The newspapers here in Africa are covering a dispute between Eritrea and the United States. We are accusing Eritrea of sponsoring Islamic terrorism in Somalia and other nearby countries. Those of us who have lived in Cambridge for a long time will recall Eritrean independence as a cause celebre from the early 1990s. Now they are independent and we apparently hate them.
What’s the punchline? The total GDP of Eritrea is $1.2 billion (source: CIA Factbook). Our new enemy has an entire economy smaller than what we spend every day on our military (King Bush II has requested a military budget of around $550 billion per year; source).
Eritrean history is replete with instances of being misrepresented, misunderstood and mishandled for over one hundred years. The current misjudgement by the US administration is just one more dose of the same. You will be aware that Eritrea is a country that has been terrorised in all sorts of ways (including by the Taliban in 1994/5), and cannot therefore be a terrorist state. Eritrea has been asking and lobbying the international community since April 2002 to assist in the implementation of the legally binding border (with Ethiopia) demarcation. All this in order to secure peace and stability for Eritrea and the region, because the people deserve peace and development after so much devastation at the hands of a multitude of powers.
Eritrea will continue to strive for peace and if there is anything you can do to help us with our efforts, please show us your support. There is a lot that individuals can do to combat the mighty.