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ERITREA: A NEGLECTED REGIONAL THREAT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Serial No. 114–237

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State ............................................................... 4

Father Habtu Ghebre-Ab, director of external relations, Canonical Eritrean 

Orthodox Church in Diaspora ............................................................................. 21

Khaled Beshir, Ph.D., board member, Awate Foundation ................................... 26

Ms. Bronwyn Bruton, deputy director, Africa Center, Atlantic Council ............. 39

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Linda Thomas-Greenfield: Prepared statement .......................... 7

Father Habtu Ghebre-Ab: Prepared statement ..................................................... 23

Khaled Beshir, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ........................................................... 29

Ms. Bronwyn Bruton: Prepared statement ............................................................ 42

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 70

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 71

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations: Questions 

submitted for the record and written responses from: 

Father Habtu Ghebre-Ab ..................................................................................... 72

Khaled Beshir, Ph.D. ........................................................................................... 73

Ms. Bronwyn Bruton ............................................................................................ 74

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith: Statements from Eritrean torture survivors ..................................................................................................................... 76

(1)

ERITREA: A NEGLECTED REGIONAL THREAT 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:26 p.m., in room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee hearing will come to order, and 

welcome to all of our distinguished witnesses and also my good 

friend and colleague, the gentlelady from California. 

In 1993, the citizens of Eritrea, then a province of Ethiopia, 

voted to become an independent nation. Ethiopia had annexed Eritrea in 1962 and its citizens no doubt believed that they were well 

on their way to controlling their own destiny. 

Unfortunately, their hopes would soon be dashed. Elections have 

been repeatedly postponed and opposition political parties are no 

longer able to organize. 

Those same initial hopes for democracy and good government in 

Eritrea were also held by the international community. 

In March 1997, in a report by the U.S. Agency for International 

Development program in the country, the American aid agency had 

high praise for its collaboration with the government. 

It said, in part, ‘‘Over the past year the young state of Eritrea 

continued its exciting and pace-setting experiment in nation building and similarly USAID Eritrea established itself as Eritrea’s 

leading development partner.’’

Within a few years, however, the Government of Eritrea ended 

its relationship with USAID. But this decision was originally taken 

as a sign that the country was ready to become an example to the 

rest of the developing world by managing its own humanitarian 

needs. 

Eritrea’s Government instead merely became less open and when 

an east African drought occurred in 2011 we knew very little about 

how the people were faring. 

Today, we know that two-thirds of Eritreans live on subsistence 

agriculture, which has had poor yields due to recurring droughts 

and low productivity. What we also know is that Eritrea’s citizens 

are living under a regime that does not honor human rights. 

In June of this year, the U.N. Human Rights Council released a 

report that accused the government with a variety of violations inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:17 Nov 29, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\091416\21541 SHIRL
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cluding extrajudicial executions, torture, indefinitely prolonged national service and forced labor, sexual harassment, rape, and sexual servitude by state officials. 

In its Trafficking in Persons Report released in June 2016, the 

State Department listed Eritrea as a Tier 3—that is the most egregious violator country—and stated that Eritrea is a source country 

for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor. The government did not investigate, prosecute, or convict trafficking offenders during the reporting year. The government demonstrated 

negligible efforts to identify and protect trafficking victims. The 

government maintained minimal efforts to prevent trafficking. 

In their most recent international religious freedom report the 

State Department again listed Eritrea as a Country of Particular 

Concern, or a CPC country. 

Moreover, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom lists Eritrea as a Tier 1 Country of Particular Concern for its 

egregious religious freedom violations. 

The government interferes with the internal affairs of registered 

religious groups and represses the religious liberty of those faith 

groups that refuses to register, such as Evangelical and Pentecostal 

Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslims who do not follow 

the government-appointed head of the Islamic community. 

Furthermore, the government has a record of arbitrarily arresting the believers and their leaders and reportedly tortures those in 

prolonged detention. 

As a result of the authoritarian government sanctions, Eritrea is 

considered one of the world’s fastest-emptying nations with about 

1⁄2 million of the country’s citizens having left their homes for often 

dangerous paths to freedom. An estimated 5,000 Eritreans leave 

their country each month. 

On July 9, 2015, a hearing by our subcommittee on Africa refugees, John Stauffer, president of the American Team for Displaced 

Eritreans, told us that the government officials operated freely in 

eastern Sudan, arresting and bringing back to Eritrea those they 

considered high value targets among refugees, such as government 

officials or church leaders. 

He also testified that refugees moving east may be kidnapped 

and extorted locally for a few thousand dollars or taken off to 

Egypt or Libya where they are abused. That abuse often included 

organ harvesting. 

In the past year, the world has witnessed a flood of Eritrean refugees risking their lives on too often unseaworthy boats bound for 

Europe. The prevalence of Eritreans among refugees has been overshadowed by refugees from the Middle East, especially Syria. 

The UK, one of the prime destinations for Eritrean refugees, apparently wanted to slow down the flow of Eritreans into the country. Earlier this year, the UK reduced the percentage of asylum 

claims from 95 percent to 28 percent. 

Directly addressing the root causes of the flight of people who are 

voting with their feet, often at great risk, seems a better policy 

than trying to determine the final destination of Eritreans who feel 

forced to leave their homes. That means an enhanced level of communication between Eritrea’s Government and the international 

community. 

3

There have been quiet contacts between the government, the 

U.S. Government, and civil society. Today’s hearing will examine 

how such contacts have developed. We hope the testimony in this 

hearing will answer some critical questions. 

Can the United States form a relationship with a government it 

has under sanction? Does the dire situation in which Eritrea’s people live require an alteration of U.S. policy? What would a change 

in policy mean for the international effort to hold Eritrea’s Government responsible for blatant human rights violations? 

Again, I want to thank our distinguished witnesses in advance 

for being here, including and especially the distinguished Assistant 

Secretary of State, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who we’ll get to 

shortly. 

But I’d like to yield to my friend, the ranking member. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and let me thank you for calling this hearing today. I think it is particularly important. 

You mentioned the refugee crisis and we all know that the attention has been focused on refugees from Syria but we know the 

number of people that are also fleeing Eritrea and not getting the 

same level of attention. 

I can’t tell you how many times I have talked to folks from Ethiopia and Eritrea locally who always stop and say why don’t you do 

hearings—why don’t you do hearings on what is happening in Eritrea. So I think that this hearing is particularly timely and I appreciate you calling this today. 

I will say that in preparing for the hearing a number of organizations—the Organization of Eritrean-Americans and several other 

organizations—are concerned and upset about why we are holding 

this hearing, taking the opposite point of view and saying that 

what we claim is happening in Eritrea is not and I don’t know if 

on the second panel, not with the Assistant Secretary, but maybe 

someone could explain why there are so many people fleeing the 

country if what is being talked about around the world is in fact 

not the case. 

Eritrea is known as a country that it is claimed is the most censured country in the world, has been cited repeatedly for its abysmal human rights record, and as you mentioned in terms of the 

issue of trafficking I think that all is widely known. And so the 

question is if this is so off why does the world view Eritrea in this 

way. 

I’d like to ask the Assistant Secretary if she could share the administration’s perspective regarding Eritrea’s support of terrorism 

and the ongoing relevancy of the U.N. arms embargo and sanctions, whether the embargo and sanctions continue to be warranted 

and on what basis should there be consideration to eliminating the 

sanctions. 

I am also interested in your assessment of the role of the E.U. 

and its development programs with Eritrea. I know part of this, especially the increase in aid, is to stem the emmigration. But I 

would like to know what your thoughts are on that. 

And I am very interested in hearing witnesses representing the 

diaspora in the U.S. and what measures do these various diaspora 

groups support. Are they in support of a stronger relationship beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:17 Nov 29, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\091416\21541 SHIRL
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tween Washington and Asmara or a continuation of the current approach. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very, very much. 

I would like to now introduce Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career member of the Foreign Service. She was sworn in on 

August 6, 2013, and is the Assistant Secretary for African affairs. 

Prior to assuming her current position she led a team of about 

400 employees who carried out personnel functions for the State 

Department’s 70,000 strong workforce. Since beginning her Foreign 

Service career in 1982, she has risen through the ranks to the Minister Counselor level, serving in Jamaica, Nigeria, Gambia, Kenya, 

Pakistan, and the U.S. Mission to the U.N. and most recently as 

Ambassador to Liberia where she served from 2008 to 2012. I’d like 

to now yield the floor to the distinguished Assistant Secretary. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, 

and thank you, Ranking Member Bass, for inviting me today and 

providing the opportunity for us to testify on the situation in Eritrea, and I am pleased to have my colleague, Eric Whitaker, seated 

next to me. 

Eric is the director of the Office of East African Affairs and he 

was just in Eritrea for about 2 months working as our Charge d’Affaires. So he may be able to give a little more depth to questions 

that you might have about the current situation in Eritrea. 

After 25 years of independence, Eritrea today stands as a country best known for its emmigration, and I say that word specifically 

so there is no misunderstanding. It’s known for its emmigration 

and its poor record on human rights. 

Out of a population of approximately 31⁄2 million people per U.N. 

estimates, an estimated 5,000 people a month flee the country. 

Many risk a perilous journey across Africa and across the Mediterranean at the hands of sometimes ruthless smugglers and in unsafe vessels. 

The country is hemorrhaging its youth. In a country that has 

never known an election, Eritreans, as you said, Mr. Chairman, are 

voting with their feet. They are fleeing indefinite conscription into 

military or national service, religious persecution and other human 

rights violations, and economic hardships. These same conditions 

frame the United States’ relationship with Eritrea. 

In virtually every other country in Africa, including those with 

whom we have profound disagreements, we still seek to achieve 

partnerships across a range of shared global interests. 

We provide billions in foreign assistance to support those partnerships formed to fight HIV/AIDS and malaria, to support education, to combat violent extremism, and to strengthen governance. 

In Eritrea, that is not the case and that is because of the decisions of the Eritrean Government. In 2005, the Eritrean Government ordered USAID, other donors, international NGOs to leave 

the country. 

5

Subsequently, it ordered our Embassy defense attache’s office to 

close and as a result today we have no bilateral assistance, no military to military relationships, and since 2010 we have not had an 

Ambassador in Asmara. 

This is not the relationship we desire. Eritrea is one of the poorest countries on Earth. It is located in a volatile and strategic 

neighborhood on the Red Sea. 

But if Eritrea likes to portray itself as David and the United 

States as Goliath, I would argue that its wounds are largely selfinflicted and its slingshots hurl stones at its own people. 

Up to 5,000 of them make this clear every single month, risking 

their lives rather than remaining in the country they love. 

Eritrea’s continuing torrent of immigration is no doubt driven in 

part by economic conditions. But it is the human rights records 

that push so many people to leave. 

Over the past decade, the Eritrean Government has arbitrarily 

detained journalists, political opposition members, and others trying to express their reform minded to others who have tried to 

push for reforms. 

In 2001, the government detained without charge a group of reform minded ministers and other prominent individuals who called 

for elections and implementation of the Constitution and many of 

these individuals remain in prison until today. 

Almost all citizens with few exceptions are forced into indefinite 

conscription, into national service. In many cases they are separated from their families for years. 

The government has imposed severe restrictions on the exercise 

and freedom of religion and belief and has subjected members of 

non-authorized religions to arbitrary detention and force recanting 

as a condition of release. 

The government has singled out groups such as the Jehovah’s 

Witnesses for particularly harsh treatment because of their members’ refusal to bear arms in the independence struggle or to participate in national service. 

Eritrean officials have long justified their poor human rights 

record and their large-scale militarization on an emergency, ‘‘No 

war, no peace,’’ situation over the unresolved demarcation of their 

border with Ethiopia. 

Eritrea has remained under a U.N.-imposed arms embargo and 

sanctions since 2009 for its actions that contributed to regional instability, including their support for al-Shabaab in Somalia. 

In the last two annual reports, the U.N. Somalia-Eritrea Monitoring Group has not found evidence of ongoing support to alShabaab but Asmara has refused to allow the group to visit, to conduct investigations in Eritrea per its mandate and this has limited 

the U.N.’s ability to determine Eritrea’s compliance with the sanctions regime. 

Eritrea also continues to hold Djiboutian prisoners of war and is 

accused of fomenting unrest in neighboring countries. 

For all these reasons, we have made it clear that turning a new 

page in the United States-Eritrea relationship first requires significant improvements in human rights and we have repeatedly called 

on the government to abide by its international human rights obligations, implement its own Constitution, hold national elections, 

6

honor its commitment to limit the duration of national service to 

18 months, develop an independent and transparent judiciary, and 

release persons who have been arbitrarily detained. 

We also continue to support the work of the Office of the U.N. 

High Commissioner for Human Rights, the U.N. Somalia-Eritrea 

Monitoring Group, as well as other international efforts to make 

progress. 

And, surprisingly, there has been some progress albeit limited. In 

recent years, Eritrea has made some efforts to engage with the 

international community. The government reversed an earlier decision to close U.N. operations and has allowed some nongovernmental organizations to return. 

Earlier this year, they released four of a larger group of 

Djiboutian prisoners of war who were reunited with their families 

for the first time since 2008. 

Eritrea has recently been more open to working with the European Union on development programs and has allowed a handful 

of international journalists to return to the country. 

Eritrea’s efforts to engage with the Office of High Commissioner 

for Human Rights are also welcome. The country accepted nearly 

half of the Universal Periodic Review recommendations and we 

continue to encourage the government to follow through on these. 

But as I’ve noted, our bilateral relationship with Eritrea is not 

an easy one. But we have not and we do not seek to cut off diplomatic engagement nor communications. This summer, one of our 

Deputy Assistant Secretaries traveled to Asmara to visit our Embassy there. 

Our Charge d’Affairs and her team meet regularly with officials 

and they host a variety of events at the American Center in 

Asmara for the Eritrean people. 

Many challenges remain, yet I have to say I am impressed by the 

resiliency of the Eritrean people. Eritrea and Eritreans pride themselves in self-reliance in the face of adversity. 

The largest obstacles to peace and prosperity, however, in their 

country have been erected by their own government. 

We are encouraged by the small steps toward progress I have 

outlined above and we would urge the government to take much 

larger strides forward by ending indefinite national service and releasing political prisoners. 

If given the opportunity to be heard and to fully and freely participate in their government, I truly believe that the people of Eritrea can do great things for their country. 

We look forward to the day when that is possible. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today 

and I look forward to your questions and if I can’t answer I will 

turn to my colleague seated next to me. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Whitaker, I know you’re on the spot a little bit 

but if you’d like to make some oral comments you’re more than 

welcome. 

Mr. WHITAKER. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, thank you. Then we’ll move to some questions. 

First, beginning, if I could, with the Assistant Secretary. In your 

testimony you talk about Eritrea’s efforts to engage the Office of 

High Commissioner for Human Rights are welcome, that the country has accepted nearly half of the Universal Periodic Review recommendations. 

Could you elaborate on what they have agreed to and what remains focused upon and unaccomplished? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. It’s a pretty long list. Eric, do 

you have the details of what they have agreed to? And if not, I will 

get back to you with that. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM THE HONORABLE LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD

TO QUESTION ASKED DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. 

SMITH

A full list of the 200 Universal Periodic Review recommendations and the approximately half that were accepted can be found in the 2014 Report of the Working 

Group on the Universal Periodic Review for Eritrea and its addendum. Eritrea 

largely agreed to and prioritizes addressing the recommendations on health, education, poverty eradication and development, and women’s rights. Eritrea also accepted recommendations to accede to certain international human rights conventions, such as the Convention Against Torture. Despite this, we note with concern 

continued allegations of torture in Eritrea and urge them to address this. We also 

regret that other conventions agreed to have not yet been ratified, such as the Worst 

Forms of Child Labor Convention.

Mr. WHITAKER. We can follow up with that in writing to be more 

specific, sir, but several areas in development, most notably in the 

sectors of health and education, greater transparency, allowing a 

larger number of visitors to obtain visas and to come and talk with 

government officials. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. If you could get back with a very detailed description of that, that would be very helpful. I met with the High 

Commissioner for Human Rights in New York for lunch several 

weeks ago. We talked about South Sudan. We talked about Eritrea 

and other hot spots that he is working on and expressing concerns 

about, Ethiopia as well. 

Prince Zeid is doing his level best dealing with cauldrons all over 

the world, but if the council did agree that some progress was 

being made it would be helpful for this subcommittee to have that. 

So thank you. 

Let me ask you with regards to former U.S. Ambassador to Eritrea, Ronald McMullen, who said that there were more than four 

dozen employees of the U.S. Embassy in Eritrea who were detained 

during his tenure. 

Also, the daughter of the former Eritrean Minister of Information, Ciham Ali Abdu, who is also an American citizen is in prison. 

What can and are we doing to try to help her, to help others that 

either worked for us or are, in her case, an American and how 

many Americans are in Eritrean prisons? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. As far as I know, she is the 

only American who is currently in prison. We have had over the 

13

years our FSNs harassed—our Foreign Service National employees 

harassed, some arrested and some who are still currently being 

held by the government. 

We never miss an opportunity to raise this with the Government 

of Eritrea, encouraging them to release the American citizen but 

also to release our employees who have been arrested and to discontinue the harassment of our employees. 

Mr. SMITH. When we are in-country does the Embassy make active representations on their behalf? Do we get to visit? Are we just 

unaware of their fate? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. I’ll let our former Charge 

d’Affairs answer that question. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, sir, I did make representations last month 

with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in person verbally and in writing to Ciham. We’ve asked for consular access repeatedly and not 

been granted it. We are concerned regarding the case. The answers 

we get are typically vague or note that such individual is an Eritrean citizen. 

Mr. SMITH. Do we know where she is? Do we have any kind of 

information about her health, the treatment or lack of good treatment for her? 

Mr. WHITAKER. No, sir. We have not received specific responses 

to our questions, sir. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Does her family know? Do they feed into our 

information based on her? 

Mr. WHITAKER. I am not certain when their last communication 

with her was, sir. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Let me ask you with regards to Father Habtu 

Ghebre-Ab has said that the government confiscates Bibles, punishes people for open prayer and, of course, Eritrea is a Country 

of Particular Concern and I am wondering what kind of impact the 

Office of International Religious Freedom has had. 

Rabbi Saperstein, I know, is doing a wonderful job. Again, he has 

a full portfolio of egregious violators of religious freedom worldwide 

but this is a very serious issue and Father also makes a point in 

his testimony that national service is a form of human bondage and 

the TIP Report certainly goes into depth on that. 

And then Dr. Khaled Beshir, who will be testifying, points out 

that there may be as many 20,000 eleventh graders who have been 

forced to work for the ruling party, supplying workers for Nevsun. 

He describes it as slave labor. 

Do we have any information on that? It would appear like the 

parallel child soldiering issue, forced labor of very young children 

and teenagers and, again, it is in the narrative again this year of 

our TIP Report. 

But what can we do to help on this? Has UNICEF engaged, because they are leaders when it comes to the exploitation of children. 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. Certainly, you noted and we 

noted as well that on the religious freedom scale Eritrea is a Country of Particular Concern and that the freedom to practice religion 

is strongly restricted by the government even for those three or 

four religions that they recognize. 

14

And this is an important issue for us and we’ve reflected that in 

our International Religious Freedom Report and it is an issue that 

we do as well continue to raise with the government. 

On the issue of national service, one of the things that the Eritrean Government agreed to was that they would limit, in the future, national service to 18 months. 

They have not honored that commitment and for now national 

service is almost for life, and what that means is that these young 

people are not able to take care of their families. 

They’re not able to even plan for their futures. They are basically 

in a form of bondage for the rest of their lives. At eleventh grade 

they go into training and they are divided up and sent to various 

locations where they are required to perform their national service. 

Again, Eric was on the ground and may be able to provide a little 

more detail on that. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Thank you, ma’am. 

Yes, Mr. Chairman. With respect to the national service after 

completion of eleventh grade, as she had said, students proceed to 

the Sawa training camp. 

They basically are divided into three groups thereafter. A small 

portion continue to higher education. A certain number go into 

military service on behalf of the security services of the country 

and the largest group goes into community service wherein they 

may be assigned to the various ministries or other parastatals or 

other branches of the government. 

But this is where the youth of the country goes and the service 

is indeterminate in length and this is one of the reasons that the 

youth are departing the country. 

Mr. SMITH. Just a few final questions, then I’ll yield to Ranking 

Member Bass. Can you describe why the government is showing 

some interest in reaching out to the international community, particularly some of these NGOs and providers of humanitarian aid in 

the E.U.? 

What’s behind this motivation? What steps would need to be 

taken for the United States to upgrade its diplomatic standing? Is 

there any movement in that? Do you sense a positive or a movement in that regard? 

The Ethiopian and Eritrean forces clashed along the border of 

the Tsorona area. In his testimony, Dr. Beshir points out that resolution of the Eritrea-Ethiopia border dispute would take Eritrea 

out of its war footing, which is its justification for universal national service. 

What is your sense of that? What is being done to try to make 

that work? And finally, when an Eritrean man or woman goes to 

sea or goes to flight into Sudan, for example, or to Europe or wherever, if they are brought back what is the penalty that they suffer 

as a result of this attempted flight for refugee status? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. The first question was, why 

do we think the Eritrean Government continues or is opening up 

for opportunities to engage with the international community? And 

I think the answer to that is really simple and that is the sanctions 

have increased the cost of Eritrea’s policies. 

So they need the development assistance that the European 

Union and NGOs might be able to provide for them, particularly 

15

in the health and education sector where they are allowing the few 

NGOs that they have allowed to come back in—the kind of work 

that they are allowing them to do. 

So I think their motive is a simple one. Their motive is simply 

need and as this effort continues we’ve not really seen any positive 

changes on the part of the government in terms of those areas that 

are important for us to change the nature of our engagement with 

the government. 

Those issues really require that the government take some serious measures to deal with the human rights situation in the country, to deal with the issues of press freedom, to deal with the issues 

of freedom of religion, to change their policy on national service, to 

limit it to 18 months so that these young people are able to engage 

in livelihoods that will allow them to have a future in the country. 

On the Ethiopia-Eritrea border dispute, we have encouraged both 

sides to work on a path to address this dispute. 

The report from the U.N. was I think very clear and we hope 

that both sides look for ways other than through conflict, through 

war, to address this. 

I don’t know exactly what the penalty is if someone is returned. 

I suspect it is not a good thing for them and I would suspect that 

they would be either arrested or forced to continue their national 

service. 

Mr. SMITH. If you could get back to us on that, yes, it would be 

helpful.

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM THE HONORABLE LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD

TO QUESTION ASKED DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. 

SMITH

According to our Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2015, in general 

Eritreans had the right to return to Eritrea, but citizens residing abroad had to 

show proof they paid the two percent tax on foreign earned income and sign a statement of regret. People known to have been declared ineligible for political asylum 

by other governments had their requests to reenter the country scrutinized more 

than others. Many who fled Eritrea remain in self-imposed exile due to fears that 

they would be conscripted into national service or detained for their beliefs if they 

returned. In some cases, security forces reportedly have arrested, detained, tortured, 

and beaten national service and military deserters and evaders and other people attempting to flee the country without travel documents. 

However, other sources reported there were little to no consequences for returning 

Eritreans, particularly those who had been granted residency or citizenship in other 

countries. Given the limited access within Eritrea, our Embassy has not been able 

to verify reported treatment of returnees.

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. Eric, do you know? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Mr. Chairman, I was going to follow on the development side. 

The first question, foremost, during my recent stay in Asmara as 

Charge d’Affairs at our Embassy I spent quite a bit of time talking 

to U.N. agency heads and their other representatives and my counterparts with the other Embassies. 

The door is slowly opening for development cooperation but I 

pick my words carefully—it is development cooperation for the long 

term in close coordination with ministries as opposed to short-term 

humanitarian assistance. The government is very adamant about 

this. 

16

The sectors which are allowed the most entry by outside partners—development partners—are in the health and education sectors. So the door is slowly opening. 

A limited number of NGOs—JICA from Japan, the U.N. agencies, and the E.U. development fund, as you mentioned earlier. 

These are all carefully negotiated agreements. This door is slowly 

opening. 

The number that flees each month doesn’t seem to be slowing 

down. It’s 5,000 a month. The UNHCR told us that very directly 

by the registration of those departing the country, arriving elsewhere. 

But I am not aware of circumstances of those who were forcibly 

returned. That’s not come to my attention. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

I yield to Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. Thank you very much for your testimony 

and I especially want to thank Mr. Whitaker, knowing we put you 

on the spot there but really appreciate your input. 

Eritrea remains such a mystery and I wanted to know if you 

could describe a little bit about what life is like there and also 

what is the ideology of the regime? What is driving it? You described the national service. You described it in three different categories—higher ed, the military and government service. What determines which way one goes? 

That’s to begin. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Thank you for that question, Madam Ranking 

Member. The problem is when one is in Asmara one sees only a 

limited spectrum of society of Eritrea. Our ability to travel, rather, 

in country is somewhat limited. 

Most Eritreans are engaged in small-scale agriculture—herding, 

millet, sorghum, other crops. Their life is relatively simple. In 

urban areas it is more limited. Many of the people we are encountering are working with parastatals. 

Ms. BASS. What? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Are working at the parastatals, state-owned enterprises——

Ms. BASS. Oh. 

Mr. WHITAKER [continuing]. And small-scale businesses or perhaps working with the NGOs or Embassies. Many folks, of course, 

are in community service including many of the employees at the 

government ministries. 

We see in the economy that the mining sector and the remittances sent by those abroad are very important to keeping the 

economy going. 

I think the fact that 5,000 people are leaving a month is a reflection in part not just on human rights but also diminished life 

chances and that is that many don’t seem many economic opportunities so they decide that perhaps it is better to take their chances 

to depart the country and send back remittances to support their 

relatives. 

Ms. BASS. You described the inability to travel very much and so 

why is that? Does the government—you know, we have the—we 

have that relationship, like, with Cuba, for example. 

17

You know, U.S. diplomats and Cuban diplomats couldn’t travel 

beyond a 25-mile radius. What is limiting their movement in 

Asmara? 

Mr. WHITAKER. The current limitation is on all internationals in 

Asmara. They must apply with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 

advance in writing to depart from a 25-mile radius of Asmara. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. So I am still trying to——

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. Excuse me, we have that 

same policy for Eritrean diplomats here in the United States as 

well. 

Ms. BASS. I see. So I am——

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. It’s reciprocal. 

Ms. BASS [continuing]. Still trying to understand the society so 

that is why I asked what is the ideology that is driving this. Is this 

a socialist regime? It reminds me of Cambodia, in Cambodia people 

were forced from the city to the rural areas. So what is the underlying ideology of the government that leads the country to be organized this way? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. I would argue that it is an 

ideology that is based on a strong sense of sovereignty and independence and self-reliance that came out of the many years of 

fighting and their independence movement and they are still a lot 

of people who strongly believe in that ideology and are willing to 

deal with the extensive adversity that people are under there to 

continue to survive. 

But I do think that it is time for change and I think most Eritreans believe that it is time for change and they deserve a peaceful transition. 

Ms. BASS. Do they see themselves as a socialist country? I know 

that there is very limited private sector so is that how they see 

themselves? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. I have not heard that terminology used. I’ve heard self-reliance more used as a philosophy. 

Ms. BASS. So what determines then in the three categories—

higher education, community service, and military? Community 

service doesn’t sound bad so tell me why it is. 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. They use this to ensure that 

they have the people to do the various activities that they require 

of their people. So I was told recently that you see large numbers 

of people who are in government service who are directing traffic 

outside, for example. 

Ms. BASS. Do they not get paid? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. I think it is a very limited 

amount. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, ma’am. It is a low pay. We’ve heard as low 

as $10 a month. 

Ms. BASS. Do they have parts of their lives subsidized? Is housing subsidized? Do they have a healthcare system? I mean, how do 

they function? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. I’d be interested in hearing 

our Eritrean colleagues, who are coming next. But I know that——

Ms. BASS. Oh, okay. 

18

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD [continuing]. A huge part of 

how they function is through their family members who are living 

elsewhere——

Ms. BASS. Remittances. 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD [continuing]. The diaspora 

community supporting families. 

Ms. BASS. So, once again, what determines higher education, government service, and military? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. I think we are going to have 

to get back. Those are the three categories they use and I am not 

sure how they decide——

Ms. BASS. Who goes where. 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD [continuing]. Who goes where. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM MR. ERIC WHITAKER TO QUESTION ASKED

DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE KAREN BASS

By law all Eritrean citizens between ages 18 and 50 must perform national service, with limited exceptions. The national service obligation essentially begins after 

the final year of secondary school at Sawa National Service Training Center. Good 

marks on the final exams are required to be assigned to one of the seven government colleges. Those who do not receive high enough grades are immediately assigned to military or national service. National service in theory consists of six 

months of military training and 12 months of active military service and development tasks in the military forces for a total of 18 months. However, as we’ve noted, 

the period of service in practice is indefinite in nature. For those unfit to undergo 

military training, they may be assigned to a public and government organ according 

to their capacity and reportedly perform standard patrols and border monitoring in 

addition to labor such as agricultural terracing, planting, road maintenance, hotel 

work, teaching, construction, and laying power lines. An Amnesty International Report on national service called ‘‘Just Deserters’’ also found that ‘‘conscripts collected 

through round-ups rather than through school are more frequently sent to military 

training camps than other areas of national service.’’

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. I think most people want to 

go to higher education——

Ms. BASS. Yes. 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD [continuing]. Because it is not 

a——

Ms. BASS. But then, okay, so you go to higher education and 

what can you do with it? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. You teach, you work in 

schools, you do whatever the government wants you to do in the 

education sector. 

Ms. BASS. And—oh, and so I am assuming that these three categories are both men and women. So are women in the military? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. Women are in the military 

and Eritrean women were known for their activities and their abilities during the fight for independence. 

Ms. BASS. So what is the rationale of the E.U. then in terms of 

the developmental assistance because you too said, I believe, we 

provide no developmental assistance but the E.U. does. 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. It’s simple and it just started. 

It’s because they are the largest beneficiary of these 5,000 people 

a month who are fleeing the country. 

Ms. BASS. Oh, they want them to stay there. Right. 

19

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. They are looking for development opportunities so people don’t leave. 

Ms. BASS. Do you know how they do development assistance, 

meaning are there European NGOs that actually get the money 

versus the Eritrean people? 

We fund NGOs a lot of times, right? Our own NGOs. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, ma’am. The E.U. Development Fund does 

provide funding through specific ministries, especially in health 

and education. JICA is there, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency. 

The NGOs include Finn Church Aid, the Norwegian Refugee 

Council, Vita from Ireland and they provide services predominantly 

in health and education sectors as well. 

Ms. BASS. Do you think we should start providing assistance? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. I don’t think we’ve reached 

the point where we can provide assistance to this government. We 

are looking for certain changes to occur in how the government 

functions, how the government operates and how it treats its people. So at the moment there are no plans for us to provide for their 

assistance. 

Ms. BASS. Are people still trying to flee to Israel? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Ma’am, I don’t believe so. The pattern that I 

have noted, and this is in discussion with UNHCR and quite a 

number of others including ICRC, is that most refugees depart for 

Ethiopia or Sudan, finding their way up through Egypt and Libya, 

going across the Mediterranean often to join relatives that are in 

Italy, the U.K., Switzerland or elsewhere within Europe. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Just let me ask one final question, if I could. In her 

testimony, Ms. Bruton, deputy director of the Africa Center at the 

Atlantic Council, points out that what so far is missing from the 

record is Eritrean Government’s point of view. 

She testifies that the absence of this perspective is terribly dangerous to U.S. interests in the Horn of Africa and beyond and it 

is painfully, then, easy to get it wrong. 

Obviously, with Mr. Whitaker here who has been in-country and 

was our representative there as Charge d’Affairs, and Ambassador 

Thomas-Greenfield, your work with the entire backing of a State 

Department that works very hard to get it right, have we 

misperceived Eritrea somehow? 

It seems to me that when it comes to fundamental human rights 

and as you both have said people voting with their feet because of 

a serious wave of repression and poverty, self-isolation of shooting 

one’s self in the foot, when people raise the issue of adjacent Ethiopia—both Greg and I were in Ethiopia in 2005 and met with 

President Meles and on the plane began sketching out the Ethiopian Human Rights Act because so many dissenters were shot in 

the streets. 

And yesterday we introduced H. Res. 861 and are planning a series of hearings on Ethiopia to very strongly protest the gross violations of human rights, the murders that are taking place. 

20

At our press conference yesterday we had the silver medalist for 

the marathon who spoke very effectively about this attack on Ethiopia. 

And so this subcommittee takes a back seat to no one in trying 

to be as clearheaded and focused on human rights abuses wherever 

and, of course, the country, on human rights practices, is a textbook on these abuses, and I thank you for that. Again, the CPC 

designation couldn’t be more clear and the Tier 3 designation in 

the TIP Report couldn’t be more clear as well. 

So are we somehow getting it wrong, as Ms. Bruton suggests? 

Ambassador THOMAS-GREENFIELD. Sir, I think the facts on the 

ground in Eritrea speak for themselves. We are dealing with a situation where we do have strong evidence of violation of human 

rights in Eritrea. 

But that said, it is important that we engage this government 

and we do engage the government. We have diplomatic relations 

with the Government of Eritrea and so we do engage with this government, both through our Embassy in Asmara as well as through 

our contacts with the Charge d’Affairs here and when they’ve had 

government officials come to the country and I encourage the Eritrean Government to engage. 

If they have a story to tell, if they want us to understand the situation better, the Somalia-Eritrea Monitoring Group should be allowed to come in and should be allowed to engage so that they can 

tell their side of the story so that if we are not getting it right we 

can see the evidence of that. 

But right now, the evidence that we have point to the fact that 

serious human rights conditions exist in this country and that we 

need to continue to address those until we see that they no longer 

exist. 

Mr. SMITH. And Mr. Whitaker, thank you so much for your testimony. If you could get back with some of those answers to elaborate and we might have some additional questions that will be 

posed to you, we would deeply appreciate it. 

I’d like to now welcome our second panel, beginning with Father 

Habtu Ghebre-Ab. He serves as a parish priest in Holy Trinity Eritrean Orthodox Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

He is also the director of external relations for the Canonical Eritrean Orthodox Church in Diaspora under the imprisoned Patriarch and His Holiness’ designated bishop. The Diaspora Diocese includes all of North America, Europe, and the Middle East. 

He is a senior faculty member with a rank of full professor at 

the University of Cincinnati where he has taught for over a quarter 

of a century. The focus of his study is African history, specializing 

in colonial history in the Horn of Africa. 

For several years now he has published several articles on and 

advocating for religious freedom, separation of church and state 

and on behalf of all political prisoners in Eritrea. 

Secondly, we’ll hear from Dr. Khaled Beshir, who is a board 

member of the Awate Foundation, a world media service on Eritrea 

which promotes peace and reconciliation within Eritrea. He is an 

independent risk management consultant and subject matter expert in the Horn of Africa, specializing in development finance. 

21

He advises various U.N. agencies, international organizations, investors, and law firms on assessment of geopolitical, regulatory, 

and financial risks. As an Eritrean-American and longtime advocate of human rights in Eritrea for the last 25 years, he works 

closely with Eritrean civil societies, political organizations, media 

outlets, and community leaders. 

In 2000, he was a member of a group of Eritrean intellectuals 

and professionals who met with the Eritrean President and urged 

him to introduce political and economic reform and respect for the 

rule of law. 

And third, we will hear from Ms. Bruton, who is deputy director 

of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. She is a recognized authority on the Horn of Africa. She is especially well-known for authoring a series of prominent reports and journal essays on Somalia. 

She provides regular expert commentary on African political affairs 

for major international media and held an international affairs fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for 

Strategic and International Studies. 

Prior to her fellowship appointment, Ms. Bruton managed the 

National Endowment for Democracy’s multi-million dollar portfolio 

of small grants to local and international nongovernmental organizations operating in east and southern Africa and managed postconflict political transition programs in Africa for the U.S. Agency 

for International Development. 

She has also served as a policy analyst on international affairs 

and trade team for the Government Accountability Office. 

So Father Habtu, if you could begin. 

STATEMENT OF FATHER HABTU GHEBRE-AB, DIRECTOR OF 

EXTERNAL RELATIONS, CANONICAL ERITREAN ORTHODOX 

CHURCH IN DIASPORA 

Father GHEBRE-AB. The Honorable Chairman Smith and members of the subcommittee, I thank you for the privilege of being 

here today to give my testimony on the challenges Eritrea represents and why failure to positively contribute to the resolutions 

of these challenges will affect the entire region and beyond. 

My name is Father Athanasius Habtu Ghebre-Ab. I am an Eritrean-American, a professor of history at the University of Cincinnati and an ordained priest in the Eritrean Orthodox Church. 

I am pained by the general instability in the Horn of Africa and 

the unresolved conflict and animus between Ethiopia and Eritrea, 

which, in one way or another, remains at the very root of the instability in the region. 

We also note the untold and continuing suffering of the people 

of Eritrea and the dashing of the early optimism and hopes the 

world initially saw for this new country. 

We have also witnessed the extreme reluctance of the United 

States, a country which the people of the region rightly or wrongly 

have historically looked to as a reliant mediating power. 

In the remaining time I have, please allow me to speak to you 

about one aspect of Eritrea’s egregious human rights violations, 

namely, its denial of religious freedom to its people, a subject of my 

expertise. 

22

The following are but a few facts. Long before all the independent press in Eritrea were ruthlessly shot down in September 

2001, the publications of the Eritrean Orthodox Church and the 

Roman Catholic Church were shut down. 

In 1994, the Jehovah’s Witnesses became the first victims. Within a month, the government unleashed massive campaigns of arrest 

and disappearance against the Muslim community in Eritrea. 

Next, the government’s systematic anti-religious campaign 

moved to the ranks of the military, especially in Sawa, the sprawling military training camp near the Sudanese border. 

Here, all Bibles were confiscated and anyone caught praying was 

subjected to the cruelest treatments by the military establishment. 

This practice was soon expanded throughout the military across 

the country. 

In April 2002, the government passed a sweeping decree closing 

all minority Christian denominations and other sects. Soon after, 

the leaders and adherents were vigorously rounded up and imprisoned and I personally witnessed that at the time. 

The government accelerated the total control of the largest and 

most ancient religious institution in Eritrea, the Eritrean Orthodox 

Church. 

In November 2004, the leading lights of the church were imprisoned. A little over a year later, the Patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, His Holiness Abune Antonis, was illegally deposed 

from his Patriarchal throne and imprisoned. 

This was followed by the subsequent imprisonment of hundreds 

of other clergies. Today, it is estimated that between 2,000 to 3,000 

people are in prison for their faith. 

The question now is what is to be done to bring about stability 

to Eritrea and the region. The Eritrean Government should immediately implement the Constitution that was ratified in 1997 but 

was never implemented. 

This will guarantee its people the rights enshrined therein, thus 

removing fear, uncertainty and the guarantees of rights. 

The so-called national service has degenerated into an 

unsustainable, unjust and immoral practice which results in the 

youth fleeing the country in such a large number it must come to 

an immediate end. 

The thousands of prisoners of conscience must be released. The 

United States should reengage with the Government of Ethiopia 

and Eritrea to end the so-called ‘‘no war, no peace’’ state of affairs 

for the past 16 years and mediate lasting peace in the region by 

helping in the implementation of the Ethiopian-Eritrean boundary 

commission ruling of April 13, 2002. 

Eritrea and Ethiopia must be encouraged to cease hosting armed 

opposition groups in their respective countries to destabilize one 

another. Again, I thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Father Ghebre-Ab follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much for your testimony and for 

your concrete recommendations to the subcommittee and by extension to the White House and the State Department. Thank you so 

much. 

I’d like to now ask Dr. Beshir if you would proceed. 

STATEMENT OF KHALED BESHIR, PH.D., BOARD MEMBER, 

AWATE FOUNDATION 

Mr. BESHIR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bass 

for giving me this opportunity to testify in this important hearing 

to evaluate the U.S. policy toward Eritrea. My name is Khaled 

Beshir. I am a long time advocate of human rights in Eritrea. 

My testimony will be shaped by 25 years of closely following the 

activities of the Government of Eritrea, those who are still in power 

and those who were once in power who have been exiled or made 

to disappear, and I presume in jail or dead. 

In this hearing, I will try to, as I outline it in my written statement, say why the unconditional engagement of Eritrea as recommended by some is dangerous and a short answer to that it has 

been tried before. 

To start with, the reason the Eritrean regime is as bad as it is, 

topping the list of every human rights organizations is precisely because for 8 long years the United States and Western Europe gave 

it unconditional support. 

This was between 1991 and 1998. When the new government 

was given the benefit of the doubt, the Clinton administration provided military assistance, facilitated low interest loans and grants, 

and contributed in capacity building and praised the autocratic system routinely, calling it part of the Africa Renaissance, a shortlived description praising the heads of state of Ethiopia, Uganda, 

Rwanda, Congo, and Eritrea. 

And what was the outcome? Ethiopia is what you see in the 

headlines today. The leaders of Uganda and Rwanda amended 

their Constitutions to extend their rule. Congo descended into civil 

war. And it is during that period of unconditional engagement that 

all these atrocities in Eritrea the Eritrean regime is infamous for—

arbitrary arrest, disappearance, banning religious organizations, 

exiling, severe restriction on civil liberties—were germinated. 

So for those who are arguing that there should be unconditional 

resumption of U.S.-Eritrean relations all they need to look is back 

at the history of the early 1990s and this is why we are here. 

As far as the human rights conditions are concerned, it has been 

extensively covered by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea and the Commission of Inquiry on 

Human Rights in Eritrea. 

So rather than speaking about the human rights violations in 

Eritrea—it has been extensively documented—I would like to speak 

about—very little known about the role of Nevsun, the Canadian 

mining company that has finally disclosed that it has been funding 

the Atlantic Council campaign for the last 18 months to rehabilitate the image of Eritrea and whitewash the human rights abuses 

and calling for the unconditional U.S. engagement in Eritrea. 

The reason is the interest of Nevsun, the mining company, is 

intertwined with the interests of the regime. Nevsun Resource is 

27

a Canadian mining company and the Eritrean Government, 

through ENAMCO, jointly owned the Bisha Mine. That’s the only 

source—revenue-generating source for Nevsun. 

Why, you might ask why, would that be important for Nevsun? 

Aside that it has been accused of militarizing commerce and using 

slave labor in building the Bisha Mine is for the following reason. 

Simply, in the last 5 years the stock valuation in Nevsun has stagnated at about $3.50 for the last 6 years. This is unusually 

very low for a company that sits at $1.3 billion of assets. 

So Nevsun tried many things to improve this image. It sold and 

failed to be acquired by a larger firm. It failed to diversify its single 

source of revenue from Bisha. It failed to impress investors and 

shareholders by glossy and unaudited corporate responsibility and 

environmental reports. 

It has failed to shake off its reputation as an enabler of human 

rights-abusing regimes. It has failed the human rights organizations that it no longer uses slave labor. It failed to comply with the 

United Nations Somalia-Eritrean Monitoring Group’s request to 

disclose financial transactions records. 

Simply, it has failed to bring any meaningful economic betterment to the lives of Eritreans other than enriching the coffers of 

the regime. 

So Nevsun thought to rehabilitate its image instead. Knowing 

that its efforts were hampered by Eritrea’s dismal human record, 

Nevsun quickly settled multiple lawsuits, paying close to $30 million, hired a public relations firm, hired a purported human rights 

attorney, and courted the diplomatic community in Asmara. 

Still, all its efforts failed. While overt attempts failed to make a 

dent, Nevsun turned to a more subtle approach to funding the Atlantic Council to rehabilitate its image and that of Eritrea so that 

it can lobby on its behalf. 

We often see the vice president of Nevsun and one of the associates of the Atlantic Council, Ms. Bruton, appearing in the ruling 

party’s events and rallies and speaking to drum up support for the 

regime. 

So in short, to conclude my statement, I would like to say that 

Eritrea is mineral-rich country. It’s strategically located in the 

Horn of Africa and the Red Sea where the U.S. has vital strategic 

interests and legitimate concern in its ongoing counterterrorism 

campaign. 

Hence, the U.S.’ strategic interest should not depend on the fate 

of one ailing man, particularly when dealing with a regime that not 

only does not share any of the values of the U.S. enshrined but routinely mocks it. 

While recognizing that the Eritrean people’s challenge could only 

be resolved by Eritreans, it is prudent for the U.S. to be prepared 

to deal not with how to rehabilitate President Isaias’ image, who 

has no support by Eritreans and rules by fear, but with the postEritrea by taking the following steps aimed at shortening the suffering of the Eritrean people and safeguarding U.S. interests in the 

region and they are as follows: To deny President Isaias the excuse 

to maintain a war footing, pressure Ethiopia to allow the demarcation of the border and to proceed at least in the 95 percent of the 

undisputed borders area, continue making human rights issues a 

28

precondition for U.S.-Eritrea relations, continue supporting the current U.N.-sponsored sanctions against Eritrea until the conditions 

for lifting are met, support the U.N. Security Council members’ initiative to refer the U.N. Human Rights Commission of Inquiry to 

the International Criminal Court, provide humanitarian assistance 

to Eritrean refugees and to provide immigrant visas to help them 

come to the U.S. and ask other countries to do so, especially of the 

unaccompanied minors that are fleeing Eritrea now and Ethiopian—in the refugee camps in Ethiopia. Also provide temporary 

protective status for Eritrean refugees who are already in the U.S., 

to support regional organization government efforts in combating 

human trafficking in the Horn of Africa but also, most importantly, 

I urge you to sanction mining companies like Nevsun that are engaged in militarized commerce and using conscripted labor force by 

designating their production as conflict minerals. 

People who suffer under totalitarian regimes look up to the world 

community, especially the United States, for support. They become 

disappointed and disillusioned when they discovered misinformed 

consultants in a position to advise government. 

It is disheartening to see aggressive approaches to absolving a totalitarian regime, the individuals who have no personal stake in 

the outcome and only interested to promote their careers and personal interest. 

The liberal democratic force in Eritrea has a great potential to 

grow but attempts to bury it in its infancy by using the ‘‘there is 

no viable opposition’’ claim is a crime against the Eritrean people. 

I urge this august body not to repeat the mistakes committed 

during the Clinton era when the Eritrean dictator was hailed as a 

renaissance leader and provided with all the source of support, a 

lifeline that had helped it grow into the monster that it has become. 

I urge this body to take the right decision, a decision inspired by 

American values. I urge you to remain a beacon of hope for the 

young democratic force, inspire them with the right decision, with 

the much-wronged Eritrean citizens in mind. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Beshir follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much, Dr. Beshir. 

I would like to now go to Ms. Bruton for her testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MS. BRONWYN BRUTON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, 

AFRICA CENTER, ATLANTIC COUNCIL 

Ms. BRUTON. Thank you. I am grateful to Congressman Smith, 

the chair and Congresswoman Bass, the ranking member, for allowing me to contribute to the subcommittee’s timely review of U.S. 

policy toward Eritrea. 

I have had the opportunity to travel to Eritrea several times in 

the last 18 months. I have met repeatedly with senior officials in 

the country and I have had an opportunity to meet once with President Isaias for a long meeting in which we spoke very candidly 

about the state of affairs in Eritrea and about the state of U.S. relations with Eritrea. 

What I am presenting is a summary of my written testimony and 

I ask that my written testimony be entered into the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, yours and all of our witnesses 

today. Without objection. 

Ms. BRUTON. Thank you. I imagine we’ll talk about Nevsun later 

on so I would like to use my brief spoken remarks to raise a flag 

of caution. 

I, as you mentioned, am a Somalia expert and I want to briefly 

turn our attention back to Somalia in 2006. When the United 

States accepted Ethiopia’s allegations that the Union of Islamic 

Courts was an evil regime—an entity that was controlled by alQaeda—and as a result of that we allowed or perhaps more than 

allowed Ethiopia to invade Somalia, in doing so they destroyed the 

only legitimate grassroots governance movement that has ever 

emerged in that country, at least since independence on the 1960s. 

Not only that, we cleared a space for al-Shabaab and we created 

the conditions in which it prospered and is now a terrorist organization that is spreading carnage across east Africa. 

I raise this because I feel it is important for us to remember that 

though we do our best, we in the United States are capable of catastrophic mistakes when it comes to the Horn of Africa, and I want 

to particularly point out that all of the conditions that led us to 

make those mistakes in Somalia in 2006 pertain to our discussion 

of Eritrea today. 

When it comes to Eritrea, unfortunately we are also guilty of a 

bias to the Ethiopian point of view. I saw that bias evident in my 

respected colleague, the Assistant Secretary’s, remarks when she 

was asked about the reason for the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict and 

she failed to note that Ethiopia is in violation of international law. 

There is a firm and final binding of an international border commission set up in the Hague that says very clearly that Ethiopia 

is illegally occupying Eritrean territory. 

We need to accept that, and our refusal to do so is, I think, a 

fairly clear sign of our bias toward the Ethiopian point of view. 

That led to an error in Somalia that cost us dearly. As in 2006, 

I wish to remind us that it had been about 10 years since we’d had 

eyes on the ground in Somalia and our intelligence was very poor. 

40

In Eritrea today, it has also been about a decade since we have 

had eyes on the ground in that country and our intelligence is very 

poor. 

When I planned to go to Eritrea 18 months ago I met with a 

large number of government officials and members of our intelligence community and when I asked a particularly brilliant member of our intelligence committee who had studied Eritrea for 10 

years, what I should be alert for when I went to the country she 

told me this: Find out if there is a government in Eritrea outside 

of Asmara. 

Now, we’ve heard from our human rights community, who rightly 

expresses concern about the terrible state of affairs in that country, 

that the government exercises pervasive control over every aspect 

of life. 

But we also have people in our intelligence community, and I 

would agree with their assessment, who wonder if the government 

really has any control at all outside of the capital city. 

That is a worrying state of affairs and I think that it should 

cause us to exercise a real caution. I’ve heard a large number of 

statements today that were presented uncomplicatedly as fact but 

which I am aware of are hot topics of dispute within the intelligence and analytic community that if had the time I would go 

over them. But I’ve certainly highlighted most of them in my written testimony. 

Finally, I want to express that I was in Somalia in 2006 and I 

feel we have a bit of tunnel vision in Eritrea. It’s an immensely 

complicated country with real security concerns and a real problem 

with its much more powerful neighbor. 

But the vast majority of our conversation is about human rights. 

It’s okay and it is well and good that we should discuss human 

rights. But those concerns should be addressed proportionately. 

All the countries in the Horn of Africa have hideous human 

rights problems including our closest ally, Ethiopia, and I think 

that when we single out Eritrea for concern we raise the real possibility that our views will be either regarded as hypocritical or else, 

in other cases, muted because of our counterterror concerns and 

that does damage to our standing in the Horn of Africa. 

In Eritrea, we can’t afford to get it wrong, as we did in Somalia, 

because Eritrea is more strategically positioned on the Horn of Africa than Somalia is. It’s right across from Yemen. 

It’s on a critically important trade route that accepts trillions of 

dollars a year in the passage of goods between China and the E.U. 

If we get it wrong there, the impact on U.S. relations will be terrible and that will not serve our interests. Focusing on Eritrea as 

a threat to our interests instead of recognizing that in fact we don’t 

recognize that it actually plays an important role as a wall through 

which bad actors in the Horn of Africa are not permitted to pass 

through to bad actors in the Gulf is important. 

It’s a commonality that we can use to work with Eritrea and to 

constructively address the concerns that we have about human 

rights. I think I’ve heard consensus from a lot of people today that 

engaging the government in some way would be a good idea. 

I do not argue for nonconditional engagement with Eritrea, for 

the record. But I do believe that we could do a lot better and, for 

41

the record, I would like to state that I think a congressional delegation to Eritrea to examine the complexity of the issues that they 

are facing for yourselves would be a very, very good start. 

I thank you for permitting me to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bruton follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Bruton, thank you very much for your testimony 

as well. 

I’d like to first ask Father Ghebre-Ab, if you could—you mentioned 2,000 to 3,000 prisoners of conscience who are incarcerated 

because of their faith and I wonder if you can tell us is that both 

men and women? 

Are children included? Are they tortured? Are there attempts to 

coerce them to reject their faith and if so to what end, perhaps? 

How long are the usual sentences for a believer? Is it 5 years, 10 

years, life? 

And when released, where do they go? Do they leave totally impoverished with families? I often argue even in ordinary criminal 

justice systems when one family member goes to prison the whole 

family, in a way, goes to prison. 

It often leads to an impoverishment. But this would seem to be 

even more extreme. When they come out, where do they go? So if 

you could perhaps speak to that. 

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. It is both men and women, young and old. The 

condition of their imprisonment is about as horrid as one can expect. 

Now, so many prisons, recognized and unrecognized, dot the 

landscape of Eritrea. Many times no one knows where they are. 

They never appear in front of a court and charged with any kind 

of crime and therefore no one knows when they will be coming out. 

Now, particularly, for instance, I have made a list of people who 

have been in prison for the last 12 years now and they have never, 

never seen the inside of the court. They have never been charged 

with anything and these were, as I have explained in my longer remarks, the leading intellectuals within the Eritrean Orthodox 

Church. They remain in prison. 

And there has always been torture, and as previously stated also, 

an attempt at forcing them to recant their faith. Very often, statements have been made about minority Christian and other sects. 

But, really, the larger churches are not immune from this either—the so-called recognized churches. The Eritrean Orthodox 

Church, as I have clearly pointed out in my longer version of my 

presentation, has literally been taken over by the government and 

it has become as if it is one department of the government and the 

government’s thinking, as I see it, is that by controlling the Eritrean Orthodox Church, which is almost 50 percent of its population, it thinks that it controls half the population of Eritrea as 

well. 

But I would also like to point out that really the lack of religious 

liberty in Eritrea is only one aspect of human rights violations and 

if there is going to be any improvement in human rights violations 

we cannot really cherry pick this right and that right. It has to 

be—it has to be approached in its totality and the only thing that 

will ensure that is the implementation of the Constitution that was 

ratified by the people in Eritrea in 1997. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you, if I could, Ms. Bruton, with regards 

to some of the points that were raised by Dr. Beshir—just in the 

interest of full and total disclosure, do you or anybody that you are 

affiliated with derive any funding directly or indirectly from the 

Government of Eritrea or from Nevsun or any of its affiliates? 

56

Ms. BRUTON. We do not derive any funding whatsoever from the 

Government of Eritrea. Nevsun, which is a publicly traded Canadian corporation, made a grant to the Atlantic Council in 2015. It 

was——

Mr. SMITH. How much was that? 

Ms. BRUTON. It was between $100,000 and $249,000. I would like 

to give you the exact amount. My understanding is that it is not 

the policy of the Atlantic Council to do that. If they will permit me 

to, I will add it to the record.

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM MS. BRONWYN BRUTON TO QUESTION ASKED

DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

The Atlantic Council has received a coveted four-star ranking from Charity Navigator, the premier organization that ranks non-profit organizations across the 

United States, for its sound fiscal management and its commitment to accountability and transparency. It is the Council’s policy to list all of our annual donors 

on our website and in our annual report, indicating the approximate magnitude and 

the year of each gift. In accordance with this policy, the Council has already disclosed that Nevsun Resources made a gift to the Council in the range of $100,000-

$249,000 in FY 2015. 

In response to Congressman Smith’s inquiry, I have been authorized to further 

inform you that the Council received funding from Nevsun Resources in the amount 

of $105,000 in FY 2015 (the most recent year for which completed financial reporting is available). As noted in my testimony, this grant provided general support to 

the Africa Center and was allocated at the discretion of the Center’s director, Dr. 

J. Peter Pham. The Atlantic Council fully adheres to its written policy of intellectual 

independence. For context, please note as well that the Council had an operating 

budget of more than $25,000,000 and revenues of over $28,000,000 in FY 2015.

Mr. SMITH. If you could encourage them. It does help us to know 

if there is any financial entanglement. 

Ms. BRUTON. Absolutely. Well, and regardless, a six-figure grant 

is a lot of money. There’s no doubt about it. I want to make it clear 

that the grant was unconditional. 

It was general support for the Africa Center. I have no direct relationship with Nevsun. I have not received a raise or a promotion 

or any kind of incentive as a result of that grant. I do not control 

the funding. 

The funding is controlled by Dr. J. Peter Pham, our director, 

whose views on Eritrea are in the congressional record and diametrically opposed to my own. My own support for the Eritrean Government goes back to 2009. 

In fact, I wrote a piece in Foreign Affairs that the Eritrean Government attached to its letter of protest to the U.N. Security Council when it was sanctioned. So my views have long been on the 

record and have not been altered in any way, shape or form by 

Nevsun or by anyone else. 

Mr. SMITH. To the best of your knowledge has Nevsun or any of 

those that they are working with including the Eritrean affiliate 

supported the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, or the 

EITI? Do you? 

We’ve had hearings on that in this subcommittee for years. We 

know that DRC, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique are EITI 

members. Thirteen other African countries are EITI compliant. 

Ethiopia is an EITI candidate but Eritrea is not. I am not even 

sure if they are trying and maybe you could shed some light on 

that. 

57

And secondly, do you have a sense as to the condition of the 

workers? 

When we did Sudan sanctions in this subcommittee, and I was 

chairman then, we tried very hard to delist a Canadian company 

that was very much complicit in the crimes that were being committed by Khartoum, and we failed. Wall Street rose up in arms 

and said, you can’t do this. We said look, they are garnering huge 

amounts of money and they are part of a regime that is committing 

horrific crimes against southern Sudan, what is now South 

Sudan—2 million dead, 4 million displaced. 

Greg Simpkins and I were just there 3 weeks ago, almost 4 

weeks ago, in Juba. It’s a mess. Not the subject of this hearing, but 

a mess. But we tried to do this delisting and they were a Canadian 

oil company. 

And I am just wondering, this extractive industry, the condition 

of the workers—is there any monitoring being done? Are any of 

these kids—are any of these people child laborers? It was Talisman 

Energy—Greg just reminded me. It just slipped my mind. 

So what about the workers? 

Ms. BRUTON. I have to say, genuinely, I have never been to the 

Bisha Mine and so I am not necessarily the best person to testify 

to the conditions. 

I can point you to a written description of Bisha by Louis Mazel, 

who’s been the Charge d’Affairs in Asmara. He visited with a large 

number of other European diplomats and he, frankly, wrote a glowing report of conditions at Bisha. That’s the best that I can do since 

I haven’t seen it at firsthand. 

I would also note that the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea 

when it wrote its first report, which I read carefully, contained a 

number of allegations about the Nevsun mine, which I understand 

they examined carefully and then dropped from the final version of 

the report because I believe that they were unable to substantiate 

them. Again, those are not firsthand testimonials but it is relevant 

that I can at least point to you. 

Mr. SMITH. So you would support Eritrea joining EITI? 

Ms. BRUTON. I would, and it is my understanding, again, from 

the diplomatic community and from conversations with Nevsun 

that they very, very much support it and are working actively to 

try to make that happen. 

They are also conducting a large number of human rights 

trainings at the Bisha Mine that I am aware that they are also 

very proud of and I feel constrained from talking too much about 

them because there is a financial relationship between Nevsun and 

the Atlantic Council, at least in the past, and I don’t want to be 

their spokesperson in any way, shape or form. But I would point 

you toward what’s on the record at least. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask you with regards to the human 

rights situation, the State Department’s Country Reports on 

Human Rights Practices is an indictment on a myriad of human 

rights abuses being committed. 

I mentioned the CPC designation based on religious persecution 

and Father Ghebre-Ab elaborated on just a number of people who 

are actually incarcerated for their faith and the Tier 3 designation 

by the U.S. Department of State’s TIP office, which painstakingly 

58

looks at child and sex trafficking, they’re among the worst in the 

world. Do you agree with that or disagree with that? 

Ms. BRUTON. I do not disagree with that. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. I’d like to yield to my friend and colleague, Ms. 

Bass, for any questions she might have. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

I would like to ask the panel some of the same questions I asked 

the last panel. I am really trying to understand the country and 

so I began by asking what is the ideology that guides the country. 

I also asked, in the three categories of higher education, military, 

and government service, what determines that, to begin with. So 

is there an underpinning ideology that guides the way the country 

is organized? 

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. Let me try to answer the first question—is there 

a guiding ideology in Eritrea. Now, looking on the history of Eritrea’s fight for independence, during the entire 1970s and the 

1980s and even going back to the 1960s, the guiding ideology was 

Marxism. There’s no question about it, and when Marxism fell out 

of favor, they quietly seemed to abandon it but never officially actually abandoned it and a lot of the policies of the government are 

still informed. 

Whenever they have a very difficult time they—it seems to me 

like it is a fallback ideology and therefore there is no doubt about 

it. I mean, they always refer to themselves as a Marxist organization and therefore I don’t think anybody can argue that. 

Do we see that in its policies today? Yes. It’s a fallback ideology 

always, and I’ll tell you something. I look at the publications the 

organizations put out, especially as it concerns religious freedom. 

In many publications, it actually lists the number of religious organizations that it was going to do away with, which it has, and 

therefore this is not really some unknown ideology. 

It is very, very closely tied to Marxism but also it has degenerated, of course, into a one-man rule. There is no question about 

that. 

Ms. BASS. So and both of you were born in Eritrea? 

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. I was born and raised—I was born and raised 

in Ethiopia of Eritrean parents. That’s my academic discipline. 

Ms. BASS. Oh, I am sorry. 

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. My academic interest has always been Eritrea 

also and until 2003 I traveled to Eritrea extensively. So——

Ms. BASS. Oh, you haven’t—you’re not able to go back and forth 

since 2003? 

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. No, not since 2003. 

Ms. BASS. I see. 

Mr. BESHIR. Yes, I was born in Eritrea and I left at the age of 

18 and I have been here in the United States since. 

Ms. BASS. Are you able to go back and forth or——

Mr. BESHIR. Well, the last time I went was in 2002 as a group 

of colleagues, the group known as G-13. I have one of my colleagues here Dr. Assefaw Tekeste. That is the group that are trying to appeal to President Isaias to implement the Constitution to 

reform—to loosen economic reform and, of course, that was kind of 

brushed off and we were not successful. 

59

This is in 2000, October 2000. It’s been, like, 16 years. So this 

is the last time I have been here. 

As to the question about the ideology, there is no ideology. To 

characterize a totalitarian regime a tyrant, I wasn’t trying to beat 

my head trying to figure out what is the ideology of the Ghadafi 

or Bokassa or Idi Amin or Saddam Hussein, for that matter. 

They’re just simply tyrants trying to stay in power at any cost. 

Ms. BASS. So can you guys answer for me, because I keep asking 

the same question and I haven’t gotten an answer about it. 

Mr. BESHIR. Sure. Go ahead. 

Ms. BASS. About the three categories and how is it decided who 

goes where. 

Mr. BESHIR. So after the eleventh grade all students go to the 

Sawa camp where they finish their high school. 

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. BESHIR. Based on the grade they achieve, which most of 

them there is a cutoff mark ascertained. They would go to the university or if there is no university there is a technical college where 

they would go to. But the majority them, almost like 95 percent, 

go in the Army—some of them as a civil servant in the military. 

Ms. BASS. So is it—so it is based on test scores? 

Mr. BESHIR. Yes. 

Ms. BASS. Some people who don’t score well go to the military or 

if you score well you go to the military? 

Mr. BESHIR. No, if you don’t score well, you go to the military. 

You have to have high grades to advance to the technical colleges. 

But the cut-off is so high and they are very selective. Ninety-five 

percent of them end up in the military, for a simple reason—because Eritrea doesn’t have the capacity to absorb all of them or 

even a large portion of them. 

There are very limited seats at the technical college. So most of 

them end up in the training—in the Army or being sent as 

conscripts in the Bisha Mine to work in the mines in Bisha. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. So——

Mr. BESHIR. To answer your question, there are also appointments to the government. The qualification is simply on loyalty, especially mid-cadre and upper government. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. 

Mr. BESHIR. You cannot possibly work for the Eritrean Government if you failed the loyalty test. All the high government officials 

are very fiercely loyal to the government. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. 

Mr. BESHIR. How do we know that? From the defection of the 

minister, the journals, the high-ranking military who defect. We 

talk to them and this is the reason that the brain drain—a lot of 

smart well-educated people leave the country. So there is a huge 

gap—a shortage of technical people who have administrative or 

technical ability and this is one of the biggest concerns. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. Thank you. 

Ms. Bruton, you support the Eritrean Government? 

Ms. BRUTON. What I—what I think is that saying that I support 

the Eritrean is—to me, it is vague statement. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. 

60

Ms. BRUTON. I don’t think that there is a viable alternative to 

the Eritrean Government and I think that if we want to help the 

people of Eritrea there are two ways to do it. 

One, we can push for some disorderly change of power that is 

likely, in my opinion, to lead to a situation that looks a lot like 

South Sudan or Somalia. 

Or we can work with the present government to try to persuade 

them to address some of our concerns, for their own sake. 

You asked a question about ideology. 

Ms. BASS. Yes. 

Ms. BRUTON. I think the Eritrean Government has a very strong 

ideology. I think they themselves have, especially in recent times, 

pointed out that their ideology has not been as successful as they 

would have wanted it to be. 

For me, when I look at the situation in Eritrea I see, unfortunately, a very painful limbo and I think that that limbo is primarily caused by the fact that the Ethiopian Army is occupying 

Eritrean soil. 

And it is not only that they are occupying the border. There are 

assaults on the border. One of the——

Ms. BASS. There are what? What did you say? 

Ms. BRUTON. Assaults on the border. 

Ms. BASS. Assaults. 

Ms. BRUTON. One of them in July was a very serious assault. 

Ms. BASS. Yes. 

Ms. BRUTON. There are bombings of Eritrean territory that are 

not reported in the press. The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, 

Hailemariam Desalegn, has repeatedly promised to invade Eritrea 

in the Parliament. 

This has persuaded Eritrea, not unreasonably, that it is in a 

state of threat constantly and that is one of the reasons that they 

have prolonged the national service. 

Others disagree and I acknowledge the disagreement. They say 

well, Eritrea could just ignore the threat and disband the military. 

But it is hard for me to see how they could do that, particularly 

because, as my colleagues have pointed out, almost all the jobs in 

Eritrea are performed by national service volunteers and transforming those positions into paid private sector and civil service 

posts takes a certain amount of money. 

Ms. BASS. So when you said there is—they do have a strong ideology you didn’t describe what the ideology was. Do you agree that 

it is Marxist ideology? 

Ms. BRUTON. It was—it was Marxist ideology in days past. I 

think that they abandoned the explicit ties to Marxism quite a 

while ago. But I would certainly characterize it as socialist. They 

don’t call it socialist but that is how I would characterize it, yes. 

Ms. BASS. So when you say the community service—government 

service is voluntary, how do people feed themselves? How do they—

they receive no salary? They’re forced to work for the government? 

Ms. BRUTON. If you were to speak with diplomats or an Eritrean 

on the street—I’ve asked a lot of people on the street in Asmara 

about national service. Some of them have horrific experiences with 

it. 

61

There is no doubt. I don’t question the testimony of any person 

who, for example, has spoken to the Commission of Inquiry. I am 

grateful for their courage in coming forward. 

But there are also many people that I have spoken who have 

said things like national service is I go on Friday, I give my boss 

my paycheck and the rest of the time I do my normal job, or national service is a few hours a day and they drive a taxi cab for 

the rest of the time. 

I am not in a position to be able to say which of those experiences is the norm. But I would certainly point out that anecdotally 

when I talk to people that is the kind of experience they express. 

Ms. BASS. So does the government subsidize parts of life? I mean, 

how—because the way it is been described is—it is forced labor, it 

is slavery. People are not paid. So I am just trying to figure out 

which is it. 

Ms. BRUTON. People are very poor and the wages for the national 

service are not living wages. They are a pittance. They’re worse 

than a pittance. 

Ms. BASS. So does the government subsidize or is everybody 

starving? 

Ms. BRUTON. No, there is not that much hunger in Eritrea that 

I’ve ever witnessed. The government does provide a voucher that 

provides for basic goods. If you want to more than that basic basket 

the cost of goods is very high. 

I think people depend, as in other African nations, very, very 

heavily on remittances and on the informal economy and jobs—second jobs, third jobs—that they really scrape together. 

Ms. BASS. So how——

Ms. BRUTON. The economic condition is not good. 

Ms. BASS. So how do you explain then the 5,000 folks a month 

that leave and all of the human rights reports about Eritrea? 

Ms. BRUTON. The latest figures that I have seen from the U.N. 

has been more like 3,000 refugees a month. You know, I can look 

at that and——

Ms. BASS. That’s a lot of people. 

Ms. BRUTON. It’s still a lot of people. I don’t know how many Eritreans really leave. There is a lot of talk, for example, that I have 

heard confirmed by members of the human rights community that, 

for example, Somalians, Ethiopians, and Sudanese sometimes 

adopt Eritrean personas because of the privileged status that Eritrean refugees have in Europe. 

Until very recently they’ve had an automatic asylum preference 

and that is led a lot of people to say, for example, that they are 

Eritrean. 

I have no idea what the numbers are. 

Ms. BASS. Well, whatever the numbers are, why are a lot of people fleeing? 

Ms. BRUTON. I lot of people are fleeing because the human rights 

situation is terrible. A lot of people are fleeing because the economic situation is terrible. 

I would point out to you that if you look at Somaliland, which 

is very close to Eritrea and is known as kind of a democratic oasis 

in the Horn of Africa, the vast majority of youth leave Somaliland 

too because they don’t have economic options. 

62

Migration is a reality for a lot of people in Africa and Eritrea is 

no exception. 

And I do agree, it is worse because of the human rights situation 

and the ongoing war with Ethiopia. 

Ms. BASS. And just one last question. So what is the human 

rights situation, from your vantage point—from your viewpoint? 

What are the human rights abuses? 

Ms. BRUTON. I think that all of the human rights abuses that 

have been described are absolutely real. I think that the question 

is, and the reason that I asked the question earlier from the intelligence officer who asked is there a government in Eritrea, are 

these abuses systemic. 

Are they the result of deliberate government policy or how much 

are they the result of poverty, the ‘‘no peace, no war,’’ bad behavior 

by people outside of us or that the government has a poor grip on—

what is the relationship between the political side of the government and the military? 

We have virtually no knowledge of that. I have no doubt that the 

military are bad actors. The extent to which their behavior is condoned by the government I don’t really know. 

I’ve talked to senior people in the government in Asmara, and I 

may be super naive, but sometimes I think they really believe that 

human rights abuses don’t exist or if they do that they are very, 

very few and far between. 

Ms. BASS. So you’re able to go? 

Ms. BRUTON. Yes, and to travel very freely. 

Ms. BASS. Did you two want to say something before I close? 

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. I would most definitely like to say something. 

The people of Eritrea who have been victims of the most—I 

mean, the cruelest power I have ever read about or even seen are—

it seems to me like there is an effort to make it look so much better 

than it really is. 

For me, what do we expect government officials to say? These are 

the very same people who have been designated—who have been 

designated as having committed crimes against humanity by the 

United Nations Commission on International——

Ms. BASS. Are you referring to the people that she was talking 

about? 

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. Yes. 

Ms. BASS. Is that what you’re reacting to? 

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. Yes. Let me tell you, I am a priest. I am in contact with the people who have left the country so many times. I’ve 

been to Israel a couple of times and have interviewed so many people and know how the people feel and how they have suffered and 

suffered under this regime. 

And therefore this effort to make it look like Eritrea is doing its 

best and because the President said this and that, government officials say this and that, it does not represent what the people experience and what the people go through at all. 

There is an utter poverty precisely because of the policies of the 

government and something was said about vouchers. The voucher 

system was designed to control the people. 

63

You get vouchers if you are loyal and if your loyalty is questioned 

your vouchers are held up, which means that the things that you 

rely on on a daily basis you are denied. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. Thank you. Yes? 

Mr. BESHIR. Can I just make a comment? I am just really baffled 

by Ms. Bruton’s statement. I don’t know what country she’s talking 

about, really, because every statement she made that is the talking 

point of the regime. You can read it everywhere. You can read it 

in the Web site and she has categorically denied that she has association with Nevsun. 

Why does she appear on the ruling party’s rallies and event in 

the U.S. jointly with the vice president of Nevsun? I mean, there 

are pictures of her trying to whip up support for the President attending these events. For me, it is really mind boggling that she 

denies having any relationship with Nevsun. 

As to the comments of the issue of the economic conditions or the 

social conditions, she’s absolutely right. The issue is very complicated and we shouldn’t get it right. 

The problem is she has gotten it right so many times in the short 

18 months she has been interested in Eritrea. She got it right—

she got it wrong when she said there is no involvement in Eritrea 

and Somalia—there is no involvement of support for al-Shabaab. 

She got it wrong when she said about the Commission of Inquiry. 

She has gotten in wrong so many times in the short period she became suddenly interested after Nevsun start funding the Atlantic 

Council. That’s in the——

Ms. BASS. Okay. 

Mr. BESHIR. So she’s right. It’s very complicated and we should 

get it right. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. Thank you very much, and I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Bass. 

I’ll just conclude with a few final questions. Dr. Beshir, you, in 

your testimony, said that since it ended the gold production phase 

and moved to copper production, which requires more logistical 

support and infrastructure to export, Nevsun has relied on the Eritrean Ministry of Defense, provided with slave labor for mining and 

security and transportation services. 

You pointed out that every year the Eritrean Government rounds 

up about 20,000 eleventh grade students 16 to 18 years of age to 

finish senior high in Sawa military camp afterwhich most, except 

the tiny minority, are conscripted. The overwhelming majority of 

the youth are sent to work for the ruling party’s companies which 

supply slave labor to Nevsun and other companies. 

And then you go on and your—again, your testimony will be 

made a part of the record. You point out and remind us of the 

Human Rights Watch report of January 2013 in which that report 

said Nevsun’s experiences show that be developing projects in Eritrea mining firms are walking into a potential minefield of human 

rights problems. Most notably, they risk getting entangled in the 

Eritrean Government’s uniquely abusive program of indefinite 

forced labor, and elsewhere you pointed out the environmental degradation issue which is another one as well. 

64

Could you elaborate on that and, Ms. Bruton, if you could speak 

to that as well. Hundreds of thousands—whatever the number of 

young people or any people who are forced to be part of this. 

I remember in Burma when an American oil company was very 

much a part of the junta there in Burma was forcing them to be 

part of building a pipeline and many of us raised strong objections 

to that Texas-based oil company doing that. 

No matter where it is it is wrong and so the accuracy of the 

Human Rights Watch report and you also point out WikiLeaks also 

has some insights on that as well. Could you elaborate on that? 

Mr. BESHIR. Yes. The 20,000 number is the high school graduates. This is what I mean—every year there are about 20,000. 

That’s what I meant by that. 

There are a couple of lawsuits in Canada filed by former 

conscripts who are in Canada and some of them the U.S. and in 

Ethiopia. 

I just spoke just last night to the attorney who is representing 

them to get an update of where the case is and he told me that 

Nevsun has filed a motion to dismiss the case and they suggested 

that the case be tried in Eritrea—the same tactic Nevsun has used 

when asked to disclose financial transactions to the U.N. Monitoring Group. They refer the request to the Eritrean Government 

and what the Eritrean Government has asked about financial 

transactions or records about Nevsun they will say well, you have 

to ask Nevsun. 

So there is a case to be decided in the next couple of months if 

the judicial system is capable of handling this case. There is a 

pending lawsuit filed by three former conscripts who allege human 

rights abuse and all the allegations that were listed in the human 

rights report. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Bruton? 

Ms. BRUTON. I don’t want to pretend to know more that I know 

about mining. But I do want to say that I think you raised a very 

important concern when you said that Western firms operating in 

Eritrea run the risk of becoming entangled even if they are careful, 

at least in reputational damage because of the national service program and that has had severe consequences. 

The consequences are that China is taking over, basically. All of 

the mining projects that are coming online, five or six big ones in 

Eritrea, are Chinese firms and you may have good opinions of 

Nevsun or bad opinions of Nevsun but Canadian firms have more 

to fear from public relations scandals than Chinese ones do and 

they tend to be more concerned about safety and human rights and 

other things. 

And I personally think that ceding that ground to China is not 

in the interests of the Eritrean people. I think it would be great 

to get Western investment into Eritrea because I think that there 

is a positive influence to be exerted there and it is one that the Eritrean Government will be responsive to because it is investment 

and that is often the best way to get change. 

Mr. SMITH. But, again, all the more reason why EITI ought to 

be a very serious goal and I don’t disagree even this much with the 

China concern. I chair the Congressional-Executive Commission on 

China. 

65

China’s human rights abuses—Xi Jinping is in a race to the bottom with North Korea when it comes to those abuses and that is 

manifested all over Africa where they can get away with it. 

So but the standard for Canada or the United States or any 

other country in Europe or Africa ought to be so high for OSHA 

type protections, for occupational health and safety and a living 

wage to ensure and certainly no forced labor. 

Dr. Beshir? 

Mr. BESHIR. Can I just make a quick comment? 

Even if Nevsun becomes transparent and we have all this disclosure about corporate responsibility and environmental reports, 

these are unaudited reports. 

There is no civil society. There is no independent verification of 

what Nevsun or any Western company would claim in the absence 

of civil society’s independent verification. 

So that just becomes a useless exercise because all this report 

that we hear they have been unaudited. There is no third party 

verifying them. So the notion is the Chinese are coming and we 

should stay there. 

As you have pointed out, the Canadian company is very notorious for human rights violations in the last 20 years. So basically 

when they call themselves Canadian companies they are U.S. companies operating out of Canada because they escape the strict regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission so they get listed in the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange so that they can access the capital market of the U.S. 

But in a sense they are mostly U.S. investors escaping SEC regulations or filing of disclosures and so forth. 

So, basically, if you look at the percentage of shares owned by 

Nevsun, they are mostly U.S.—about 80 percent of them. The reason is the Canadians, they don’t have a strong central security exchange like we have here. 

Each province in Canada has its own supervisory similar to SEC 

and often times there is no stringent disclosure requirements either 

of human rights violations or environmental reports. 

Nothing is filed. It’s the least required disclosure that the Canadian companies—and you probably know from the history of Talisman in Sudan and other parts of Africa of the notorious Canadian 

human rights violation in the minefields. 

So, to me, it is essentially American companies. Unless they are 

scrutinized and fully listed in the New York Stock Exchange rather 

than being cross listed, then we will see more disclosures from 

Nevsun. 

Mr. SMITH. Two final questions, and I will be brief because you 

have been very gracious with your time—how engaged has the 

United States been in implementing the boundary commission ruling of April 2002? 

Father, that was one of the points. I think you all are concerned 

about that. When you say the U.S. should reengage are you suggesting, Father, that we have not been engaged—it is been on the 

side somewhere and crowded out by other urgent matters or are we 

being robust in trying to get both parties together? 

And secondly, what can the United States in the international 

community do to help Eritrea matriculate from its abysmal human 

66

rights record? Are there new policies we need to be doing? The 

boundary commission, obviously, is one—getting that implemented. 

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. The United States. The United States. 

Mr. SMITH. But we have a new President coming in January. 

This President still has a few months to do something. Are there 

any bold strokes that need to be done by him—by President 

Obama—and the next President? What would you say if he or she 

was——

Mr. GHEBRE-AB. Yes. The United States played a critical role 

when Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war in 1998 to 2000, and in fact 

it was the guarantor for the settlement of the border dispute and 

for the ruling. 

Once the border commission ruled, the United States simply disengaged and many things can be said about that and we can assign 

many reasons for that and the Eritrean Government, perhaps legitimately, states to this day that the United States should have 

remained and should have fulfilled its position as a guarantor. 

Since then, the United States has not done much and as has 

been said by so many people before, one of the reasons that the 

Eritrean Government has forwarded for maintaining this continuous militarizing of the country was because of the threat that was 

posed by Ethiopia. Partially that is correct. 

But I think, as Dr. Beshir had pointed out, removing that as one 

of the things that the Eritrean regime uses for its hiding militarized policy will probably enable both countries to pursue fiscal relations in the future is what I believe. 

And, yes, on paper it has been settled but on the ground it has 

not and one of the things that Dr. Beshir said was on 95 percent 

of the boundary there is really no dispute. 

On the remaining 5 percent, if the United States were to be engaged and making sure that this is settled I think it will go a long, 

long way to create the proper climate for de-escalating the conflict 

between Ethiopia and Eritrea. 

And I have also stated that both countries host armed opposition 

groups in their respective countries, which is one of the reasons for 

the continuous conflict between the two countries and one of my 

recommendations was that both countries cease to sponsor these 

armed opposition groups in order to destabilize each other. 

Mr. BESHIR. I think there is opportunity now. After President 

Obama visited to Ethiopia a lot of things has changed. Following 

the events in Yemen, the drone program has moved to Ethiopia. 

As you may know, as of last January the Arba Minch base has 

been closed because of Ethiopia’s human rights violations. 

So there is an opportunity perhaps for the U.S., as not a guarantor but a signatory of the Algiers Agreement. There could be an 

opportunity, a window in the short period this administration has, 

that they can exert pressure for the Ethiopian Government to least 

demarcate the undisputed area of the border, which is 95 percent. 

There are only three areas that are disputed. So, I mean, the 

Ethiopian ruling party has been very supportive, very sympathetic 

to the cause of the Eritreans since their independence but yet it 

has been mind boggling as why that didn’t happen. 

67

I am told it is hardliners who want to keep the option. If you 

have an undemarcated border presumably the Port of Assab could 

be the Crimea of Ethiopia. 

They don’t have to have a demarcated border to go to Assab and 

grab it and declare some kind of referendum. But more so of the 

hardliners, the Ethiopian opposition, which are also based in 

Asmara, is this anti-Eritrean view that they have. 

They still don’t recognize Eritrea as an independent state. They 

still are against the Ethiopian Government precisely because of its 

approach or views toward Eritrea. 

So the border issue is very important to the Eritrean people, especially for those people who fought very hard for Eritrean independence, the anxiety, the fear of that Ethiopian ambition that always lags in the back of their mind that Ethiopia can any time 

grab Assab or reinvade Eritrea. 

So it is a real fear. It is not an imagined—all psychological fear. 

So Ethiopia does use it. The hardliners use this fear to maintain 

this ‘‘no war, no peace.’’ So I really urge the U.S. Government to 

push toward implementing the demarcation of the border. 

Saying that, a lot of people say Isaias uses the border issue to 

stay in power. I do not believe it because Isaias will always have 

a reason to stay in power, border demarcation or no border demarcation. 

Since 1990, when we called for reform and implementation of the 

Constitution, we were told we have to wait for the declaration of 

independence. After liberation, then we were told we have to wait 

to draft a Constitution. Then the border was broke. 

So I do not believe that that is what is keeping Isaias from implementing the rule of law or bringing reform because it simply is 

an excuse. If there is not a border issue there will be other excuses 

for him to stay in power. 

Ms. BRUTON. I am glad to say that we are all on the same page 

with this in terms of the desperate need to do something about the 

Ethiopia-Eritrea border. 

I think the problem is that, as you well know, the United States 

is dependent upon Ethiopia for its peacekeeping, as we call it, contributions in Somalia and its peacekeeping contributions in South 

Sudan and its support of our drone facilities and that makes it very 

difficult for us to put any kind of influence on Ethiopia. I think it 

is unrealistic to expect us to change that. 

But my concern is that rhetorically we have not defended the 

border. When Ethiopia—and it admitted that it attacked Eritrea in 

July—the statement from the State Department was both sides 

need to behave themselves. 

And when Eritrea was bombed by Ethiopian forces last March, 

there was dead silence. Time and time again, in fact, we’ve been 

silent when our allies have transgressed against other countries. 

And what I feel afraid of is that Eritrea very justifiably believes 

that if Ethiopia attacks it, they are alone, and it is that perception 

that is leading them to be so paranoid about their defenses and 

that is something we can act on and I hope that we will. 

Mr. BESHIR. Just a last comment. I mean, half of African countries have undemarcated borders, have border issues with each 

other. But they don’t go to war. They don’t suspend the ConstituVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:17 Nov 29, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\_AGH\091416\21541 SHIRL
68

tion. They go about their lives and while negotiating this border 

issue. 

So the border issue should not be an obstacle or a condition for 

the rule of law or implementation of their Constitution. To me, it 

is just an excuse for the President to stay in power and nothing 

else, nothing more. 

Mr. SMITH. Is there anything any of you would like to add before 

we conclude? 

Ms. BRUTON. I’d like to thank you for looking at this topic and 

I really hope you’ll consider a congressional delegation and I hope 

you’ll continue to give it your attention. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that. Thank you all. We will continue 

our focus and a trip is certainly something we will very seriously 

consider. 

We do travel frequently—Greg and I and other members of the 

subcommittee—to Africa. Like I said, we were just in Juba. 

But I would also point out that when it comes to human rights 

I don’t care what country it is and, again, as I said earlier, the 

Ethiopia Human Rights Act finally got passed. 

When we lost, the Republicans—the chairmanship—the majority, 

and Don Payne, my friend and colleague went from ranking to 

chairman again—we went back and forth a few times—he took up 

the Ethiopian Human Rights Act—I was his chief co-sponsor—and 

we did get it passed in the House but it did not get beyond that. 

Our resolution, it has many, many findings and, of course, I am 

talking about the Ethiopian resolution. When human rights are 

being committed, whether it be in Northern Ireland or anywhere 

else or in the United States we need to speak out and speak out 

with a clear, transparent, and bold voice so and that goes for 

Isaias. It goes for every other country in the world. 

So I thank you for your very, very important input. It is a roadmap for the future. We will try to do our level best to continue 

pressing. 

I hope the administration does. I hope the new administration, 

whoever it is, takes Eritrea in a better life for its citizens and a 

government that respects human rights and makes that a very serious foreign policy and that we reengage, as you pointed out, Father, on the boundary—as you all did in your comments. 

So I want to thank you so very much. 

Mr. BESHIR. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:23 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


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