Catholic Peace Makers in Eritrea are Under Attack, but Why?

Since Eritrea became a recognized independent state in 1993, Eritrea has been under a one-party political system, with the same man as their president, President Isaias Afwerki. Eritrea has not even allowed fake elections and their constitution has never been implemented. 

Under the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) party and President Afwerki, Eritrea has been accused of and criticized for a lack of free speech, a lack of free and fair elections, a lack of a free and independent press, mass arrests, forced conscription, forced disappearances, torture, lack of rights for opponents of the regime and non-approved minorities, as well as numerous extra judicial killings, a shoot to kill policy for preventing fleeing Eritreans, funding of terrorism and planning terrorist attacks, and tons of corruption, leading many observers to classify Eritrea as a dictatorship.

Yet, it was in the last few years that Eritrea has truly become what international relations experts would deem a "pariah state". In other words, an outcast from the international order. 

In 2021, Eritrea publicly admitted that Eritrean Armed Forces have been fighting with their neighbors Ethiopia as allies against the rebels in Tigray, a state and ethnicity in Ethiopia. 

The Tigray War that began in 2020 has been very devastating to all people involved, especially the civilians who have been berated with all sorts of human rights abuses. 

Many international observers in the region have stated that Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers have massacred thousands of innocent civilians, have raped many women, have used starvation as a war strategy, and have destroyed whole villages such as in the Axum Massacre. In Axum, Ethiopian Federal Soldiers which belonged to the Amhara ethnic leadership sought to take the Ark of the Covenant believed to be in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion (Ethiopian Oriental Orthodox), which hundreds of Tigray people sought to defend, only for a reported 750 to be taken out of the Church and killed by the Ethiopian Armed Forces. It must be noted that the Amhara and the wider Ethiopians, such as the Tigray, are a majority part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and the Eritreans are a majority part of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, both Oriental Orthodox Christian churches. The current regime of Ethiopia is trying to promote more individualism and Ethiopian nationalism, while the leadership from 1991-2018 largely under Tigray leadership promoted each ethnic groups’ own nationalism to displace the previous Amhara dominance in the regime that controlled Ethiopia from the Ethiopian Empire days up until 1991, and the Ark of the Covenant was seen as a prime Tigray possession that signaled a justification for their high standing at the time in Ethiopian politics. Eritrea is dominated by the Tigrinya (50%) and the Tigre (30%) people, which are actually closely related to the Tigray. However, the Eritrean regime fought with the previous Tigray-led regime of Ethiopia, so they too see Tigray nationalism as an issue. 

Both nations have also not allowed refugees to flee either nation, and there have been reports of Ethiopia building a wall along the Sudanese border to not allow refugees to flee, and of Eritrea killing refugees and forcing others to come back to Eritrea, as well as Eritrean Armed Forces setting fire to Eritrean refugee camps in Ethiopia. Since this new Ethiopian regime took office in 2019 (Prosperity Party), replacing the old Tigray-controlled Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), both Addis Ababa and Asmara have become close and therefore Eritrean refugees are no longer safe in Ethiopia. This war has only exasperated this reality. These anti-refugee policies have doubled with both nations’ attacks on UN infrastructure in the area, which have furthered Eritrea’s status as a “pariah state”. 

In both nations, the Catholic Church has been very strong in its stances in trying to walk the line between criticism of both regimes' actions, but also in support of their good policies. The Catholic Church exists in both countries via the Ethiopian Catholic Church and Eritrean Catholic Church, both Eastern Catholic Churches under the Alexandrian-Rite that the Oriental Orthodox use in both nations, as well as the Latin-Rite Roman Catholic Church, particularly among Italians in both nations, especially in Eritrea where Italy ruled for much longer. And it is in Eritrea where the Catholic Church enjoys great cultural power via their influence, high education levels among its believers in the nation, a successful Catholic-Eritrean diaspora, connections to Europe, and their many institutions from schools to hospitals traditionally found throughout the country despite amounting for less than 5% of Eritrea's population. This power has made the Catholic Church in Eritrea often the only voice countering their government in various policies.

But, with intense repression in Eritrea, even more so than in neighboring Ethiopia, any perceived criticism is met with brute force and retaliatory actions. For example, in 2019, Catholic clergy in Eritrea criticized some of the government’s policies by calling for a more inclusive democracy, and the Eritrean Government seized Catholic-run schools and hospitals, including twenty-two hospitals across the nations’ rural regions. And, in August 2022, Eritrean officials seized the De La Salle Brothers-run Hagaz Agro-Technical School that provided education in farming technology and techniques vital to the majority agriculturally-employed Eritrean citizenry.

Since the Tigray War has commenced, the Catholic clergy have attempted to walk an even finer line, but when recent reports came out of how the Eritrean Government was conscripting children as young as 15 to fight again, some members of the clergy decided to speak out. 

And thus, in these past two weeks, two priests and one bishop were arrested by Eritrean officials on accounts that they were preaching against the regime in their homilies. Bishop Fikremariam Hagos Tsalim (Segheneity Eparchy) was in Europe and coming back from a flight when he was arrested at the main international airport, while Father Mihretab Stefanos and Abbot Abraham, O.F.M.Cap., were also arrested these past two weeks. 

The Catholic Church has tried to express that the point of contention of the clergy in Eritrea with the Eritrean government does not rest with whether the PFDJ or President Isaias Afwerki is good or bad, or whether the Tigray or Eritrean-Ethiopian side is correct. Truth is, both factions in the war have committed numerous human rights abuses and the fact there is a war is partly centered on certain powerful Tigray politicians and militias and their inability to accept electoral defeat. Rather, the complaints by the Eritrean Catholic clergy are based on the fact that there is “imprisonment of parents (women and men), mobilization of deserved army people, young people [taken] by force to the war fronts, closing homes, [and] confiscation of animals from those people who have refused to go to war.” 

In other words, the Catholic Church in Eritrea just wants the Eritrean government to follow some more human rights regulations. The Catholic Church is not calling for regime change.

With the war surely surging on, and with our Catholic clergy under fire in Eritrea, and both nations most likely, it is important to remember how we as Christians are called to love and respect one another. In largely Christian Eritrea and Ethiopia, the leaders of the violence and the victims are mainly Christian, signaling a call for an alternative voice, which our Church hopes to fulfill. Let us pray that our largely Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic family in Ethiopia and Eritrea will solve their disputes in consultation instead of on the battlefield.