Eritrea holds U.S. embassy staff for trafficking

[Judi Lynn]

Eritrea holds U.S. embassy staff for trafficking
Thu Sep 15, 2005 5:55 AM ET

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Eritrea has arrested two local employees of the U.S. embassy in Asmara on charges of human trafficking, the government said on Thursday, the latest in a series of diplomatic difficulties between the countries.

"These parties are accountable to the law for their illicit engagement in activities of human trafficking and, as such, like all other wrongdoers, they are being held under custody for their offence," Information Minister Ali Abdu Ahmed said.

The minister, speaking to Reuters in Nairobi by telephone, would not give more details of the incident.

Last month Eritrea asked the U.S. government's overseas development agency USAID to leave, without any public explanation.
(snip/...)

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-09-15T095447Z_01_HO534264_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-ERITREA-USA-DC.XML&archived=False

[DRoseDARs]

1. Trafficking as in slavery or trafficking as in...

...getting people out of a shithole of a country? In Sudan, some well-minded groups are buying slaves not to put them into service, but to buy their freedom and return them to their families and communities in the south ... assuming they haven't already been utterly decimated by the slavers from the north.

[SillyGoose]

2. Whoa. Someone involved w/this needs to provide an explanation of what

this is all about.

[alfredo]

3. So it appears they are Eritrean nationals, not Americans.

Human trafficking could very well mean taking money to secure passage out of the country.

I remember a man named Mahindru down in Nairobi doing that back in the late 60's. He was securing the passage of Indian nationals out of Kenya with their assets in tact. Of course he was charging $18,000 each. Part of which he shared with his boss, Jomo Kenyatta. Mahindru was Kenyatta's right hand man. He was also a worker at the US Embassy in Nairobi. No telling how many loyalties he had. He treated me good, so I had little problem with him.

There was a nationalist movement going on at the time. Foreigners were losing their businesses, and were being kicked out of the country. Kenyatta was trying to remove the last vestiges of colonialism, and the economic dominance of the Indians and Euros. A goal shared by the now very corrupt Afwerki government.


Exactly what this person was doing in my old home, Asmara, I have no idea. Chances are, he was shaking down people who wanted to leave Eritrea without having to give up what wealth they had managed to accrue over the years.


You need to read "I Didn't Do it For You" by Michela Wrong. I lived at Kagnew Station for 3 years. I wasn't such a libertine as Michela described, but I did know, and still hang with those she did describe.