struggling, low-profile nation is doing something virtually

[Somaliweyn Commando]

This struggling, low-profile nation is doing something virtually unheard of in Africa. It's turning down foreign aid.

ASMARA, Eritrea — This struggling, low-profile nation is doing something virtually unheard of in Africa. It's turning down foreign aid.

With a president who vows not to lead another "spoon-fed" African country "enslaved" by international donors, Eritrea, a small, secretive nation on the Horn of Africa, has walked away from more than $200 million in aid in the last year alone, including food from the United Nations, development loans from the World Bank and grants from international charities to build roads and deliver healthcare.

Eritrea can scarcely afford to say no. As one of the world's poorest nations, it has struggled to feed its people.

But President Isaias Afwerki, a former Marxist rebel who has led Eritrea since its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, defends the nation's exercise in self-reliance, even if it results in short-term hardships.

He says it is crucial not only to the long-term survival of his country, but also to that of his continent.
"We need this country to stand on its two feet," Isaias said in an interview. Fifty years and billions of dollars in post-colonial international aid have done little to lift Africa from chronic poverty, he said.

"These are crippled societies," Isaias said of neighbors whom he described as relying on donors rather than developing their economies. "You can't keep these people living on handouts because that doesn't change their lives."

"This President vows his African nation won't be "enslaved." But some of African countries think he's lost his way."

“We have to be able to produce
enough to feed ourselves
and then go beyond that to sell
in the market”-President Isaias


But can Eritrea's government fill the void without an increase in hunger and disease?

The self-reliance program began a decade ago but accelerated sharply in 2005. Relying on its meager budget and the conscription of about 800,000 of the country's citizens, the program so far has shown promising results. Measured on a variety of U.N. health indicators, including life expectancy, immunizations and malaria prevention, Eritrea scores as high, and often higher, than its neighbors, including Ethiopia and Kenya.

It might be one of the most ambitious social and economic experiments underway in Africa.But Eritrea isn't getting much credit. Instead, the government increasingly finds itself in the international doghouse, largely because of its poor human rights record, isolationism and belligerent stance toward its neighbors and the West.

In a world moving toward globalization, Eritrea is turning inward. The government has sealed its borders and halted most imports, expelled several diplomats and aid groups, and withdrawn from the leading East African intergovernmental alliance.

"It's like they have self-imposed sanctions," said one diplomat, who like many interviewed feared government retribution if identified. "They're turning into an Albania or North Korea."

Tensions are particularly high with Ethiopia, with which Eritrea fought a bitter border war from 1998 to 2000. In recent months, both nations have beefed up troops along their border in a disputed region, threatening to resume hostilities.

Now the U.S. is threatening to make Eritrea even more of a pariah by adding it to its list of state sponsors of terrorism, alleging that Eritrea is supporting Somalia's Islamic Courts Union, an insurgent alliance that U.S. officials say has links to the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

A recent United Nations report accused Eritrea of sending arms shipments to the Islamist fighters last year.

"They're creating a lot of problems in Africa," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said recently, criticizing the government's support for rebel groups in Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. In a diplomatic tit-for-tat, the U.S. recently closed Eritrea's consulate in Oakland.

Isaias was once heralded in the United States as the George Washington of Eritrea. Now, many in Washington portray him as a budding Fidel Castro or Kim Jong Il. Foreign diplomats worry that the escalating tensions may only further alienate the country.

"Eritrea shouldn't be the bad boy in the corner," said Carl Lostelius, charge d'affaires for the European Union here. "It's not good for Eritrea and it's not good for the region."

Isaias said he was being punished for opposing Ethiopia's troop deployment to Somalia last year, which helped oust the Islamic Courts group from Mogadishu. The U.S. government supported the overthrow of the Islamists.

The Eritrean leader insisted he was not trying to isolate his country but was attempting to protect it from foreign influences that he said hurt developing countries. He said Eritrea would rejoin regional and global markets once it developed a manufacturing and production capacity and could compete on an equal footing. Until then, he added, "we say, leave us alone. Let us do our work."

As part of the self-reliance campaign, the government last year abruptly stopped the World Food Program's free distributions to 1 million people. This year, government officials refused a proposed $100-million development loan from the World Bank.

[adanboy]

Eritrea is definately unique in Africa,hardworking and united people....What they achieved is not supposed to be achieved in the "dark" Africa according to the West..thats why they don't let it happen..,and they hired Meles Zenawi to prevent that to happen...The costly border war is hurting their developement.. this people were building bridges and highways in the middle of the 1998-2000 destructive war with Ethiopia

[gurey25]

this is one of the main reasons for American dissaproval of eritrea.
it has little to do with supporting terrorists " somali freedom fighters"

The US showed clearly who it supported in the last war with Ethiopia,
when they supposedly had good relations with eritrea.


if you refuse to be enslaved by usurous loans of the IMF/world Bank

and giving your country full access to internatioal robber baron multinationals
that will exploit your population , ruin your environment while calling it development.


Eritrea is a rebel, an example to the rest of the world
refuse the NEW WORLD ORDER and you will be destroyed.

heed this lesson.