The US and “Regime Change” in Eritrea

The Bush Administration has expressed the need for regime change in Eritrea as part of its global campaign to root out terror.

The plan made public by a senior US diplomat in September coincides with stepped up campaigns by the Eritrean democratic opposition to end internal terror in that troubled African country.

Already, the US foreign policy lexicon describes the Eritrean government as a rogue regime - a designation once reserved for Pol Pot’s Cambodia, the racist outlaws of Apartheid South Africa, and Liberia’s vile Despot Charles Taylor.

In order to curb Asmara’s destabilizing role in the Horn of Africa, including its support for Al-Qaida-linked insurgency elements in Somalia, the US has threatened the Eritrean President for life, Mr. Isayas Aferworki that it may declare his country a “State Sponsor of Terrorism.”

If the Bush Administration sees no hope, as it definitely will not, in Afeworki’s mischievous behavior and decides to blacklist, Eritrea would be the first non-Arab/Black African country to be named a terrorist state.

The measure will be accompanied with debilitating international military and economic sanctions against the regime aimed at creating the condition for a popular uprising or a coup d’etat.

Sanctions alone never bring regime change as in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, for example. But, unlike Zimbabwe, Eritrea has too many enemies. President Afework’s violent behavior has antagonized all its neighbors – Yemen, Djibouti, Sudan and Ethiopia – by waging wars against them. The country’s borders with its immediate neighbors remain closed.

Poverty/famine stricken Eritrea - with a population of 4.5-miliion - has the largest army in Africa ahead of South Africa or Nigeria. Neighboring states see Eritrea’s never-ending belligerent posture as a threat to international peace and security.

Eritrea’s neighbors will no doubt be happy to see President Afeworki go. Such attitude is encouraging to the opposition forces that are adamant and eager not only to build peace and stability in the region but also install the values of human rights, rule of law and democracy in the country.

Evidently, the majority of Eritreans support the concept of regime change with the exception of a small but powerful minority that stands to lose economically with the demise of authoritarianism in the country. Eritrean pro-democracy movements have to find ways of dealing with that reality.

The broad-based Eritrean political and civic opposition sees Washington’s actions as an added catalyst to weaken Mr. Afeworki’s iron grip on the enslaved population.

In a recent interview with the leading Eritrean online journal, awate.com, Mr. Mesfin Hagos, former Eritrean Defense Minister and current senior member of the opposition umbrella organization, the Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA), said he fully supported US punitive measures against the regime. At the same time, Mr. Mesfin called for caution not to aggravate the already desperate existence of the Eritrean people who are deprived of adequate food or simple freedoms of expression which the civilized world takes for granted.

Mr. Abdella Adem, another senior EDA member and former Eritrean Ambassador to Sudan, gave unconditional support to US plans against the regime. Mr. Adem expressed his frustration with Washington’s disregard for the regime’s most repressive domestic policies which he believed were directly related to Mr. Afeworki’s violent activities beyond his borders.

In a similar vain, Mr. Tewolde Gebreselasse, also senior EDA member, said the regime had for a long time been providing training facilities for various groups that cause terror and chaos in other countries. But, he added the US should also give equal importance to the state sponsored brutalities inside the country.

In an attempt to counter the pro-democracy offensive, the Eritrean government has openly been mobilizing “solidarity” and massive fundraising campaigns under the noses of US, Canadian and European security authorities.

As reported by Eritrean government websites, dehai.org and shabait.com, the regime has ordered a number of anti-democracy diaspora leaders to collect at least $500.00 from each Eritrean national in exchange for favors ranging from simple entry visas to the smallest personal or business transactions in their country of origin.

In a recent civil action, a Canadian court held that such collections and remittances amounted to extortion and were therefore illegal. The judge ruled that the Canadian Eritrean plaintiff be refunded and compensated by the Eritrean government in the amount of $60,000. For many years, the plaintiff had been paying the Eritrean authorities ostensibly for fear that he would be denied some legitimate business benefits or that his family in Eritrea would be victimized.

From the political stand point, the pro-tyranny campaigns allowed in European and American cities in order to bolster the well-being of Africa’s most repressive regime is utterly preposterous. This apparent appeasement encourages President Afeworki not only to become even more aggressive in terrorizing his people but also in exporting terror into neighboring states.

The Asmara government ridicules international human rights pleas and appeals on behalf of thousands of tortured, murdered or disappeared prisoners of conscience. It has also proven to be the fiercest enemy of American and European values and interests.

To be sure, some unsuspecting diaspora Eritreans have been duped into believing that tyranny is needed to preserve national independence and territorial sovereignty. They feel that these hard earned national rights cannot be secured or maintained in an environment where there is respect for human dignity and rule of law within the confines of the Eritrean nation. Nothing could be far from the truth, or course.

Anyone who believes Mr. Afeworki has not been telling the biggest lie ever told by a dictator when sarcastically hammering for 10 years the slogan of “first and foremost ...our national sovereignty,” is simply simple-minded with no notion of how human nature works and especially how tyrants feel, think and behave in order to stay in power.

Dictatorships are by nature dishonest, violent, war mongering, and disaster-prone machines. A country is most likely to be ruined during a dictator’s reign and sometimes the bleeding continues long after the dictatorship is gone.

They often wish to leave behind them devastated, deeply divided, demoralized and unmanageable societies as in the case of Liberia after Samuel Doe, Iraq after Saddam Hussein or Somalia after Siad Barre.

Democratic change will not only benefit the long suffering Eritrean people but will also contribute to stability and prosperity in that sensitive Horn of Africa region. The time for rule of law is now

Woldu Mikael is a freelance writer