Qatar in the Horn of Africa: What Is an Expensive, Idyllic Resort Doing in Eritrea?
“Qatar is the only country today that has the means and the will to influence Eritrea,” says Leonard Vincent, a French journalist whose work focuses on Eritrea, and who broke the news that Eritrean information minister Ali Abdu defected in December 2012. “They want to use this for their own benefit in terms of their position in the international community, and to secure the Arab world’s influence on the Red Sea. It’s part of their political game.”
Qatar mediated a border dispute between Eritrea and neighboring Djibouti, launching an effort that culminated in an agreement signed in June 2010 and initially held in place by a small detachment of Qatari peacekeepers. “The fact that they have managed to put Djibouti and Eritrea together at the same table to stop another border war...proves that Qatar can talk to Eritrea,” says Vincent.
Yet Qatar’s success in tempering the ever-recalcitrant Afewerki came at the expense of the country’s relationship with Ethiopia, which cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar in April of 2008 on the suspicion that the emirate was aiding Eritrean meddling in Somalia. At the same time, the Djibouti agreement demonstrated the benefits of Qatari engagement. In essence, Qatar had achieved a western diplomatic objective — namely, lowering the collective temperature in the Horn of Africa — by fostering the kind of close relationship with Afewerki that a European country or the United States would have had difficulty getting away with.
according to a 2011 report of the U.N.’s Somalia-Eritrea monitoring group:
Qatar is perhaps Eritrea’s most important economic partner at the moment, and Qatari officials have acknowledged to numerous foreign diplomats that their Government has provided significant, direct financial support to the Government in Asmara. According to numerous interviews conducted by the Monitoring Group with diplomats, former Eritrean officials and businessmen, much of this support is provided in the form of cash.
[...]
The resort on Dahlak Kebir is a reminder of Qatar’s ambition to succeed where the international community had failed — to pacify and open up Eritrea, even if it meant subsidizing one of the most oppressive and arbitrary governments in Africa. But the rest of Dahlak Kebir serves as a reality check. The resort is an anomaly in an island chain more widely known for its prison camp and spy intrigues. It’s a $50 million novelty, evidence of a strategically and even morally-misguided policy, rather than a testament to Qatar’s newfound diplomatic or economic power. In a blistering rebuttal to Qatar’s efforts at being a major player in the Horn of Africa, Dahlak Kebir won’t be on anyone’s vacation itinerary any time soon — unless you’re Qatari royalty, that is.
The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/03/what-is-an-expensive-idyllic-resort-doing-in-eritrea/274424
