ELF-RC
Condemns Asmara Regime’s
Action
Against Humanitarian Organizations
By
ELF-RC Office for
Information and Culture
24.03.2006
Mr. Tesfai Woldemichael (Degiga), the
ELF-RC Spokesman, today condemned as “irresponsible” the announced
interruption of work of three non-governmental humanitarian
organizations that have been assisting needy Eritreans inside Eritrea.
He was reacting to the news released on
22 March 2006 that the Eritrean regime has asked three NGO - Mercy
Corps, Concern World Wide and the British ACORD – to stop operations in
Eritrea.
In a statement he made on this news in
Khartoum today, Mr. Tesfai said he was not surprised but “extremely
angered” by the continuous inhuman acts of the dictatorial regime of
Isayas Afworki against humanitarian organizations that intend to help a
people living under very harsh economic and social conditions created by
the regime itself.
Mr. Tesfai said that the ELF-RC urges
the international humanitarian organizations, including those of the
United Nations, to take a common stand on this matter and find a
solution to it. “It is unthinkable to let this regime to go on for over
a decade expelling humanitarian organizations helping needy people”, he
added.
It is to be recalled that the
Asmara
regime started its interferences against humanitarian organizations in
early 1990s when it disrupted a humanitarian package of USD 263 million
project for repatriation of Eritrean refugees from the Sudan. At that
time, the regime made conditions that it was interested to receive that
amount but will not let humanitarian organizations to come to Eritrea to
do the job by themselves. The project could not be done because
potential donors were ready to give money to international organizations
but not to a regime “claiming to be clean”.
During the past decade, the inhuman
regime in Eritrea expelled many humanitarian organizations from the
country for flimsy reasons that cannot even be considered as reasonable
excuses. Even the UN agencies like the UNDP, the UNHCR and WFP, and the
American USAID were not spared from the lunatic actions of the Isayas
regime. A UN-connected news network, IRIN, reported yesterday that NGOs
in Eritrea dwindled from 37 to 13 from last July and today.
The three NGOs expelled this week were
relatively active in providing much needed assistance to poor household
in Eritrea. For instance:
Mercy Corps
This American Mercy Corps, established
in Asmara in 2000 with USAID funds, reportedly carried assistance worth
USD 39 million empowering more than 300,000 Eritreans. It provided food
aid, community-based nutrition, agriculture, fishing and water resource
management. Mercy Corps reportedly used to distribute high-energy
biscuits to 60,000 students per day.
Concern Worldwide of Ireland
This NGO has been focusing to assist in
provision of clean water in southern Eritrea benefiting 24,000 people
and iat Habero and Asmat in the Ansaba region benefiting 35,000 people.
Concern is involved in soil and water conservation measures, building up
livestock levels and helping in crop production.
ACORD
The British NGO, ACORD, has been
promoting income-generation programmes by assisting households to become
self-reliant through aid and small credit schemes in Eritrea. ACORD’s
declared aim in general includes addressing and fighting, through
different means, policies, systems, attitudes, practices and
institutions which lead to social injustice. It advocates social
movement at global context, and aims to develop an institution for
which governance and staff systems reflect ACORD’s engagement for
social justice and development. |
