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UN draft resolution would hit Eritrea mining

By Patrick Worsnip UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Mining companies would be banned from investing in Eritrea's potentially booming minerals sector under a draft U.N. resolution that Security Council members are due to start negotiating on Tuesday. The

By Patrick Worsnip
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Mining companies would be banned from investing in Eritrea’s potentially booming minerals sector under a draft U.N. resolution that Security Council members are due to start negotiating on Tuesday.

The council is weighing the investment ban, as well as an import ban on Eritrean minerals and other measures to add to existing sanctions against the Horn of Africa state in retaliation for Eritrea’s alleged support of Islamist rebels in Somalia. Eritrea denies supporting the rebels.

But diplomats said some of the toughest provisions in the proposed resolution, which has been drafted by Gabon, faced opposition from some members of the 15-nation council, meaning the final text could be watered down.

Proposals by an East African bloc to toughen sanctions on Eritrea have been stalled for three months as the search went on for an African state sitting on the Security Council to sponsor them.

The Inter Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, which groups seven East African states, called in July for more sanctions to hit the Eritrean mining sector and remittances.

Eritrea has blamed its rival Ethiopia, from which it split away in 1993, for the drive. In a letter this month to the council it urged the body to “reject Ethiopia’s current hostile campaign” and immediately lift all sanctions against it.

The new draft, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, says that “all states shall prohibit investment by their nationals, persons subject to their jurisdiction and firms incorporated in their territory or subject to their jurisdiction in the extractive industries and mining sectors in Eritrea.”
It also says all states shall prohibit the import of gold and other raw materials from Eritrea.

DIASPORA TAX
The draft also seeks to block payment of a 2 percent “diaspora tax” on their incomes that Eritreans working abroad are expected to pay to their local Eritrean embassy.

Eritrea is seen as being on the brink of a minerals boom that could revive its struggling economy. Remittances that it receives from its large diaspora in the West and Middle East are its biggest source of foreign exchange.

The country’s most advanced mining project, Bisha, believed to contain gold, copper and zinc, is run by Canada’s Nevsun Resources Ltd. Earlier this year, Eritrea granted Australia’s Chalice Gold Mines two new exploration licenses in a nearby location.

The fresh sanctions drive follows a report by a U.N. monitoring group in July that found Eritrea continues to provide political, financial, training and logistical support to al Shabaab and other armed groups in Somalia.
Eritrea has denied repeatedly that it funds and arms the Islamist al Shabaab but the accusation prompted the Security Council in 2009 to impose an arms embargo, asset freeze and travel ban on leaders and firms in Eritrea.

The new resolution would add more individuals and organizations to those already under sanctions.
But council diplomats suggested it could be toned down.

“Council members are generally well-disposed towards a strengthening of the Eritrea sanctions regime but several cannot accept the most substantive elements of the draft, particularly those that amount to sweeping economic sanctions,” one diplomat said.

“However, the key point is to target the regime and its destabilizing activities in the region and it should be possible to find consensus on measures that achieve that.”

The diplomat did not identify the countries that were objecting but China and Russia typically are cautious about sanctions.

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78 COMMENTS
  • ahmed Saleh October 19, 2011

    For those who don’t invision eritrea’s democrication for progress and devolopment. You are absolutelly
    siding with right wing agenda supporting dictartorship. I think you be more comfortable with HGDF web sites
    and we will better without you. Government officials have gotten increasingly powerful while ordinary citizen’s
    voice has been drowned. It is healthy for people to show up their frustration. We want to see a change.WE
    want to use our potential to build our country rather wasting our energy screaming Agame Agame. Sanction
    hurt I agree, but not as much as what they have caused their own people pain.

    • abdi October 20, 2011

      Please Ahmed can you tell what are the pain the gov’t cause on his ppl which can be described as worse than the sanction?
      What/how would have done to avoid it,if you where in ISAYAS’s place?

  • AbC October 19, 2011

    Eritreans have already been sanctioned some decades ago by the pfdj monsters. This UN sanction has no effect for the people but for the ruthless dictator who is mercilessly imprisoning, torturing and killing Eritreans. I don’t thing HGDF will last even a month if the security council passes the sanction as it is.

  • kozami October 19, 2011

    to belezet;

    I do not know if you still are around to read this, but in the past few weeks I raised an issue of the detained Eritreans and a family advocacy as a possible solution. You belittled my views and tried to turn it around as an unbridled arrogance on my part regarding their intelligence. Well, as we speak, the family of Dawit Isaak have gone public and declared to the world their dismay, in exactly the same understanding of the matter as I tried to point to you. An excerpt reads ” “We want everyone to know that we are not a part of the campaign and never will be. They pretend we are a great big happy family, but that is far from the truth,” said Isaak’s 18-year-old daughter Bethlehem to daily Svenska Dagbladet.”

    I rest my case.

    • Temesgen Medhanie October 19, 2011

      Qozami,

      Ohh you rest your case as in a court room where the prosecutor rests its case and the jury renders its verdict? It is just amazing and sad to say the least. Why would you want to justify a cruelty by pulling a lame line where his family seem to walk on a fine line so that, the monster in Asmara won’t retaliate in a perpetual vengeance. Why can’t you accept the fact that, Dawit Isaac is a victim of dictatorship where he has been in jail with out a day in a court of law as his daughter keeps counting the years as they go by immeasurably? Moreover, why would you go around in defending an utter cruelty? Don’t you have a sense of humanity, conscience and empathy in you? What is the matter with you people? Eti lewaH z’baHal nay Eritraw’net h’l’na nabey keydu? Entay aynet mergem y’baHal ezi? God help us all.

      • kozami October 19, 2011

        Temesgen
        What exactly did I say to “Justify” his circumstances? Regardless of the views thrown back and forth here, my point is a family advocacy of none politicized approach would have worked better, does this view has to be politicized too? Do you know that GoE had backed down from the wrong policy of arresting family of National service deserters through unpolitical pressure? Do you know that GoE has given in into releasing the credentials of absconded students from S. Africa Universities through unpolitical advocacy? Do you have to politicize a sad circumstances of families in order to be politically relevant?

        • Temesgen Medhanie October 19, 2011

          Qozami,

          You seem to find a comfort zone in the issued statement by the family. If that is not a justification for your otherwise guilty conscience, I wonder what is? Are you saying families are no longer held responsible for their kids’ sole option to flee the country instead of throwing themselves in a national service that seems to go on till kingdom comes? I haven’t read or seen a directive that discourages the penalty of fifty thousand Naqfa as the families are obliged to pay. What is unpolitical advocacy? Please help me understand? While you’re at it, you might as well give credit to Isaias for giving the prisoners food to eat or for keeping them alive. Here is the deal: instead of soothing your apparent troubled self, why can’t you advocate for the prisoners to have a day in a court of law to defend the allegations they are accused of. Mind you, we are not even asking for the prisoners to be released, we are asking for them to have a fair trial where they could defend themselves. If they are found guilty in a fair trial, then they will have to do time or pay the price for breaking the law. It is that simple.

        • Haqqi Nezareb October 19, 2011

          Kozami,
          The case of Dawit Issac is the same as the other Eritreans who are dying slowly at EraEro prison camp. The only reason why his case is attracting attention is because he is a Swedish citizen. The measures taken by your government was not due to change in hearts of Issaias. The government finally realized that those measures were not working. Arresting parents could not deter the Warsays to leave the country in droves. At this right moment, someone is escaping from cruelty of you GOE. What would you do if you were Dawit Issac:
          (I) Would you ask your day in court?
          (II) Would ask the authority to allow a visitation of your spouse, kids, and parents?
          (III) Would you ask for medical assistance when you are seriously sick?
          (IV) Would you ask the authority to press charge in court?
          If the answers for the above questions are NO, then you must one of the real zombies.

          • ahmed Saleh October 19, 2011

            Kozami
            I can not teach you, it seems you are educated. To defend someone
            who is imprisoned for years without trial is not politicesed approach.
            Only righteous and courageous people try to defend the weaken ones.
            For those who are willing to hold our country hostage for thein own
            political gain, we can not be bought or dubed .

  • nafi October 19, 2011

    srew the bastard Isayas. He is torturing his poor people for his own sadistic end. Sanctions or no sanctions, it changes nothing for the people there, as long as he is president.

  • Haqqi Nezareb October 19, 2011

    Here is an example of successful sanction as written by Philip I. Levy.
    “On the face of it, South African sanctions appear to have been successful. In
    response to the outrages of apartheid, many countries adopted trade and financial
    sanctions and a significant amount of foreign investment was withdrawn from South
    Africa. After the adoption of sanctions, South Africa experienced economic difficulty and
    numerous domestic actors commented on how the economic situation was untenable and
    required political change. By 1994, Nelson Mandela had been elected President of South
    Africa. He and other black leaders attributed to economic sanctions a significant role in
    bringing about the democratic transition”.

    • kozami October 19, 2011

      The mine operators in Eritrea called the draft res. “defies logic” and point the finger at the useless weyanne beggars. I wish, in some ways, the mine sanction goes ahead and we get to see the US officials for the dam @ss’ that they are. They couldn’t do it due to their greedy ugly soul and are trying to pass their utter failure as a sympathy to
      “poor Eritrean’s”. By sanctioning Nevasun and other’s they sanction themselves out of strategic market edge in this difficult time! So, stupid yankis are now trying to label the sanction proposal as Ethiopia’s and are trying to distance themselves by finding “consensus” What a shameful administration is running the US anyways.

  • Haqqi Nezareb October 19, 2011

    Kozami,

    I understand your frustration. Right now you are aching inside. Please put the blame on Issaias and his clique, not USA. Tone down with your language, don’t be like other zombies as well.

  • Barentu October 19, 2011

    My Eritrean friend who is a well known investment banker e-mailed to many of us to warn to get out of any investments that includes mining public corporations associated with Eritrea, such as Nevsun, Chalice, Sunridge … because the sanctions to be imposed soon will dry up capital needed for operations.
    The sanctions will also prevent them them from selling their mineral or metal products at a fair price in an international markets.
    Run as far as possible from Eritrea and its mining companies with all your money. Eritrea is not a conducive environment for mining. There is a story I heard recently about an Eritrean living in Canada who went back 12 years ago to invest in the Himbol and Sawa modern irrigation farms. This hard working man put all his money into his farms and was exporting to Italy and Middle East fresh products. The Hgdefite army brass noted his hard work but rewarded him by confiscating his Himbol Farm Enterprise and he is back in Canada penny-less.
    He said stay away from putting any money for business or a house in Eritrea. If you are interested in business, do it in other African nations such as Uganda, kenya, South Sudan, Angola, South Africa ….

    • diana asmara October 19, 2011

      barentu
      you are very AGAME we are going to invest our money to our own country OK! youcan go to invest your money to SEKHLAKHA IN TIGRAY,

  • Dawit October 19, 2011

    Haqqi Nezareb,
    You mentioned about Zombies. HGDEFites have begun to act like them Zombies. HGDEFITES lack conscious to even call them sane individuals. What is worse is that PFDJ is busy building more HGDEFITE zombies. These Zombies, to borrow Pollock & Dennett’s phrase, “portray sophisticated & overt behaviors” but their” inner life is as empty and dead as a rock”

  • Abel October 19, 2011

    These sanctions will not hurt the people of Eritrea who are already hurting and have been hurting. Read the wiki leaks on Eritrea and how crime has risen in Asmara. How police in Asmara are breaking into people’s homes during the day and night. Read about the water shortages and power outages in Asmara. This has been happening for years so the 2% people pay goes straight to sustaining the army at the border along with the profit from the gold. FYI, gold doesn’t change economies, it helps with hard currency but it does not have the ability to magically transform a nation, as some would like to imagine. The fact is, if the 2% is prevented and the gold stopped, Issias will have no money for his belligerent policies. The cracks are starting to show, and this is the beginning of the end for this regime. Long live peace to Eritrea and to the horn of Africa. Oh yeah one last thing, why does the Eritrean government encourage its stooges around the world to protest but doesn’t let the people in Eritrea come out and show their support for their king? Could it be a large gathering of people in Asmara could turn into something ugly???

  • kozami October 19, 2011

    Temesgen, Haqqi N. and Ahmed S

    Part 1

    The three responses given by you guys are substantively similar that I would try to respond here together. There are two issues here; firstly the reasons for detaining the individuals and secondly the nature of their detention. I agree to disagree on the first issue on the grounds that the GoE is with in its customary jurisdiction to detain those it deems national security threat. In fact many other countries do so. For example, in Canada, under the security certificate policy, actual people are detained indefinitely, with no charges based on secret evidence. The USA has far more worrisome credentials of doing so with all forms of torture and rendition and out sourced interrogations involved. The UK has had some explaining to do with the new masters of Libya in the same matters of extra-judicial detention and torture. I personally happen to believe Eritrea is slated for subversion by external quarters and is entitled to take all security measures.

    • Haqqi Nezareb October 19, 2011

      Kozami,

      Still you are trying to justify the arrest of Eritrean citizens with out trial. I wish you had elaborated more in the case of USA and British. On the other hand, the Canadian case, this what it says:
      “The Canadian law, a security certificate is a mechanism by which the Government of Canada can detain and deport foreign nationals and all other non-citizens living in Canada”. The federal government may issue a certificate naming a permanent resident or any other non-citizen suspected of violating human rights, of having membership within organized crime, or is perceived to be a threat to national security.[1] Subjects of a certificate are inadmissible is subject to a limited form of review by the Federal Court.

      Are saying G15 and the Eritrean journalists are not Eritrean citizens? You are really a retarded zombie.

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