‘Kindhearted Gesture’ from a Foe
The U.S. Administration has lately issued a dumbfounding statement stipulating that ‘The Eritrean Government has refused to provide any information whatsoever despite Washington’s position to extend support to the Eritrean people.’
Setting aside the six-decade long betrayals and injustice successive U.S. Administrations exercised over Eritrea for history, a look at the latest hostile actions by this same Administration against the Eritrean people simply attests to the underlying duplicity of the statement above.
As Eritrea attained national sovereignty surmounting all acts of hostilities by the then superpowers, the people and Government of Eritrea, upon conclusion of the gloomy past, began to pursue a foreign policy of peace and mutual partnership based on independence and national interest, thereby establishing political, diplomatic, economic and cultural cooperation with all countries. Accordingly, the people and Government of Eritrea made every effort to establish good relations and cooperation with the United States irrespective of past mischaracterizations. Contrary to the goodwill of the Eritrean people, however, hostile stance of the U.S. Administrations towards Eritrea failed to amend.
While the TPLF regime launched aggression against the well-wishing people and Government of Eritrea at the U.S. officials bidding in the year 1998, evidences of substantial military and economic support the then Administration provided directly and through its auxiliaries to Ethiopia for the clique to gain upper hand during the wartime are on record. The TPLF clique was, nevertheless, dealt an excruciating defeat in spite of the encouragement of its financier. This same Administration has for the past decade kept hostage to the implementation of the EEBC’s Award as the TPLF regime lost its case in the adversarial proceeding. In January 2006, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, without prior consent by the Eritrean government and yet accompanied by the TPLF officials, paid a visit to the occupied Eritrean territory of Badme and proposed a plebiscite over the future of Badme–an event that amply demonstrated U.S. manifest endorsement for the occupation of Eritrean territory. U.S. animosity towards the Eritrean people is also witnessed in its authorization for the aforementioned invasion and occupation. Consequently, such subversion of the rule of law has posed a major challenge not only to the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia, but also to the peace and security as well as development process of the entire Horn region.
Although Eritrea is a member of international antiterrorism coalition, the Administration in Washington, pursuant to its acts of hostility, revoked Eritrea in June 2001 from the list of $100 million USD financial support earmarked to member states in the Horn of Africa so as for the country not to benefit from it. In August 2003, the United States suspended Eritrea’s membership from the U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum–AGOA. Having accused Eritrea of ‘violating the right to worship’, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom on its part decided in 2004 a military embargo against this nation. In November 2006, the U.S. government claimed from the Ministry of Labor and Human Welfare of the State of Eritrea a restitution of $4.5 million USD for food aid, which was acquired from Mercy Corps as well as Catholic Relief Services and was forwarded as prescribed in the relief consignment policy of Eritrea. By the same token, it is to be recalled that when the TPLF declared full-scale war over Eritrea in 1998, Washington had demanded that Eritrea pay costs of the food aid geared towards Ethiopia to which this same regime had already abandoned to decay at the Port of Assab in the wake of the clique’s invasion and the eschewing of the port services that followed. America officially announced in May 2007 that Eritrea would not derive benefit from the $100 million USD fund the United States allocated for the prevention of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
In keeping with the acts of hostility stated above, members of the U.S. intelligence agency broke into the Eritrean Community Bureau in Washington on April 13, 2004, and pillaged at gunpoint money and documents thereof. Whereas such actions are in contravention of the Vienna Convention, Eritrea has as yet been calling for the restoration of its Embassy’s properties in spite of Washington’s refusal.
As the consciousness of the Eritrean people transcends that of historic enemies, nonetheless, the country has managed to climb the ladder in the face of the said political, economic, security and a number of other acts of conspiracy during the period of flagrant invasion and thereafter. All attempts were thus foiled by the finely tuned popular consciousness. The ensuing frustration of anti-Eritrean forces is by no means to be concealed from the world. The sanctions resolution the UN Security Council imposed on Eritrea in the end of 2009 at the behest of the U.S. Administration merely bears out the repeated abortive ploys of enemy quarters and the resulting frustration.
The resolution decided against Eritrea on account of manufactured accusations is intended to isolate the Eritrean Government for challenging erroneous U.S. policies being pursued in the entire Horn region through demonizing with trumped-up charges in a futile bid to divorce the leadership from its people on the one hand, and on the other, to punish and subdue the Eritrean people, who beyond accomplishing modeled development feats has now reached a promising stage through disposing of political subservience and economic dependency, while at the same time ensuring peace and stability. Even such actions of despondency have not only failed to hit the set target, but also have heightened the frustration to its peak.
Notwithstanding all unendurable acts of hostility, the Eritrean people has now succeeded in making headway through the avenue of development. At a time when countries of the Horn of Africa are being affected by drought and famine, the exasperation stemming from the fact that Eritrea has never relegated itself to the rank of aid-dependent nations has more than ever become self-evident. In line with its continuous acts of conspiracy, the Administration in Washington is now pressing for economic sanction on the Eritrean people, as well as resorting to impeding revenues from the mining sector and short-circuiting the inflow of remittance from Eritrean nationals in the diaspora. And hence, ‘all acts of commiseration and kindheartedness’ by such a hostile party but amount to sheer hypocrisy.