Francesco Martone, head, international department, Sinistra Ecologia Libertà
Speech for the Bologna Summit 2014: "Eritrean solutions for Eritrean problems"
30 August 2014
Dear all
let me first of all thank you for the
invitation to attend the second edition of the Bologna meeting. It is
a great honor and pleasure for me to be here both on a personal basis
and as a representative of the Left, Ecology and Freedom Party.
This is a further step towards a
stricter exchange and collaboration between my party and you all, in
the common quest for democracy and respect of human rights and
justice in Eritrea.
I have been engaged on Eritrea since
the time when I was a senator in Italy. I was a member of the human
rights committee of the Senate then and very much engaged in migrant
rights' issues, especially as regards detention camps and the
Mediterranean. It was then that I got to meet with Don Mussie Zerai
and other Eritrean youth and activists that told me about the root
causes of migration and the exodus towards Europe.
Since then I was engaged in trying to
highlight the co-responsibilities of Italian companies and political
circles in backing up the Afeworki regime, and to try and contribute
to develop a truly post-colonial approach to Italian policies towards
its former colonies and Africa.
I learned about the hardship of those
that struggled to create networks for democracy abroad, the fear and
threats they had to resist, the courage that you all have step by
step shown in coming out publicly, create linkages, start challenging
the Afeworki regime openly. A good friend, daughter of one of your
Independence hero, then prosecuted by the regime and left to die in a
jail in Asmara, told me when you organized the first demonstration in
front of the Eritrean embassy in Rome: “here we go, here they are
now. This is a great step”. To me that used to take for granted
that people could gather and take to the streets in my country that
was somehow a novelty. But then I quickly realized how crucial that
moment was for you all.
Since then my party started to actively
engage on Eritrea, we invited a representative of the Eritrean Youth
Solidarity for Change (EYSC) at our National Congress this year and
have been mobilizing our Members of Parliament on various occasions.
I wanted to start with a personal note
to try and highlight the three elements that seem to be key to me to
define what would be the responsibility and role of Italy in
supporting democratic change and justice in Eritrea. When we think
about the various levels of action, these can be divided in three,
and all three are strictly intertwined.
The first one is here, in Italy, and
is related to the obligation of the Italian government to ensure that
Eritreans that make it to the Italian shores are given access to the
right to seek asylum or refugee status, as well as for those that
live here ,the right to be free from fear, to freely exert your
citizen's right to freedom of expression, association, political
action. It seems to me that there is a sort of tendency to
“normalize” the official narrative around Eritrea. I was quite
concerned in reading a recent report by the International Crisis
group titled: “ Ending the exodus” that among other things almost
gave the impression that many Eritreans leave the county just because
they want to avoid the draft and then to send remittances back home.
This assumption - if gone unchallenged - would in fact help
assimilate Eritrean migrants to economic migrants and “depoliticize”
the root causes of migration. Under this assumption Eritreans would
hardly be eligible for asylum or refugee status.
Furthermore, the Italian government
should make a clear effort to ensure that there is no undue
interference of the Eritrean government into what Eritrean citizens
do and say in my country. I do not want to go too much into the
details here but I am sure all you you fully understand what I mean.
Then we have the second level, the
in-between. The tragic route between Eritrea and Italy. The
detention in camps in Libya, the inhumane treatment of migrants, fell
prey of human traffickers, and then risking their very survival
sailing through the Mediterranean. When I think of how to try and
ensure justice and dignity to the Eritrean people I cannot avoid
thinking of those that lost their lives, and their families, those
that stay in Eritrea, and that are caught between grief, pain and
fear. And those that were waiting for their relatives to join them in
Europe. Many of these people have no name, they are “disappared”
. Hence dignity in this case can be partly ensured by giving them a
name, giving their families the right to mourn them.
Justice here is not a theoretical
matter. It has to do with the root causes of migration and with the
denial of the people's human right to mobility. Justice can be made
when securitarian policies that criminalize migrants and refugees are
canceled and substituted with programmes that protect people's lives,
accompany them into a right to safe passage, and then access to
procedures to seek refugee and asylum status are ensured.
In a word, the Italian government in
its current role as chair of the European Council of Ministers should
seek to fundamentally change the assumptions behind Frontex and Mare
Nostrum . It must ensure that while these are deeply retrofitted to
be anchored on a human-rights based approach and not on to
securitarian paranoia or the priority to secure borders, the same are
linked to a new asylum and migration policy incountry. It would be
tragic that while saving a life on the sea, that same life then would
be at risk if the person is forcibly returned to his country of
origin.
Third, but not least, the very reason
for so many people to escape from Eritrea, a brutal regime that
leaves no other choice. A regime that is now shaken and on the verge
of crumbling down. Eritrea has always been seen as a country in
eternal transition, maybe in the hope that the events would lead to
the end of Afeworki's rule, be it the long wave of Arab spring, some
geopolitical turmoils, the turbulent scenario in the Horn of Africa.
Or is health conditions. A transition to nowhere, unless the
international community takes a courageous stance and finally decides
to deal with the regime and the overall region ina comprehensive and
coherent approach. My party believes that the Italian government in
its presidency should call for a regional conference on the Horn of
Africa, whereas Europe can play a key convening role, to address all
the outstanding crises that somehow prop up the Afeworki regime.
First and foremost, the solution to the long standing conflict
between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the “Badme question”, that require
a strong initiative by the UN to achieve a final settlement.
Like in
a domino game, once a piece falls the rest of the pieces might fall.
But such a domino effect needs to be governed, accompanied by giving
you, your movements, your platforms a proper role and recognition.
As the title of this conference rightfully states: " Eritrean solutions to Eritrean problems".
You are the basis for the future of Eritrea. Experience shows that
after the fall of a long standing regime, the risks of civil strife
are real in the lack of “intermediate” bodies, and political
actors that would “govern” the transition. Now for contingent
reasons, this will be your task. In spite of this, and of the fact
that this might be the crucial moment to head for change in Eritrea,
the Italian government seems to be heading towards a different
direction, A recent visit in Eritrea by the viceminister of Foreign
Affairs, has given the impression that this government is more
interested in propping up the Afeworki regime – an old trick that
of preserving the status quo in the fear that a change might unleash
unexpected consequences that might not fall into the national
interests.
This is “realpolitik” playing, not
“smart” politics. Smart politics would look into ways to empower
the future actors of a new Eritrea, recognize their role in future
state building, while at the same time ensuring that the current
regime is put at a corner and forced to negotiate. How? By severing
the channels that support the regime, be them investments or economic
and trade relations. Stopping smuggling weapons, and support a
concerted effort to punish government-backed human traffickers to
begin with. And then actively work for an international conference,
to develop a road-map to democratic transition, that might also
include representatives of the current regime, but not Afeworki or
its cronies. Not the kind of message that came from the first visit
of an Italian government high ranking official after many years.
Breaking the isolation is not the best way to contribute to
democratic change in this case. Constructive engagement requires a
clear strategy. The strategy here, seems more to be that of stemming
the flow of migrants to secure the Mediterranean borders rather than
securing a path towards freedom ad democracy for you all. Point is
that by doing so the Italian government is asking an arsonist to
extinguish the fire he has put up.
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