Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld this month became the highest-ranking American official to ever visit Africa's newest nation, the small state of Eritrea on the Red Sea across from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. At a time when Saudi Arabia is refusing to allow U.S. forces there for a possible invasion of Iraq, the United States is looking to expand its military presence across the Arabian Peninsula on the African Horn.
"There are forces in the world that are urging, recommending, teaching fanaticism, extremism and terrorism, and those forces need to be overcome," Rumsfeld said in the Eritrean capital of Asmara in a joint news conference with the Eritrean leader, President Isaias Afwerki. "One of the things that has happened since the events of September 11 is the development of new relationships around the world."
Just south of Eritrea on the Red Sea, the even smaller state of Djibouti is already the host of thousands of U.S. combat forces and docking American warships. But Eritrea has a much longer coastline and two more deep-water ports.
"Eritrea is very attractive turf," said one senior Bush administration official in Washington. The U.S. military commander for the Middle East, Gen. Tommy Franks, has visited Eritrea four times during the Bush administration, most recently in March.
But Rumsfeld went there while the State Department has been raising concerns about human rights. Many former top Eritrean diplomats, including the recent ambassadors to Saudi Arabia and Germany, and former Cabinet officials including several former ministers of defense, are jailed in secret locations by the very government that - until just over a year ago - they each served. All of them, including the jailed Eritreans and their jailers, are veteran guerrilla fighters of Eritrea's long independence war, as is Afwerki, the president.
On Sept. 18, 2001, Afwerki, after eight years in power, alleged that he was fighting terrorism as well as subversion when he suddenly jailed many of his closest comrades along with journalists, students and other critics of his increasingly dictatorial government. Afwerki is the recognized father of Eritrea; he led a 31-year guerrilla movement against first a U.S.- and then Soviet-backed Ethiopian regime.
Two years after guerrillas liberated Eritrea, "Isaias," as he is known, was elected by guerrilla fighters to serve as president with the explicit agreement that his government would soon establish a constitution and hold elections.
"What did we get for it?" says Hebret Berhe, a 13-year guerrilla veteran. "We have a responsibility to the martyrs to implement the constitution, the rule of law, democracy and justice," she adds. Until she resigned in protest last year, Berhe was Eritrea's ambassador to four Scandinavian nations, based in Stockholm, Sweden. "We thought we would bring independence and then a democratic government - if not, then what is the difference between a colonizer and Isaias?"
Until recently, U.S. military ties with Eritrea were restricted over its government's continuing crackdown on civil liberties. Just two months ago, the State Department raised human rights concerns in October on the anniversary of the jailing of two of the U.S. Embassy's Eritrean employees. They were arrested last year hours after the U.S. ambassador in Asmara, Donald J. McConnell, formally protested Afwerki's jailing of his Eritrean officials and others.
"They don't respond well to pressure," explained one U.S. official in Asmara. The two U.S. Embassy employees are the only prisoners whose whereabouts are known.
The government crackdown began one week after 9/11; Eritrean spokesmen claimed that the dissidents were agents of Osama bin Laden or of Ethiopia. But this year Afwerki and his spokesmen suddenly made a new claim. Two months ago, after another State Department protest, Eritrea charged in October that its own jailed dissidents have been backed by the CIA. In a news release, the Eritrean Foreign Ministry accused the Clinton administration of trying to "unlawfully change the government," while accusing the Bush administration of "unwarranted intervention" in Eritrea's internal affairs.
The list of Eritrean prisoners reads like a who's who of the Eritrean diplomatic corps. The prisoners still being held in secret Eritrean jails include a few of their wives and more than 18 journalists. One is Fessheye Yohannes, a former independence war veteran, who was moved to a secret prison after he and nine other jailed journalists began a hunger strike in May. Last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists honored Yohannes in absentia with an International Press Freedom Award.
Other Eritrean prisoners include student leaders. Although one, Semere Kesete, escaped in July by persuading one of his captors, an older guerrilla veteran, to unlock his jail cell and flee with him into exile.
The Eritrean government has filed no public charges against any prisoner. With the exception of the two U.S. Embassy employees, all of the jailed Eritreans, including even the country's former diplomats, are being held incommunicado. Meanwhile, the government's public allegations that they were all part of one foreign-backed plot or another remain unsubstantiated.
"There is nothing new in Eritrea," said Afwerki, standing next to Rumsfeld. "We have been fighting against terrorism for the last 13 years alone."
But Afwerki may have other reasons to jail his critics, including covering up his own failure in Eritrea's last war - another conflict with Ethiopia, from 1998 to 2000. Some of the jailed former diplomats favored peace negotiations as the conflict began turning against Eritrea, while Afwerki chose to keep fighting. At the war's end, advancing Ethiopian forces displaced one-third of Eritrea's population of less than 4 million people. A little more than a year later - right after 9/11 - Afwerki jailed many of his own officials and closed down the private press, as both were growing more openly critical of his rule.
Rumsfeld only mentioned "problems" in passing in Asmara when a journalist asked him about the Eritrean prisoners.
"[A] country is a sovereign nation and they arrange themselves and deal with their problems in ways that they feel are appropriate to them," he replied, adding that U.S. and Eritrean officials have been engaged in "a very straightforward discussion" about many matters.
As he stood next to Rumsfeld, Afwerki said Eritrea was offering to host U.S. troops. Rumsfeld said the issue was under discussion. But as the United States moves closer to Eritrea, some wonder whether "Isaias" would be a reliable U.S. partner in the long term. "This guy is not stable," warns former Ambassador Berhe.
Frank Smyth is a free-lance journalist and a consultant to the Committee to Protect Journalists.