(An article by Minister Yemane G/Meskel in a book of similar essays: “Introduzione a globalita e regionalita, by Prof. Francesco N.M. Petricone that will be published soon)
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At the 15th BRICS Summit that was hosted by South Africa in Johannesburg in August this year, President Isaias Afwerki passionately argued for concerted action to rectify the “flaws and deficits of the prevailing global governance architecture, whose defining features were and remain dysfunctional, non-inclusive and unfair rules and regulations”.
He went on to say: “… the lofty aspirations of humanity as a whole is for a just and fair global order where justice and the rule of law prevail; where nations and peoples forge meaningful and symmetric ties of cooperation and partnership on the basis of respect for national independence and sovereignty; for societies anchored on compassion and social justice”.
These lucid words succinctly sum up Eritrea’s fervent perspectives and hopes for a paradigm shift in a new global order that rejects conventional geopolitical rivalry and obsolete zero-sum games.
Eritrea does not, of course, habour any illusion or pretentions of “punching above its diplomatic weight”. Indeed, its moral voice stems from, and is informed by, the spiral of vicious wars, mostly instigated or compounded by interferences of external powers, in the wider Horn of Africa – Middle East neighbourhood and the world at large.
A snapshot of global reality at this point in time will be eclipsed by interminable conflicts and mayhem in many parts of the world; gross inequalities where less than 1% of the filthy rich own 99% of global resources; as well as extreme polarization of societies as the Social Contract is corroded due to greed and racial/religious bigotry etc.
But above all, Eritrea’s moral voice is firmly grounded on its modern history; the transgressions and tribulations it has suffered especially in the past eighty years on account of a global governance structure that accords primacy to perceived geo-strategic interests of major powers and their local surrogates at the expense of legality and justice.
In the late 1940s when the fate of Italy’s former colonies – and as a corollary Eritrea’s right to decolonization – were addressed by the UN, the US broke precedence and “international law” to block Eritrea’s independence in pursuit of its “overriding geostrategic interests”. In the infamous words of the then US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles: “From the point of view of justice, the opinions of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interest of the United States in the Red Sea basin and the considerations of security and world peace make it necessary that the country be linked with our ally Ethiopia.”
As it happened, small Eritrea had to wage a liberation war for thirty-long years, in almost total isolation, whileoccupationist and surrogate Ethiopian regimes – whether Monarchist or Military Dictatorship – were supported by the US, Europe and the USSR among others.
Eritrea was consequently compelled to pay more than 60,000 lives of its best sons and daughters to assert the universal rights enshrined in the “dysfunctional rules-based international order” and under the watch of its much-vaunted “institutions of global governance”.
In dwelling on this episode, Eritrea must not be seen as harking back to the past in a vindictive and backward looking mindset. This was not, alas, an isolated and anomalous event that transpired several decades ago.
Fixation on geo-strategic interests and duplicity on the provisions and applicability of international law continue to haunt and define major western power attitudes and positions on Eritrea to date.
The deplorable pattern of supporting Ethiopia resurfaced during the border war between 1998-2000 and particularly when Ethiopia reneged on its treaty obligations, rejected the EEBC Arbitral Award, and continued to occupy sovereign Eritrean territories in flagrant violation of international law for almost two decades.
The EU and the US recently invoked what they termed as the Global Magnitsky Act to single out and impose illicit and unilateral sanctions against Eritrea; and especially on its security and national defense institutions. The coordinated and wicked campaigns were further replicated at the UNHRC and other “human rights” forums.
These diplomatic gimmicks defied logic, plausible rationale, and/or fairness. Yet travesty of justice and law was again pursued without moral qualms to serve bigger “geo-strategic goals”:i) to rehabilitate the TPLF and tacitly support its irredentist agenda against Eritrea; ii) forge new and pliant alliances of what they perceive as their surrogates in the region. (The scheme involved, at the time, driving a wedge between Eritrea and Ethiopia by disrupting and rolling back the historic Peace and Friendship Agreement of 2018).
I have dwelt on the peace and security domains of the global governance architecture because their impact has loomed large in our modern history and as they constitute the overarching prerequisites for subsidiary cooperation in other fields: economic, technological, cultural etc.
In this latter domains too, Eritrea seems to have aroused the ire of its prospective partners in the West for its advocacy for new, unorthodox and refreshing modalities and perspectives.
Eritrea rejected the “donor-recipient relationship” and perpetual dependency on debilitating international aid from the outset; from the early days of its independence when it was overwhelmed by the colossal task of national reconstruction and rehabilitation of a country devastated by thirty-years long war and whose national coffers were literally ransacked by the retreating and defeated Ethiopian regime.
Eritrea’s development strategy was thus mapped out on the pillars of investment and trade anchored on fair and symmetric appropriation of revenues that guarantee adequate compensation of risk but that do not, at the same time, rip off the host country and posterity of their resources and endowments.
Eritrea’s Investment Code that was first enacted in 1994 and revised several times thereafter (1997, 2007 etc.) was based on, and emanated from, these fundamental postulates. Associated laws and regulations that protect the retail sector, local employment opportunities and strategic sectors are equally predicated on these premises. Some of the Special Investment Laws (Mining, Free Trade Zone) etc. have also been crafted with those fundamental objectives in mind.
Moreover, in the larger scheme of things, Eritrea has consistently advocated for ownership and charting out of its policies – economic, cultural, political etc. as opposed to prescriptive emulation of extraneous “development models and abstract principles”, however irrelevant or inappropriate.
The controversy here is not about learning from, and adopting with requisite adjustments, concepts and methodologies of best experience. Eritrea has much to gain, and indeed interacts vigorously, to attract foreign investment and bolster its human capital from all its international partners.
What is vehemently rejected is “condescending universalism”; neocolonialist attitudes, so to speak, that preach wholesale adoption, without diligent flexibility, of certain principles and models that the Global South, and especially Africa, are supposed to fathom as conditionalities for economic support and interaction.
Eritrea’s independent policies and attitudes were and continue to be subtly opposed and undermined by some dominant western powers for the “infectious” ripple effect that they are perceived to engender. Pejorative epithets of “the Hermit Kingdom”, etc. essentially emanate from this perspective although they are also part and parcel of much more profound demonization campaign of ostracizing and portraying the country as a “Pariah State” for the geo-strategic considerations elucidated earlier.
Let me now revert to other important regional and domestic dimensions that are intertwined with, and impact in more ways than one, the subject matter.
The Horn of Africa is currently undergoing through, and is afflicted by, various intra-State and inter-State tensions and conflicts; most of which have been exacerbated by misguided external meddling. Furthermore, and from a long historical perspective, this is not unique or a special attribute of the region. Europe too has gone through its own hundred years of conflicts and colossal 1st and 2nd World Wars. So while not downplaying the gravity of the situation and the imperative for enduring solutions, the historical perspective is relevant to emphasize the transient nature of the current turbulent period.
In this context, Eritrea ardently believes in, and has devoted much time and energy to, promote regional ties of cooperation and harmony on the basis of legality and mutual interests. Its track-record illustrates its unflinching commitment to legality for the resolution of good-faith disputes among member States (its recourse to binding international arbitration in boundary disputes with Yemen and Ethiopia are cases in point). In Eritrea’s view, the economic rationale of synergy for foreign investment and larger integrated markets; centuries old historical and cultural affinities between the populations of the region; etc., are favourable parameters that can be leveraged to create conducive environments and institutional frameworks to crystallize robust architectures of regional cooperation.
But regional cooperation cannot thrive if the constituent parts are unstable and bedeviled by debilitating internal wars and conflicts. The latter emanate mostly from exclusionist domestic governance structures that marginalize ethnic and religious constituents in what are mostly multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies. A robust Social Contract that promotes equity and equal access to all social amenities (educational, health, other services); that promotes policies of even development to narrow the urban/rural divide; and that ensures a fair distribution of the national pie,is essential in nurturing a cohesive and united nation in spite of its religious and/or ethnic diversity.
Eritrea remains an oasis of peace in a rather turbulent region often racked by religious fundamentalist or institutionalized ethnic polarity precisely because its policies and embedded cultural orientation are firmly rooted on the equitable Social Contract briefly described above. But even in this domain, Eritrea is mendaciously denigrated by some circles – US State Department wrongly designates Eritrea as a Country of Concern – simply because its policies do not accommodate new, foreign funded, evangelical offshoots that would only foment discord in a pious society where Christianity of all denominations (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant) and Islam have co-existed in harmony for centuries.
In a nutshell, major Western powers have and continue to whimsically abuse and misconstrue the so-called “rules-based international order” to suit their short-term geostrategic objectives. They see developments in Eritrea through their tainted and distorted lenses. Reason why Eritrea is candidly urging for rectification of dysfunctional and duplicitous rules of the game.
Yemane G/Meskel
Minister of Information
6 October 2023