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In October 2013, scores of people from Eritrea drowned when the boat that had promised to carry them to Europe sank. Since then \u2014 and despite the clear danger of the journey \u2014 the number of asylum-seekers from this small East African nation, population 6.3 million, has tripled to almost that of Syrians. But unlike Syria, Eritrea is not engulfed by civil war. So what are these people fleeing?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an easy two-word answer: Isaias Afwerki.<\/p>\n
Little-known dictators: the seventh in a series
\nThe mustachioed 69-year-old has been the president of Eritrea since its independence, in 1991, yet not a single vote has ever been cast in his favor. Twenty-four years of President Afwerki\u2019s despotism, Marxist rhetoric and army manners \u2014 he\u2019s forced every citizen into indefinite military conscription and crushed anything that smells of opposition. Twenty-four years without an election, a constitution, free press or an independent judiciary. As a result, Eritrea is internationally ostracized and chronically poor, and it leads the world in only two categories: media censorship (take that, Kim Jong Un) and child labor.<\/p>\n
Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki at a news conference held in Uganga in 2011.<\/p>\n
Eritrea\u2019s President Isaias Afwerki.
\nSource: James Akena\/Corbis
\nTrue, Eritrea owes Afwerki a lot \u2014 its existence. For more than 20 years, the stern man headed the armed struggle against Ethiopia that led to the country\u2019s independence. \u201cHe was able to mobilize a nation and free his country,\u201d says Nicole Hirt, an associate researcher at the GIGA Institute of African Affairs, in Hamburg. Many in the diaspora consider him a national hero. They view Afwerki as a man of the people, one who works for them 24\/7 and takes his coffee in the public cafes instead of in some gilded dining room. True, the diaspora are at a safe remove. The last time Afwerki was in New York, in 2011, thousands of Eritreans came to catch a glimpse of him outside the U.N. Their signs read, \u201cWe are him. He is us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Western democracies do snub him, but Afwerki doesn\u2019t need them for loans, investment or stamps of approval. He has China. In 2013, the Chinese government offered the country a $100 million loan to build agricultural infrastructure. A Chinese company owns 60 percent of a gold mine near Asmara, and recently, the $400 million construction contract for a new cargo terminal in the city of Massawa was given to \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 another Chinese company.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s relationship with Beijing goes way back, to when \u2014 as a wide-eyed 20-year-old \u2014 Afwerki was invited to China for military training. After his return, he promised fellow Eritreans democracy, but things look different from the vantage of power. Afwerki took a few pages from Chairman Mao\u2019s Little Red Book and turned his newborn country into a one-party state, purging all opposition members \u2014 even inside his own ranks \u2014 and treating his citizens as if they were soldiers. Between 1998 and 2000, he even went to war with Ethiopia over border disputes.
\nThe threat of war is Afwerki\u2019s justification for forcing all men and women, ages 15 to 70, into indefinite, often unpaid military service. In times of peace, this looks a lot like forced labor, reaching everything from the state-owned construction companies and mines to schools and hospitals. In many countries, children say they want to be astronauts when they grow up. \u201cIn Eritrea, they say soldier. They know that\u2019s their only choice,\u201d says Meron Estefanos, a Swedish human rights activist of Eritrean descent who lived in Asmara, the capital city, for a few years.<\/p>\n
And if they aspire to journalist? Or opposition leader? Those who dare find themselves behind bars without charge or trial. Torture is routine, and prisons are so overcrowded that detainees are often crammed into basements or shipping containers, according to Amnesty International. That\u2019s where many journalists end up. Seyoum Tsehaye, the former head of Eritrea\u2019s television and radio services, has been in prison since 2001, and in 2009, authorities detained the entire staff of local Radio Bana.<\/p>\n
Regime change? Afwerki would have to die or be deposed.
\nWhich mostly explains why, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, some 4,000 Eritreans leave the country each month; in fact, more than 5 percent of Eritrea\u2019s population has fled in the past decade. Even members of the national football team escaped and were granted asylum in Uganda. Many countries have spoken up against Afwerki\u2019s tyrannical ways. The U.N. has imposed sanctions against Eritrea since 2009 for sponsoring armed groups in neighboring Somalia, the Human Rights Council has repeatedly condemned the \u201ccontinued widespread and systematic violations of human rights\u201d and even President Barack Obama refused to invite President Afwerki to last year\u2019s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. The only other pariah was Robert Mugabe, the man who\u2019s been leading Zimbabwe into a hole for 35 years.<\/p>\n
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An Eritrean refugee with her daughter in hand hold candles during a memorial gathering to mark the first anniversary of the Lampedusa migrant shipwreck.<\/p>\n
An Eritrean refugee with her daughter in hand hold candles during a memorial marking the first anniversary of the Lampedusa migrant shipwreck.
\nSource: Tiksa Negeri\/Corbis
\nYet none of this seems to be having the slightest effect on Eritrea\u2019s defiant dictator, whose media office did not return our messages. \u201cIt\u2019s virtually impossible to put pressure on a regime that is so isolated,\u201d says Hirt. \u201cYou can\u2019t even threaten to cut aid, because you\u2019re not sending any.\u201d A voluntary democratic transition is out of the question. Free elections are a pipe dream. The political opposition is divided and remote, with more than 40 different political parties in exile. Regime change? Afwerki would have to die or be deposed, probably by an Ethiopian-funded armed group or Eritrea\u2019s military, a branch of which already attempted a coup and failed in 2013.<\/p>\n
For now, Afwerki portrays his international isolation as self-reliance. But the uproar grows, and the opposition is feeling hopeful. \u201cThe day is getting closer,\u201d says Estefanos. \u201cNo dictatorship lasts forever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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