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Slave labor at national service

This is excerpted from article Eritrea: Mining Companies and Slave Labor by Yosief Ghebrehiwet published on Saturday, 09 July . Source url http://asmarino.com/articles/1098-eritrea-mining-companies-and-slave-labor

It has been about 15 years in Eritrea since an experimentation of Khmer Rouge like proportion has been undergoing under the misleading name of “national service”. It is to be remembered that the first thing the Khmer Rouge did when they “liberated” Cambodia was to empty its towns and cities of its inhabitants and drive them to the jungle to make better Khmer out of them – one that ended in a tragedy of epic proportion. In Eritrea, in a similar experimentation, villages, towns and cities have been emptied of their adult and most productive population and cordoned off in the wilderness in their hundreds of thousands. As in the case of Khmer Rouge, this experimentation is meant to create “better Eritreans” in the image of the guerrilla fighters that “liberated” the nation. The only reason why this experiment has not ended in Khmer Rouge like tragedy of genocide is that Eritrea has very porous borders and these modern-day slaves have been successfully escaping to neighboring countries in their hundreds of thousands.

This totalitarian experimentation is designed to achieve three things: to create a formidable war machine to counter Ethiopia’s hegemony in the region, quixotic as it may seem; to provide endless source of free labor for governmental projects; and to control a population group deemed to be dangerous to the survival of the regime. Emboldened by this foolish experiment, a war that was instigated by the leader of the nation has already resulted in tens of thousands dead and tens of thousands maimed. Ever since then, the whole nation has been at war footing for more than a decade. While keeping them cordoned off in the wilderness under the pretext of “national security”, this bottomless pool of workforce has been the main source for the Sisyphean projects that the regime has been undertaking. Given the indefinite nature of the national service, this has directly translated into endless form of slavery.

It is important for outsiders to know the extent (the number of slave laborers) and the years involved in this totalitarian experimentation of epic proportion. Right now, there are about 300, 000 slave laborers in active “military service”, with hundreds of thousands more in reserve. All of those in reserve have already gone through the grueling years of service and are frequently called back to fill in gaps left by ever-deserting recruits. If we take only those in active service, all of which have been slave laborers for all the years they have been serving in the military, they would make up about 6% of the entire 5 million population. Think now of the US having 6% of its population in active military service doubling as slave laborers: about 18 million of them! And this doesn’t tell the whole story, for every adult person has to pass through that grueling experimentation before he or she is sent back to civilian life or escapes to one of the neighboring nations. This has been going on for about 15 years straight. There are tens of thousands that have wasted their entire adult lives on these slave camps hauling stones, and still remain trapped there. No wonder that Eritrea, despite its small population, has been identified as a nation that has generated the highest number of refugees seeking asylum in the world last year.

Exiles in their own land

The main purpose for quarantining hundreds of thousands of adults (mostly young men and women) in the wilderness for more than a decade has been that of totalitarian control. Once identified as the number one internal enemy of “Eritrea”, this young population group has to be contained by whatever means necessary. As a result, those in national service have acquired all the characteristics of the classical exile. That is to say, “national service” is just an Orwellian name given to “internal exile”. Some of these exile characteristics are [for a more extensive look at the nature of the national service, please read my Sealing off Eritrea: Domestic Terrorism ]:

  1. Isolation/minimum contact: As dangerous exiles, with poisonous ideas to spread, the Warsai (an Orwellian name – “inheritors” – given to the young generation in the national service) population group has to be kept away from urban population centers where it could potentially create a lot of mischief to the totalitarian regime. So the first step is to isolate them and put them in a safe laboratory setting rendered controllable. Cordoning off hundreds of thousands of them in the wilderness is meant to achieve just that.
  2. In the image of “liberators”: Once they have been isolated in an ideal laboratory setting of the regime’s liking, the mission of this experimentation is to mold the Eritrean youth – the guinea pigs of this experimentation – in the image of teghadalay (the guerrilla fighters that liberated the nation), with the purpose of making robotic, atomic units out of them that would easily be made to fit into the totalitarian machine.
  3. Hard labor: As in the case of Siberian exiles, they have been wasting their productive years in modern-day slavery, hauling stones in futile Sisyphean tasks, with the main purpose of keeping the young generation preoccupied, at minimum, and of breaking their spirit, at maximum – both, of course, for control purposes.
  4. Vigilantly watched over as enemies: In their place of exile, they have been put under constant watch by none other than the former guerrillas (the Yikealo: the Big Brothers); every movement they make is assessed purely for its potential danger to the regime. Any sign of independence in thinking or action is severely punished.
  5. Indoctrination: As in all kinds of political exiles, the indoctrination of the Warsai generation is essential to PFDJ’s survival, the idea being to create compliant subjects willing to execute the orders of the regime without questioning.
  6. Physical and mental punishment: Other forms of cruel punishment are also essential to break down this restive generation; those considered non-complaint are subjected to cruel forms of medieval-like torture infamously known as “helicopter”, “otto”, “Jesus Christ” and “almaz” – all innovative ways of tying up the victim to inflict maximum pain. Humiliation (ex: shaving a female Warsai’s hair for “noncompliant” behavior) and isolation are also used. As a result, mental traumas have become normal phenomena.
  7. Victims of the elements: As in the case of many exiles in many totalitarian systems (the Khmer Rouge come easy to mind), this huge mass of humanity lives in the open under arduous regimental conditions, hard labor, meager food supply and little medical attention, resulting in hunger and malnutrition and various diseases. Many of them are stationed in one of the hottest area in the world.
  8. Sexual abuse of women: The sexual coercion and rape by military authorities that the female Warsai have been subjected to have resulted in illegitimate pregnancies, illegitimate abortion, illegitimate children, HIV infection, mental traumas and life-long stigmas. Sexual slavery has become a fixture in every military camp, where beautiful women are selected to “serve” the officers, colonels and generals.
  9. Wasted lives: National service has interrupted the normal life of Warsai – no education, no normal jobs, no raising families, etc – for years on end. There are those who have spent their entire productive life in the national service; 10 to 15 years of life under slavery has now become normal.
  10. Spiritually deprived: Any inclination in spirituality is severely dealt with; reading the bible is a no-no. The regime has no tolerance to anyone among the Warsai who shows loyalty to others than itself – be it of earthly types (ex: the family) or of heavenly types. Thousands of Evangelical Christians, most of whom are from the Warsai generation, are languishing in prisons simply because of their belief.
  11. Mass exodus: As every exile would undoubtedly do under similar circumstances, the Warsai are escaping in droves at every opportunity, only to be met with further hardships both inside and outside Eritrea. Tens of thousands are stranded in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Sudan and tens of thousands more have ventured further [in Israel alone, there are more than 8,000].
  12. Fugitives in their land: Those who have escaped from the totalitarian regime’s laboratory setting but remain hidden within the land lead a fugitive’s life. Most of them won’t venture outside a compound or house for years. The countless informers everywhere and the frequent unannounced round ups (giffa) are meant to apprehend deserters and dodgers before they make it to neighboring countries.
  13. Shoot-at-sight policy: To stop slave escapees from making it across the border to Sudan or Ethiopia, the cruelest policy the regime has come up with is the shoot-at-sight policy at border crossings. The case of the 12 Mai-Temenai kids (a neighborhood in Asmara) shot at the border recently is a case in point.
  14. Prisons within a prison: Even though the whole national service is a huge prison, those who are considered not malleable enough to fit into the experimentation are sent to walled prisons. To date, there are tens of thousands of prisoners languishing in hundreds of prisons and concentration camps scattered all over Eritrea, the overwhelming majority of which come from the slave laborers population group.
  15. Executions and massacres: These too are not uncommon. The massacres at Adi-Abeyto, where more than 50 rounded-up young men were killed, and at Wi’a, where more than 160 young men lost their lives in similar fashion, are two cases in point. Many die in prisons as a result of torture, malnutrition and diseases. Many others are also executed and buried in unmarked graves under the cover of darkness.
  16. Parental penalization: Even the parents are not spared. The parents of army deserters and conscription evaders are asked to pay a hefty price (50,000 Nakfa) or to go to prison. This is done more with the goal of making a lesson out of them to the rest of the population than bringing back the escapees, most of whom have already made it all the way to safe destinations.
Given the synoptic view of the type of modern-day slavery in Eritrea depicted above, the question that has to be answered now is: Where do all the hundreds of thousands slave laborers work? And where in this picture of total deprivation and exploitation do the Western mining companies come in?

Where do the slave laborers work?

The slave laborers are all made to work in government projects. Two types need to be mentioned here: agricultural and construction projects. The first one is motivated by two needs: to feed a huge army and to grow cash crops for hard currency. In its effort to feed a huge mass of ever-moving humanity, the government has been expropriating fertile farmlands from pastoralists and peasants at an alarming rate. But what is more is that it is using the very manpower needed in the villages to tend their land as slave labor in its own farms. No wonder the villages, strapped both of manpower and land, have been facing one famine after another. The other consequence of the regime’s farming policy is that, given its use of free slave labor in its farms, almost all private commercial farming has been bankrupted. The result is total government monopoly. Now all the big farms are owned by the PFDJ (the ruling party), the army or directly by the government itself [don’t get fooled, they all amount to the same thing]. Government-owned companies running these farms include: Afhimbol Agricultural Project, Alebu Dairy Farm, Gash-Setit Agricultural Project, Homib Agricultural Establishment, Sawa Agricultural Industry, etc.

The other part that “employs” a huge number of slave laborers is construction: of roads, bridges, micro-dams, housing, etc. Many of these projects are either meant to occupy the hands of Warsai or to generate hard currency for the regime. The government has, step by step, systematically killed all private-owned construction companies. Now, all the construction companies working in the nation are owned by the government. Again, one of the effective ways it did to kill private companies was by availing itself of free labor from the huge pool of slave laborers in the national service. Remember that it pays a worker a measly 500 Nakfa ($12). No company would be able to compete with that. To mention some of the government owned construction companies: giant national ones like Asbeco, Bidho, Ghedem, Rodaab and Segen and smaller ones such as Badme, Haben, Mereb, Musa Ali and Sawa.

Now add all the banks (National Bank of Eritrea, Commercial Bank of Eritrea, Housing and Commerce Bank of Eritrea, etc.), the only insurance company (National Insurance Company of Eritrea), most of transportation companies and whatever is left of that most foolish of all its endeavors – Eritrean Airlines – to the government’s ownership list to see how thorough and pervasive this monopolization has become. You could also easily see that whatever is deemed to be a good source of hard currency for the money strapped regime is given priority. Export-oriented agricultural projects and housing projects entirely oriented to the Diaspora community are two such examples. But now the mining projects have come to overshadow these other projects in terms of importance to the survival of this brutal regime and, understandably, slave labor has come to occupy central role in them.

 

Mining companies and slave labor

Where do the mining companies come into this web of conspiracy against the Eritrean people? The “slavery” link could throw light on the nature of their involvement.

Since Nevsun is the first mining company to go fully operational, one need only examine its project at Bisha to see the extent of slave labor used there – a trend that every other mining company will have to follow. We need to look both at those directly hired by Nevsun and those indirectly hired by the subcontracted local companies to get the full picture. A look at the history of PFDJ’s dealings with local and foreign companies will be essential in figuring out what is going on in Nevsun’s mining project.

National service to the PFDJ’s rescue

As the government keeps expanding national service to include every adult in the country and for as many years as possible, many companies have been facing dire shortages of workers. If a company (or any other workplace) wants to keep a worker considered too indispensable, the government relents under one condition: that the worker does his national service while working in the company. All that this says is that worker will get only 500 Nakfa ($12) to the duration of his/her service, which goes indefinitely for years, while the company pays the rest of the money to the government. At its most bizarre, the government used to do that to its own employees in various ministries. First, it would declare some workers to be too valuable in their workplace to do national service in the army, and then it cuts off their salaries for years, pretending that they were in extended national service. The case of teachers is a notable one. Considered to be indispensable in their task as educators, many were pauperized by the meager salary they were getting for the duration of their service.

Knowing this lucrative business of selling slaves, the government used to target organizations with big monies in the pipeline like the UN, UNMEE, NGOs and foreign companies. The case of HALO Trust comes easy to mind. The aftermath of the war left Eritrea with a huge part of its land planted with tens of thousands of landmines. One of the companies employed to do the clearing of landmines by the UN was HALO Trust, the largest NGO of its kind in the world. Locals were trained to do the actual demining process, mostly from the national service. Given that they were involved in a very high risk job, they were initially paid relatively high wages. As usual, the government protested, and allowed them to be paid meager salary and wanted to pocket the difference. This maltreatment of employees by the government was one of the main contentions between the regime and the company. In the end, the regime, typical of its handling NGOs and other foreign entities that didn’t go along with its various schemes to rob its own subjects, expelled the company from Eritrea.

The regime abhors any substantial amount of money without passing through its hands. The main reason why the regime didn’t want the NGOs in the land was because it felt they were blocking the money from the donor community from reaching its hands. That is why, after expelling them, it championed cash-for-work policy only – a scheme that the EU easily fell into. Given that most of the work was done by slave laborers, most of that cash donated by the donor community went directly to the regime’s coffers.

What we need to know now is whether the mining companies are entering the kind of deals mentioned above with the regime where they allow the government to exploit the laborers working for them and pocket a disproportionate amount of their salaries. What we know now is that when Nevsun Resources Ltd. began directly hiring locals, the median salary was about $300 a month, undoubtedly considered to be better-off salary when compared with the national one for similar jobs. Not surprisingly, the government strongly protested; it wanted the wages to be drastically cut to resemble the local ones. The company reluctantly cut it into half. No one knows for sure if the government is pocketing the difference. Given the track record of the regime in similar dealings, as pointed above, the latter possibility is not pure speculation. But even if this is going on, it would still remain a small part of the story, for the majority of the employees are not directly employed by the companies.