Ill-timed HRW Report on Eritrea Helps Forget the Ongoing Genocides in Abyssinia (Fake "Ethiopia")
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
May 02, 2009
I insisted on the fact that when nations face extinction in the neighboring tyranny of Abyssinia – that has to be broken down to 12 different national states - it is impermissible to forget them for the sake of some US institutions that might desire to pursue their Anti-Eritreanism further on, by using one HRW Report, this time on Eritrea.
I subsequently asked:
Where is a HRW Report on the Shekacho?
Where is a HRW Report on the Sidama?
Where is a HRW Report on the Kaffa?
Where is a HRW Report on the Hadiyas?
Where is a HRW Report on Abyssinia´s Afars?
Where is a HRW Report on the Oromos?
Where is a HRW Report on the Kambaatas?
Where is a HRW Report on the Gideos?
Where is a HRW Report on the Nuer?
Where is a HRW Report on the Anuak?
Where is a HRW Report on the Bertas?
Where is a HRW Report on the Gumuz?
Where is a HRW Report on the Shinashas?
Where is a HRW Report on the Wolayitas?
Where is a HRW Report on the Hamtagnas?
In the aforementioned articles, I republished several parts of the controversial and highly ill-timed HRW Report on Eritrea, notably the Contents, the Summary, the Methodology, the Recommendations, and the Background.
In the present article, I republish the further units of the Report´s second main part which is entitled Human Rights Violations.
In forthcoming articles, I will expand on criticism and investigation of the Report´s purposes. I will also voluntarily publish comments and analyses, denunciations and criticisms by Eritreans and others who find it incredible for the leading humanitarian NGO HRW to waste resources on Eritrea and disregard the aforementioned nations that have been invaded, subjugated and forced to remain within the Amhara Abyssinian (Pseudo-Ethiopian) Hell – until their extinction.
Human Rights Violations
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/82280/section/7
Overview
Eritrea is one of the world´s youngest countries and has rapidly become one of the most repressive. There is no freedom of speech, no freedom of movement, no freedom of worship, and much of the adult male and female population is conscripted into indefinite national service where they receive a token wage. Dissent is not tolerated. Any criticism or questioning of government policy is ruthlessly punished. Detention, torture, and forced labor await anyone who disagrees with the government, anyone who attempts to avoid military service or flee the country without permission, and anyone found practicing or suspected of practicing faiths the government does not sanction. A scholar, friend to and close observer of Eritrea over many years said, "Eritrea is now a very grim place. This is a government that doesn´t trust anybody, least of all its own people."[74]
Some of the roots of this human rights catastrophe are to be found in the strict discipline of the independence struggle, Eritrea´s fragile regional security situation, and the government´s paranoid and totalitarian response to the situation. The government of Eritrea claims that Eritrea is a victim of international interference and that this explains the suspension of human rights and democratic procedures and the mass militarization of society. In reality most observers think this is President Isayas´s justification for a mode of governance characterized by mistrust, brutality, and presidential whim, in other words, a dictatorship based on denial of basic human rights. Dan Connell, a former supporter of the EPLF, noted, "With no public space for political discussion, let alone protest, and severe constraints on the organizational expression of the most benign social or economic interests—that is, the blanket suppression of civil society—the possibility to contest the PFDJ´s grip on power is nonexistent."[75]
Like its predecessor the EPLF, the ruling PFDJ party is intensely disciplined and driven by the self-reliance and nationalism forged in the 30-year struggle for independence from Ethiopia, a struggle that succeeded against tremendous odds and with little support from the outside world. The common pattern in the government´s persecution is the perceived threat the victims pose to the PFDJ vision of national unity and national security. Thus, deserters and refugees are particularly singled out as "traitors" or spies, as too are journalists, academics, opposition politicians, and anyone who voices an opinion at variance with accepted propaganda. The regime´s preoccupation with non-traditional Christians, even though they are not politically significant, and increasingly many believers in other organized religions, appears to be rooted in a broader concern over institutions and movements that are potentially uncontrolled—or led by individuals who are not controlled—by the state.
There are also historical dimensions to the regime´s targeting of particular groups. Individuals who are particularly vulnerable include those perceived to be sympathetic to Ethiopia or supportive of the ELF—the rival independence movement crushed by Isayas´s EPLF in the 1970s. This perception on the part of the regime means that people living in the lowlands who originally provided support to the ELF—including Muslims and the Kunama ethnic group, among others—are seen as unreliable and are especially vulnerable to arbitrary arrest and detention, and other abuses.
Unlike earlier military mobilizations for the war of independence and the 1998-2000 war with Ethiopia, the current mass and indefinite mobilization of the population into national service—ostensibly in readiness for a potential Ethiopian invasion—is increasingly unpopular. The repressive apparatus required to keep so many unwilling people conscripted and mobilized is extensive: summary executions, brutal punishments, reprisals against families, and a huge prison infrastructure outside the rule of law in which acts of torture and cruel treatment are commonplace and committed with impunity.
National service conscripts serve in the army, work on national development projects, or are loaned to private firms controlled by army officers and government allies for their gain. Compensation is minimal and non-compliance is not an option.
As a result of the multi-faceted repression, Eritreans are increasingly fleeing their country. It should be pointed out that most Eritreans leave with regret the very country that they fought for so long to liberate. Many do so with a deep sense of shame and guilt—some even blame themselves and suggested to Human Rights Watch that talking about human rights in Eritrea to a foreign organization was tantamount to treason. But as one elderly man who fought for the EPLF in the struggle said: "I sacrificed my life for the prosperity, development and freedom of my country but the reverse is true... we did not spend 65,000 martyrs for this!"[76]
Arbitrary Arrest, Detentions, and "Disappearances"
Eritrea routinely arbitrarily detains people who criticize the president, the government, and the military, those who try and evade national service or desert from the army, and those who practice or are perceived to be members of unregistered Christian religions. Once arrested, many detainees "disappear"—their families are unable to ascertain their whereabouts and are only occasionally informed if the individuals die in custody.[77]
Political detentions
The most famous cases of enforced disappearances are the members of the PFDJ ruling council who were arrested on September 18, 2001—the so-called G-15—and the hundreds of other government officials and journalists who were detained alongside them. Eleven of the G-15 are still in incommunicado detention.[78]Dozens more have been detained since.[79]The level of paranoia on the part of the government has reached such a level that, according to one diplomat in Asmara, "people who present no risk to the security of the state are regularly persecuted."[80]
Those perceived to be a threat to the regime are picked up in house-to-house searches, often at night. Two young refugees described to Human Rights Watch their experience seeing their parents arrested at home during the night by soldiers without any apparent reason.[81]A 26-year-old, serving in the military, having been conscripted at the age of 16, returned home on leave to find that his father had been arrested and taken away by military personnel during the night, apparently for asking questions about the G-15. His father was a leader from the lowlands, near the border with Ethiopia, and had not fled when the Ethiopians controlled his area during the 1998-2000 war. When he himself persisted in questioning his father´s whereabouts, he was jailed in 2005.[82]
In another case, a young man saw his father, a former ELF military leader, taken from their home at night in 2005 by two policemen. He told Human Rights Watch, "After two weeks my mum and I went to the police. They told us, ´It is not your goddamn business,´ not in a polite way. My father was always disagreeing with [the government] in meetings."[83]Two months later his father´s body was returned. "They said he had been sick in prison. My mother knows the officers; she was asking among them how he died. I think she asked too many questions because then they came back and arrested me and my mum at night." He added, "Until now I don´t know where they took my mum. After five months in jail I went to the military prison in Sawa, 6th camp."
Detention of national and military service conscripts
Deserting from the army or even expressing dissent over the indefinite military service is viewed as a political issue by the government. Therefore, most prisoners held for political reasons are detained without charge or trial for refusing or questioning national service or for offences punishable under military law. Even where detainees may have committed a potential crime under military law, numerous former detainees told Human Rights Watch that there was no system of military justice, that they were simply imprisoned on the orders of their commanders without any courts-martial or other procedure.[84]
Human Rights Watch spoke to over 40 deserters from the national service and the military who had fled the country, all of whom had been thrown in jail multiple times without due process.[85] Their alleged offences ranged from questioning the educational curriculum to being caught in prayer meetings to being suspected of trying to leave national service.
An officer in charge of a military prison who subsequently fled to Djibouti explained that sentencing was completely arbitrary and commanders decide how long people remain in jail. Whether or not the sick are given access to medical treatment is left to the caprice of their superior officers: "There were no rules from Asmara on how long prisoners stay in jail, it depends on individual commanders. Prisoners can be detained up to two years. If someone is sick they usually don´t believe him, he might be trying to escape or does not want to be punished."[86]
One teacher at Mai Nehfi technical institute said he was jailed for three months because his military supervisors suspected him of trying to flee the country. He described how he was detained and tortured, repeatedly asked questions about who his collaborators were, even though he did not in fact plan on escaping. He later escaped after serving a longer period in jail for having signed a petition complaining about the treatment of higher education students.[87]
A young man who could not take the punishing regime of training and forced labor at Sawa camp tried to kill himself by throwing himself under a water truck. For that, he was imprisoned for six months.[88]
A military driver who was detained multiple times said, "I was detained so many times because I was late coming back from vacation, sometimes I refused when they ordered me to transport something in a bad place... prison, punishment, this is the life of the military."[89]Another national service soldier was jailed because he too refused to do his job and spent eight months in jail without a hearing as a result:
There´s no trial in Eritrea. There´s no trial, there´s not even any court.... Imagine, 14 years of national service... first they put me in prison without asking any questions. After six months they said ´Start your work´ and I refused. The response is to send me back to prison. [On release] they gave me a piece of paper and I went to my camp freely. I was tired. They said, rest for three or four days and then start your work. I said ´No´ and they put me inside for [another] two months.[90]
Detention of conscripts who try to practice unregistered religions is common. Several people who escaped from their military service told Human Rights Watch that they were arbitrarily thrown in jail for secretly reading the Bible in Sawa camp or being caught in prayer meetings.[91] A female conscript, jailed at least three times, was held in a shipping container for three months in 2007 for reading the Bible.[92]Another conscript, a man who was put in jail after a prayer meeting, was just as suddenly released: "After five months and three weeks they just dropped me, with no procedure or decision, on the streets of Asmara, at midnight."[93]
Because of the secrecy in which political detainees are held—incommunicado, in secret locations, without the right to representation or visits, and without any kind of independent monitoring—they are in effect, "disappeared" and are at high risk of torture or extrajudicial execution.
Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment
The internationally accepted definition of torture includes any act that involves the intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering for such purposes as the extraction of information or a confession or as intimidation or punishment.[94]Torture is routine in Eritrea, both for those detained in prisons and as punishment for those in military service.
Political prisoners, including journalists or teachers, interviewed by Human Rights Watch described torture in custody to force them to disclose collaborators, whilst those punished for their religious beliefs described being tortured in order to renounce their faith. In many cases former detainees were beaten or tortured in order to extract information, but in other situations they were simply beaten, tied up, or left to suffer in the sun without any obvious intention to gather information, simply as punishment.
According to eyewitness accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch, torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment by military officers and commanders are systematic and "normal."[95] While some form of discipline or punishment for insubordination or for military crimes such as desertion is usual in a military context, torture is unlawful in any circumstance. In Eritrea, deaths in custody are common as a result of ill-treatment, torture, and denial of medical treatment (see below section "Deaths in Custody"). Some deaths appear to be deliberate killings.
Torture methods
Some of the torture methods are inherited from the Italian period, whilst others are the methods used by successive Ethiopian governments against suspected Eritrean liberation fighters during the struggle. All of the torture methods described in this report are drawn from victim and eyewitness accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch in 2008, from individuals who were interviewed independently in different locations, and with different translators. The methods described below correspond closely to the findings of Amnesty International in 2004 but this is not a comprehensive list.[96]
"Helicopter": the victim´s hands and feet are tied together behind the back, sometimes opposite limbs, i.e. left hand to right foot, and the victim is left face down, often outside in the hot sun. Detainees described seeing this procedure in most of the prisons mentioned in this report, in particular in Alla prison.[97]
"Otto" or eight: Otto, meaning eight in Italian, is a punishment where the hands are tied together behind the back and victims must lie on their stomachs. This was the most common torture method noted by former conscripts and detainees, practiced in all the prisons and in Wi´a and Sawa military camps.
One man interviewed by Human Rights Watch said he was tied for two weeks in the otto position, even when he slept, because he tried to escape from Wi´a training camp.[98] A soldier deployed to Assab on the coast refused an order and was tortured by being tied in the otto position: "My leader ordered me to go into the sea and I refused because I have problems in my left ear. I was punished with otto for four hours. Four hours of otto in Assab is very bad because it´s so hot," he said.[99]
"Ferro": Ferro is an Italian word for iron. The method is similar to otto described above except that the wrists are bound with handcuffs. The prisoner may also be left in the sun.
According to a former army officer detained in Alla, ferro was often the punishment for those suspected of trying to escape from the army. "If someone is suspected of escaping then they are tied up—just hands or hands and feet, or ferro, he said. "Individuals decide what kind of punishment is given, there´s no law. They do not have any crimes but [people are punished because] they hate the military or hate to be a soldier. That is the main reason. Because everyone in Eritrea hates to be in the army."[100]
"Jesus Christ": As the name suggests, the victim is crucified by being tied with rope to a tree or a cross and then left to hang, and sometimes beaten while hung.
A conscript who answered back and then struck his commanding officer described being punished in this way:
My leader [of the unit] ordered me to make charcoal that he wanted to take home to his family. But I told him, I am in training, this is not my job, so I told him ´No.´ He hit me. I said he cannot hit me so I hit him also...That captain together with other leaders beat me. I still have the scars on my head [he has visible wide scars on his head and neck]. They tied me in a crucifix style to a tree, with my hands behind me, for two hours at a stretch, off the ground. We call it a cross—the hands are tied to wood and you are hanging in the air. They left me to sleep outside [on the ground] while tied up. It was hot. I got one cup of water for half a day and bread. They asked me no questions during punishment, there were many other people punished at the same time. Every day people were getting different punishments. In front of everyone, with them all watching.[101]
"Goma": Goma is a method involving a radial truck tire. The victim is forced to double up inside a tire for long periods of time.
A conscript who was caught fleeing towards the border in 2005 and imprisoned in Prima military camp was suspected of links to the Ethiopian-backed opposition to the Eritrean government because his mother was Ethiopian. He suffered this form of torture:
T]he worst is when they put you inside a tire [goma]. You are tied inside the circle of the tire and they [beat you with a stick and] ask who is supporting you [in Asmara], who guided you, what kind of program did you have in Ethiopia... Another way to make you suffer is to tie the hands behind your back, sometimes the legs as well. This is called otto, then you are tied to a tree and punished by hanging from a tree. There are those who died from punishment but I was fortunate. Twice they punished me by goma. They use a Ural truck tire. I was rolled in the tire for six hours... Luckily I am not fat. The fat man suffers even more.[102]
Mock drowning: Called by many different names around the world, in Eritrea this method of torture involves submerging a person´s head in water so that s/he believes s/he will drown and was originally used by the Derg in Eritrea.
A man described to Human Rights Watch his experience in Alla military prison of being put in a barrel head first, upside down and forced to answer questions after he had tried to run away from the army four times:
They hit me everywhere in every prison—on the head, on the feet—sometimes the body swelled. The first time they hit you is when they catch you—they hit me—and after two months my body became weak. They put me in a barrel of water, with the head under water and the legs out. They beat people with electric wire in the barrel of water. After three days when the inspector came and if you didn´t accept or respond to his questions then you´d be punished like this. I was interrogated with questions like: ´Who is helping you?´; ´How did you get around without permission?´; ´How did you reach the border?´; ´Who had the master plan?´; ´Who was your guide?´; ´Are you a soldier?´ I was in the barrel five times.[103]
Beating: Beating is commonplace to the point of "normality" and is often preceded or followed by other torture methods. Nearly every former detainee interviewed by Human Rights Watch described regular beatings, often daily, severe, and resulting in lasting physical damage.
Helen Berhane, a famous Eritrean Christian gospel singer was beaten whilst in detention and warned to renounce her faith. She was eventually released and sought asylum in Denmark but her legs were severely injured as a result of the beatings.[104]
Another conscript who tried to escape described being beaten by intelligence officials: "When I was captured they beat me badly. After three months of beatings they started asking: ´Whose idea was it to go?´ That was the main reason for the beating. When they are beating people they divide you into three groups: those they believe, those they don´t believe, those they are preparing to beat."[105]
Another former conscript and detainee told Human Rights Watch he now has problems with incontinence as a result of the beating he received in detention. He said, "Beatings were like food in prison—every day."[106]
There are myriad ways in which military superiors torture subordinates or try and scare them from escaping military service. One of the most egregious accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch concerned unsuccessful deserters from Sawa camp being tied to a corpse. A witness said: "One had been shot running away, the other two had their hands tied to the feet of the dead person. They were paraded round the camp in the back of a Toyota pick-up truck. The intention was for everyone to see."[107]
Many political prisoners have suffered the full gamut of torture methods. One government journalist who was arrested and detained in 2004 because of an article he had written raising questions of government policy was punished first in a police station in Asmara before being sent to Dahlak prison—a facility on an island in the Red Sea exclusively for political prisoners (see Prison Conditions below).
I was questioned in police station 6 in Asmara. There are different types of interrogation: physical and psychological. The first step is asking questions if I had a hand in the G-15. Then they change methods, try to get the truth by force. There is a big fence in the back of the 6th police station, with a tree—they tie you up, then throw you down on the ground, again and again. They tie you up in the number eight position. Everybody will taste these kinds of punishment, it is normal, like flu... Before I went to Dahlak I was hung up like Christ for 24 hours. Then after 24 hours I was thrown on the ground and they put milk and sugar on your face and the flies come and eat your face.[108]
Prison Conditions
The prison infrastructure
The total number of prisons in Eritrea is a mystery. Eritrea has a formidable network of detention facilities, some of which are well known, and others secret, some authorized, and others not. Many, if not most political prisoners and those detained for trying to flee the country or for practicing "illegal" religions are held incommunicado in appalling conditions, often underground or in metal shipping containers (see below).
Keeping track of all the detention facilities is extremely difficult because each town and administrative district in Eritrea has a jail; wherever there is a police post is a cell; and each military division has its own prison. In addition, there are secret facilities about which many rumors exist, such as Eiraeiro, where members of the G-15 are thought to be held.
There is a distinction between the kind of treatment in civilian and military prisons, with the latter reported to be worse than the former. As a former officer in charge of a military facility explained, in the military:
Each operation has its own prisons and security and each level of operations has its own prisons. There´s the headquarters prison at operational level, then a division central prison, brigade prisons, battalion prisons...for nine divisions there may be more than 50 prisons. Inside Moasher [military intelligence] there are many prisons. The officer training center has its own prison. When travelling from town to town there are ID checks called kella. Three quarters of these checkpoints also have prisons underground.... For civilians, there´s a high court and ministry of justice in every town. There is a justice and law for civilians. Political prisoners tend to be held at [...] Dahlak, Nakhura Island, and Alla.[109]
One of the most notorious prisons is on Dahlak Kebir island in the Red Sea—a huge jail of iron sheet buildings and shipping containers holding refugees returned from Malta in 2002, journalists, army deserters, and opposition members.
Other prisons frequently mentioned by former detainees were underground military facilities at Track B (also sometimes called Tract B), a former US storage facility near Asmara airport, Adderser, Haddis Ma´asker near Sawa and the Sudanese border in western Eritrea, Mai Serwa, and Enda Shadushay (6th camp), located inside Camp Sawa. All of these hold a similar mix of army deserters, Evangelical Christians, and other political prisoners.
Many former detainees mentioned passing through Adi Abeto—one of the main prisons outside Asmara—on their way to other places. They stated that sometimes there are over 1,000 prisoners detained there.[110]Other prisons are built specifically next to construction sites to house prisoners who are used for forced labor. Detainees described building prisons and then building military facilities or properties for military leaders at Gedem on the coast, Haddis Ma´askar, and Me´eter.[111]
There are also special places for interrogation such as Alla 17, mentioned by the former intelligence official, and 6th police station in Asmara where several interviewees described being interrogated and tortured.[112]
A list of detention facilities known to Human Rights Watch is included in Annex 1 on page 94.
Conditions in detention
Apart from torture and routine punishment, detainees in Eritrea´s huge network of prisons endure terrible conditions, forced labor, and lethal starvation. With the exception of Ethiopian prisoners of war, the International Committee of the Red Cross is not permitted to visit Eritrea´s military or civilian detention facilities. The government appears completely unconcerned about detention conditions and the fate of the people in its custody. Deaths in custody are common. Prison guards are often demoralized and appalled by what they are asked to do—some of them reportedly escape along with the inmates.
Horrendous descriptions of conditions in many of Eritrea´s different prisons have been widely documented by various nongovernmental organizations in recent years.[113]Many detainees are kept in metal shipping containers or in underground pits in overcrowded and dangerously hot conditions for months at a time.[114]
Dahlak prison, located on Dahlak Kebir island in the Red Sea, is one of the most infamous detention facilities in the country, thought to be one of the primary places for long-term detention of political prisoners including those involuntarily repatriated to Eritrea by other countries. Human Rights Watch spoke to several people who had spent more than two years there. Hundreds of prisoners are kept in cells made of zinc sheeting or underground, among them those who had been forcefully returned from Malta in 2002.[115] In either place they described temperatures regularly over 104°F (40°C), and were provided with only 750 milliliters of water a day.[116]
As with all Eritrean prisons, the detention is arbitrary: "In Dahlak there is no time limit," a former detainee told Human Rights Watch. "You are waiting for two things: either someone is coming to transfer you or to kill you."[117] This political prisoner, who was eventually released, recalled, "When I left Dahlak I was 44 kilograms. My hemoglobin was nothing. I needed a stick to walk. We were living underground, the temperature was 44°C; it was unbelievable. There is no word to express the inhumanity."[118]
A man detained in a facility called Halhalas, a sub-provincial prison 45 kilometers from Asmara, said, "How can I describe...it is so bad. We got 300 grams of bread per day, one bread per mealtime, there was no washing. We were taken to the river maybe once a month, surrounded by military, for five minutes in the river." Compared to reports from Alla prison, where former inmates said they were given one piece of bread per day, this was good.[119]Detainees described poor nutrition and starvation rations in most facilities. A man detained in Asmara´s Track B prison for a day before he was transferred said he received a single biscuit.[120] Others told Human Rights Watch they received one cup of water a day despite hot and overcrowded conditions.[121]
Everyone interviewed by Human Rights Watch who had spent time in detention in Eritrea´s prisons complained of overcrowding. It is such that there is a name for the style of sleeping in detention. "´Cortielo´ means we were sleeping on our sides—you couldn´t move or change sides or you would wake up your neighbors," said one former detainee.[122]Similar conditions were reported in Alla and in Prima military camp.[123]
A former prisoner described the zinc cell where he was held in Sawa camp as two meters by three meters with 25 to 30 people in it. Later he was moved to Me´eter, another military prison, because the new military camp there needed lots of labor. There, he said, "We were forced to build bridges and a military compound."[124]A man held in Haddis Ma´asker said, "It was very crowded with no place to sleep. You´re always breathing the smell of other people and most people are sweating because it´s hot. The smell becomes toxic."[125]
Underground
Detaining people underground appears to be a typical practice of the Eritrean government—much of the liberation struggle was fought from underground bunkers, some of which, it appears, have now become jails for the some of the very people who fought for freedom. Underground facilities were reported at Sawa, Track B, Mai Serwa, Haddis Ma´asker, Aderser, Alla, and Dahlak, among others. There are multiple prisons in Camp Sawa, including several underground cells. One former inmate described "a big hole with trees across the top and then earth on top. They don´t allow you to come out—even for six months. People got those allergies and became sick. I was okay. But some were scratching their skin and bleeding."[126]
One young conscript who was detained in an underground prison near Wi´a camp met around 30 members of the former Ethiopian Derg regime there who had been held since the war of liberation against Ethiopia ended in 1991—up to 17 years. They had no idea how long they had been there, they had no idea if their children were alive and grown up or dead. The first thing they asked the new arrival was whether he had a razor blade so they could kill themselves. "Their crime was to be in the Derg," said the young conscript.[127]
Shipping Containers
According to former detainees, shipping containers are frequently used as detention facilities in Sawa, Mai Serwa, Dahlak, and Klima, near Assab. Shipping containers were apparently first used to incarcerate people because of a shortage of detention facilities.[128]
Several national service conscripts interviewed by Human Rights Watch described being held in metal shipping containers in Sawa camp. One of them who was taken there after both his parents had been arbitrarily detained (they were former ELF leaders who had then joined the EPLF) recalled: "There were seven or eight containers, you know for bringing goods from outside. They had cut doors in them made of steel. They put me there because they called me a political prisoner because of my parents. The conditions were cruel, they beat you with a flex, a wire, they beat everyone, every night. They want to make us afraid, just enough beating not to die and not to live."[129]
One female soldier was held with 14 other women for 24 hours a day, some of whom had refused to have sexual relations with their commanding officers. The only time they were allowed outside was to go to the toilet, "They can hold them there as long as they want, there´s no fixed time," she said.[130]Helen Berhane, the gospel singer, was held with up to 24 other women in a shipping container for part of the two years she spent in detention in Mai Serwa prison, in unbearable heat.[131]
Extrajudicial Killings and Deaths in Custody
Diaspora websites are full of long lists of "disappeared" individuals, some of whom are believed to have died or been extrajudicially killed in government custody.[132]The accounts of those who have fled the country or escaped from detention are replete with descriptions of people shot whilst trying to escape from national service or whilst trying to cross the border and others who have died in custody from the terrible conditions.[133]
Shot while trying to escape
Dozens of refugees who had escaped from prison or from military service described being shot at without warning while fleeing.[134] In many of these cases the prisoners were clearly unarmed and posed little or no threat to their guards. One man interviewed by Human Rights Watch described how he and his fellow inmates in a container in Sawa camp escaped: "We ran in all directions. After you jump the wall there is barbed wire, more than six feet high. I pulled the wire apart and some soldiers opened fire. I saw three people shot, two on the left and one on the right. I could not help them because the situation does not allow you to help your friend."[135]
One witness saw two men shot dead trying to escape from Me´eter prison in 2006.[136]Another escaped when all of the people in his work gang decided to run from their armed guards at the same time. "We used to go out to work, loading and unloading grain and other goods, salt, sugar... We broke out of prison when we went out for work. We figured we might get shot at but some would escape."[137]
Shot for trying to flee Eritrea
Human Rights Watch were told by a number of sources that there is an official "shoot-to-kill" policy in operation against all those trying to cross the border. A former officer in exile told Human Rights Watch that such an order was in effect: "Now the law is killing people for crossing the border. The law changed one year ago."[138] Another more senior officer, specified: "There was a circular. There has been such a large number of people [crossing] that there was an announcement that anyone who crosses the border will be shot. Whoever tries to cross will be killed immediately and repeat offenders are also killed... those who escape again and again will be shot [even if they are not trying to cross borders]. This was issued by the Ministry of Defense in April 200[7]."[139]
A former intelligence officer described to Human Rights Watch the execution of two men, a soldier and a university student, who he stated were detained and then shot at Alla 17 prison for intending to flee the country.[140]
Deaths in custody
Survivors told Human Rights Watch that many people died in custody from sickness, heat stroke, or from beatings. According to Reporters sans frontières, three of the journalists arrested in the crackdown in 2001 died in custody between 2005 and 2006, a fourth died in January 2007.[141]
The survivors of Dahlak consider themselves to be lucky. As one former inmate said, "In Dahlak, every day someone died. The food was very little and there was no medical attention. No one cares for prisoners. While I was there about 25 percent died from lack of medication and the bad conditions."[142]
Another man imprisoned in Dahlak said, "People were dying and getting sick and crazy. My group was detained the longest but there were others there who had been returned from Malta, Libya. In 2005 many prisoners were dying because of the heat and overcrowding, so they transferred some of us to Gedem. It was the hot season and we were dying of hunger, plus the brutal beating of the guards was causing many people to die. There were 10 dead in my block."[143]
In Addenafas prison, near Assab, one witness told of two inmates who died in a cell holding 13 Christians. Two of them became ill but "there were no medical facilities and the nutrition was bad. This was 2006, the deaths."[144]
At the military camp in Me´eter, "the sleeping was better but there was another problem because we were forced to urinate in corner of the cell, where we were sleeping. Many people got cholera, two in my cell died."[145] And in the container in Sawa camp, "there are 20 people in a container, it is very hot. One died of heat, one died of sickness in my container."[146]
In one military camp, Prima, an inmate was detained alongside three people accused of co-operating with the Democracy Movement of Eritrea (DemHaE )[147]who he described as dying as a result of torture in custody: Asmourom Kifle, Tama Kefelay, and Awat Habtezgee. He described seeing Awat, "bleeding from the nose and mouth. Every time they were being hit and finally they died. I was listening to the sound but I didn´t see it... It was hard hitting with a stick or wire on the head and everywhere. They sent Awat to the hospital and he died there."[148]
A sergeant who had fled to Djibouti and formerly had responsibility for supervising a prison, told Human Rights Watch, "They don´t inform families directly or indirectly if a soldier dies in prison. It doesn´t matter if the death is from disease or hitting, [the soldier is] still a "martyr." No investigation is made, or questions asked."[149]
Indefinite Forced Conscription
Enforced indefinite national service is an increasingly important element of Eritrea´s human rights crisis. Conscripts undergo military training, in itself not illegal. However, they are subjected to cruel military punishments and torture, already described above. Many may be deployed in what constitutes illegal forced labor. Those who try and evade national service are treated cruelly. Evaders are detained in terrible conditions, and heavy penalties are imposed on the families of those who evade service or flee the country.
Eritrea´s success in its 30-year armed struggle for independence from Ethiopia was due in some measure to extraordinary discipline on the part of the Eritrean People´s Liberation Front (EPLF) and the effective mobilization of the whole adult population in the service of the liberation war effort.[150] Since the border war with Ethiopia ended in 2000, however, increasing numbers of Eritreans—especially youth—voice frustration with the continuing military mobilization and the fact that the democratic transition has been shelved, along with the population´s human rights.
An officer who fled the country told Human Rights Watch: "In the first war the Eritrean people were coming by themselves [volunteering] to the army and the hope then was to return quickly to civilian life. Then the Ethiopian offensive into Eritrea made all the Eritrean people rise up. But now the reality has changed... Everyone is in national service."[151]One young man who had recently fled Eritrea told Human Right Watch, "It´s okay to do national service, it´s fair to serve one´s country but not always. It´s not fair when it´s indefinite."[152]
After peace in 1991 and independence in 1993, the new government formalized its commitment to national service in a 1995 proclamation.[153]According to that proclamation, the objectives of national service are:
The establishment of a strong defence force based on the people to ensure a free and sovereign Eritrea;
To preserve and entrust future generations [with] the courage, resoluteness [and] heroic episodes shown by our people in the past thirty years;
Create a new generation characterized by love of work, discipline, ready to participate and serve in the reconstruction of the nation;
To develop and enforce the economy of the nation by investing in development work our people as a potential wealth;
To develop professional capacity and physical fitness by giving regular military training and continuous practice to participants in Training Centers;
To foster national unity among our people by eliminating sub-national feelings.[154]
The law states that all Eritrean citizens, men and women between the ages of 18 and 50, have the obligation to perform national service. In normal circumstances, national service is supposed to last 18 months (article 8). This consists of six months military training and 12 months deployment either on military duties or some other national development project. However, article 13 (2) states that even after completing the compulsory 18 months, national service can be extended until 50 years of age "under mobilization or emergency situation directives given by the government."[155]
During the first four rounds of the national service, those who were called up were demobilized after 18 months, but after war broke out with Ethiopia in 1998, everything changed. Former fighters were called up again, reservists who had been demobilized were conscripted, and all national service recruits were retained under emergency directives.
Although the war with Ethiopia ended in 2000, in May 2002 the government introduced the Warsai Yekalo Development Campaign (WYDC), a proclamation that indefinitely extended national service. The government had promised to demobilize thousands of conscripts after the war, and did demobilize some, but by 2007 it reportedly suspended the demobilization program.[156]The WYDC was a national effort in which the generation that had fought for independence would join with new recruits to build the nation. In effect, it meant the forced conscription of every adult male up to the age of 50, although some refugees claim 55 is now the upper limit, with other sources claiming up to 57 for men and 47 for women.[157]
Not all national service is military service, since many conscripts are not deployed in the army but on civilian development projects, or are assigned to commercial enterprises with their salary paid to the Ministry of Defense.[158] However, the Ministry of Defense is in control of the national service program and if someone working on a construction project were to abscond they are still be regarded as a deserter under military law.[159]
Refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch emphasized that there was no difference between military and civilian national service—conscripts are equally at the mercy of the state.[160] One Eritrean academic notes that, "What people do not realise is that in Eritrea, there is no military service. There is only Hagerawi Agelglot (National Service) which is much more ambitious and broader than common Military Service."[161] Military duties are only one of a number of different assignments that conscripts can be tasked with, although it is the most common.
At the time of writing, most of the able-bodied adult population is on active, indefinite, compulsory national service or on reserve duty. The only exceptions are on health grounds, or, for women, pregnancy.[162] In discussions with visiting members of the European Parliament, Eritrean government officials, "admitted that military service, although formally to last 18 months, often extends over decades, reducing both the active workforce and the individual freedom and choices of the citizens."[163]
Eritrea has also used its conscription policy to harass and detain UN and NGO staff, purportedly on the grounds that they have not fulfilled their national service obligations.[164] In 2005, seven Eritrean UNMEE staff were under arrest[165] and the number rose to 27 in early 2006,[166] some of whom were later released.[167]
For a country to enforce conscription laws may not be a violation of human rights.
However, the way this is done in Eritrea—the violent methods used, the lack of any right to conscientious objection, and the lack of any mechanism to enable a challenge to the arbitrary enforcement of conscription constitutes abuse. Furthermore, although national service and conscription at times of genuine national emergency may be permitted as a limited exception to the prohibition on forced labor, the indefinite nature of national service in Eritrea, the threat of penalty (and collective punishment of families of those who desert), the use of recruits for forced labor, and the abuses associated with punishing those who do not participate violate Eritreans´ basic human rights, various provisions of the Eritrean constitution, and international human rights law.[168]
The consequences for Eritrea are disastrous in that the more the government seeks to compel the population, the more people flee the country. Eritrea is now in the grip of a refugee crisis with thousands of people fleeing or attempting to flee every month (see below, "The Experience of Refugees.")[169] And since everyone must serve, no family in Eritrea is unaffected by the consequences of the national service policy.
Notes
74] Human Rights Watch interview with academic, January 11, 2009.
75] Dan Connell, "Eritrea and the United States: the ´war on terror´ and the Horn of Africa," in Richard Reid, ed., Eritrea´s External Relations: Understanding its regional role and foreign policy (Chatham House, 2009), p. 207.
76] Human Rights Watch interview with former EPLF fighter, now refugee, Sicily, Italy, October 24, 2008.
77] The UN Declaration on Enforced Disappearances defines "disappeared" persons as those who are "arrested, detained, or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of liberty by government officials, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the direct or indirect support, consent, or acquiescence of the government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law." United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances (Convention against Enforced Disappearances), adopted December 18, 1992, G.A. res. 47/133, 47 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 207, UN Doc. A/47/49 (1992), art. 7. In Eritrea, family members do not always enquire after the whereabouts of their relatives due to pervasive fear, and in some cases, first-hand experience that they will be arrested in turn if they make such inquiries. Nonetheless, while technically these cases may not constitute "disappearances," in most of the cases documented by Human Rights Watch the "disappeared" individuals were last seen when arrested by Eritrean security forces, and the practice of arbitrary arrest and incommunicado detention by the government are widely known by the Eritrean public. Human Rights Watch therefore views these cases as "disappearances."
78] See US State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2008: Eritrea," February 25, 2009, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/af/119000.htm (accessed February 27, 2009). See also Amnesty International, "Prisoners of Conscience Remembered on 7th Anniversary of Mass Detentions," September 18, 2008, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR64/007/2008/en/2eacb4cf-8593-11dd-8e5e-43ea85d15a69/afr640072008en.html (accessed December 17, 2008).
79] Reporters sans frontières, World Report, 2008 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25386 (accessed December 15, 2008).
80] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with diplomat, January 13, 2009.
81] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscripts, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
82] He has not seen his father since and was jailed for a year. Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
83] Human Rights Watch interview with former prisoner, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
84] Human Rights Watch interviews with former military officers, Djibouti, September 16 and 17, 2008.
85] Human Rights Watch interviews with Eritrean refugees, Sicily, Italy, and London, UK, October and November 2008.
86] Human Rights Watch interview with former officer, Djibouti, September 17, 2008.
87] Human Rights Watch interview with national service teacher, Sicily, Italy, October 25, 2008.
88] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Djibouti, September 18, 2008.
89] Human Rights Watch interview with former military driver, Sicily, Italy, October 28, 2008.
90] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
91]Human Rights Watch interview with former conscripts, Sicily, Italy, October 2008.
92] Human Rights Watch interview with female former conscript, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
93] Human Rights Watch interview with Pentecostal pastor, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
94] See the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Punishment or Treatment, art. 1, http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm (accessed January 28, 2009). Ethiopia acceded to the Convention against Torture on April 13, 1994.
95] Human Rights Watch interviews with survivors of Sawa and Wi´a camps, Sicily, Italy, October 24-31, 2008.
96] See Amnesty International, Eritrea: 'You have no right to ask' - Government resists scrutiny on human rights, AI Index: AFR 64/003/2004, May 18, 2004, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR64/003/2004 (accessed February 18, 2009).
97] Human Rights Watch interview with former inmate of Alla, Sicily, Italy, October 25, 2008.
98] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript in Wi´a camp, Djibouti, September 18, 2008.
99] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
100] Human Rights Watch interview with former officer, Djibouti, September 18, 2008.
101] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Sicily, Italy, October 28,
2008.
102] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Djibouti, September 16, 2008.
103] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Djibouti, September 17, 2008.
104] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Helene Berhane, December 19, 2008.
105] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Djibouti, September 16, 2008.
106] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Djibouti, September 17, 2008.
107] Human Rights Watch interview with former student, London, November 13, 2008.
108] Human Rights Watch interview with former journalist, Italy, October 30, 2008.
109] Human Rights Watch interview with former officer, Djibouti, September 18, 2008.
110] Ibid and Human Rights Watch interviews with former detainees, Djibouti and Italy, September and November 2008.
111] Human Rights Watch interviews with former detainees, Djibouti and Italy, September and October 2008.
112] Human Rights Watch interviews with former political prisoners, Sicily, Italy, October 26 and 30, 2008.
113] See US State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2008: Eritrea," February 25, 2009, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/af/119000.htm (accessed February 27, 2009). See also Amnesty International, You have no right to ask, reports by Christian Solidarity Worldwide available at www.csw.org.uk, and accounts on www.awate.com and www.delina.org. See also Helen Berhane (former political prisoner, now a refugee in Denmark) interview with BBC World Service, October 24, 2008 http://blip.tv/file/443487 (accessed December 24, 2008).
114] Human Rights Watch interviews Djibouti and Italy, September and October 2008, and Amnesty International, You have no right to ask.
115] Human Rights Watch interviewed former detainees in Dahlak who said that they had been detained alongside returnees from Malta.
116] Human Right Watch interviews with former conscript and journalist, Sicily, Italy, October 30, 2008.
117] Human Rights Watch interview with former political prisoner, Sicily, Italy, October 30, 2008.
118] Human Rights Watch interview with former journalist, Sicily, Italy, October 30, 2008.
119] Human Rights Watch interview with former inmate, Alla prison, Djibouti, September 18, 2008.
120] Human Rights Watch interview, Sicily, October 24, 2008.
121] Human Rights Watch interviews, Sicily, September 24-30, 2008.
122] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Sicily, Italy, October 25, 2008.
123] Human Rights Watch interviews with former detainees, Djibouti and Italy, September and October 2008.
124] Ibid.
125] Human Rights Watch interview, Sicily, October 28, 2008.
126] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Djibouti, September 16, 2008.
127] Human Rights Watch interview with former officer, Djibouti, September 18, 2008.
128] Amnesty, You have no right to ask, pp. 20-21.
129] Human Rights Watch interview with former prisoner, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
130] Human Rights Watch interview with female conscript, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
131] Interview with Helen Berhane, by phone, December 19, 2008.
132] for example, www.awate.com, www.delina.org, and www.ehrea.org. A defunct website called www.farajat.com had a list of over 800 people who had disappeared at the hands of the EPLF and the PFDJ; the list is on file with Human Rights Watch. A site called www.farajat.net exists but does not have the list posted.
133] Human Rights Watch interviews, Djibouti and Italy, September and October 2008. See also, Amnesty International, You have no right to ask; Reporters sans frontières, www.rsf.org; and Christian Solidarity Worldwide, www.csw.org.uk.
134] Human Rights Watch interviews, Sicily, Italy, October 24-30, 2008.
135] Human Rights Watch interview with former prisoner, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
136] Human Rights Watch interview with former prisoner, Sicily, Italy, October 25, 2008.
137] Human Rights Watch interview with former prisoner, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
138] Human Rights Watch interview with former officer, Djibouti, September 16, 2008, see also an article describing the circular from ´a very reliable source,´ at http://www.awate.com/portal/content/view/4502/3/ (accessed January 26, 2009).
139] Human Rights Watch interview with former officer, Djibouti, September 16, 2008.
140] Meginsteab Girmay Ares, November 18, 2008.
141] Reporters sans frontières, Annual Report 2008 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25386 (accessed December 17, 2008).
142] Human Rights Watch interview, Sicily, Italy, October 30, 2008.
143] Human Rights Watch interview with former prisoner, Sicily, Italy, October 30, 2008.
144] Human Rights Watch interview with former prisoner, Djibouti, September 16, 2008.
145] Human Rights Watch interview with former conscript, Sicily, Italy, October 25, 2008.
146] Human Rights Watch interview with former prisoner, Sicily, Italy, October 26, 2008.
147] Democracy Movement of Eritrea, an opposition group opposed to the ruling PFDJ regime, an offshoot of the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Eritrea (DMLE).
148] Human Rights Watch interview with former prisoner, Djibouti, September 16, 2008.
149] Human Rights Watch interview with former soldier, Djibouti, September 18, 2008.
150] See Gaim Kibreab, "Forced Labour in Eritrea," Journal of Modern African Studies, 47, 1 (2009), pp. 41-72, and Pool, From Guerillas to Government.
151] Human Rights Watch interview with Eritrean military deserter, Djibouti, September 16, 2008.
152] Human Rights Watch interview, Eritrean refugee, Sicily, Italy, October 29, 2008.
153] Government of Eritrea, ´Proclamation of National Service No.82/1995,´ Eritrean Gazette, No.11 October 23, 1995.
154] Ibid., article 5.
155] Ibid., article 13 (2).
156] See Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Child Soldiers Global Report 2008 - Eritrea, 20 May 2008. Online. UNHCR Refworld, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/486cb0fdc.html (accessed March 3, 2009).
157] Human Rights Watch interview with academic, London, January 11, 2009, also Human Rights Watch interviews with refugees Djibouti, Italy, and Britain, September, October, and November, 2008. One witness said, "They say 50 but it´s not really," Djibouti, Italy, September 16, 2008. See also, UK Border Agency, ´Country of Origin Report,´ Home Office, September 13, 2008, p. 47 for a presentation of some of the source material, at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/country_reports.html#ecuador (accessed January 29, 2009).
158] Human Rights Watch interviews with diplomat, Asmara, by phone, January 13, 2009; with Gaim Kibreab, London, December 4, 2008; and with Eritrean refugees in Djibouti and Italy, September and October 2008.
159] Ibid.
160] Human Rights Watch interviews with Eritrean refugees in Djibouti and Italy, September and October 2008.
161] Human Rights Watch interview with Gaim Kibreab, London, December 4, 2008.
162] Human Rights Watch interviews with Eritrean refugees in Djibouti and Italy, September and October 2008. See also Government of Eritrea, ´Proclamation of National Service No.82/1995,´ Eritrean Gazette, No.11 October 23, 1995, articles 12 and 14. See note 140, above.
163] Report of the fact-finding mission of a Delegation of the Development Committee of the European Parliament to the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia) (25 October-2 November 2008), p. 5.
164] United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General on Ethiopia and Eritrea, S/2007/33, January 22, 2007, p. 3.
165] United Nations, "Safety and Security of humanitarian personnel and protection of United Nations personnel," A/60/223/Corr.1, November 10, 2005, http://www.iom.ch/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/policy_and_research/un/60/A_60_223_corr_1_en.pdf (accessed March 3, 2009).
166] "UN peacekeeping mission voices hope Eritrea will release 11 arrested local staff," UN news, May 12, 2006, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2006/05/mil-060512-unnews03.htm (accessed March 3, 2009).
167] Ibid.
168] Eritrea ratified the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105) on 22 February 2000, The Constitution of Eritrea, Chapter III ´Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, Articles 13-29.´
169] It is unclear exactly how many Eritreans are fleeing every month but the numbers have steadily increased over the past few years. See "Sudan asks UN for aid for Eritrean, Somali refugees,´" Reuters, December 22, 2008, http://lite.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LM314868.htm (accessed March 3, 2009). Ethiopia claims there are more than 30,000 Eritrean refugees in the Shimelba camp but the US Committee for Refugees put the number of Eritreans in Shimelba at 16,800 in 2008. See Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "A Week in the Horn," Jan. 23, 2009, http://www.mfa.gov.et/Press_Section/Week_Horn_Africa_January_23_2009.htm and United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, World Refugee Survey 2008 - Ethiopia, June 19, 2008. Online. UNHCR Refworld, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/485f50d171.html (accessed March 3, 2009).
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