On this episode of China Uncensored,
when you hear "the North Korea of Africa",
I know what you're thinking:
What a great place to invest!
Hi, welcome back to China Uncensored.
I'm your host Chris Chappell.
The Chinese Communist Party has decided to try its hand
at a little good old fashioned colonialism in Africa.
Besides burying many Africa countries in debt traps,
the Chinese regime also plans to build up its military there.
Sadly, a lot of African countries are run by dictators.
And it's hard for dictators to get the support they want from the West.
That's where the Chinese Communist Party steps in.
They don't make unreasonable demands,
like to improve human rights and democracy!
They give the dictators cash—
plus sell them security technology
so they can keep an iron grip on power.
A perfect example of this is Eritrea.
You know, Eritrea!
Okay, a lot of people have never heard of Eritrea.
But the Chinese Communist Party sure has.
It's a small country on the horn of Africa,
right next to Djibouti,
where China put its first overseas military base.
The modern country of Eritrea
only gained independence in 1991,
after a long war to separate from Ethiopia.
And what did the newly liberated people get?
A brutal dictatorship!
To learn more about China's role in Eritrea,
I sat down with Meron Estafanos,
an Eritrean activist and journalists,
now living in Sweden.
We met on the sidelines of the Oslo Freedom Forum in New York.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you for having me.
So, for our audience who maybe doesn't know much about Eritrea,
how would you describe it?
Eritrea is a 27 year old country that never had election.
There's only one party, one state media.
There's no free press.
It's referred as the North Korea of Africa.
North Korea of Africa.
Yeah and it literally is.
Wow.
Yeah. So that's how I can describe it, in short.
Do you have to call your leader,
dear leader, like in North Korea?
We don't use it, but the whole country is a militarized state
where about 27% of the population is in the military
so everybody from the age of 15, 16 until you are 50,
you belong to the government.
So in the name of the national service
it's supposed to be 18 months,
originally planned for 18 months, it became indefinite.
Indefinite military conscription.
Exactly.
As I understand it, a lot of people like to leave the country
before they have to serve.
Yeah, sadly you know we see.
I mean 15 years ago the people that was fleeing from Eritrea
was 30 plus educated people, whatever you know,
and then 10 years later it became 20 plus and then now,
the last seven years all I see is children as young as seven.
Wow.
Unaccompanied, fleeing and these kids are very realistic
because they know the father is in the military
and your six older siblings are in the military,
so you know your fate is like in a few years, that will be you.
So, already at age seven, children understand this and they just flee,
which is really shocking to me.
So military service is not a great thing in Eritrea.
I mean like imagine military service, when we say military service,
first of all, at the age of 16, you're not mature enough
so you don't even have any knowledge.
That's the time where you gain a lot of knowledge from your family,
from your society.
So they are separating you from wherever you grew up
and then they will take you in the middle of nowhere,
train you and then they will assign you
in any kind of work so it could be,
it's mainly slavery.
That's how I can describe it because imagine being a woman,
you are 16, and then you are doing the last year of your high school.
You have to do it at the military camp,
which is in the middle of nowhere.
From there, you are being brainwashed and also you have no culture,
you have no knowledge as the rest of the people or the older generation.
So at the camps the only thing you know is
you become a yes man or a yes woman.
Everything is decided when you have to go up,
when you have to sleep, what you have to do.
Even when you have to go to the toilet,
you cannot go as you please.
There is a certain time that you can use the toilet.
What if you have to really go.
It doesn't matter, then you have to let it go on yourself.
So it's an incredibly repressive government too.
Very, very.
So, maybe there's a lot of people in the world
who don't know much about Eritrea
but the Chinese Communist Party has been interested in Eritrea
for a long time.
Why is that?
I mean, the relationship with Eritrea and China
goes back actually back in the late 50's,
that's when Eritreans that were activists were being sent off to China,
being trained in China.
Even our president, in 1961,
actually was in China was taught by Chinese.
So during the struggle for independence it was basically that
what they were running was Mao style kind of.
Kind of Maoist, Marxist, guerrilla.
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Okay.
So it goes long time but now with China's influence in Africa.
China is everywhere at this time, especially in Africa.
With Eritrea, the influence is not that much but it's starting.
They bought this mining company and the same mining company
is accused of forced labor because instead of hiring independent people,
so they are using the conscripts to work in these companies,
as part of their national service.
Oh. So they're not even taking Chinese workers to work,
they're just using...
Local people, the conscripts.
So this is like.
Is that like slave labor?
It is slave labor. So here is a case actually against Nevsun,
which is now owned by Chinese but it was a Canadian company.
So there is an ongoing trial in Canada about this case.
Some of the conscripts that managed to flee actually
sued the company and it's an ongoing case right now.
Oh. Well Eritrea is also located in a pretty strategic location.
Yeah.
Is there a benefit for Chinese military projection, do you think?
Yeah, I mean like you see slowly,
the relationship with China in Eritrea is growing.
I can give you an example.
Just a few months ago I was contacted
by Eritrean journalist who was in China.
I was like, "What are you doing in China?"
He said, "No, we are sent to China to do journalism course".
I was like, really?
Journalism in China, okay.
Yeah. So anyways he wanted to defect and he was like,
"I don't want to go back to Eritrea I want to stay here",
and it was impossible and we couldn't find an NGO
that could help him and the Chinese government,
they actually collaborated with Eritrea government
and held his passport.
So, it was like one of the toughest cases that
I've been involved and at last in order to get his passport
what we did was we sent him some money and then he asked,
"I need my passport in order to take out the money
that I received through western union",
and then they contacted and they were following him around everywhere.
They knew this guy wanted to defect,
so they informed the Eritrea government
that this guy is trying to change his flight.
So the Eritrea government told them,
make sure that he boards the same flight as we booked him.
Wow.
Then we said, "Okay you go ahead",
because he has transit in Egypt.
So we got him a new ticket from Egypt to Japan
instead of to Eritrea
because they refused to let him buy a new ticket.
That's how far the relationship is getting stronger right now.
Wow. And you were telling me before about
an interesting encounter you had on a plane ride.
Yeah.
Why don't you tell us a bit about that?
I just got back from Africa and from Mali
and I was sitting next to two Chinese men,
and we started talking, very friendly.
Normally, when you meet Chinese they are reserved people.
It takes some time to talk,
but this guy just start talking to me and so he told me
he was a professor at this business university in China
and then the second person that was sitting next to him
was from the Chinese government.
So, I asked what were you doing in Mali.
They said now we just came here to see
what kind of investment that we can do.
They had a meeting with the Mali government which is Mali right now,
a very terrible, what can I say.
The situation in Mali is not that good right now,
to invest, to be honest.
But still they are interested.
So, they were showing me how they were interviewed
by the Mali TV and things like that and then we spent like nine hours.
The professor was trying to convince me how a one party system is great.
I was like, come on.
Just like in Eritrea.
Yeah. I said,
"I'm from Eritrea so don't try to tell me
what one party system means".
He said, "No it's good for business",
and so we kept arguing about this and he says,
"Why don't you come to China" and I said,
"I wouldn't. If I come to China I know I would be arrested
by your government because I'm a very outspoken person".
I'll see something I don't like. I'll speak up.
I have no guarantee. You get the point.
Would they send you back to Eritrea, you think?
I don't know whatever they can do but I just told him
that I wouldn't feel comfortable visiting China,
plus I have many Chinese activities.
So he wanted to know we kept discussing about it.
A lot of argument about the one party system,
business and things and so but then you would see
when the guy from the government was asleep,
the professor kind of agreed with me, you know.
He maybe had a different point of view
when the government guy wasn't watching.
He didn't say anything bad,
but he kind of agreed with my argument.
I was really surprised the guy from the government,
at first I didn't know he was from the government.
His english was very fluent.
Wow.
Sounded like American. I was, like wow, no accent nothing
and he's never been in the U.S.
That's impressive.
Yeah. Then I found out that he was from the government side.
So what they did is they visited Mali,
trying to see what kind of investment
they can do and then they would go back,
offer to the people, which offering the people would mean
they are just making 20%, the rest the government would make it.
So that kind of.
So the investment is not really helping the locals.
Yeah. It never does.
The thing is also to me,
one thing I understood about all African countries,
if they hire a professor in any university,
It's always Indian and if it's business it's always Chinese.
So my understanding is, after this,
I came to this understanding after years actually,
that it's because African dictators choose Chinese
and the Indians because they will never speak about human rights.
They will never talk about.
The Indian just want to make his money.
He doesn't involve, even though he's a professor,
he's teaching people but he doesn't want to teach at the same time,
compared to the situation.
They're always very quiet.
They only work themselves,
so they try to stay neutral which is really sad.
And they have the Chinese who will never discuss
because they will claim even when you meet them.
I was in Egypt last week as well and I met another investor,
a Chinese one, who's actually doing a good job,
like he's buying old recycled bags and selling it off.
Okay.
But even he was an independent person,
he was trying to tell me how great the one party system is.
Yes.
So that's the kind of mentality that you see as long,
so that means you're not betray the African dictators,
so that's why they prefer Indian teachers and Chinese investors.
Well, I'm curious because a lot of aid
that comes from the U.S. or other Western nations
often comes with demands for improved human rights.
When China is offering that kind of aid or financial investment,
are human rights ever on the table.
No, not at all. Not at all.
It's always funny whenever I'm speaking at the human rights counsel,
it's always China that will oppose whatever it is that we say.
Even though you're bringing proof,
you're telling, you're bringing victims of their Eritrea government,
but it's always China will oppose any kind of, you know.
So they're really helping support.
Or they will abstain from voting.
Yeah, so they're really helping support the Eritrea dictatorship.
Of course they do.
It's always, if Eritrea is raised up
in the Human Rights Council in Geneva,
it's always North Korea and China
that will oppose the rest of the countries.
It's always like that.
Gosh. And so what's the feeling in Eritrea
about the Chinese workers and investors who are in the country?
As far for the people I mean, nothing really.
The people don't really understand.
Okay.
So the ones that are educated do understand what it means.
The thing with the Chinese is any country
would be happy to have investors but with China,
they're not even giving you work
because they are bringing their own people.
So they are taking jobs from the local people.
They are empowering the dictatorships by investing in the country,
like the mining companies right now for example.
That's like a pump to the Eritrea government.
It's prolonging our suffering.
So they are being an accomplice of many crimes,
when you are investing and you are providing money to the dictatorship,
you are prolonging our suffering.
That's the way I look at it.
And do you have any thoughts at all about how China's one belt,
one road initiative is affecting Africa as a whole?
It is and the sad part is even the material
that they're selling it, in Africa,
is not even a material that you can use a month.
We have many made in China products here in U.S., in Europe.
I mean those things will at least last you a year,
but in Africa they will give you the worst materials that you can have.
They are taking jobs from you and at the same time,
they are ripping you off.
So that's what I see in every African country right now,
wherever you go.
In Eritrea they don't even want to pay taxes,
so what they do is,
they want to get married to an Eritrean woman
because if you marry an Eritrean,
if you have a child from an Eritrean,
then you will be an Eritrea citizen.
So they always try to become Eritrea citizens.
So they will offer some woman,
if you have a child for me.
I'll buy you a big house.
Wow. It also makes sense because inside of China
there's a shortage of women.
Yeah.
Because of years of sex selective abortion
from the one child policy.
So it seems like they're solving this problem abroad.
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
Also, as I understand it, the Chinese Communist Party
supported the Eritrea Liberation Front
and the Eritrea People's Liberation Front.
The groups that were very active in the independence movement.
Do you know anything about that?
Yeah, that's like earlier.
As I said like with our president
and many of the top Cadres, as we call them.
You use the term Cadres.
Okay.
They were trained in China so when you look at our president,
he reminds me more of Mao.
Like when the people in China were starving,
Mao was sending food to other countries
like in Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia
and things and our president was doing the same thing.
Really.
Just a few years, two year, three years ago,
there was a starvation going on in the whole horn of Africa
and he refused to admit that
we were there was also hunger in Eritrea.
So he denied it.
He wouldn't allow an independent entity
to come into the country and see for themselves.
We activists and any Eritrean
knew that there was starvation in the country.
So instead what he did was send lots of tons of food to Somalia.
Just to prove that there was no hunger in Eritrea.
Wow.
Even though the people were starving.
Jeez. So what would you like to see the rest of the world do
in Eritrea or Africa in general?
I mean, not the rest of the world but I hope Africans
will finally wake up and get rid of the dictatorships
because we are the reason where we are.
All our problems, I don't blame it on our president
but we did make him the person that he is today
because we allowed so many abuses to continue.
At last, it became that every family has lost someone
or has a family member that's in prison.
The same thing in all African countries
but now it seems like finally Africans are rising up.
So we're seeing more and more people
are protesting all over Africa
and I hope that the next generation
will lead Africa into another direction,
into a more democratic Africa.
That's what I dream and I think that's what Africans have to do.
The same thing goes for China as well.
That's my hope,
that more and more people will speak about that.
That's a very encouraging and optimistic way
to end the interview, I think.
So thank you very much for joining us.
It was a pleasure to have you on.
My pleasure to be here as well.
Thank you for having me.
Absolutely and if our audience would like to learn more about Eritrea,
what would you recommend?
Start with Googling Eritrea and there is the security council,
there was a commission of inquiry.
There is a report, two reports,
and it said in the reports Eritrea is committing crimes against humanity
so you can read the stories.
What kinds of crimes goes on in Eritrea
and I'm quite sure a lot of people will see
if you happen to come from a dictatorship country,
then you will see your own country.
Whenever my friends read the report, they always say,
"I feel like who copied us. Did we copy each other", kind of thing.
They all similar in many things.
I suggest that anybody interested read the commission of inquiry report
and there are many other books.
Just Google Eritrea and you will see a lot of things.
Alright. Great, thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
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