Professor Joel Brinkley wrote an article on the San Francisco Chronicle under the
title "Eritrea, the most repressive nation on Earth", on
April 29, 2012. When Joel Brinkley, a professor of
journalism at Stanford University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist, writes on Eritrea, one hopes it would be an original
piece that explores the complex issues in depth. However, the
contents of his column were nothing but a copy and paste of several
reports that have misleading information on Eritrea and a complete
avoidance of current and recent events that lead us to where we are
today. Professor Brinkley has chosen to ignore the elephant in
the room and he expects us to do the same.
It
is true Eritrea won its independence in 1991, after waging a 30 years
long and bitter struggle for independence. Between 1991 and
1998, before the war with Ethiopia broke out, Eritrea under the
current leadership had won many accolades, including the New York
Times, his former employer. What changed between 1998 to the
present? In May 1998, Ethiopian troops fired and shot on an
Eritrean platoon on routine duty along the border town of Badme
killing several of its members. Soon after, on May 13, 1998,
the Ethiopian parliament declared war on Eritrea based on a lie that
Eritrea had invaded Badme an Ethiopian town. Eritrea, a nation
of 4 million, had to mobilize every able body to defend itself
against a nation of 70 million. Ethiopia, under a pretext of a border
war, made several attempts to capture the port city of Assab as well
as the capital city Asmara.
Having
failed to achieve its military objectives, the government of Ethiopia
was dragged to the negotiating table. Under the sponsorship of
the US, the UN, EU and the AU, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed the
Algiers Agreement in 2000 to peacefully settle the border dispute.
The Algiers Agreement called for the establishment of a neutral
Boundary Commission, and stipulated that the dispute will be resolved
on the basis of pertinent colonial treaties and applicable
international law. Eritrea and Ethiopia agreed that the decision of
the Commission was to be final and binding. In a 2000 ruling,
the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission ruled that Badme, Ethiopia's
casus belli, was sovereign Eritrean territory.
Ethiopia
flouting the rule of law and the agreements it has signed continues
to not only occupy sovereign Eritrean territories but it continues to
openly train and arm insurgents to overthrow the government of
Eritrea. Thousands of Eritreans have been displaced due to Ethiopia's
illegal occupation of their land and thousands more remain mobilized
due to Ethiopia's continued threat and cross border raids.
The
United Nations and the United States have refused to shoulder their
responsibilities and enforce agreements they guaranteed. The
international community and the world’s single superpower have also
gone further and attempted to limit Eritrea's ability to defend
itself with Security Council Resolution 2023 under the claim that
Eritrea supports extremists in Somalia. However, as the leaked
diplomatic cables reveal "The role Eritrea plays in Somalia, for
instance, is probably insignificant. Although there is significant
speculation and circumstantial evidence of Eritrean support, Post has
received no explicit evidence provided by any source outside of the
GoE [Government of Ethiopia] ..." [ Ref id 07ADDISABABA3404].
Despite the lack of evidence of Eritrea's support for
extremists, the United States has chosen to side with its ally
Ethiopia and sanction Eritrea. Contrary to Professor Brinkley
assertion that there were no dissenting voices during the voting,
South Africa, China, and Russia had raised their objections in the
press while the later two had chosen to abstain rather than openly
defy the United States in matter not central to their interests.
Professor
Brinkley has chosen to write about the extraordinary measures taken
by Eritrea while ignoring the continued threats to its existence
coming from Ethiopia and the gross negligence of duties of the United
Nations. This one sided paper is misleading and a disservice to
the readers of the San Francisco Chronicle. Eritrea needs to be
left alone in peace to develop its war ravaged infrastructure and
economy. It certainly does not deserve to be pushed around by
agencies that have never set a foot in Eritrea or by journalists who
simply copy and paste their reports. If in the future Professor
Brinkley chooses to do his homework, he will find that Eritrea does
have a remarkable story to tell.
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