Some inconvenient truths
In the build-up to Gulf War 2, Isaias recruited the Beltway lobbyists, Greenberg Traurig (at an annualised cost of $600,000) to drum up enthusiasm for a US naval base in Eritrea. Under the slogan ‘Why Not Eritrea?’, Greenberg Traurig – the Eritrea campaign was headed by now disgraced ex-con, the conservative PR star, Jack Abramoff – sought to make the case that as a pro-American half-Christian, half-Muslim nation surrounded by Muslim theocracies, Eritrea was Washington’s best bet in the region. Isaias’ enthusiasm surprised even Djibouti’s Ismail Omar Guelleh, on whose soil the Americans were already constructing Camp Lemonnier, the US Africa Command’s biggest continental base. Despite its problems with democracy – there had been reports at the time of activists being rounded up and jailed – “failure to form an alliance with Eritrea”, Greenberg Traurig intoned, “is unconscionable.” Asmara was counting on a US military base to spur its economic recovery from the border war with Ethiopia, attracting US and other foreign investment interest.
Washington, with priorities seemingly more pressing than the demands of its conscience, rejected the offer.
When Trump took office, Asmara presented a memorandum detailing the injustices done against it by the previous US administration. Its grievances were ignored. Eritrea, currently under US and EU sanctions and lately voting at the UN with Russia and China, considers China a strategic partner that can help it cushion the impact of those sanctions. As Africa’s debt crisis begins to take hold, China, whose two-decade run on the continent made it the dominant great power force at the start of the 21st century narrative, finds its motives under increased scrutiny as much by its erstwhile African partners as by its Western rivals looking to catch up in the continent’s scramble for influence and resources. In Eritrea, however, Beijing has a friend in need.