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UNITED NATIONS, Nov 8 – Eritrea’s president has asked for a personal hearing before the UN Security Council in a bid to head off new sanctions over alleged support for Somalia’s Islamist rebels, diplomats said.

Rival Ethiopia has been calling for tougher action against Eritrea for several months after its neighbor was linked to a plot to bomb an African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

Kenya is now accusing Eritrea of arming Somali Islamist rebels and UN Security Council members Nigeria and Gabon have tabled a resolution calling for sanctions on Eritrea’s mining industry and remissions from abroad.

Eritrea’s President Issaias Afeworki has asked to speak to the 15-nation Security Council in New York in a move opposed by the United States.

Some Western nations oppose new sanctions, fearing such restrictions could harm the civilian population, diplomats said.

Afeworki has denied Kenya’s accusations that his country arms Shebab rebels in Somalia and that it was involved in a plot, outlined in a UN sanctions committee report, to bomb the summit in the Ethiopian capital in January.

The Security Council has not yet formally replied to the president, but diplomats said the United States and other council members feared that his presence at a meeting would only increase tensions.

“If Afeworki is at a meeting, then how could we stop the leaders of Ethiopia and other countries coming,” one Western diplomat said.

The United States has in the past spoken out in favor of new sanctions.

But envoys from other members of the council say action against mining — the mainstay of Eritrea’s tiny, crippled economy — would only harm the country’s five million people.

No date has yet been set for a meeting on Eritrea, but the six-nation Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, an East African regional bloc, is stepping up pressure for a decision, diplomats said.

The draft resolution calls on all states to “prohibit investment” in Eritrea’s key mining industry and ban the imports of gold and other resources from Eritrea, according to a copy of a draft resolution seen by AFP.

The action would also seek to ban the collection of a two percent tax on money sent home by Eritreans abroad.

In December 2009, the Security Council imposed an arms embargo, travel restrictions and asset freezes on Eritrean leaders for their alleged support to Shebab in the civil war against Somalia’s Western-backed transitional government.

Eritrea’s Foreign Minister Osman Saleh said in a letter to the Security Council last week that giving Ethiopia and “other powers that harbor belligerent intentions” the right to inspect any cargo heading for Eritrea “is fraught with dangerous security implications.”

Action against the mining industry would “cripple future economic growth,” said the minister.

He went on to slam the travel ban against officials as a bid to “reinforce the image of a ‘pariah state’ that Eritrea’s enemies have been peddling.”

16/04/09

The Eritrean government is turning its country into a giant prison, according to Human Rights Watch. The Horn of Africa nation is widely using military conscription without end, as well as arbitrary detention of its citizens, says HRW. Hundreds of Eritrean refugees forcibly repatriated from countries like Libya, Egypt and Malta face arrest and torture upon their return, says the group. Religious persecution and forced labour are also rife in Eritrea, says HRW.

The report urges countries not to send back Eritrean asylum-seekers and calls on the international community and donors to exert pressure on the government in Asmara over its rights record.

HRW says every year thousands of Eritreans flee their country, where statutory national service, which used to last 18 months, has been made indefinite.

The advocacy group says most of Eritrea’s adult population is currently conscripted.

Sixteen years after it won independence from Ethiopia following a three-decade war, Eritrea is one of the most closed and repressive states in the world, says the report.

It accuses President Isayas Afewerki of using an unresolved border dispute with Ethiopia to keep Eritrea on a permanent war-footing.

HRW says there is no independent civil society and all independent media outlets have been shut down.

People under the age of 50 are rarely granted visas to leave the country and those who try to do so without documentation face imprisonment and torture or being shot at the border, says the group.

Prisoners are often held in underground cells or in shipping containers with dangerously high temperatures, according to the report.

Meanwhile, Christians are being rounded up and tortured on a regular basis, says the group.

The BBC’s Pascale Harter spoke to Salamay, a 16-year-old Eritrean refugee in Italy.

She said she fled when police began rounding up youths in her village for national service.

In Sudan, she said a family took her hostage and forced her to work without pay.

In Libya, she was taken to a prison where inmates faced rape every night by the guards.

Read the full report [848 KB]

Shabait..com – NEWS 15 April 2009

President Isaias Afwerki today received and held talks at the Denden Hall with a British Conservative Party delegation headed by Mr. Andrew Michel, who is the Party’s head of development cooperation. The two sides conducted discussion on ways of fostering possible bilateral cooperation in the future and regional issues. In briefings he gave to the delegation as regards the Somali issue, President Isaias pointed out that the reconstitution of Somalia should be achieved on the basis of internal capacity rather than external interference, and that conducive ground should be created for the entire Somali nationals to jointly discuss the country’s reconstitution.

Indicating that the international community should only play supplementary role to the peace process being undertaken by the Somali people to resolve their issue themselves, he underscored that imposing so-called government that is not accepted by the Somalis is but impractical, unacceptable and destructive move. The President further explained that the ‘government’ installed by external forces would not only fail to meet the aspirations of the Somali people but could not also bring about peace and stability. He elaborated that Eritrea has been advocating this stance for over 20 years.

As regards non-governmental organizations, President Isaias stated that although at first they used to operate in the name of providing humanitarian assistance, in due course they began not only to meddle in matters that do not concern to them but also sought to promote personal interest, in addition to trying to pose as a substitute for governments. In this respect, he pointed out that Eritrea wishes the creation of conducive atmosphere that promotes trade and investment rather than becoming the recipient of aid. Mr. Andrew Michel on his part commended the President’s extensive analytical briefings regarding the Somali issue and said that Britain’s understanding as regards Eritrea’s stance in the Somali issue was limited and that the delegation members would work cautiously in the future. Likewise, Lord Ashkroft, member of the Upper House in the UK Parliament, said that he agrees with the briefings of President Isaias regarding the negative practices of NGOs.

SHABAIT.COM – NEWS

AllAfrica.com

Hamelmalo — The holding of Student and Youth Week has a significant role to play in highlighting the innovative skill and potentials of youth, in addition to preserving traditional norms and sharing experience, the participants of from Hamelmalo and Elabered sub-zones disclosed.

The event organized jointly by the Education Ministry and the NUEYS aimed at creating conducive ground for youths to raise their awareness and strengthen physical fitness.

Various programs, including general knowledge contest, sports activities, cultural shows, painting, works of handcraft and arts exhibition featured in the course of the Youth and Student Week in which more than 2,000 people took part. A number of department heads also conducted seminars to the participants during which they called on them to fully avail of the existing educational opportunities in the country.

15/04/09

Ethiopia will boost arms production to cut weapons imports and save its dwindling foreign exchange, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said.

“Our main objective is to reduce our defence expenditure and its pressure on availability of foreign exchange,” Meles told reporters late Monday, without giving details.

“In order to do that, we have to reduce our imports and improve our exports. The objective is to take care of our defence requirements, primarily in terms of ammunition and partly in terms of armaments.”

Ethiopia currently produces assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades, small arms and hosts an assembly plant to manufacture tanks.

The country’s foreign reserves this month stood at 800 million dollars (598 million euros), down from two billion dollars last year.

The Horn of Africa country has one of the largest armies in Africa and last year increased its defence budget by 50 million dollars to 400 million for “stability reasons.”

Ethiopia’s army is estimated to comprise around 200,000 soldiers and imports arms mainly from China and eastern European countries.

After 18 years of chaos and deception, the trajectory of Somalia’s journey appears to be clearer than ever before. Yet, seemingly benign efforts aimed at disrupting the journey continue without let up. It is therefore vital and timely to recoup and highlight the critical issues and dimensions of the problem.

For the last 18 years, external interferences and invasion on the one hand, and acts of warlords with narrow interests on the other, have rendered meaningless the de facto existence of a Somali State.

Eighteen years of vacuum has wreaked immeasurable devastation and suffering on the people of Somalia. Furthermore, this has been, and continues to constitute, one of the principal causes of instability in the Horn of Africa. It has not abated but seems to aggravate with time.

The vacuum that has prevailed in Somalia for the last 18 years has not only created conducive grounds for the perpetration of piracy and banditry. But, these phenomena are being misconstrued to provide suitable pretexts for external interference and to impede a genuine resolution.

In the event, the only viable solution is the reconstitution of Somalia by the Somalis themselves and the facilitation of an enabling environment for launching the process in earnest. All other alternatives, packaged under any mantle, will only corrode the potential opportunities and aggravate the complexity. And above all, they will not have any legitimacy for the following simple and clear reasons:

The people and Government of Eritrea do not have any other stance or policy that deviates from these basic legal considerations and concerns of regional security. Unless they harbour other ulterior motives, any other people or Government would not, for that matter, have a differing stance on this matter.

Attempts at portraying the position and policies of the people and Government of Eritrea as prompted by allegiance to certain individuals are deliberate acts of disinformation that do not merit serious rebuttal.

Moreover, groundless accusations of associating Eritrea with “terrorism” or as pursuing a “proxy war” emanate from the same base motives of stifling the voice and true stance of the people and Government of Eritrea.

In the circumstances and especially at this crucial time, the Government of Eritrea urges the UN and its organs to desist from taking unwarranted measures that exacerbate and prolong the suffering of the Somali people; that maintain the existing vacuum and limbo; and that deepen the crisis in the Horn of Africa.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Asmara
April 10, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP)

11/04/09

The pirate standoff with the U.S. Navy has burned Somalia into the West’s consciousness as a base for lawlessness and terror, but the hostage crisis illuminates a potentially dangerous picture confronting a far greater area.

Much of the Horn of Africa, which is made up of six countries covering roughly half the area of the United States, is beset by a rare set of disadvantages that makes it ripe for chaos. Poverty, hunger, corruption and lawlessness has made the region a haven not only for pirates, but for arms smugglers and Islamic insurgents.

Home to about 165 million people, the six countries that make up the Horn — Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Djibouti — are seen by many as the next possible front in the war on terrorism