A decade ago, many saw newly independent Eritrea as a beacon of Africa’s democratic potential, but these days, political freedom, elections, and a free press are nowhere in sight in the Horn of Africa country.
Indeed, the small nation on the western banks of the Red Sea, which has had Issaias Afeworki as its president since its inception in 1993, is subject to a blistering litany of condemnation.
The US State Department’s human rights report for 2002, for example, notes that the government ”continued to commit serious abuses”, that presidential elections have never been held in the one-party state, and that a constitution passed by referendum in 1997 has yet to be ratified.
”Citizens did not have the right to change their government, which was controlled completely by the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice.
”Abritrary arrests and detentions continued to be be problems, an unknown number of persons were detained without charge, some incommunicado, because of political opinion…
”The government infringed the right to privacy… restricted freedom of speech and press… there were limits on freedom of assembly… movement… (and) workers’ rights,” the report said, providing extensive details of the abuses.
Amnesty International (AI) used the occasion of Eritrea’s 10th anniversary of independence from its larger neighbour, Ethiopia, which is celebrated on Saturday, to urge the government to turn over a new leaf.
In a statement issued from London, AI called on Issaias to ”release all prisoners of conscience in the country, including 11 members of parliament and 10 independent journalists who have been detained without charge or trial, incommunicado and in secret locations, since September 2001.”
AI said hundreds of other Eritreans including opposition politicians, diplomats, civil servants, business people and security personnel had been detained in recent years.
The organisation noted that the government in Asmara had labelled the jailed politicians, including a former vice president and two former foreign ministers, ”traitors.”
The journalists, detained after criticising Afeworki in their articles, have been described as ”mercenaries and spies.”
Both the State Department and AI pointed out that Jehovah’s Witnesses had been stripped of their civil rights in 1994, mainly because of their opposition to military service.
In its 2003 World Report, New York-based Human Rights Watch described Eritrea as ”a country under siege — from its own government.”
”No institutions existed (in 2002) to restrain government abuses and presidential rule by decree continued unfettered… All private newspapers remained closed. The government controlled all sources of information within the country,” the report said.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has described Eritrea as ”the world’s biggest prison for journalists” and said it was alone among African countries in banning independent media.
”Independent press no longer exists and journalists who have not managed to flee are in prison or in hiding,” RSF said.
Questioned about all this in an interview he granted jointly to AFP and the BBC, President Issaias was somewhat evasive, reverting to an habitual tactic of blaming the slow progress of human rights on a security hangover from the border war his country fought with Ethiopia between 1998 and 2000.
While ”elections are taking place in villages and sub regional levels… we are not hasty” for presidential polls, he said, insisting nonetheless that ”there is no (area of) life without the participation of the population in this country.”
The detained former government officials ”are not politicians, these are people who have betrayed their nation in difficult times,” he said, suggesting due legal process was not suitable in their cases of ”treason.”
”We’ll do it our own way, it is a national security issue and we’ll deal with it in an appropriate manner.
Press freedom had to be curtailed because ”we can not allow (journalists) working in this country to disrupt the harmony, divide the nation.”
Again, ”security interests” would dictate the fate of jailed journalists.
Civil rights require time to evolve, the president argued.
”How long did it take the United Kingdom, how long did it take the USA for women to have their human rights recognised? How many years did it take the black Americans for their rights to be enshrined and practically implemented?
”Why are you so hasty to see developments happen in no time in a small country like Eritrea?” he asked. – Sapa-AFP