Eritrea : No One Breathes Easy as Dictator’s Grip Remains Tight
ICC Note
Eritrea is one of the top Christian persecuting countries. This report describes that the communist regime of Eritrea is severely violating the human rights of its citizens.
03/03/2009 Eritrea (CISA) -Away from the limelight, as world attention is focused on Africa’s major crises like Darfur, DR Congo and Robert Mugabe, Eritrea is a veritable prison.
An exile who recently visited home describes how terror rules the land of Maoist dictator Isaias Afewerki and his ruling party that has a high-minded name, the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice.
Anyone who questions the regime must be silenced by any means: detention without trial, torture or execution, the exile, who declines to be named, fearing his family will be targeted, writes in the March issue of New People, a magazine of the Comboni Missionaries.
“I have lived under several colonizers (the Italians, British and Ethiopians), but the most repressive and cruelest regime is the incumbent government,” a respected elder told the writer. “And these are our sons and daughters for whom we waited for 30 years to bring us freedom! My son, is this freedom?”
The country, which became independent in 1991 after a bitter secessionist war with Ethiopia , is facing a serious food crisis orchestrated by the government to subjugate the people, the writer reports. There is no food in markets. People are expected to live on meager government rations.
Parliament has not convened since 2000. Because the nation’s professionals and intellectuals have fled, are detained or ignored, public offices are run by barely literate officers whose job is to implement orders from the presidency.
