April 19, 2000

The recent World Food Program (WFP) director’s visit to Eritrea was used by Eritreans as an opportunity to complain about relief efforts for drought affected Ethiopians. As usual, the Eritreans cannot focus on their own problems without attempting to attack and blame Ethiopia first. In response to this unseemly behavior, it would be useful to explain to Eritreans the source of some of the delays in donor response to their food aid pleas.

The following five points are probably some of the main reasons for the problem.

1. Eritrean demand to sell donated food-aid on the Eritrean market (monetization). Monetization is not a new concept. In fact, by cooperative agreement, some aspects of Western food aid to Ethiopia are monetized. In Eritrea however, the government in 1996 presented a plan calling for complete monetization of food aid and total control by the Eritrean government. Of course the donors objected and refused to donate further food aid to Eritrea under these terms. However the Eritrean government blackmailed the donors using the resultant hunger of the Eritrean people as a tool to achieve its goal. In the end, the US was the first to capitulate and the Europeans followed sometime later. But the sublime arrogance of the Eritrean government did not earn it friends and the Eritreans have been forced to backtrack lately.

Food aid has been a contentious issue. In 1996 the government ended all free distribution of food. Henceforth, it announced—over U.S. and European opposition—that it would sell donated grain on the domestic market at subsidized rates (rather than giving it away) and then use the proceeds to underwrite a public works campaign for poor people.

Washington and other food donors balked at losing control over the distribution of grain shipments within Eritrea. They also insisted that subsidies should be eliminated and that donated grain must be resold at world market prices. When the Asmara government refused, the U.S. withheld grain aid.

Late in 1996, with Eritrean grain supplies running short, the U.S. agreed to permit the sale of donated grain as proposed by the Eritreans, rather than take the blame for renewed hunger, though European donors continued to oppose the program. Foreign Policy in Focus, September 1997

2. Excessive Eritrean governmental controls placed on NGOs. In 1996, Eritrea imposed wholly inappropriate controls on foreign NGOs working in Eritrea. In most cases these control requirements violated the charter under which the NGOs were formed. As a result virtually all NGOs working in Eritrea were forced to leave the country. This was a double blow to Eritrea because NGOs are often the first to lobby their home countries when a food emergency arises. Two years after harassing these NGOs out of the country and forcing them to turn over their property, the Eritrean government wants them back. But why were they treated so shabbily in the first place?

In 1995 the Government proclaimed that religious organizations, including religious-based NGO's, could not engage in development activities. The Government also removed religious-based indigenous NGO's completely from relief work in order to prevent the development of church-based organizations receiving money from abroad (see Section 2.d.). In January religiously affiliated organizations were prohibited from running kindergartens, and in May the Government announced that all schools run by the Catholic church were to be incorporated into the state system (see Section 2.d.).

In May the Government shut down the health clinic of a Presbyterian Church and refused to renew the visas of foreign church members, effectively ending the mission work of the church.

All foreign staff members of NGO's or any non-diplomatic organization who live and work in the country for more than 183 days must pay the highest income tax rate, 38 percent of their salaries and allowances. In January the Government ordered the remaining NGO's to close down their programs, allegedly because they wasted too much money on administrative costs. Most NGO's left by mid-year. US State Department Eritrea Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998

3. Eritrea’s extravagant military spending. Eritrea initiated a militarization program in 1993, spending at times over 50 percent of its budget on arms. Thus, even before the current war, the proportion of spending devoted to the military ranked Eritrea among the top few nations in the world. After invading Ethiopia in 1998, Eritrea has now achieved the dubious honor of having the highest proportion of its GDP (35.8%) wasted on the military. No other nation even comes close.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies ranks Eritrea number one in the world for arms spending in 1998 as a percentage of gross domestic product. The top five countries are: Eritrea 35.8%, Saudi Arabia 15.7%, Afghanistan 14.5%, North Korea 14.3%, Oman 13.6%,

4. Eritrean theft of food aid. Eritrea stole an amount roughly equal to 10 percent of the total food aid required by Ethiopia this year (half from USAID and the rest from the WFP). It is no small wonder that foreign donors are somewhat reluctant to rescue a country whose concept of “strategic food reserve” is the pilfering and looting of international food stocks belonging to others. But the effect is worse because US law requires that the USAID agency account for its food. It took the Eritreans over a year to write a report describing what they did with the looted food aid. Why did Eritrea take such a liesurely approach to this issue? If they had responded seriously to the USAID requests (or if they had simply paid for the looted food aid) the aid pipeline would have been restarted much earlier.

A third of a million Eritrean refugees are in desperate need of food and clothing, but U.S. laws block direct American aid until Eritrea returns tons of U.S. grain it stole from neighboring Ethiopia, according to U.S. officials. Eritrea confiscated 45,000 tons of U.S. grain that was in an Eritrean port en route to Ethiopia when the two Africa neighbors went to war in 1998, said an official at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

"We have a problem with U.S. food aid that was caught at the port of Assab when the conflict started," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The Eritreans took control of it, and until this is resolved, we can't give direct government-to-government aid."

The food was seized in July 1998 and removed from Assab by the Eritreans, and "they have used it," he said. "We have asked for full documentation."

The food, worth about $4.5 million, was to become part of Ethiopia's food reserve, to be used during periodic droughts in the Horn of Africa that have killed hundreds of thousands in past decades.

"Bilateral aid to Eritrea is blocked--it's in the PL480 law" governing use of surplus American food in foreign aid programs, said the official. Eritrean Theft Bars U.S. Aid , The Washington Times, 25 January 2000

5. Donor fatigue. In good rainfall years the West feeds 15 percent of Eritrea’s population. In bad rainfall years the figure rises to 80 percent. Unlike Ethiopia, Eritrea has never come close to self-sufficiency. Thanks to a lack of funds (the military comes first), Eritrea has no comprehensive program to achieve such a goal. In the drought of 1993/94 Western donors were forced to feed fully 80 percent of Eritrea’s population

The late 1993 harvest in Eritrea garnered only 85,000 metric tons (mt), against a total need of 456,000 mt for the population of approximately 2.7 million people. Of this deficit, an estimated 255,000 mt had to be covered by food aid from outside. By August, sufficient pledges had been received to cover the deficit. According to the June/July update from the Eritrean Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (ERRA), 80% of the population are still in need of food aid for survival until the next harvest in October/November 1994. USAID, October 6, 1994

Conclusion: Eritreans should take a close look at the facts before complaining that the West is ignoring their problems. The main problem lies with their recklessly militaristic government. Eritrea is now simultaneously the world’s most food-aid dependent nation as well as the world’s most militaristic nation (in terms of the percentage share of its budget/GDP devoted to military spending.)

The Eritrean elites have worsened the situation with their unconditional support of Eritrea’s militarization. Their peddling of war bonds instead of development bonds, prolonged Eritrea’s belligerent intransigence and led to the bloody battles in 1999.

Eritrea needs to concentrate on its own problems and stop the unseemly complaining about the relative amounts of relief aid being distributed in the Horn of Africa. It has only itself to blame for any shortfall in aid.