Friday, July 22, 2016

Open Letter to Prof. Asmerom Legesse

Posted as Press Release on behalf of EFND, EGS and ህዝባዊ ምልዕዓል asmarino.com on 17 July 2016

As fellow Eritreans who care deeply about the plight of our people, we welcome your call for educated Eritreans to do their part. However, being keenly aware of the total lack of rule of law in Eritrea, we believe our role should be more constructive than what you are proposing (1). We need to find ways to truly liberate our people from the fear and terror they have been subjected to under a government they call their own. These being the facts on the ground, which we believe you are well aware of as well, it was disappointing to see you joining the likes of Yemane Gebreab (Eritrea’s Goebbels) and Osman Saleh, in dressing up a criminal regime that has been shattering the dreams of our people like no enemy has before.

Contrary to the campaign of disinformation you have chosen to spread, the COIE (2) did not rule against Eritrea or the Eritrean people. It ruled in their favor and against the oppressive regime. There is a huge difference between the two. Unlike you, Lady Kinnock, guided by decency and our shared humanity, makes the critical distinction between a brutal regime and a brutalized population. She is not the enemy of the Eritrean people as you accuse her falsely. Rather, she is a good friend, who is standing up for them – now as before. Are you making this key distinction and standing up for your people?

You said you are starting new investigations to discredit COIE’s finding and to nullify the victims’ testimonies. We are saddened to see a person of your caliber going this far down to defend a criminal junta. What did the COIE uncover that we Eritreans, in our hearts, didn’t know already? Did you miss the eloquent message of our Catholic bishops (ሓውኻ ኣበይ ኣሎ?), full of grace and admirable moral leadership every Eritrean, especially the elderly and the educated like yourself, should be aspiring for?

When you wrote the Uprooted (4), you based it on testimonies of victims and victims ONLY. You did not go out of your way to expand the scope to include theoretical third-parties, as you are planning to do now. Why the glaring disconnect? Criticizing the COIE now for using the same research methodologies you used yourself does carry a stench of hypocrisy, wouldn’t you say? 

Your willful dismissal of the inhumane cruelties and incredible pain the victims went through, besides being devoid of reason and compassion, is deeply insulting. Please listen to Helen G/Amlak (3) and tell us why her voice and the voices of other victims are not a million times more relevant than your version of theoretical Eritreans who did not suffer these harrowing experiences. Helen and too many others have gone through hell already. The torture, the filth, the extreme temperatures in metal containers, and the utter disregard for human life Helen describes so eloquently are truths you are campaigning to bury. These are truths we believe you also know very well. Must Helen and your fellow citizens re-live their agonies again – this time at the hands of a highly educated grandfatherly figure who should be speaking on their behalf instead? ሰብ ኣቕሓ ኮይኑ ብኣጽንሓለይ ዝእሰረሉን ሓቒቑ ዝተርፈሉን ባይታ ዝፈጠረ ግዕዙይ ስርዓት እኮ' ዘሎና ፕሮፌሶር።

As one blessed with good education and old age, you could have chosen to spend your time in countless constructive ways. Yet, you chose to dim this new glimmer of hope by adopting the regime’s habitual disinformation campaign. What good is education and old age if it can’t speak truth to power?

As much as we abhor Naizghi Kiflu’s role, you know he was unfairly denied burial rights in his homeland, because the very person he served so well did not allow it. Isaias’s message was not to Naizghi’s corpse. It was to the living dead, essentially saying if I can do that to someone who served me so well, you don’t want to see what I can do to you. The disabled war veterans were massacred in 1994 to convey a similar message -- i.e. if disabled veterans are not safe, no one is. In this environment of fear and terror, loyalty does not buy you anything. All it takes is for one sadistic person to conclude you have outlived your usefulness. God help you when that day comes because loyalty and prior service are totally irrelevant. It is use-and-throw at its crudest -- the insanity so complete, the oppressive power so absolute and petty, even a corpse is not spared. This repulsive junta is what you have embraced and chosen to serve. Sadly, all at the expense of your own people.

Your claims of economic, social and cultural advances are simply laughable. Even if that were true -- and it is not -- your attempt to whitewash the regime's crimes with non-existent accomplishments is regrettable indeed. To an honest observer, there is no doubt Eritrea has gone backwards by decades and has been performing orders of magnitude below its potential. And there is no enemy preventing us from realizing this potential. Lady Kinnock, the COIE or the West did not close our only accredited university, they are not torturing our people, they did not make Eritrea a living hell for its citizens to cause the mass exodus of its youthful energy, they did not massacre our disabled war veterans, nor did they cause us national shame by picking a fight with a corpse. Our real enemy is within. That is what the COIE has identified and that is what Lady Kinnock is standing up against. Lack of honesty is preventing us from righting this wrong. We all need to take this necessary first step together. 

Although we disagree profoundly with what you have chosen to stand for, we also would like to invite you for a civilized dialog, if you are willing. We will be happy to schedule a meeting at your convenience. This is the time to stand together with our people; the history books will not be so kind otherwise.

Eritreans for Facilitating National Dialogue (EFND)
Eritrean Global Society (EGS)
People Movement of Eritreans for Justice in North America (ህዝባዊ ምልዕዓል ኤርትራውያን ንፍትሒ ሰሜን ኣሜሪካ)

Contact: Tewelde Stephanos testifanos@gmail.com

References
(2)   COIE: Commission of Inquiry on human rights in Eritrea http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoIEritrea/A_HRC_32_CRP.1_read-only.pdf
4)  Uprooted: Report on Eritreans deported from Ethiopia during 1998 war

Friday, July 8, 2016

Canada’s Nevsun Resources: Enabler of Crimes Against Humanity in Eritrea

Submitted as press release in asmarino.com under Eritreans for Facilitating National Dialog (EFND) and Eritrean Global Solidarity (EGS)

Nevsun is a Canadian gold mining company operating in Eritrea – a country that has been ruled through fear and terror for the last 25 years.  And recent investigations by a UN Commission of Inquiry (COI), confirmed the ruling junta has been committing “crimes against humanity” against its own people (10).

In reaction to this UN report, Ms. Bronwyn Bruton from the Atlantic Council, downplayed the severity of these crimes in a piece titled “It's Bad in Eritrea, but Not That Bad” (9). She criticizes the COI of “selection bias” for not interviewing “Western diplomats or UN staff based in Eritrea”.

Money is the only reason Ms. Bruton is defending the regime. Here is why.

(1) Nevsun’s contribution to Atlantic Council (Ms. Bruton’s employer) in 2015: $100,000 to $249,000
(2) Contribution by Eritrean victims to Atlantic Council:  $0

Not surprisingly, Nevsun’s VP of Social Responsibility (a terrible misnomer), also says the UN report is “biased and selective” because “it only included people from outside the country” (6).

This almost identical language is not coincidental and one should be forgiven to assume Nevsun’s money is talking through Ms. Bruton’s mouth.  Additionally, both Nevsun and Ms. Bruton are not being honest because COI’s numerous requests to visit Eritrea were repeatedly denied. Eritrea’s foreign minister says “we will not give them” visas (3).

To be fair, Ms. Bruton also says Eritrea’s indefinite military service does include “digging ditches for a mining company” (7) – which appears to be a direct reference to Nevsun and the nature of her “research trips” to Eritrea. In spite of that admirable admission, however, her attempts to whitewash the criminal role Nevsun’s money is playing in the continued subjugation of the Eritrean people is very cruel indeed.

To be clear, Nevsun is driven by profit motive -- which is perfectly fine.  But when it’s CEO, Cliff Davis, falsely claims “we are bringing an awful lot of good to this country” with “significant tangible benefits to the people of Eritrea” (6), he steps into a very important moral space he has willfully excluded himself from. Is Nevsun's presence benefiting the junta? No doubt. But there is also absolutely no doubt that Nevsun’s leaders have been and continue to be very prominent enablers of crimes against humanity the COI’s findings have finally exposed.

In her VOA interview of April 27, 2015 (7), Ms. Bruton says her sources of information are high government officials. She admits being “very impressed” by the president – the very criminal who is directly responsible for the disappearance of thousands. And, like Nevsun’s leadership, she continues to parrot the regime’s propaganda – falsely saying only 5% of the people in the indefinite national service have been there for more than 18 months -- for example.

Why accuse the COI of “selection bias” then – a lapse Nevsun and Ms. Bruton so abundantly exhibit themselves? 

In continuing to defend the regime, Ms. Bruton says the COI “discarded tens of thousands of testimonials from Eritreans defending the Isaias regime, claiming these were irrelevant or inauthentic”.

But the COI has very good reasons to discard these. First, there are tens of thousands of Eritreans in the Middle East and Africa who are at the mercy of the regime to have their passports renewed in order to continue working in those countries. These Eritreans are routinely blackmailed into doing whatever the regime wants them to do – hardly a case of free will. Secondly, Ginbot 7, an Ethiopian opposition group operating in Eritrea and financed by Eritrea’s junta has openly participated in signing petitions against the COI (4). These Ethiopians have absolutely no right to submit pro-regime petitions for COI’s consideration. Third, the COI did do its due diligence by calling a representative sample only to find out they were of boiler plate variety where, in some cases, the so called "submitters" were not even aware something was submitted in their name. 

In spite of these, Ms. Bruton says the U.N. Human Rights Council “should vote against” COI’s recommendations for “otherwise, it will only help prolong the repression it was set up to prevent.” And that is after saying “No doubt, the human rights situation there is frightful, and hundreds or thousands of cases of torture, rape or unjust imprisonment probably escaped the commission’s attention. “

This is like saying let’s not make an attempt to stop Hitler because we may anger him into committing more crimes. Luckily, reason prevailed and the U.N. Human Rights Council accepted COI’s recommendations.

In future trips, one hopes Ms. Bruton and others who enjoy full personal freedoms in their own countries – freedoms Eritreans also cherish and aspire for -- will conduct their “research” with a bit more respect for the truth and for the victims of criminal regimes.  Here are a couple of suggestions.

a)  
Be curious and expand the scope of your “research” beyond the junta’s inner circles. This is one of the most vicious criminal gangs on earth and its entire existence is based on covering up the truth. Just listen to its foreign minister’s interview (3). Such a brutal massacre of truth in a 7 minute interview is quite amazing.  On your next visit, ask this foreign minister (or any other official) to allow you to visit his former colleagues who have not been heard from for 15 long years. After all, he does say “they are in good hands”. Incidentally, one of those victims is a former foreign minister like himself.

b)  Explore why people are terrified of their own government (8). Why, in spite of severe housing shortages, does the regime bulldoze homes again and again? Consult with Eritrean civic leaders (5) before your trip to shake off residues of conscious or unconscious “selection bias” you might be harboring.

Over the last 25 years, just about every Eritrean family has experienced the regime’s excesses in one form or another. COI’s validation, although belated, is a welcome development for the victims and their families. But hired hands in the West – Ms.Bruton among them -- are also out in full force to mute the voices of justice and reason. Listen to Ms. Bruton and Nevsun’s leadership falsely painting a positive image of the criminal regime -- all at the expense of the Eritrean people (6,7,9).

The good news is the COI did a thorough job. To show their support and gratitude over ten thousand Eritreans marched in the streets of Geneva. There was a massive turnout in Israel as well. Using this new momentum, the hundreds of thousands of Eritreans around the globe, in collaboration with good people in our host countries, can raise our voices jointly to drown out the dwindling number of regime operatives and their highly paid lobbyists. Doing so, will in turn, boost the morale of justice seekers inside Eritrea -- where it matters most – to stand up and bring these criminals to justice.  Stronger together!


References
(5)    Kubrom Dafla, Elsa Chyrum, Selam Kidane, Dr. Daniel Rezene, EFND, EGS, Dr. Alganesh Fessaha, Meron Estifanos, Arbi Harnet, Father Mussie Zerai who was nominated for 2015 Nobel Peace Prize  …..