Tribune de Genève Describes Eritrea as Mafia State

Last Updated on Thursday, 28 June 2012 22:32 Written by EPDP Information Office Thursday, 28 June 2012 22:15[source

Tribune de Genève Describes Eritrea as Mafia State

Tribune de Genève, a leading Swiss daily newspaper in French, in a full-page coverage described Eritreans as hostages at gun-point by “a regime of gangsters, a Mafia clan” that has turned a once promising new country into “a Mafia State”.
Writing on the June 28, 2012 issue of the newspaper, its journalist Bernard Bridel believed that the Eritrean president, Isaias Afworki, is “a warlord who runs a state as his guerrilla army”. He also extensively quotes a 248-page book published in French this year by Leonard Vincent, a journalist of the Reporters Without Boarders, who wrote that Eritrea is already  “an African version of North Korea”.
The writer of the reportage stated that Switzerland is hardening its refugee laws to deny asylum to military deserters, majority of those who come to Switzerland being Eritreans. But he added: “Eritreans are not migrant workers or economic refugees but fugitives running away from a prison at a nation-wide scale”. Journalist Bernard Bridel further stated that the Eritrean president and his regime force everyone to belong to the army and the party and that anyone who fails to obey is considered a deserter.
The forceful reportage of Tribune de Genève adds that “Eritrea is at war because its leaders wanted it to be at war”. It said this is their Maoist method of “conquest of power through the barrel of the gun and maintaining it through the gun”.
Besides facing torture and denial of freedoms like in any dictatorship, ordinary Eritreans who take risk to escape forced conscription are subjected to constant harassment of rounding up and capture (Giffa) to return to the army. The consequences are severe treatments under  the security apparatus.
The newspaper mentioned the sources of support for the Eritrean regime to include Iran, China, Qatar, extremist groups and the regime’s Mafiosi activities.
The writer believes that over 20% of Eritrea’s population of 5 million resides outside Eritrea, and that the Eritrean opposition organizations in the diaspora are bedeviled by the diversity that reflects the presence of nine ethnic groups, two religions and a history of two rival liberation movements of the armed struggle era.
The writer concluded that the only possible change of regime in Eritrea may come through an internal coup d’etat by the Eritrean regime’s army itself.