“Yes!” To Sanctioning The PFDJ Regime

The Eritrean Youth Solidarity for Change, which supports sanctioning the Eritrean regime, has drafted a series of templates to enable whose who support the idea of sanctioning the regime to petition the representatives of the UN Member States who make up the UN Security Council. They have included simple instructions on how send this letter by email, snail mail, or fax.   This is one of the sample letters; there are four of them.  It will take less than 15 minutes of your time and no money at all to be heard (in contrast to the constituents of the PFDJ who have to pay 2% to get a visa to visit their homes.)  Visit their website at http://www.eysc.net/sanction.html#message and extend your support.

Your Excellency,

I would like to draw your attention to the ongoing debate of the United Nations Security Council on tightening the sanctions on the regime in Eritrea.

I, hereby, state that I strongly support the tightening of the sanctions against the tyrannical regime in Eritrea until the regime fully complies with the demands of the citizens of the country to respect fundamental human rights and plays positive role in bringing about a sustainable domestic, regional and international peace, security and respect of human rights.

Your Excellency, as it has also become clear to your office, the Eritrean people’s long struggle for freedom, democracy and justice has been betrayed by a small clique that seeks to stay in power at all costs. The regime in Eritrea has been exercising inhuman behavior against citizens by making them the prime victims of state-sponsored terrorism. Eritrea is now the only country without a constitution, a free press, functioning parliament, and other pillars of democracy, thus dubbed the ‘North Korea of Africa’. Tens of thousands innocent Eritrean citizens, including journalists, former government officials, elders, members of banned religious groups, conscripts and many others have been languishing without any recourse to due process of law, under innumerable detention centers, underground prisons that littered all over the country. It is known that UN Security Council, through sanctions and pressures, has been playing pivotal role in helping the pro-democracy revolutions in North Africa and Arab World. The voiceless Eritrean people who have been enduring untold suffering for decades under probably the worst regime in the world today deserve to be noticed and protected before it is too late. The time to act is now.

Your Excellency, as a result of indefinite servitude and tight state repression, the Eritrean youth have been leaving their country in thousands, braving a shoot-to-kill policy to cross the borders with Ethiopia and Sudan, making Eritrea one of the biggest refugee producing countries in the world. The overall impact of the regime’s gross violation of human rights inside the country resulted in mass exodus of the youth. Sadly, Eritrean refugees have continuously been suffering from inhuman treatments by human traffickers in the hosting countries especially in Sudan, Egypt/Sinai and Libya; who sell and buy these refugees, as well as make them sources for barbaric practices of human organ harvesting. There is no end in sight for the Eritrean misery, as the dictator Isaias Afewerki repeatedly demonstrated he would never hold any democratic election in the country, he would never step down and that he would never introduce political reforms of any sorts. Mindful of the fact that failure to act in due time had catastrophic and tragic results in places such as Rwanda and Darfur, we beseech and urge you to take an immediate and effective action before the regime of Isaias Afewerki inflicts irreparable and cataclysmic damage. Act now and save the Eritrean people.

Your Excellency, the regime in Eritrea has aligned itself with radical militants such as the Somali insurgents including Hizbul Al-Islam and Al-Shabab; offered them political, military and diplomatic heaven in the country. In face of this, we could not sit idly as a dictatorial, unrepresentative regime decided on its own narrow agenda, to squander Eritrean reputation and resources in ill-conceived and dangerous game against the real interests of the Eritrean state and public where no parliament or public gave consent to, and plunged Eritrea into the complicated internal Somali politics. Through its resolution (UNSC-1907), the UNSC sanction has brought about measurable results in forcing the regime to seek mediation in the conflict with Djibouti after vehement denials that there had in fact been military crisis between the two countries, amply demonstrating that effective, stiff and punitive sanctions are the only language the Eritrean regime responds to. In addition, the tyrannical regime immediately released the British and Australian citizens it had detained for six months on serious allegation of attempted assassination of the Eritrean leader; upon the British government’s diplomatic and economic pressure and threat of sanction, once again proving beyond any reasonable doubt that forceful and stiff sanctions do effectively work in dealing with the tyrannical Eritrean regime.

Your Excellency, the Eritrean regime had taken advantage of its Diaspora networks to undermine the UNSC sanction; Orchestrated campaigns to annul it by pretending the demands were coming from genuine Eritreans while the irrefutable truth is the regime’s petitions have been collected under duress, coercion, propaganda, intimidation, threats, and vitiating consent, misconstruing the targeted nature of the sanctions as if they meant to affect ordinary citizens. Not surprisingly, not even a single demonstration was held inside Eritrea to oppose the sanctions proving Eritreans inside the country do understand the “smart” nature of the sanctions, and they implicitly approve its objectives. Moreover, remittances from Diaspora Eritreans (particularly the 2% Diaspora Tax) have been used by the regime to control the Diaspora Eritreans, to hold them hostage and use them as tools for propaganda and as key sources of revenue for the regime’s insatiable appetite to inflict further damage and misery on the Eritrean people. Moreover, the argument that the revenues of mining operations would hurt Eritrean economy is totally baseless and false since in the past Eritrea’s economy has never, ever depended on mining. There is no question that the revenues to be deduced from the mining operations would only end up in the coffers of the unaccountable regime that will spend the funds in further entrenching its tight dictatorial control of the state apparatus as well in arming and funding regional militant insurgents.

Therefore, I strongly call upon your office:

1. To extend, and tighten the sanctions to include investment ban on Eritrea’s mining industry; ban on remittances from Eritrean Diaspora such as the 2% Diaspora tax and other similar nefarious sources of funding.

2. To urge members states to cooperate in the full implementation of the sanctions and in the allocation of the necessary resources to see to it the desired ends are met.

3. To remind the UNSC, in its mandate of the duty to protect, has a moral and legal responsibility to extend the sanctions against the tyrannical regime in Eritrea based on gross violation of human rights as it is no less oppressive than the Gaddafi regime in Libya and Assad regime in Syria and as the Eritrean people have been suffering, in the same or even more than the Libyan and Syrian peoples suffered in the last decades.

4. To ensure the Eritrean people that are faced with famine and drought have been offered the necessary emergency food and relief aid, and other assistances through the appropriate UN-mandated channels.

5. To stay seized of the matter.

Thank you!