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The African Union (AU) is on the spotlight again, this time after failing to make bold decisions on its members. First it was the Burundi conflict, where president Pierre Nkurunziza manipulated loopholes in that country’s constitution to seek a third term.

Just not far away from Burundi, in the Horn of Africa, a silent killer is raging in Eritrea. A dictatorship has been going on for long, but the AU seems disinterested in finding a solution to this. Two months ago, Eritrean national team came to play with the Zebras. When the time came for them to leave, 10 of the players refused to go stating their reasons as the human rights abuses they have to endure back home.

This week, the BBC ran a special report on Eritrea dictatorship stating that close to half of that country’s population has left and now live in refugee camps in neighbouring Ethiopia, where AU headquarters are built. We wonder why the influx of refugees into another state should not ring a bell that things are not well. It does not take a rocket scientist to realise that a country is going through a dictatorship and AU should be at the forefront to determine that. First, the AU should establish intelligence that will gather information to inform its decision making.

We hope that the AU Commissioner, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is working day and night to reform this institution to make it a more proactive institution that can avert disaster, and not one that only responds to disasters. We hope that the AU has learnt lessons from Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Libya that they should not wait for a genocide to happen before taking action. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why AU should enhance its relationship with other world bodies such as the United Nations Security Council and International Criminal Court.

The AU should adopt a policy of targeted sanctions against individuals of any undemocratic regime.

Today’s thought

“Eritrea is becoming a “giant prison” due to its government’s policies of mass detention, torture and prolonged military conscription.”

Nov. 2, 2015 – The United Arab Emirates has leased a key Eritrean port for 30 years and along with its Gulf ally, Saudi Arabia, has established a military presence in Eritrea in return for monetary compensation and fuel supplies.

United Nations investigators have also received reports that 400 Eritrean troops are embedded with UAE forces battling Houthi rebels in Yemen. If confirmed, this would violate UN Security Council sanctions imposed against Eritrea.

The information is contained in the latest report of the UN Group of Experts monitoring sanctions against Somalia and Eritrea. They state that the military arrangement between the Gulf coalition and Eritrea was likely established in March or April this year.

The report says the Gulf alliance’s arrangement with Eritrea, which is located across the Red Sea from Yemen and at its narrowest point is just 29 kilometers from Yemen, came about after Djibouti rebuffed an approach by Saudi and UAE to use its soil in their military campaign against Houthi expansion in Yemen.

As part of the arrangement, Eritrea has allowed the Gulf alliance to use the Hanish islands and has leased the Port of Assab to the UAE for 30 years. The Bab-el-Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Eritrea is a key route for Gulf oil shipments with an estimated 3.8 million barrels passing through on tankers daily.

The group of experts write that “Eritrea’s making available to third countries its land, territorial waters and airspace to conduct military operations in another country does not in and of itself constitute a violation of resolution 1907 (2009)” but “any compensation diverted directly or indirectly towards activities that threaten peace and security in the region or for the benefit of the Eritrean military would constitute a violation of” the resolution.

“Moreover, if the credible claims received by the Monitoring Group that Eritrean soldiers are indeed participating in the war effort under the leadership of the Arab coalition were confirmed, it would constitute a clear violation of resolution 1907 (2009),” the report states.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not the only two Gulf countries with a military presence in Eritrea. Qatar has 200 troops located on the country’s border with Djibouti. Doha is involved in mediating disputes between the two countries.

For its part, the Government of Eritrea has called on the Security Council to lift the arms embargo against it saying Eritrea’s strategic location makes it a target for extremists.

– Denis Fitzgerald

Related Documents:

Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, October 2015

Security Council Resolution 1907 (2009)

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Yemen’s Saleh Worth $60 Billion Says UN Sanctions Committee

Djibouti – The UN’s Forgotten Crisis

29 Oct 2015 – Press Conference by Mike Smith, Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea, Sheila B. Keetharuth, and Victor Dankwa Commissioners of the Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea.

New York ( DIPLOMAT.SO) – In its latest report, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea has issued a new report on Somalia.

The UN Monitoring Group report emphasises the need for concerted and sustained international action to find a political solution to end the violence,terrorism and to fight against corruption,war crimes and grave violations of human rights. Such action would necessarily include measures to break the seemingly intractable cycle of impunity.

PDF: UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea

The UN security council will meet on Friday to consider a report on Eritrea’s alleged support for subversion across the Horn of Africa. The report, by the UN Monitoring Group on Eritrea and Somalia, will play an important part in the global body’s decision on whether to continue sanctions against the Eritrean regime.

Relations between President Isaias Afwerki’s government and the international community are at a crossroads. The UN and the EU may decide to embrace the regime despite its dire human rights record, ploughing aid into the country and attempting to crack down on the smugglers who have enabled tens of thousands of Eritreans to flee their homeland.

Equally, diplomats may conclude that until abuses in Eritrea end, people will continue to cross state borders at the rate of 5,000 a month. Should this be the case, pressure on Afwerki could be stepped up, with the UN adopting a wider range of sanctions and the EU refusing to consider Eritrea a suitable partner in its continuing African dialogue.

Eritreans make up one of the largest groups of refugees arriving on European shores – in April alone, more than 5,300 came ashore in Italy, according to UN figures.

EU governments are attempting to come up with a battery of policies aimed at sealing off “Fortress Europe” from unwanted migrants and increasing the speed and volume of deportations for refused asylum seekers.

According to 10 pages of draft decisions prepared for a meeting on Thursday of this week, the European institutions and national governments are to make a show of deporting refused asylum seekers in what looks like a vain attempt to try to discourage others from making the journey.

Eritreans are named among those against whom these measures could be taken.

The EU has also started Operation Sophia, under which a naval taskforce headquartered in Rome will work to halt operations smuggling people across the Mediterranean.

Six ships – including Britain’s HMS Bulwark – will be used to “start to dismantle this business model by trying to apprehend some suspected smugglers”, Rear Admiral Hervé Bléjean told the BBC.

This is what the Eritrean government, which is acutely embarrassed that so many of its citizens are fleeing their country, has been calling for. In December last year, Eritrea’s minister of foreign affairs, Osman Saleh, told an EU–Horn of Africa conference that his country was “determined to work with the EU and all European countries to tackle irregular migration and human trafficking and to address their root causes”.

European ministers have been discussing bolstering these efforts by increasing aid to Eritrea by €200m (£147m), in the hope that this might relieve the poverty that could drive migration.

If Britain and its allies appear close to an accord with Eritrea, there are also strong pressures in the opposite direction.

In June, a UN commission of inquiry into human rights in Eritrea published a report accusing the regime of abuses so severe that they “may constitute crimes against humanity”.

The commissioners said it was these atrocities – rather than underdevelopment and poverty – that were behind Eritreans’ decisions to risk all to leave their country.

There have since been further allegations that the Eritrean government is continuing to destabilise its neighbours and nearby countries – the issue that triggered the UN sanctions against it in the first place.

Afwerki is reported to have trained and equipped Houthi rebels in their drive against the Yemeni government. The Eritreans are said to have allowed Iran to use the Danakil islands in the Red Sea as a base from which to arm and train the Houthis. Eritrea’s foreign ministry has strongly denied these claims.

The UN security council will be well aware of these various issues when it considers the report from its team of monitors. A great deal will depend on what evidence the experts have been able to amass concerning Eritrea’s undermining of its neighbours.

The Guardian