Issue No. 222

Eritrea: Three decades of descent into totalitarianism

Today's editorial in The Ethiopian Cable  is written by  L. Prager
 
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There was immense joy in Eritrea when the country won its war for independence in May 1991. The country had suffered brutally under decades of rule by a fascist Italian government, the United Kingdom, the emperor of Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian military junta, the Derg. It was of little surprise then, in a plebiscite in 1993, of the over 98% of the Eritrean population who participated, 99% voted for independence. Such was the popular will.
 
In the 30 years since that 1993 vote for independence, particularly post-2000, Eritrea has become what Human Rights Watch has characterised as "a country in shackles." Today, it is routinely classified as among the worst-ranked countries for authoritarianism. But it didn't become so immediately. In 1993, Isaias Afewerki, who had led the Eritrean People's Liberation Front against the Derg government, was appointed by an interim legislature to be the country's president. In 1997, the legislature adopted a proposed constitution that would have limited the government's powers and ensured that citizens were protected from arbitrary government intimidation. The proposed constitution established writs of habeas corpus as well as the right to a fair and public trial. It would have protected freedom of speech, press, peaceful assembly, and religion. It also safeguarded public political participation by ensuring the right to form non-governmental political organisations.
 
But Isaias never allowed the constitution to take effect, and in the decades since the plebiscite, all of its proposed protections have been destroyed. Although he worked with other appointed leaders in the Eritrean government for around 7 years after the referendum, Isaias seized complete control of Eritrea in mid-2000. In the 24 years since, Isaias has imprisoned anyone suspected of questioning his rule without trial. All political opposition has been strangled.
 
There has been no national election in the past half century; political parties are not allowed to exist. There is no veneer of democracy, without even a legislature since 2010, as Isaias remains in complete control of the country as president. The appointed judiciary has no power to question executive action, while most incarcerated Eritreans have received no trial before their indefinite imprisonment. No UN Special Rapporteur on human rights has ever even been admitted to the country.
 
The initial delay in implementing the proposed constitution can partly be attributed to a 1998 boundary war between Eritrea and Ethiopia that began after Eritrea launched an attack on the Ethiopian village of Badme, according to an International Claims Commission. While an armistice took effect in 2000, neither country was willing to settle their dispute until 2018.

Shortly after the fighting ended, in September 2001, the government arrested 11 senior government officials and party leaders who had signed a letter to Isaias calling for democratic reforms, including the implementation of the approved constitution. In the succeeding weeks, Isaias jailed them, as well as journalists, publishers, editors, and reporters of newspapers who had sought to question his rule. All private publications were closed. Twenty-three years later, those arrested in 2001 remain jailed without trial and incommunicado in an isolated penal complex; many, a former guard reported, have died. The Isaias government also ignores African Commission holdings that the 2001 arrests violated the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.
 
No publications or media other than those owned by the government have been allowed to exist since 2001. Non-governmental public gatherings of over 7 persons are prohibited. 
Since September 2001, thousands of less prominent people have been arrested and incarcerated without charge, trial, or opportunity to appeal. Access to family, lawyers, or independent prison monitoring doesn't occur. The length of incarceration is arbitrary; for some, it only ends in death. Those who have been freed or escaped have said that detention prisons are severely overcrowded and deplorable; torture in detention is common.
 
While any Eritrean whom government officials believe needs jailing is imprisoned without trial or recourse for months or years, other Eritrean citizens face another grim fate. Before the 1998 war, the unelected parliament enacted a law (Proclamation 82/1995) requiring all able-bodied adults to perform 18 months of national service. The limitations of the proclamation are routinely ignored, and national service can last indefinitely. Conscripts are paid a pittance, often used as forced labour to implement development projects, and are subject to physical abuse. Relatives of alleged conscription evaders are punished, sometimes by eviction from their homes. Prolonged national service and other abuses cause thousands of Eritreans to flee every year. Over the past three decades, about half a million Eritreans have fled the country, almost 15% of a population estimated to be 3.8 million, though no census has been taken since independence.
 
Religion, too, faces repression and coercion, with the government recognising just four religious denominations-- Sunni Islam and Eritrean Orthodox (whose leaders have been picked by the government), and the smaller Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches. Many Eritreans affiliated with 'unrecognised' faiths are imprisoned indefinitely and often tortured until they renounce their faith. Jehovah's Witnesses have been particularly victimised.
 
While all segments of Eritrean society have suffered abuses, the Afar, a small minority group living on the Red Sea, has been particularly victimised. Inhabiting areas believed to be resource-rich, Afar communities have been deliberately targeted in order to displace them, according to UN reports. Torture and sexual violence are said to be commonplace, as well as arbitrary land seizures without compensation. Afar leaders, including merchants, have been reported to have disappeared.
 
Victims of the Isaias regime have not been limited to residents of Eritrea. After war broke out between the Ethiopian federal government and the Ethiopian province of Tigray in November 2020, the Eritrean regime sent troops to invade neighbouring northern Tigray. There is substantially confirmed evidence that the Eritrean army was responsible for substantial numbers of rapes, murders, and lootings of civilians, as well as raids into refugee camps resulting in the abduction of Eritrean refugees. Although most Eritrean soldiers have been withdrawn from Tigray since November 2022, following the Pretoria agreement, the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia in October 2023 documented Eritrea's continued military presence in Tigray and its ongoing involvement in human rights violations.
 
All evidence points to the fact that the Isaias-led regime never made an attempt to curb its forces' abuses, particularly the still-ongoing lootings and abductions. It's all but certain it encouraged them. Regrettably, no change in Eritrea's dictatorship, or its cruel oppression of the Eritrean citizenry, can be expected soon. The dictator exercises an iron grip on the country, and with no visible domestic political opposition, the hopes of democracy and constitutional rule in Eritrea have long faded.

 L. Prager is a longtime observer of Horn of Africa developments.