nazret.com

Eritrea's president declares me 'insane'

By Jane Dutton

Al Jazeera

We hadn't even arrived in Eritrea when I started to get a sense of the man I had been sent to interview.

Our flight from Dubai airport was delayed.

Nobody told us for how long or why. Four hours later, when the plane finally arrived, we found out the president had decided to borrow it for the morning, on a whim.

We were on our way to one of Africa's most secretive regimes.

Granted a rare interview with the Eritrean president, Isaias Afewerki, a man constantly ranked in the top 10 of the world's worst dictators and accused of helping turn the Horn of Africa into one of the most volatile regions on the planet.

Our plane - Eritrea's only carrier - was one of the few international flights that still fly into the country: a desolate place blighted by years of war with Ethiopia and Yemen, and increasing political isolation.

At the airport we were met by unfamiliar silence - no network connections, no SIM cards, no blackberry! And Rafael, our minder.

Rafael is a man of contradictions: even his backcomb appears to grow forward.

"Let me tell you the truth," he would say every couple of hours, immediately followed by anything but.

He also ominously warned that he could keep a watch on our every movement if he chose to do so, at our hotel, on the job.

Our interview was scheduled for Saturday and we were told it would take two hours to get to the city of Massawa, the president's new bunker retreat on the coast.

He is reported to spend more time there after an attempted assassination last year.

The roads are manned by checkpoints. The population's every move seems to be watched and noted in this country.

And it probably is. Eritreans need a visa to leave and there is very little chance of them ever getting one.

But that hasn't stopped tens of thousands escaping every year.

The UN estimates that 63,000 sought asylum abroad in 2009. Around 1,800 brave the shoot-to-kill police orders to cross over into Sudan every month.

The majority say they are fleeing the permanent military service and repressive nature of the regime.

After several shouting bouts with Rafael, we finally get to Massawa, an exotic port city built by the Turks in the 14th century - a fascinating place with narrow alleyways and looming mosques. It is supposed to be the hottest place on earth. And I would concur.

I noticed then it wasn't just the capital that was surprisingly clean - everywhere we went in Eritrea was immaculate.

The streets are shiny bright, the hotels are spick and span, even the food is safe.

Our interview was delayed by a day and instead we were corralled into watching Massawa's 20-year celebrations of liberation from Ethiopia.

We decided to shoot a promo for our interview while we were there. People were out in that sweltering weather to see their long-time leader, carefully controlled by police.

What amazed us was that the police had no qualms about beating women and children with sticks a few feet away from where we were shooting. A truly shocking scene. And our cameras were still rolling.

The next day we were all set up and ready at our interview location in time for the planned dawn o'clock interview. We guessed the president would keep us waiting, and he did.

Six hours later he arrived. We were all drenched with sweat and jangled with angst by the time he sat down.

Was he going to throw us out of the country for asking the questions we wanted asked?

Why is he helping Iran supply weapons to Hamas in Gaza and the Houthi fighters in Yemen?

Why does he order the police to shoot-to-kill anyone escaping from the country?

Why is there no free press or free speech? Why were all of his political opponents whisked away never to be seen again?

How come he refuses to let aid agencies feed the two-thirds of his country who are starving?

This was a man who came in on a promise of liberating his people 20 years ago.

Every question I asked was met with a blank stare, a flat denial, cold laughter and finally allegations that we were making it all up. And he told me personally I am simply insane.

Back in the car and back on the winding roads, climbing thousands of feet to the cooler capital of Asmara.

You can smell coffee percolating through the streets: thick, lovely and freshly brewed - the legacy of Italy's colonial rule under Benito Mussolini's fascist regime.

All the buildings boast a beautiful jaded art deco influence, and the streets are full of old men cycling with their hats doffed to one side alongside colourful Fiats from the 1960s.

We ended the day with a piece to camera from the tank graveyard on the outskirts of the city. Thousands of armoured vehicles dismantled and stacked heading for the trash heap.

They were used in the 30-year battle against Ethiopia. And although that was two decades ago, Eritrea remains on a permanent war footing.

The majority of the population is conscripted – whether it be in the army, in the hotel bar, as a street cleaner or our ever present minder Rafael.

They remain braced for an Ethiopian attack that may never come.

---------------

U.S. condemns Eritrea for "destabilizing" role


ASMARA (Reuters) - The United States accused Eritrea on Monday of working to destabilize the Horn of Africa region and urged President Isaias Afwerki to bring a halt to what it called a threat to international peace.

The statement released to Reuters by the U.S. Embassy in the Eritrean capital came on the same day that Eritreans abroad protested against United Nations sanctions imposed on their country and that they say were organized by the United States.

The U.N. Security Council, which last December imposed the sanctions, accuses Asmara of providing funds and weapons to Islamist insurgents in Somalia where 21,000 people have been killed in violence since the beginning of 2007.

Aimed at the country's leaders, the sanctions include an arms embargo, a freeze on assets and travel bans on individuals and firms to be designated by a sanctions committee.

"The United States calls on President Isaias to immediately end Eritrea's destabilizing activities in the Horn of Africa," the U.S. Embassy said in its statement.

"Eritrea's actions in Somalia and Djibouti threaten international peace and security and contribute to a dire humanitarian crisis."

Relations between Eritrea and neighboring Djibouti remain hostile. In June 2008 a dozen Djiboutian soldiers were killed in a clash, and last October Djibouti accused Eritrea of training militias to carry out sabotage in its territory.

Eritrean officials deny all accusations relating to Somalia and Djibouti and have called on the U.N. to produce evidence and offer an independent platform on which to respond. They say that without this the sanctions are illegitimate and illegal.

Asmara also accuses the international community of a double standard, pointing out that Somalia is rife with U.S. munitions that arrive by the planeload.

"U.N. Sanction 1907 is an African-led initiative and the United States commends the African Union and Intergovernmental Authority on Development," the U.S. embassy said. "The United States supports the adoption of this important resolution."

DEMONSTRATIONS

Pro-Eritrean supporters gathered in some Western capitals to protest the U.N. resolution, which they say is the latest insult in a long history of western persecution.

Eritrea's state-run media is running a sustained campaign charging the United States with masterminding the U.N. sanctions imposed on it and says Washington wants to control the whole Horn of Africa region.

Eritrea says attacked by Ethiopia

AFP

ADDIS ABABA — Eritrea accused arch-foe Ethiopia on Sunday of launching attacks along their disputed border but said its troops had driven off the assault, killing 10 Ethiopian soldiers and capturing two.

The Eritrean foreign affairs ministry said soldiers from Ethiopia's ruling Tigrai People's Liberation Front (TPLF) had attacked on Friday in the Zalambesa area. Ethiopian officials denied the claims.

"In the early morning hours of January 1st 2010, TPLF soldiers launched successive attacks in the Zalambesa front and were swiftly driven back," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Zalambesa lies in the centre of the contested frontier, over which neighbours fought a brutal war in the late 1990s.

Read Complete Report from AFP

The Case of Eritrea’s Missing Football Team

ABC's Dana Hughes reports from Nairobi:

Eritrea's officials admitted today that the national soccer team is officially missing, after failing to return home from a tournament last week in Kenya. The plane carrying the 12 players and coach to Nairobi, returned to Eritrea with only…the coach. It sounds like an intriguing mystery, but the truth is those young men, who Kenyan officials are now looking for, are just some of the thousands of Eritreans who try to defect from the country every year. An Eritrean government official simultaneously said the country would “welcome” the players home, while acknowledging they had “betrayed” their country.

Read More from ABC News

Eritrea has become one of the most unapologetically repressive countries on Earth

As thousands flee regime, Eritrea goes it alone

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."

Read Full Article from The Washington Post