Photo: Issayas Afeworki, president of Eritrea. He also leader of People's Front for Democracy and Justice, PFDJ.According to the Ministry of Defence of Sri Lanka, “A United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee (USSFRC) report has revealed that Eritrea was providing direct military assistance to LTTE.” This certainly goes along with the numerous works of the Eritrean government in the horn of Africa, including Eritrean assistance for militants in Sudan, terrorist groups in Somalia, anti-government rebels in Djibouti and secessionist movements & terrorist organizations in the borders of Ethiopia.
Long before anyone in the world outside east Africa heard about the crisis in Darfur of western Sudan, the Eritrean government was arming all dissidents in Sudan. According to BBC, since the beginning, the Eritrean government’s policy was to help “anyone committed to overthrowing the neighboring government in Sudan.” Even worse, the Eritrean government started arming rebels in eastern Sudan as well. It went so far as to evacuate the Sudanese embassy inside the Eritrean capital and donate the embassy as a shelter for the anti-government Sudanese rebels. Facing all of these issues, the Sudanese government has been made powerless and reduced to arming ruthless ethnic rebels in response to Eritrean government’s acts.
The Eritrean government has done the same things in other parts of the region including starting wars with both Yemen and Ethiopia. As the exodus of Eritreans fleeing from the Eritrean government strengthened, it kept trying to distract the people of Eritrea, to keep their eyes on a perceived outside enemy, instead of focusing on their domestic misery. As widely reported, the Eritrean government continued to support rebels in Ethiopian borders as well as the ICU militants against the Somalia transitional government. But the real issue for the west was that some individuals in the ICU were responsible for US embassy bombings in east Africa. Thus it was not a surprise that the United States warned the Eritrean government about its financial and arm support for anti-government ICU fighters in Mogadishu. This showed that the United States is concerned about terrorism only when its interests are affected. It is important for all those nations, like Ethiopia, Somalia and Sri Lanka (who are facing violent secessionist movements and terrorist organizations armed by Eritrea) to take the matters into their own hands and expose the double standards of the west.
When the American pressure arrived two weeks ago, the Eritrean government discarded one of its dozens of foreign militant allies by releasing the Easter Sudanese rebels. The Eritrean government put out the fire it ignited in eastern Sudan and wanted to get a trophy for it. A rogue government like the current Eritrean government will keep arming, financing and training the other 15 plus secessionist & terrorist organizations from Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Sri Lanka as long as these nations lethargically wait & beg for western attention of their misery. The degree of difficulty all of these nations face regarding their security, because of the Eritrean government, will be reflected by many issues inside these countries terrorized by the Eritrean government. These issues include plummeting economic performance and deteriorating political instability because all related domestic groups (which the Eritrean government arms & finances and remains ready to arm more) will naturally take the offer and prefer a violent path to solve their grievances instead of choosing a peaceful path.
Despite American concern with the ICU, the United States is still not being threatened by ICU at its door step, therefore U.S. will tolerate the rogue Eritrean government at the expense of its own “War on Terror.”
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