The European Union (EU) should change its policy towards Eritrea, says Mirjam van Reisen, professor of International Social Responsibility at Tilburg University. The people are better of if the EU would spent its allocated subsidy for Eritrea on housing and education of the Eritrean refugees in Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, Egypt or Yemen, adds Van Reisen, also founder and director of Brussels-based Europe External Policy Advisors (EEPA).“Eritrea clearly has no democracy. It doesn’t even have a parliament that meets. The constitution has never entered into force. The government has made a habit out of arbitrary detentions, persecution of people with unwanted religions and suppressing the free press," wrote van Reisen, a member of the coordinating committee of Social Watch, in a statement

Van Reisen’s statement reads as follows: EU must help Eritrean refugees, not the dictator

Should the European Union help a merciless dictator or help its refugees? I think the answer is obvious.

We are talking about Eritrea here, the open air prison in the East of Africa. This small country of about 6 million inhabitants at the shore of the Red Sea is ruled by the autocrat Isaias Afewerki since its independence in 1991. At the Africa-conference of the Evert Vermeer Stichting (EVS)in The Hague Saturday October 29th, I urged EU commissioner Andris Piebalgs (Development ) to reconsider his policy about spending the remaining tens of millions euros of his budget for Eritrea.

Piebalgs has put democracy in a central place in the policy communication Agenda for Change he presented October 13th on increasing the impact of EU Development policy. The document states on its first pages prominently that: “EU general budget support should be linked to the governance situation and political dialogue with the partner country”. And:

-- “Should a country loosen its commitment to human rights and democracy, the EU should strengthen its cooperation with the non-state actors and local authorities and use forms of aid that provide the poor with the support they need.’’

Now, Eritrea clearly has no democracy. It does not even have a parliament that meets. The constitution has never entered into force. The government has made a habit out of arbitrary detentions, persecution of people with unwanted religions and suppressing the free press.

SINCE his arrest in 2001, Dawit Isaak has spent the last ten years in prison.

In 1997, Setit, the first independent paper in Eritrea, started circulation after the change of the country’s independence. By September of 2001, when the Eritrea government closed down with all other private and independent media groups, Setit was included among those newspapers. As editor and co-founder of Setit newspaper, the government arrested Isaak, along with journalists from other media outlets.

Isaak had returned to Eritrea when the country gained independence and the newspaper was launched, after he had become a Swedish national and he sought asylum in Sweden in 1987. While Sweden has continued efforts for his release during the ten years of his imprisonment, they have been unsuccessful to date. In 2002 a letter went out to the President of Eritrea from the Committee to Protect Journalists, after reports were made that Isaak had suffered from being tortured and as a result he had been hospitalized. The letter can be viewed here.

Isaak continued to be held captive and the President of Eritrea refuses to work with the Swedish government to release him – or for him to have fair trial. “The Swedish government has no relevance in our lives,” President Afewerki said in an interview with freelance reporter Donald Boström, broadcast on Sweden’s TV4 in 2008.

He then denied that there are any imprisoned journalists in an interview with Al Jazeera when he was asked about the many journalists held captive in 2008 without a trial. “There were never any. There aren’t any. You have been misinformed,” Afewerki said. In a 2010 television interview with Al Jazeera's journalist, Jane Dutton, Afewerki argued Isaak’s imprisonment and release. He believes that the pressure on the country is a conspiracy theory against Eritrea. 

Over the past year, the world has watched with great interest as the Arab Spring has dissolved decades of repression. Citizens weary of injustice have stood up and demanded control of their destinies. I wish that oppressed people everywhere in Africa could benefit from the dramatic changes we are witnessing in North Africa. The people of Equatorial Guinea, for instance, an oil-rich country home to the continent’s longest-ruling leader, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, have endured decades of repression, and many remain mired in poverty despite the country’s considerable natural resource wealth. Torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, and harassment of journalists and civil society groups have been well documented by the United Nations and other sources.

Despite this abysmal record, in 2008 UNESCO agreed to establish a science prize named for and funded by President Obiang aimed at “improving the quality of human life.” Outrage UNESCO suspended the prize in October 2010 after an overwhelming number of Equatoguineans, human rights groups, press freedom organizations, anti-corruption groups, public health professionals, prominent writers, and esteemed scientists from Africa and around the world voiced their outrage over the prize. I myself, in solidarity with the people of Equatorial Guinea, joined in this effort.

As part of the so called BRICS countries (along with China, India, Russia and South Africa), Brazil has established itself as one of today’s most important emerging economic powers. The country has not only become increasingly involved in giving aid to African countries but is also expected to provide help to the European Union’s (EU) indebted member states, as a means to overcome the current financial crisis, reported Eurostep based on news published by several media outlets.

Representatives of BRICS’ governments will discuss next weekend in Washington, on the occasion of the 2011 World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings, “how to help the EU get out of this situation,” Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega announced last week, in an interview with World Policy Report.

With several European economies, such as Greece and Portugal, struggling with huge debts, government austerity measures and high unemployment rates, the EU’s economic and financial situation has recently come under significant pressure.

Representatives of the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean who convened this week in Santiago de Chile did not include among their recommendations to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio2012), to be held next year in Brazil, the concept of “green economy”.

On the other hand, the document of conclusions approved by the Regional Preparatory Meeting for Rio2012, gathered at the ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile, reiterates that “the objective to be achieved is sustainable development, which should ensure the balance between these three interconnected pillars: social, economic and environmental, while maintaining the fundamental principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and equity”.A global institutional framework is necessary to achieve sustainable development "which is efficient and flexible and ensures the effective integration” of those pillars, it adds.

The delegates stated that a change in patterns of production and consumption must be achieved, in addition to better ways of measuring countries' wealth that adequately reflect the social, economic and environmental dimensions, "while maintaining the fundamental principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and equity".