Eritrea:
The Tragedy behind a Tragedy
Some 350 Eritreans were among the 850 people who perished in the migrant
boat that sank off the coast of Libya on Saturday night, a United Nations
spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Ethiopia declared three
days of national mourning after it confirmed the people brutally killed by the
Islamic State in Libya were indeed its own citizens. However, Ethiopians were
not the only nationals, at least three Eritrean Christians were also among them.
As often, there is neither a national mourning nor coverage of the tragedy on
the Eritrean state owned media. Once again, Eritreans condemned to mourning in
silence, by a regime that does not even tolerate grieving publicly.
Eritrean and Ethiopian Christians share so
much in common, but politically they are divided, and the no war no peace
standoff continues. However, this week, these seemingly two diaspora
communities are united on social medias in anger and grief. Eritreans in
particular are grieving for two different reasons. In the last Sundays’ Mediterranean
boat tragedy, the UN fear more than 350 Eritreans on board could have lost
their lives. The UN confirmed as many as 800 lives could have died in the
latest tragedy. The 28 survivors gave conflicting accounts; according to one Bangladeshi
survivor’s estimate, more than 950 passengers might have trapped inside. Other
survivors stated majority of the people on board were predominantly from Eritrea
and Syria, heading towards Europe in the hope of searching protection and a
better life. Syrians are escaping from a bitter sectarian civil war and from the
Islamic State’s onslaught. However, presumably, Eritrea is a peaceful country,
where there is no active war, but its inhabitants are on the run for more than
a decade.
Eritreans
tragedy Europe’s moral dilemma
Last year alone,
218,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean into Europe, from this huge number
Syrians ranked first fleeing civil war in their country, and Eritreans were second.
Eritrea is often absent from the headlines of the mainstream media, except,
when there are moments of migrant boat tragedies across the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea.
In October 2013, when a
boat capsized near the Italian Island of Lampedusa, 365 people perished, 360 of
them Eritreans. The magnitude and horrors of that tragedy, shocked people
across the globe, consequently European governments promised to do more to save
lives. That change of policy by the EU saved thousands of migrant lives, who
would have died otherwise.
However, after increasing domestic pressure to
curb the mounting number of migrants, many countries began to gradually abandon
their search and rescue operations. They argued, such humanitarian assistance is
only encouraging many more migrants to take the risk, hoping they would be
rescued. The decision by the rest of European governments to withdraw their
humanitarian commitment from the Mediterranean Sea was a big blow to the
Italian and Maltese governments, who felt abandoned. Prime Minister of Italia, Matteo
Renzi warned to European governments, ‘Europe cannot close its eyes and
commemorate the tragedy later.’
Consequently, European foreign and interior ministers gathered
in an emergency meeting in Luxembourg and came up with a ten-point plan to deal
with the ongoing tragedy. Some Italian politicians warned, as much as one
million migrants could cross the Mediterranean Sea this year alone.
The recent increase in
the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe turned out to be a
huge moral dilemma to European governments. The European Union as a block is bounded
in Universal moral values and Human Rights obligations. Abandoning desperate
migrants at sea to face certain death could shake the very moral foundation of
the Union, and many advocates of human rights warn, such indifference, could be
a catastrophic mistake. However, at the heart of this crisis is a dilemma for
European policy makers, ‘how to effectively deal with a tragedy which doesn’t
seem to stop any time soon?’
What
should be done?
Some politicians argue ‘you
can’t stop people from taking a deadly journey, if you can’t help them solve
the very reasons that forced them to take that journey in the first place.’
Hence, diplomacy could be one of the main game changers in curbing these dramatic
episodes. However, carrot alone does not seem to effect change on the ground, without
a stick. European governments should do more to pressurize authoritarian governments
in Africa and Middle the East, causing mayhem and suffering to their people. After
all, in an increasingly globalized world, a mismanaged domestic affairs of one
country is a burden for the rest of the international community.
It could be for this
reason perhaps, European Union indicated lately, a change of policy towards
Eritrea, and promised more than 350 million Euros in financial assistance in
the hope of helping the government to create job opportunities that would
eventually deter the young from escaping in search of a better life in Europe. Nevertheless,
this new incentive is met with a strong opposition from both human rights
organizations and Eritrean oppositions groups in the diaspora. Giving financial
assistance to a dictator already under United Nations sanctions for his
involvement in the destabilization of Somalia and Djibouti could be regarded, rewarding
for his belligerent behaviors and dismal human rights records.
After the 2011 Arab
uprising, some European politicians have learnt a bitter lesson, removing
dictators does not always bring peace and stability to the countries suffering
from serious human rights violations. They argue, Western powers militarily
engagement to remove authoritarian governments accused of human rights
violations, rarely achieve the intended objectives afterwards. Libya is a case
in point, in 2011; the west helped the Libyan rebels to remove Muamar Gadafi, however, today the
country turn out to be European government’s nightmare. Not only it is a springboard
to illegal migrants, but also most prominently, Isis is just on the doorstep. Consequently, some Europeans blame their very
governments for the lawlessness in the country and the humanitarian tragedy
that is unfolding in the Mediterranean shores.
Could it be such an experience,
driving the European Union to deal with carrot diplomacy with dictators accused
of immense human rights violations such as the one-in Eritrea? Eritrea, a
country run with an unelected president, unimplemented constitution, hundreds
of thousands its youth in active military service with nominal wage, and no
hope of demobilization to lead a normal life. Therefore, there is no
unemployment crisis in Eritrea, which demands European Union’s financial
assistance. Eritreans of all social classes are fleeing the country from a
system of government that enslave them for life, that deny them freedom of
movement inside their own country that deny them to exercise their religion
freely. The government intentionally and systematically violated all the four
Universal Human Rights Declarations, forcing hundreds of thousands to pursue a
dignified life elsewhere. Under the current dictatorial leadership, Eritreans have
nothing to hope for, it seems for most of the young people, Europe is the only hope;
‘either get there or else die in the process.’
When one ask them if they were not afraid to
lose their lives, they would tell you blatantly, ‘a dead cannot be afraid of death.’
When they try, at least they have hope, to get a second chance to start a new
life. However, that may not be the case for many of the unfortunate 1600 souls,
who paid the ultimate price so far this year, in a desperate search of a new
and dignified life in a strange continent.
The
writer can be contacted at, tedros1000@gmail.com
-http://news.yahoo.com/ethiopia-hold-national-mourning-group-kills-christians-141549048.html
-http://www.ansa.it/english/news/politics/2015/04/21/unchr-says-350-eritreans-in-boat_1b4ce8ca-2c81-408c-91f2-e0eacceaac64.html