Amnesty International Report 1994 - Eritrea

Three returning exiles were arrested and remained in detention without charge at the end of the year. The fate or whereabouts of several people reportedly detained in the previous two years remained unknown. All death sentences were commuted in August. Eritrea became formally independent from Ethiopia on 24 May after a UN-supervised referendum in April resulted in a 99.8 per cent vote in favour of independence. The Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) forces had defeated Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile-Mariam's army in May 1991 after 30 years' armed struggle for independence. For the two-year interim period Eritrea had been governed by the EPLF Provisional Government, led by its Secretary General Issayas Afewerki, who became President when Eritrea gained independence. Three members of an Eritrean lowlands group known as the Jaberti were detained on 6 January. They had returned to Eritrea the previous week after many years' exile in Saudi Arabia, for talks with the provisional government. They were arrested at Asmara airport as they were about to return to Saudi Arabia. They remained in detention without charge or trial at the end of the year. They were prisoners of conscience, held on account of their criticism of the government and their demands for special political status or representation for the Jaberti people. There was little other information about political arrests or about political prisoners detained during the previous two years. The authorities announced an amnesty in August, under which 250 untried detainees were released and sentences for other prisoners reduced. However, no details about the prisoners concerned were disclosed by the authorities so it was not possible to establish if they included any political prisoners. In particular, it was not possible to establish if any of the 200 or more members of the previous Ethiopian administration or security forces who had been arrested in May 1991 or later for alleged crimes or human rights violations were among those freed. The fate or whereabouts of several "disappeared" opponents of the EPLF remained unknown. They included people who, in previous years, had been abducted in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, or arrested in Kassala refugee camp in Sudan, and who were reported to have been secretly detained in Eritrea (see Amnesty International Report 1993). All death sentences were commuted in the August amnesty. However, the authorities did not disclose how many people had been under sentence of death, or any details about their offences or trials. Amnesty International wrote to President Issayas Afewerki welcoming Eritrea's new membership of the UN and urging swift ratification of international and regional human rights instruments. It asked for details of the August amnesty and continued to inquire about "disappeared" or detained government opponents, but received no response.