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| Eritrean government should give its citizens basic freedom |
My impression of Eritrea after spending a week there was mix. My initial reaction was wow! I thought with all the negative reports made against the government, things were simple. I was very impressed with Asmara, the capital city - it is a beautiful place - where locals are hospitable. I also felt vey safe, safer than all of the neighbouring countries and even London, where I spend most of my time.
When I saw the road between Asmara and Massawa which Eritreans apparently built with no physical or financial help from anyone, I thought if a very small and young nation could achieve such a thing then everything is possible. Unlike Somalis, who are good at killing one another, Eritreans are proud and seem to appreciate their mountainous country.
That was before we drove to Massawa - my first encounter with the Eritrean government’s attitude towards freedom of movements. Before we took the spaghetti-styled road we were stopped at a checkpoint, just outside Asmara, the first of four where they checked whether we had the permission to travel.
The authorities want to know where everyone is; a nanny-state, as they say in Britain. Then I thought, perhaps rather than having CCTVs in every corner, as developed nations do, they prefer to monitor people’s movements physically.
I think the government is obsessed with controlling people who are going on about their daily lives. I said to a government official: if you continue treating the public like this they will turn against you. And he smiled.
The best way I can describe Eritrea is like a couple who are deeply in love and have been desperately trying to have children for a long time. And after experiencing so many miscarriages and spending lots of money on IVF treatments, they finally had a beautiful baby.
Because of what they have gone through, they think people want to harm their child and developed paranoia. As a result, rather than allowing the baby to grow naturally, they place too much restriction on it.
One could sympathise with the Eritrean authorities since they fought very hard to get the freedom they enjoy today. They suffered long enough under successive Ethiopian governments and still feel threatened by the current regime in Addis Ababa.
But the Eritrean government should not just look at the threat from outside but the one from within. And usually, the latter could have worse consequences than the former. To keep Eritrea as a stable country, the government needs to allow its people to have the necessary freedom to speak out, travel and choose their leaders.
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