Source: Bild
ERITREA RIOTS IN GIESSE: This butcher has us partying
SPLITTWEETSEND09.07.2023 – 18:07
After the riots at the controversial “Eritrea Festival” in Giessen, the police’s information policy was criticized in particular.
But why is such a festival allowed to take place at all?
Because: The event, advertised by the organizers as a peaceful family celebration, is actually considered a propaganda event for the military dictatorship of the long-term ruler Isayas Afewerki (77), who has ruled the country with an iron fist for 30 years.
After the riots on Saturday, the police are still on duty today.
HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL FOR YEARSWhat is behind the Eritrea Festival in Giessen?
In Hesse, the Eritrea dictatorship can celebrate. BILD clarifies the most important questions.
“Africa’s North Korea”
The isolated military dictatorship has been referred to as the “North Korea of Africa” for years – the measures against its own people are far more draconian there than in other regimes in the region.
Afewerki bases his power on the only legal party, the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice, and the military he controls, into which both men and women are forcibly conscripted for many years. The country’s military prisons are notorious, where torture, rape and murder are commonplace.
Free reporting is already being suppressed in the beginnings, in the press freedom index of the organization “Reporters Without Borders” Eritrea is ranked 174th out of 180 countries. Except for the propaganda departments of the “Ministry of Information”, media in Eritrea are banned as a matter of principle, journalists are often locked away without trial, such as the Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak, who has been imprisoned since 2001.
Massacre in Tigray
In 2018, Afewerki and Ethiopia’s ruler Abiy Ahmed ended the years-long border conflict between the two states.
A few months later, Afewerki’s forces invaded the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia together with the Ethiopian army to suppress the independence movements there. Since 2020, more than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict and almost a million have been displaced. Afewerki’s soldiers participated in ethnic cleansing and committed several cruel massacres against the civilian population. Eritrean soldiers alone in the city of Aksum, near the border, murdered several hundred people.
Even after the ceasefire agreement between the Ethiopian central government and the rebels in Tigray in November 2022, Eritrean troops remained in the region. Activists from Tigray reported to BILD later this year about ongoing raids on villages near the border.
Regime propaganda in Germany
In order to ensure the continued existence of the dictatorship, however, Afewerki is dependent on soldiers: his military was involved in armed conflicts with neighboring countries Ethiopia and Djibouti for years.
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It is an exodus triggered by the reign of terror by an incredible dictator.
Almost 4,000 Eritreans applied for asylum in Germany last year – a high number given the country’s small population (approx. six million). Since Eritreans are threatened with forced recruitment into the military if they are deported, their chances of staying in Germany are quite high.
On the other hand, the poverty-stricken dictatorship is also financed by a special tax from citizens living abroad: only those who pay this are allowed to visit relatives in Eritrea. Opponents of Afewerkis criticize that the “cultural events” such as those in Gießen are also intended to finance the dictatorship through fundraising and entrance fees.
The organizers of the festival try not to put their support of the regime in the foreground, but pretend that it’s just about culture and folklore. However, high-ranking representatives of the regime, such as Hagos Gebrehiwot, head of the economic department of the PFDJ, also make frequent appearances at the cultural events.
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The PFDJ is also very active in Germany apart from the cultural events: A German branch of the party was founded in Frankfurt in February: The Eritrean people will persistently thwart all “conspiracies and hostilities”, a spokesman said at the time.
A month later, “youth seminars” were held in Frankfurt and Mannheim under the supervision of the Eritrean embassy. Eritrean youth should educate themselves, refrain from “subnational attitudes” and get more involved in “national affairs,” said an Eritrean diplomat. The secret of Eritrea’s victory lies “in the political consciousness and perseverance of his youth”.
Martin Plaut 