For a favourable deal dial Qatar!

The last time the Qataris did us Eritreans a favour (that was declared…) everyone else talked about it, except for us Eritreans (… well our officials that is…) and all the Acting Junior Minister (the only minister that I am convinced isn’t a cardboard cut out…) could say on the matter was… our official response to the matter can be found in the official response from Qatar… (sure he is not a cardboard cut out… but he is something else all together and if I say what I think he is I will have a tough couple of days and frankly speaking I don’t have the stomach for it right now…!). we thought Eritrea had outsourced its Ministry of Information….

Eritrea had been sanctioned by the UNSC, and was being threatened by more to come… the AU was in a rare uproar, the EU was suddenly watching their nightmare of ‘engaging a dictator’ hitting the fan… the Djiboutians were ticking every box going and the YPFDJ and the PFDJ and all those people who still have a pipe dream of a PFDJ marched to their nearest PFDJ designated spot with an old picture of IA dangling from their necks…just then we heard that the Qataris struck a deal with the only person on earth that is able to strike deals on behalf of Eritreans and Eritrea… never mind that he was telling us (with echoes of his voice reverberating from every pipe dreamer of PFDJ bent…) that it was all fabrications and a work of fiction… The international community  stopped fluffing about for a few days at the close of 2009 and hit Eritrean dictatorship where it hurt… there was a squelch, there was a squeak and then there was a deal…the rest is history as was reported to us by Qatari officials and the silence of Eritrean officials …

Is anyone else intrigued by the pattern… the Government of Eritrea does something inexplicable (deny consular access to people it detained unlawfully)… the relevant members of the international community stop fluffing about… the Eritrean government deny everything and everyone holds their breath… then comes the announcement that the Qataris struck a deal yet again…I am truly happy for the detained Brits and their families and am really glad that maybe now Ambassador Wedi Gerahtu will be offered coffee when he visits the FCO… but one thing bugs me   and it is a big bug… we have got a group of people who have been languishing in jail for close to a decade completely incommunicado and every international body conceivable has denounced this but never progressed the denunciations beyond nice fluffy words…

Over the last few years every year the European Union produces a press statement on the anniversary of September 18, 2001, to denounce the incarceration of eleven Eritrean ministers arrested on that day  and the people arrested in Eritrea around and in relation to the government’s abject denial of basic rights to people who served their people in various capacities.

In the case of  Mussie Ephrem vs Government of Eritrea  at the Africa union, in 2002  the commission found the State of Eritrea in violation of Articles 2, 6, 7(1) and 9(2) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights; Urged the State of Eritrea to order the immediate release of the 11 detainees, namely, Petros Solomon, Ogbe Abraha, Haile Woldetensae, Mahmud Ahmed Sheriffo, Berhane Ghebre Eghzabiher, Astier Feshation, Saleh Kekya, Hamid Himid, Estifanos Seyoum, Germano Nati, and Beraki Ghebre Selassie; and Recommended  that the State of Eritrea compensates the abovementioned persons.

On the 23rd of April, taking note of the above decision of the AU Commission the Inter Parliamentary Union, declared that it deeply regrets that the authorities have so far not heeded the Commission's decision and continue to detain them in disregard of their obligations not only under the Constitution of Eritrea, but also under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the ICCPR. In subsequent years the IPU continued to strongly condemned Eritrea’s actions regarding the imprisonment of 11 parliamentarians and made recommendations for ‘tight public scrutiny’… this latest statement was in 2007…

On the 27th Nov 2007, in response to case filed by Dawit Mesfin and Habtom Yohannes, the UN-Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UN-WGAD) condemned Eritrea for violating incessantly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Eritrea is a party; and demands the immediate release of 11 high government officials who have been held incommunicado for more than seven years.

…for nearly ten years now at every opportunity big and small Eritreans have brought the case of the arbitrary arrest of the G11 and many others to the attention of the international community. We have filed cases with every conceivable court and have presented evidence after evidence of the illegality of their continued incarceration, every court, every panel, every working group…agrees that the government of Eritrea is indeed acting unlawfully; just like it did with the resent case of the four Britons… and the government of Eritrea has done exactly what it did with the Britons too… it held them incommunicado and unlawfully conducted trial by state media and heaped accusation after unsubstantiated accusation on them…but in their case there are no serious measures (and threats of more to come) against the perpetrator and hence there are no Qataris to hammer a deal…  the difference in the outcome is unfortunately a resounding indictment of not just the government of Eritrea but the international community too.

Incidentally the same charges of jeopardising the national security of the sovereign Eritrea is also the accusation against the Eritrean ministers and government officials too. The government of Eritrea was somehow compelled to releasing a group of people it says it caught red handed in the process of executing an act of treason in less than six months… whilst it continues to incarcerate Eritrean freedom fighters who were accused of the similar misdemeanour armed with an open letter and a series of interviews that were openly published on Eritrean media…

on the occasion of the release of the four Brits the FCO spokes person outlined UK’s ongoing concern with the manner with which this case was handled… earlier this year the FCO had outlined their concern on the human rights issues in Eritrea and designated Eritrea a country of concern for abuse of human rights, it is my sincere hope that the FCO continues to utilise their influence and channels to bring all cases of outright human rights violations to similar satisfactory conclusion like that of the ex marines released last weekend.