by the Strathink Editorial Team

The recent documentary film by France 24, “A Visa for Asmara, Eritrea,” is a study of despair. Despite the depressing news that comes out of Eritrea daily, it is still shocking to see the fear and despair on peoples’ faces when asked questions about their country’s government.

Their fear is palpable—intense, tangible and heartbreaking.

The television news reporter who is interviewed at EriTV tells France24, “I am free to move, to speak and to write.” Watch the interview and close your eyes. He is believable. Open your eyes and watch his face. His face tells a different story.

Fathi Osman, a former Eritrean diplomat who finally fled in 2012, captures the collective despair of Eritreans when he says, “After 25 years of independence, what did we gain?”

How can a country with so much promise just 25 years ago slide so quickly into ruin?

The France24 reporter begins his report by saying, “In Eritrea there is no war, no famine.” Yet, there is a war—a war by the Eritrean government against the people of Eritrea—and there is a famine—a famine of truth about why Eritrea has stagnated for 25 years.

Mr. Ammanuel from Eritrea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs takes France24 reporters to a curious spectacle outside of Asmara made up of destroyed military collateral from the 1998-200 war with Ethiopia—a jumble of tan and green camouflaged military detritus. Why? Mr. Ammanuel doesn’t seem sure but offers this, “Maybe for an exhibit or museum.”

An aged soldier hands his Kalashnikov to a driver. He sits down and says, “We get freedom from Ethiopians.” Why does he look so distressed? Why can’t his eyes face the camera?

In the Metabar market, Mr. Yishaq, an interpreter, takes the France24 crew around a recycling center where discarded materials are made useable. Self-reliance, we learn, is the government’s favorite slogan. Mr. Yishaq sees a young boy pounding out a strip of metal. Without being asked, Mr. Yishaq tells the reporters that the boy is working in his father’s business after school. No one had asked the question.

Mr. Yeshaq asks a young man standing in the market, “Why are young people fleeing the country”? The young man says he doesn’t know why and that he is not aware of any young people leaving.

The UNHCR estimates that around 5,000 people—many of them young—are fleeing the country monthly.

The film cuts to a scene where a young child is being lifted out of a boat filled with Eritreans risking their lives to leave Eritrea.

“People are escaping because they are stifled. They can’t breathe anymore because without the freedom to work, the freedom to have a family, the freedom to get an education, what life do you have?” Kubrom Dafla Hosabay, Eritrea’s former head of the tax administration, who fled the country in 2009, explain the tyranny of the national service obligations on Eritreans. “There is no legal way of going out of national service.”

Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel has another interpretation of military service. According to the Minister, Eritreans are not fleeing the country because of indefinite national service in the military. People are fleeing for economic reasons and Europe is making it easy for them by granting political asylum.

It seems the European Union has accepted the Information Minister’s conclusions because it recently granted Eritrea 200 million Euros for poverty eradication.

We also learn why Eritrea has an indefinite military service. The Minister explains that, “Ethiopia continues to rattle the sabre with threats of war against Eritrea. It continues to occupy our land, which is against international law and guaranteed by the Algiers Peace treaty.” According to Mr. Yemane Gebreab, Eritrea must be able to mobilize its army quickly. Most Eritreans in national service, he says, are working as civilians.

Ethiopia is the dominant narrative in the government’s rationale for its policies.

A taxi driver is interviewed at night in his cab. According to the taxi driver, the time limit for military service is “unknown.” He drives a taxi at night and sleeps during the day to avoid the police. He has already served 10 years. “I am still not finished,” he says. When he is asked why he doesn’t leave, he explains that money is a problem. “Five thousand dollars to enter Sudan. Three thousand for Ethiopia.”

There is Ethiopia again—only this time it is a destination and not a threat.

And then comes Meala Tesfamichael, a young journalist raised in Switzerland “who is a staunch defender of the government.” Ms. Meala is serving as the interpreter for the France 24 news team in Adorgat, a small, town in central Eritrea where donkeys out number cars. Ms. Tesfamichael explains, “Eritrea doesn’t want her vision, her culture, her way of seeing things to be imposed by the outside world.”

It is difficult not to notice Meala’s chic dress and shoes. Her sunglasses probably costs more than several months of an average worker’s salary. Did she serve her national military service or is she exempt because she is a Swiss citizen? Ms. Eala, we learn, writes articles for the government-owned daily. It is the country’s only newspaper.

At the checkpoint outside of Asmara, the car is stopped because “foreigners cannot leave the capital without a travel permit.” Ms. Meala explains why, “With the problems we’ve had on our border, we don’t want anyone going just anywhere.”

It’s Ethiopia again.

According to former Eritrean diplomat Fathi Osman, “The government is saying that Eritrea is in danger. Eritrea is under threat of a massive invasion by Ethiopia. What the Ethiopians are saying is we are no interested in any military action against Eritrea. Both countries are benefitting from the situation as it exists now. The Eritrean government is trying to invest in this situation to stay in power. The Ethiopians would like to see Eritrea suffer.”

It’s Ethiopia again.

In a shocking scene “that has not been prepared by our minders at the Ministry,” the camera is fixed on men breaking rocks on a hillside guarded by armed soldiers. Ms. Meala shows the soldier clearly in charge the travel permit issued to the film crew as she explains that they are guests “looking at government policies.” The soldier tells the reporters, “It’s voluntary service. They are not paid. The roads belong to the people.”

“But the rock breakers,” says the narrator, “tells us another story.”

“We are soldiers,” says one older man in English. “All of us are in the military service.”

He says to the others, “Be brave. Say what you think.”

One man heeds his call to be brave. He says, “There is no limit [to how many hours we work]. We don’t get paid. It’s the military service.”

In Eritrea’s national service, soldiers break rocks on remote hillsides to fulfill their national obligation and protect the country from an Ethiopian invasion.

The team returns to Asmara where they ask Yemane Gebreab, the President’s Advisor, about the 15 government officials who wrote a letter asking the President for democracy. “Are they alive?”, asks the reporters. Mr. Gebreab tells them that Eritrea will handle that issue their own way—“to heal the wounds.”

Our last glimpse of Eritrean soldiers is at a factory jointly owned by the Eritrean government and an Italian company, Piccini Construction. All of the workers are soldiers because, as one worker-soldier tells the crew, “Everyone in Eritrea is a soldier.”

It is on to Massawa, Eritrea’s port city, where only one cargo ship stops every 20 days. There we meet Mr. Primo Giavanni, half Eritrean and half Italian, who supports the government, says the reporter. He presides over a vast and empty hotel with an Olympic-size swimming pool. He thinks the people fleeing the country are crazy. He walks around his empty hotel.

Conclusion

Yemene Gebreab, Special Advisor to the President and longtime spokesperson for the government, repeated his tired mantra about Eritrea. He looked and sounded weary. After all, it must be tiring to repeat the same lies about Eritrea for 25 years.

The President is in poor health—a terminal diagnosis of cancer—but modern medicine can keep ailing people alive for months and even years.

In the meantime, Eritreans are suffering a slow death—not from war or famine but from a government bent on controlling every aspect of their lives.

What, then, is to be done about Eritrea?

It is clear that a post-Isayas Eritrea is possible only with an Eritrean-led, organic movement to force change. The problem of Eritrea is first and foremost an Eritrean problem

However, how long can Ethiopia tolerate the destabilizing role Eritrea is playing in the region? The recent capture of Ginbot 7 soldiers, and we use this word loosely, in southern Ethiopia has shown the world the brazenness of Eritrea in supporting and arming opponents of the Ethiopian government. Although the UN could not provide sufficient proof of Eritrea’s support for al-Shabaab in Somalia, where there is smoke there is fire. Eritrea aligns itself with any group professing its commitment to the violent overthrow of the Ethiopian government. Short of that goal, these groups commit acts of terrorism against civilian targets in an effort to destabilize the only stable country in the region.

We offer here some recommendations for actors outside of Eritrea.

The international community should stop rewarding this government with foreign assistance. The EU’s decision to provide critically needed foreign currency to the regime sends a wrong message to the people of Eritrea.

There are some in the U.S. government—or people such as Ambassador Hank Cohen who has important ties to influential people in the U.S. government—to stop talking about normalizing relations with Eritrea. At the current time, normalizing relations with Eritrea is normalizing relations with Isayas Afewerki. This legitimizes his regime and, again, sends a wrong message to the people of Eritrea.

For Eritreans in the diaspora, it is time to speak the truth about Eritrea. Maintaining the mythology of Eritrea that deifies Isayas Afewerki and romanticizes Eritrea’s history serves no one but the regime. The truth shall set you free.

Long live Eritreans! Long the truth!