Eritrea may alter army draft to stem ‘exodus’

Bloomberg

Eritrea says it will cut the size of its army as part of changes to a system of mandatory national service that the United Nations blames for propelling tens of thousands of people to flee to Europe and neighbouring countries. The official end to a two-decade war with neighbouring Ethiopia means the country that sits on a key shipping route to the Suez Canal may be able to place some working-age people in industries such as infrastructure and agribusiness, and spur self-employment, according to government officials.
Rights groups and the UN said the conscription policy fuelled a wave of migration. At its peak in 2015, Eritreans were the fourth-largest group illicitly crossing the Mediterranean, adding to Europe’s refugee crisis. Eritrea, which is about the size of the US state of Pennsylvania, describes them as economic migrants.
“Definitely a small army will remain, and the others will concentrate on the developmental work as planned,” Minister for Labour and Human Welfare Luul Gebreab said in an interview in the capital, Asmara. Eritrea’s military is the Horn of Africa nation’s oldest institution, with roots in the rebel movement that won independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after decades of struggle. A 1998-2000 conflict between the two destroyed their relations and Eritrea, citing the threat of Ethiopian aggression, quashed dissent and indefinitely prolonged national service, which includes civil servants who can be deployed to the front-line. Officials wouldn’t disclose the army’s size, citing national security.
Eritrea’s population is an estimated 3.2 million, according to a non-public labour force survey for 2015-16 by the labor ministry that Bloomberg obtained independently and Luul said was authentic. A public report by Eritrea’s foreign ministry last year cited a 2015 estimate of 3.65 million—a discrepancy of 450,000 people in two official documents that both cite Eritrea’s National Development Ministry. The survey was funded by the UN Development Programme and Eritrea’s government. “People are saying the population is fleeing, fleeing, fleeing, but that’s the scenario not only of Eritrea: look at Chad, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mali,” said Luul, who declined to clarify the discrepancy. A census that’s “on the verge of preparation” will detail the
reasons for the different figures, she said.

Border Demarcation
Eritrea’s army partly demobilized two years after independence, only to return to a war-footing in 1998, while another attempt 10 years later had to be suspended because Ethiopia failed to implement a Hague-backed commission’s decision on the demarcation of their border, according to Luul.
July’s pact with Ethiopia to restore diplomatic, telecommunications and commercial links has changed the calculus. An adviser to President Isaias Afwerki has said the one-party state will have to respond to promises of democracy in its giant neighbour.