Six
Months After Eritrea
Sanctions Fight, Penholder UK
Talks of Roadmap for
Removal
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
May 17– When the UN Security
Council renewed its sanctions
against Eritrea last November,
there were five abstentions.
While the next vote won't be
until November 2017, on May 17
the Council - with five new
members since the last time -
met again on Eritrea. Ambassador
Matthew Rycroft of the UK,
penholder on Somalia, said
"six months ago, the Security
Council was quite divided on
whether there should be
sanctions or not on Eritrea.
Before the next decision on
the sanctions regime on
Eritrea, coming up in
November, we are going to do a
review today of whether there
should be a sanctions regime.
We, as penholder on that
issue, are seeking to find a
way to unite the Security
Council so that there can be
some specific measures in a
roadmap that the authorities
of Eritrea would need to meet
in order to lift the sanctions
regime. Our national position
is that the conditions are not
yet right to lift the
sanctions. But that if Eritrea
did some of the things which
we will set out today then we
would look at it on the basis
of the evidence."
When
the UN Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in the
State of Eritrea Sheila
Keetharuth held a press
conference at the UN on October
28, Inner City Press went to ask
her if she considered the impact
of sanctions on Eritrea.
Video here. She
answered only in terms of arms
embargo, they said she simply
chose not to look at the issue.
On November 10, when Somalia
Eritrea sanctions were voted on,
five countries abstained:
Angola, China, Egypt, Russia and
Venezuela. Eritrea's charge
d'affaires made a statement,
which we've
published on Scribd, here.
Before the vote, Inner City
Press asked UK Ambassador
Matthew Rycroft a question; he
spoke about the Somalia Eritrea
sanctions helping to limit
support to Al Shabaab. Video
here. But the current lack
of evidence of Eritrean support
to Al Shabaab has been
repeatedly cited. And there are
new reports calling
the SEMG and its former
officials into question, here.
We'll have more on this.
By contrast to
Keetharuth, the Rapporteur on
the Democratic People Republic
of Korea Tomas Ojea Quintana
answered detailed questions from
Inner City Press about sanctions
including unilateral sanctions
on coal sales, for example. Is
there no consistency between UN
Special Rapporteurs? Video
here.
There were only three
journalists asking questions at
the October 28 press conference
- and yet Inner City Press was
in 2016 ousted and evicted, and
it is still under Antonio
Guterres restricted to a minder.
Petition
here.
***
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