You need outside powers to keep order here. It sounds colonialist, but I am only being realisticIf you just leave us alone, we will handle these matters [human rights] in a way that won't damage our bilateral relationship and won't embarrass us or you." He [Isaias Afwerki] indicated that he would be more likely to satisfy U.S. demands on human rights in the context of a growing military partnership, but would not do so if merely hectored by the State Department. Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic, April 2003
This kind of bartering, where a head of state of a third world country would condition the improvement of his own citizens human rights on the extent of the "military partnership" the United States would provide, is morally repugnant. It is a case of crude blackmail where the ransom is "military partnership" and the pawns are the Eritrean people. But in politics, many morally repugnant choices have been described "shrewd"if they work. The problem with President Isaias Afwerkis offer is that it is at least three decades too late: it is now a uni-polar world and the United States has plenty of choices, which makes the hold-your-nose-and-do-it option, the Isaias option, far less attractive. What is even worse for the Eritrean people is that it appears that it will take Isaias Afwerki and his party three more decades to understand this simple fact.
The US Is More Than The Pentagon
Leave aside Mr. Girma Asmeroms laughable "even our mountains look like those in Kandahar" claim as the typical hyperbole of a man trying too hard. What does Eritrea have to offer the United States that Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda and even Sudan cannot? It depends on what one means by the "United States," doesnt it? If one believes, as the PFDJ does, that the United States is run by the Pentagon and the Pentagon only; that the US State Department, and the US Congress, and the people of the United States and the values they espouse mean absolutely nothing, then one would do exactly what the PFDJ is doing: prepare sales brochures that would be appealing to Pentagon: a nation with deep sea harbors, long coastline, and a chief commanding officer with absolute power.
In fact, for a while, Isaias Afwerki had every reason to believe that the Pentagon is the United States. When Secretary Rumsfeld visited him in 2002, they held a joint press conference where Rumsfeld seemed to sound a distinctly Isaiasesque dodge when asked if he had raised the issue of human rights, including the case of two American Embassy employees who had been jailed, without trial, since September 2001: (Rumsfeld: "[nations] arrange themselves and deal with their problems in ways that they feel are appropriate to them.") This was followed by much courting, with Isaias getting increasingly desperate and the US playing the reluctant date, which included a tour of the Navys USS Mount Whitney.
Why Not Eritrea?
In the end, the United States chose Djibouti. Why would the United States choose an even smaller African state, a state that was not even part of the "coalition of the willing", and a Francophone country at a time when the US-France relationship was at its lowest point?
One reason has to be that, unlike the Eritrean government, the United States government is not a military dictatorship. Even in times of war, the United States is more than the Pentagon: on matters of foreign policy, it includes the State Department, the National Security Agency, the CIA, the Homeland Security, and the sprawling groups of think tanks, human rights advocates, businessmen, religious advocates and opinion makers. And on virtually every count, the government of Isaias Afwerki seemed like it was on a mission to antagonize them all.
Isaias Afwerki falsely accused George Tenets CIA and Anthony Lake of trying to overthrow him. He antagonized the human rights groups and their standard-bearer, Amnesty International, by torturing his own citizens. He contributed to more regional instability by creating a political environment that creates refugees to neighboring countries. He created an environment hostile to business development. He annoyed the right-to-worship activists placing Eritrea, for the first time ever, on the list of nations that violate their citizens right to worship their God. In this regard, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom published its annual report May 12 "hectoring" the Isaias regime by naming Eritrea in the "Countries of Particular Concern" category.
Two years of unseemly and humiliating begging has resulted in no change in US policy. The PFDJ's response seems to be to do no more than adjust the tone and volume of the begging: now there are two full-time professional lobbying groups in the United States paid from Eritreas meager resources, trying to convince the United States Government to engage in a more robust "military partnership." Isaias Afwerki, who had never mentioned the Eritrean opposition, much less Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement, in his first 11 years of ruling Eritrea, now does not miss a single opportunity to morph them all into Bin Laden. Regardless of the fact that even in post 9-11 America many of Eritreas opposition figures meet periodically with State Department officials, Isaias Afwerki is characteristically saying that he has better tools than American intelligence officials.
There are many reasons why the United States has decided against forming a military partnership with the Isaias Afwerki regime; some that we know, some that we undoubtedly do not know. It cannot be a coincidence, for example, that of the five African countries who signed up for the "Coalition of the Willing", four are located in the Greater Horn region. Despite herculean efforts by Isaias to present the TPLF as a "minority-genoicidal-apartheid regime," the USA seems unconvinced and does not want to antagonize Ethiopia by choosing Eritrea. There may be other factors. But one cannot exclude the obvious: the United States may have rejected Isaias Afwerki because it sees him precisely the same way the Eritrean people do: a man who showed promise once but is now a relic and a buffoon, an unstable person with unpredictable mood swings. A man whose list of ex-friends is longer than his list of friends.
