Photo: José Palazón/IRIN
This image of two golfers playing while, in the background, migrants scaled a fence in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, inside Morocco, went viral last year.
Poised to reverse the number of Eritrean refugees leaving the country and seeking asylum in Europe and beyond, the European Union (EU), expecting a positive prospect of "change in Eritrea", disclosed that it would extend a considerable aid package of 312 million Euros to support the Eritrean government. This consideration, while expecting the Eritrean regime to deliver on its promises in relation to human rights and democracy as well as halting the migration of Eritreans, was said to give way for the end of the youth exodus from Eritrea.
The EU's decision to provide support to the people of Eritrea is welcome news as the people have paid dearly over the last three decades, engulfed with socio-economic deprivation, political repression and increased militarisation of the society as well as incessant propagation of siege mentality. To the dismay of Eritrean people, the premise on which the EU bases its approach shift on Eritrea, abounds with difficulties and does not squarely meet the eye of reality.
The EU's approach is premised on unreliable reports of the Danish Immigration Service and the United Kingdom's Home Office. These reports, which have not articulated tangible evidence of change in the making of the domestic and foreign affairs of that country, signaled that the situation in Eritrea has changed.
Prominent international scholars of Eritrea, former Eritrean diplomats, Eritrean human rights activists, lambasted the EU proposals, postulating that this shift is designed to "justify changes in official policy towards Eritrean asylum seekers that affect their protection." They also said there is no evidence that the government of Eritrea has implemented any change in its human rights regime, pointing out that the regime in Asmara has given "hearsay promises about what it may do so in the future."
They underlined the need for halting preparations for an aid package to the regime in Asmara till the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea has been allowed unhindered access to Eritrea with a view to conclude its investigation on human rights and forward its conclusions.
Unpacking the key drivers of the Eritrean youth exodus is essential to decipher the internal politico-economic dynamics as well as the right medicine to redress this threat.
The history of armed struggle holds greater sway in the post-independent Eritrea with regard to the formulation and execution of domestic and foreign policy goals and objectives. Lack of vision, absence of internal democracy and inability to appreciate pluralism and reasoned directions on the side of the leadership of armed struggle for the independence of Eritrea by the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), plagued by factionalism and fragmentation, opened windows for its eventual demise.
This, according to a former diplomat of Eritrea, Andebrhan Weldegiorgis, set the stage for the creation of the Eritrean People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP), which was rooted from the Maoist doctrine, as a "vanguard party to lead a protracted people's war of national liberation." Lamentably, Andebrhan recollected that whole committees within the party were turned into "forums for internal consensus building, agencies for political intelligence and control of the Party" and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF).
Far from internal party democracy and reasoned debate on the future direction of the Party and of the country, the Party and the Front have seen, according to Dan Connell, intellectual in African politics, "a two-part coup d'etat from within." The first coup d'etat, which took place in the mid-1980s - the Three Privileges Campaign - was orchestrated by Isaias Afeworki in encouraging mid-level cadres to infuriate their leaders with a view to weaken his rivals. The second one was masterminded in 2001, in which Isaias purged his key rivals for power and secured an unyielding position. The second decade of this purge enabled Isaias to be equated with the state of Eritrea and made him a crystal clear authoritarian leader who has no patience for debate, reason and democracy.
The formative years of the liberation struggle was a missed opportunity in which the leadership squandered the time for the development of institutions and formulation of clear vision and direction for the state of Eritrea and its position in and relations with regional, continental and international relations. These formative years have now created a situation in which, as Dan Connel asserts, "the basic mode of action of the state is the same as it was for the liberation movement and for the party that guided it, and it is eminently predictable."
This is indicative of how policies are framed and practiced within President Isaias' circle without reasoned discussion, accountability and transparency. Secrecy and clandestine decision making still continues to this date.
It is also an obvious truth that it will continue indefinitely because it is hard to abandon old habits. This habit also constitutes a party monopoly of economic and political power, wherein both poles are governed by a formidable like-minded group within the president's circle in the interest of the regime security.
What has been left unchecked and not thoroughly considered in the EU policy shift is the Eritrean regime's reliance on the power of the barrel of a gun to secure regime security at the expense of the interests of the state and the people. It is a day dream to witness a policy or a strategy change from the regime in Asmara other than a tactical one as had been repeatedly witnessed in the past on matters of domestic and foreign policies.
The centralisation of decision-making on matters of national affairs and foreign relations has left Eritrea at bay in solving disputes with almost all neighbouring countries only with war, and perpetrating violence in the region through rebel groups and extremists. The culmination of Isaias and his cliques' day dream of making Eritrea an imagined hegemony in the Horn evaporated when it invaded Ethiopian territories in 1998. With regard to the border dispute with Ethiopia, the Eritrean Government, dispelled with the faded hopes of regional aspiration and reddened with the failure to rule the region with a barrel of a gun, has deployed a smear campaign through various forums and social media to project itself as the victim of UN-imposed sanctions. Eritrea continues to lament Ethiopia's continued occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories as well as an interminable crusade with foreign powers.
Despite Eritrea's flawed accusation, Ethiopia fully accepted the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission's (EEBC) Decision on Delimitation, and framed a five-point peace plan, in November 2004, to map out the way forward in relation to the demarcation through dialogue. Ethiopia's stance was aimed at making dialogue as a way out to the demarcation and normalisation of relations with the objective of securing durable peace.
Under the guise of this portrayal of the victimhood of the state of Eritrea, the regime continues to suppress opposition and lingers on the use of forced labour for an indefinite period of time under the shade of national service. In this regard, Andebrhan posits that the regime in Asmara is employing the 'no peace, no war scenario', as a ploy to "engineer a mind-set of a state of siege and extend the transition to a democratic system of governance." This assertion clearly entails the detailed picture of the present and future direction of the Eritrean government in the making of its domestic and foreign policies.
The interplay of aggressive behaviour is reflected in the domestic and external affairs of the country putting the people under this precarious condition. It has discouraged the youth of the country from building their tomorrow inside Eritrea.
Continuing to institutionalise endless national service conscription, the regime has continued on its blame game that foreign powers and international organisations are deliberately encouraging the people to flee their country. The government of Eritrea's failure to look inside points reminds me of, "a thief crying thief".
This current situation has not seen the regime revisiting and reexamining the erratic policies being undertaken in the domestic and foreign affairs of the country. Under this environment, the consequences of the shift by the EU will have far-reaching implications beyond the national boundaries of Eritrea.
The EU ought to re-consider its support and re-engagement with the regime in Asmara. There is enough evidence demanding this in the existing reality, in the lessons from uninterrupted failed pleas for engagement with the regime in Asmara, and in the digestion of the two-faced promises of change in Eritrea. The world has not seen any practical policy shift from Eritrea, entailing a break from its imagined policy of governing the Horn with force.
If the EU remains oblivious of the critical facts on the ground and heeds the call for support and engagement with the regime in Asmara, it is going to elicit an old Ethiopian (Eritrean) idiom with a donkey saying, "may the grass never grow here once I pass away." This will entrench the Isaias' regime to fortify its control of the state; dispel the struggle of Eritrean people for the building of a democratic and stable nation that is at peace with itself and with the outside world; and enable it to inject fresh impetus so as to build fences to the developmental moves of the Horn and the wider North Eastern Africa.
The EU's approach shift ought to have concrete bases that the Eritrean government has shown genuine changes on policy and practice and ought to listen to the agony of the people of Eritrea. Short-term plans to cut Eritrean asylum seekers in Europe will not yield tangible results to the EU, the Horn of Africa and the people of Eritrea.
It rather epitomises the Europe's allegiance, to use the words of Uri Dadush, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "to ancient tribes, ones where xenophobia - the atavistic fear of foreigners - and racism are deeply entrenched. The sentiments are hardly unusual in our private discourse." Dadush went on to say, "More perniciously, barely camouflaged, they guide our policies."
The EU's shift in approach seems no exception to this reality. Europe needs to come to its senses that mirror the harmony of its immigration policies and superb constitutions full of high moral and ethical principles and ideals. If not, the shift in approach produces hypocrisy, cynicism and a big clash with the noblest ideas and values of human rights and democracy as these immigrants are not criminals rather victims of internal oppression.
The possible option is to explore space to help support the worth-treasuring and long-term efforts of Eritreans to create a democratic, stable and prosperous country. It is safe to conclude that "Instead of rewarding such a brutal dictatorship with new funds, a humane and practical EU policy should use the same funds to avail food, shelter, counselling and transitional assistance to refugees in desperate need of help," according to an Eritrean online media, Asmarino.
Nurye Yassin Is a Researcher On African and Middle Eastern Affairs. He Can Be Contacted At Nuralyeju@gmail.com
Source: AllAfrica
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