Whenever I think of what is happening in Eritrea, I cannot help but think of similar cases in other areas and other times in the past. In many respect, the Khmer Rouge’s route seems to be loosely followed by PFDJ in our country. The Khmer Rouge was a communist organization which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to1979. The Khmer Rouge regime is responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people (from an estimated 1972 population of 7.1 million Kampucheans), through execution, starvation and forced labour. It is often said to have been one of the most violent regimes of the 20th century.  In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population of the country it ruled and time in power, it was probably the most lethal regime of the 20th century.

Since the working-age population is in the army, there is basically no one to take care of civilian activities like farming, industrial and manufacturing activities. As a result, draught and famine became rampant in many Eritrean rural societies. What little food remained was distributed to the Army – army officials and their families taking the lion’s share that left little to the rest of the members of the armed forces and their families. The soldiers basically live off very limited amount (and limited variety) of food supply that put them in constant hunger – and this after toiling for more than 10 hours a day on average. The broke society is made even more broke and the result is heart wrenching.

The government spent millions to decorate the land by putting up white-elephant projects that have no or limited effect on the over all economy. Roads that join border villages are constructed. After the war the importance of these roads would largely diminish. Although the patients, students, health and education professionals are conscripted and taken away to remote areas of the country, hospitals and schools are being constructed. All these buildings that cannot be staffed nor made usable are constructed by forced labour through the much publicised ‘warsay-yikealo’ project. The sad fact is that while the government is willing to spend money on the materials and supplies, it is less willing to do so when it comes to spending on the labour used in the project. As a result, the poor is made poorer. 

The examples are far from exhaustive, but they are indicative of how the Eritrean society is marginalised. The government’s policies and adventurism which do not encourage foreign investments (from foreigners as well as Diaspora Eritreans) are part of the problems.  They were discouraged by lack of consistent policies on trade, industrialisation, investment and land distribution. There is no property right in Eritrea. Lack of good governance, gross violation of human rights, un-ratified constitution, and inexistence of rules of law are among the many factors that discourage foreign (and Diaspora Eritrean) investment in the country. Corruption is rampant among officials of the country. Citizens’ and foreigners’ project ideas get stolen by the parties’ investment wing. Diaspora Eritreans were further discouraged by the fact that if they chose to live in the country they would also be conscripted. The government does not reveal an ability or willingness to remove any of these obstacles in the near future citing the Ethio-Eritrean war as the culprit for majority of the ills described above.  By doing nothing about these obstacles, the government is denying the right of citizens from acquiring wealth and well-paying jobs.

The purpose of the creation of Khmer Rouge-like society in Eritrea is not to the benefit of Eritreans in every respect.  It is designed to instil obedience among citizens by removing elements that enhance self-esteem, self-reliance and independence – factors that are important for bringing any society into non-compliance and objection. Of these elements wealth is of high importance. Poor society, like a dog, will always look up to its masters for a feed, wagging its tails when it is fed and licking the hand that fed it.  The idea of banning religious sects comes second to the creation of a broke society in instilling obedience since it denies the citizens a moral shelter when all is lost (and when poverty creeps in) pointing everybody to the only source of power for any kind of societal needs (including material and psychological needs).

Isayas Afewerki, like Pol Pot (a.k.a Saloth Sar, a.k.a brother number one), succeeded to disintegrate the people and creating penny-less society. Any of the educated or wealthy citizens who dared to question his policies are now in prison or disappeared mysteriously. The whereabouts of former officials and party members, ex-brother number twos, number threes, number fours, etc of Eritrean Khmer Rouge who called for a reform, is not known. The number of concentration and labour camps, dungeons and prisons in Eritrea is sky-rocketing to accommodate and muffle the ever increasing defiance.

The peculiarity of Eritrean case (as in Khmer Rouge) is highlighted by the fact that obedience and defiance are treated equally. If you are obedient, you will be put in a military camp and forced to work for free. If you disobey, they will put you in one of the concentration camps and you will be forced to work all the same. The irony is even though there is an incentive for resistance many people still chose to take all the abuses of the government silently. A frustrated Vietnamese once said, “If we fight, we die; if we don’t, we die. Hence, it is better to die fighting” [not exactly verbatim]. Everything is about a choice. But it would have felt good to say ‘no’ to oppressors, especially when the punishment for saying so is no different from the reward one gets by adhering to the oppressors’ constant and abusive demands.