Eritrea and the Responsibility to Project

"From the standpoint of justice, the opinions of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interest of the United States in the Red Sea basin and considerations of security and world peace make it necessary that the country has to be linked with our ally, Ethiopia."
~John Foster Dulles, 1950.

The chronic drought that has engulfed the Horn of Africa this year is a perfect storm of climate change, failed economic policies and financial speculation, with enormous national security implications. While the world watches developed countries like the United States, Australia and Canada frustrate a comprehensive climate deal in Durban, the latest round of sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council upon Eritirea threatens the national sovereignty of one of Africa’s poorest countries.

The Sanctions

The primary factor driving these sanctions has been the persistent security situation in Somalia and Asmara’s alleged support to Al Shabaab militants that control the Southern regions of Somalia, as well as other groups in Djibouti, Ethiopia and the Sudan. A July 2011 report from the Security Council’s Monitoring Group in Somalia and Eritrea details support for armed opposition groups by “a small but efficient team of officers from the National Security Office, the Eritrean military and the PFDJ [the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice] leadership under direct supervision of the President’s Office, ” in violation of the arms embargo imposed by a previous sanctions.

Resolution 2023 passed 13-0 (with Russia and China abstaining, as they did during successive rounds of sanctions against Libya) on 5 December and serves as a reminder more than anything else. Following on from Resolutions 1844 (2008) and 1907 (Christmas eve, 2009) that prohibit the supply of arms or other military hardware to Eritrea and prohibit Eritrea from supporting armed groups in the region, this resolution compels countries to “undertake appropriate measures to promote the exercise of vigilance” over individuals and corporations engaging in business in Eritrea.

Penned by Gabon, these measures have been watered-down from those originally proposed that would have strangled the nascent mining industry of investment. The vast majority of Eritreans are engaged agriculture, and, despite the government exercising options to purchase stakes in the mining projects, there is virtually no trickle-down effect and it is thought that much of the national budget goes towards military expenditure (the government of Eritrea does not publish budget statements).

The world’s mining giants have begun to sinking their teeth into the resource rich country, with Canadian gold producer Nevsun Resources expecting to pull 1.14 million ounces of gold, 11.9 million ounces of silver, 821 million pounds of copper and over a billion pounds of zinc out of the enormous Bisha Project, where commercial production began in February 2011. Australia’s Chalice Gold Mines was also recently granted two new exploration licences close to Bisha. As well as Eritrean minerals, the Horn of Africa is also seen as a key chokepoint for the world economy, since 30% of the oil supplied to the West must sail past its shores.

Drought Patrol

Eritrean nationals are beset on all sides by persistent poverty and threats to their safety. Postcolonial independence was frustrated in the wake of World War II and the region was entrusted to the tutelage of Ethiopia in 1952; under Ethiopian sovereignty Eritreans enjoyed little formal recognition. The Eritrean War of Independence (estimated to have claimed the lives of two or three members of every Eritrean family) lasted for 30 years from 1961, and as the Cold War thawed the US brokered peace talks. A UN-administered referendum established Eritrea’s independence and recognition of their formal sovereignty commenced on 28 May 1993. The paternal legacy of colonialism and continuing interference has lent Eritrea’s ruling regime a deep distrust of its neighbours, especially along the still-disputed Ethiopian borders, where continuing conflict claimed 70,000 casualties between 1998 and 2000.

While the government of Isias Afwerki continues to adhere to its dogma of self-reliance and vehemently refuses international aid, drought and famine remain omnipresent threats in the region. Two consecutive poor raining seasons, increasing demand for land and water for commercial agribusiness (especially in Ethiopia) and aid practices oriented around market-friendly but water-hungry cash crops, have made 2011 a very difficult year for the Horn of Africa. When coupled with soaring commodity prices on international markets, the result of financial speculation by the world’s biggest banks and hedge funds, famine, malnourishment and infant mortality has become commonplace throughout East Africa.

It is unclear what the impact of this drought has been on Eritrea. The Eritrean government has protested that the humanitarian situation there has not deteriorated and they are largely immune to the drought’s impacts due to a bumper crop earlier in the year. Still, we must remain very careful about the information that comes out of Eritrea, given the government’s reputation for arresting foreign journalists (recently outranking North Korea in journalist imprisonment in a Report by the Committee to Protect Journalists) and the nationwide ban on foreign media that has earned Eritrea the lowest national press freedom ranking of any country (Reporters without Borders). Some international agencies have even accused Eritrea of hiding the victims of the drought, however little information appears to permeate outside national borders.

Earlier in the year malnourished Eritreans were reported to be crossing the border at a rate of 900 a month and weather-mapping technology indicates that Eritrea has suffered from similarly low rainfall as other countries in the Horn. The USAID agency Famine Early Warning Systems Network have estimated the need for emergency relief at 1.9 million (out of a total population on 5.1 million), warning in September that poor rainfall would likely soon result in a total failure of long-cycle crops and below average harvest of short-cycle crops. Other aid organizations have made different pronouncements, such as the German Terra Tech which argues that Eritrea has avoided famine thanks to the implementation climate-sensitive irrigation systems. Aid worker Gordon Peters from the World Development Movement goes further, claiming that Eritrea’s practice of self-sustainability has forced it outside the officially sanctioned discourses of development. Given USAID’s vested interest in seeing international aid projects enter Eritrea, especially those sanctioned by the Bretton Woods institutions, and Asmara’s hostility towards the West, it is difficult to know exactly where the truth lies.

Constructing the Responsibility to Project

The pretext for a further round of sanctions has been, unpredictably, the continuing threat of terrorism from radical Islamic extremist groups. Critical readers will quickly see this as a window for the projection of power, which, when coupled with the pressing moral dilemmas of disaster relief, creates a compelling sense of responsibility for intervention. Eritrea’s demonization has primarily stemmed from its support for Al-Shabaab, the designated terrorist organization that has gained increasing notoriety in light of its ban on Western aid groups operating in territories under their control. Yet it is important to understand the rise of al-Shabaab as a product of failed Western policies in the Horn of Africa to defend its economic interests.

Somalia’s last stable government, led by Marxist despot Siad Barre, crumbled under its own weight in 1991 and the country entered a chaotic power vacuum and ongoing civil war, punctuated by the infamous “Black Hawk Down” incident and the wholesale withdrawal of Western influence from the region. Tribal warlords provided some structure (if not stability), but it was the ascent of sharia-based Islamic courts that filled this vacuum; initially settling disputes, they subsequently developing other services such as healthcare, education and localized policing. The courts became more respected by locals and organized into the Islamic Courts Union, proving to be the most stable arrangement in Somalia since Barre.

Despite an official policy of denial from the Eritrean government, jurists and political leaders from the ICU admitted to receiving assistance from Asmara. The warlords that controlled Mogadishu united in reaction to the ICU’s growing power (forming the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism), but by mid-2006 the ICU had claimed control of Mogadishu and surrounding areas, cleaning up the streets and re-opening Mogadishu airport. Most warlords had either fled or been captured.

As the ICU increasingly won popular support, the UN- and US-sponsored Transitional Federal Government based in Baidoa (northwest of Mogadishu) was established in 2004. Washington’s opposition to the ICU’s rise was aimed at the ICU’s limited connections with al-Qaeda and the protection it provided to three individuals involved in the 1998 Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. A JSOC Task Force of 900 was assigned to Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, while many of the warlords that remained in Somalia were progressively bought off by the West.

Through their East African fortress power Ethiopia (which receives US$7 billion annually in aid from Washington), the US began a proxy invasion of Somalia, sending Ethiopian troops into Somali territory from mid-2006 onwards, with heavy fighting breaking out in December with a force of 40,000-50,000 troops. US airpower gave the Ethiopian forces a strong military advantage. It was a bloodbath peppered with extrajudicial killings, as the Ethiopian troops were determined to stop the spread of what they had been sold as a global jihadist agenda. Skirmishes through the month led to the fall of Mogadishu in December 28 and the withdrawal of the ICU to the Jubba River area, while leaders vowed to continue their struggle through guerilla tactics. While moderate members of the Union that had fled to Eritrea and Djibouti reentered the fold as the TFG assumed official control of the country, uncompromising Islamists factions splintered off, of which al-Shabaab is the largest. As investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill explains:

“Although there was certainly a small Al Qaeda presence in Somalia before the United States launched its operations—and Islamic militants did carry out assassinations, including the killing of four foreign aid workers in the relatively peaceful Somaliland region in late 2003 and early 2004—the actions of [secular war-lord] Qanyare and his fellow CIA-backed warlords gave the Islamic militants fodder for an effective propaganda and recruitment campaign.”

al-Shabaab’s focus has been on the Southern and Western areas of Somalia, and indeed their claim to territory is much greater than that of the TFG (who really only hold Mogadishu). Their calls for jihad against the Ethiopian invaders and the TFG began in early 2007, and by August 2008 they had achieved a military victory over TFG forces at Kismayo. They have claimed responsibility for a huge number of atrocities throughout Somalia, as well as the 2010 Kampala attacks, and have sought to expel all Western influence from the country, including aid organizations sent to Somalia to deal with the drought, is seen to encompass a double agenda.

Support for al Shabaab is not the only limb of the agenda to discredit the Eritrean regime and establish the responsibility to project American power, and a recent wikileaks cable has shed some light on one of the more sinister elements. Recently released US State Department cables have shed more light on the secret campaign the US and Ethiopia have embarked on together to discredit al-Shabaab and the Eritrean state. There an embassy source revealed that a September 2006 bombing in Addis Ababa that was publicly credited to the Oromo Liberation Front and the the assistance of the Eritrean government, “may have in fact been the work of the GoE [Government of Ethiopia] security forces.”

The latest round of sanctions exists largely to reinforce the proposed threat from the Eritrean regime. And while many criticisms can be leveled at the Eritrean government, our responses to these must be couched in a manner that does not hand the country and its people over to international agribusiness and mining firms whose only interests lie in extractive endeavours, with scant regard for the Eritreans themselves who suffer at the hands of both an oppressive government and an oppressive international response.

ENDS

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