics of President Isaias Afwerki's government are often tortured and confined to shipping-container prisons in the desert.

The government denies the allegation.

Dec 14, 2009

As thousands flee regime, Eritrea goes it alone

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Facing the prospect of U.N. sanctions and increasing 'brain drain,' young nation's authoritarian president chooses defiance

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 14, 2009

ASMARA, ERITREA -- With the threat of U.S.-backed sanctions looming over this isolated Red Sea nation, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki recently summed up his defiant attitude toward the United States, and indeed most things he deems foreign -- a free press, certain religions, electoral democracy, political parties, global warming.

"Leave us alone," said the commandingly tall former guerrilla leader who became Eritrea's first and only president in 1993, after a 30-year struggle for independence from Ethiopia. "We don't want to be pushed around."

Over the past year, the United States and other nations have accused Eritrea of sending money and weapons to al-Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels in nearby Somalia, and a draft resolution calling for sanctions is now circulating at the U.N. Security Council.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Isaias, 63, dismissed the charges as "fabricated," blamed the United States for pursuing years of failed policies in the region and said of the threatened sanctions: "It will be a regrettable move if it's meant to blackmail or intimidate Eritrea."

But Eritrea's alleged spoiler role in Somalia is only one facet of a country that many observers say should be drawing attention for another, glaring reason: While striving to be an egalitarian, self-reliant utopia, Eritrea has become one of the most unapologetically repressive countries on Earth.

In the name of national security and unity in this nation of 5.5 million people, the government controls all media, officially allows only four religions ("We have enough religions," Isaias said), and so tightly controls the economy that the only Coca-Cola factory here had to close because its owners could not import syrup.

According to Eritreans interviewed here, house searches, arbitrary arrests, and a repertoire of torture that includes stuffing prisoners in tires and rolling them around in the desert are part of a vast system of social control that extends from this petite art deco capital to the tiniest village.

The country's extensive prison system of shipping containers and pits in the desert is by some estimates holding tens of thousands of people without trial, including journalists, Jehovah's Witnesses and citizens who tried to flee the country.

Even so, one young Eritrean said the defining feature of the system is not how brutal it is but how "normal" it now seems. He said he has been arrested without explanation 10 times, once while reporting a crime.

"The first time I was kind of worried," said the young man, who, like most people interviewed here, was afraid to give his name. "But eventually I was like, 'Okay, I'll be out in a few days. Let me get my jacket.' "

Indefinite conscription

The centerpiece of the system is mandatory national service, which forces all 18-year-olds into military training, then duty in the army or ministry for as little as $30 a month. It is a sacrifice many here said they would willingly make, were it not indefinite.

Instead, many young people have a secret motto these days: "Leave to live!" Despite what human rights groups say is a shoot-to-kill order on the border, more than 62,000 Eritreans sought asylum last year, the second-highest number in the world, according to the United Nations.

"I'd say 90 percent of my peers have left," said one young man who is planning his own exit. "All the best brains are leaving."

Observers say Eritrea's leadership still clings to its rebel ideology, which enforced Marxist and egalitarian values in opposition to imperial Ethiopian rule. Largely abandoned by the world during their fight for independence, the rebels made do with weapons they captured, diaspora funding and a strict discipline that helped them pull off a stunning victory against a far better-armed enemy.

"They won their struggle on their own," said Tasier Ali, a Sudanese peace activist who lives in Asmara. "I think, in a way, time stopped for them there."

Since independence, Eritrea has had a bloody border war with Ethiopia that ended with a U.N.-sponsored border demarcation that Ethiopia, a U.S. ally, has not recognized. More recently, Eritrea has been in a tense standoff with neighboring Dijibouti, where the United States has a military base, over a sandy patch of disputed land at the mouth of the Red Sea.

Isaias, often referred to here simply as "the man," said that national security and economic planning have made national service a harsh necessity. The young Eritreans who are leaving, he said, are simply "weak."

"We are not at all bothered," he said, referring to the swelling diaspora that sends home money totaling about a third of the economy. "The best brains do not make the wrong choice for their lives."

Fierce independence

It was a typically bright morning in Asmara, a palm-tree-lined capital where pale yellow, green and gray buildings are detailed with circles, diamonds and lines that lend an air of fantasy. The controlled economy creates a listless mood. Cafes stay fairly full. Shopkeepers close for three hours at lunch. But these days, there is another sight: skinny women and children from the countryside, where a hunger crisis is worsening, begging on the streets.

Isaias, who said he enjoys "Star Wars" films and Tom Clancy novels, walked to his interview at a presidential guesthouse. Though he qualifies as a dictator, he prefers a humble style. In contrast to African leaders who speed about their capitals in long motorcades of Mercedes-Benzes, his consists of an old BMW and a Toyota.

Isaias said that Eritrea is in the midst of a "social transformation" aimed at self-reliance -- which excludes most outside aid for the country -- and dissolving tribal and religious differences in the mostly Muslim and Orthodox Christian country. The process is also aimed at dissolving tribal and religious differences. Elections held too soon would invite divisive tribal politics, he said. Asked how long it would take until Eritreans are ready to vote, he said: "A long, long, long time."

If there is a sense of quiet submission here, some young Eritreans say they are true believers in a system that has produced, by basic measures, one of the healthiest populations in Africa. There is a sense of pride at places such as Medeber, a massive, clanking workshop on the edge of town where hundreds of workers in blue coveralls hammer scraps from old tanks, trucks, beds and bikes into new items: an Orthodox cross, whose circle is made out of an old tank gear; a hair comb made from a mortar.

"We must do it ourselves," said Isak Ybaye, offering a mantra others repeated. "We are preparing something to serve the people!"

During a rare drive with foreign journalists to the port city of Masawa, Information Ministry worker Raffaele Giuseppe marveled at the beauty of his country.

"This road, we are proud of it -- we built it with our own hands," he said. "That's freedom!"Asked about the tens of thousands of people who apparently wish to be free from Eritrea, Giuseppe said the statistics are propaganda.

"We have the same ideology, we have the same perspective, the same mind," he said, allowing that some might disagree "only if they have the perspective of foreign elements in their mind."

"Only until they get enlightened in the cause," Giuseppe added. "The greater Eritrean cause."

Aug 10, 2009

Eritrea Rebuffs 'Smear Campaign'

Eritrea has strongly denied allegations that it supports Islamist insurgents in neighbouring Somalia.

Salih Omar Abdu, its ambassador to Kenya, says the accusations, repeatedly made by the US and the African Union, are a "smear campaign".

He says Eritrea is in favour of a united Somalia whose government represents all of its people.

Somalia is nominally ruled by a UN-backed government but insurgents control large parts of the country.

Last week US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Africa, warned that the US would "take action" against Eritrea if it continued to support the militants.

She said Eritrea was destabilising Somalia and its actions were "unacceptable".

Moral obligation

But in an interview with the BBC's Network Africa programme, Mr Abdu dismissed the claims.

"This is a smear campaign against Eritrea under the pretext that Eritrea supplies arms, ammunitions and finances [to insurgents]," he said.

"But unfortunately this is not the case and Eritrea does not tolerate being an instrument to any country or any government."

He said his country had a "moral and legal obligation to support the Somalis", but had no right to "bring or establish a government for the Somalis".

"We believe in a united Somalia. Not like our neighbours who want to sub-divide it into cantons. Let the Somalis solve their problems themselves."

Analysts say several militant groups operated from Eritrea after being ousted from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, when Ethiopian troops entered Somalia in 2006.

The main insurgent group is al-Shabab, which is extending its influence in the south of the country.

About 250,000 Somalis have fled their homes in fighting between militants and government forces over the past three months.

There are growing fears that Somalia - which has been without an effective central government since 1991 - risks becoming a haven for terrorists.

Jun 27, 2009

U.S. Has Sent 40 Tons of Munitions to Aid Somali Government

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 27, 2009

The U.S. government has provided about 40 tons of weapons and ammunition to shore up the besieged government of Somalia in the past six weeks and has sent funding to train Somali soldiers, a senior State Department official said yesterday, in the most complete accounting to date of the new American efforts in the strife-torn country.

The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the military aid was worth less than $10 million and had been approved by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the National Security Council.

"We do not want to see Somalia become a safe haven for foreign terrorists," the official said.

Hard-line Islamist rebels allegedly linked to al-Qaeda have launched an offensive to topple Somalia's relatively moderate government, which has appealed to the United States and other African countries for help. The fighting has killed 250 civilians and forced more than 160,000 people out of their homes in the past month, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

In an indication of the rebels' growing power, they held a ceremony Thursday in the capital, Mogadishu, in which they chopped off a hand and foot from each of four men convicted of stealing cellphones and other items, according to news reports from the region. The punishment was in line with the rebels' harsh version of Islam. The United States considers the rebel group, al-Shabab, a terrorist organization.

Somalia has been racked by violence since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. U.S. officials say the bloodshed and lawlessness in the country have caused a massive outflow of refugees and contributed to an upsurge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden. The country has also become a haven for al-Qaeda operatives alleged to have carried out attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, U.S. officials say.

The African Union has sent troops from Uganda and Burundi to help Somalia's fragile government keep order.

The U.S. aid does not involve the deployment of any troops to Somalia, where 18 American soldiers were killed in the 1993 raid depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

In order to strengthen Somalia's military, the U.S. government is providing cash to its government to buy weapons, and has asked Ugandan military forces there to give Somali soldiers small arms and ammunition, the official said. The U.S. government is then resupplying the Ugandans, he said.

The U.S. government will also help pay for the Kenyan, Burundi and Ugandan militaries to train Somali soldiers, and is providing logistical support for the African Union troops, the official said.

Clinton called Somalia's president, Sharif Ahmed, in recent weeks to consult on the crisis, according to another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.

He said the U.S. aid would likely encourage other African countries to do more to help Somalia's government.

U.S. officials accuse Eritrea of supporting the Somali rebels as part of a proxy war with its rival, Ethiopia. But efforts by State Department officials to meet with the Eritrean government have been fruitless so far, the official said.