Whether to engage or isolate Eritrea as a spoiler was what the quint group addressed. Germany reported not being encouraged by its efforts to engage with Eritrea and noted that the German government had decided to freeze its support for the Bisha mining project, which he predicted would paralyze the project.
In December 23 last year the UN Security Council passed a resolution for a sanction against the government (not the people) of Eritrea. Aybelnan’do!
Al-Jazeera’s Jane Dutton on Friday confronted Eritrea’s besieged President Isayas Afwerki with questions which every journalist would love to put to a dictator. Isayas tried in vain to show that he was in control although his poor, hostile performance merely reinforced the notion that the UN sanctions are already having the desired effect.
The international community is on the verge of meting out a collective punishment on the Eritrean political and military leadership. The proposed UN sanctions will be the harshest ever imposed on an African nation in recent memory. The Eritrean government says it is not concerned.