Indefinite Service

From the BBC:

"Eritrea conscription still indefinite, says Amnesty"

 

Conscription in Eritrea continues to be indefinite despite the government saying last year it would be limited to 18 months, Amnesty International says. The compulsory service, which often lasts decades, is the main reason cited by those who flee the country. Eritreans make up the third-largest number of migrants trying to reach Europe, after Syrians and Afghans. Amnesty said European states are increasingly rejecting asylum requests despite the reality on the ground. Its 57-page report - Just Deserters - says in the second quarter of 2015, the UK government rejected 66% of Eritrean asylum cases in first instance decisions.  "The situation facing conscripts in Eritrea is desperate and exposes the lie behind claims made by certain host countries that most Eritreans arriving at their borders are economic migrants," Amnesty International's Michelle Kagari said in a statement. "These people, many of them children, are refugees fleeing a system that amounts to forced labour on a national scale." Some of the people interviewed said they had been conscripted for more than 10 or 15 years before fleeing; others had husbands or fathers still conscripted after 20 years of service. "My father has been in military conscription since before I was even born," 18-year-old Binyam told Amnesty. He said his father was paid 450 nakfa a month, which is $43 (£29) at the official exchange rate but the report says in reality is nearer $10. This salary is not "even enough to buy oil", Binyam said, adding that his father only saw his family every six months for one or two weeks. "My older sister was in conscription for three years and then escaped to Ethiopia. I left just before I was conscripted to avoid it." Low-paid conscripts are also deployed in civilian roles including farming and construction, the report said. According to Amnesty, people caught trying to evade national service are detained, sometimes indefinitely, in appalling conditions often in underground cells or in shipping containers.  That fate is likely to befall those forcibly returned after the rejection of their asylum applications in Europe or elsewhere, the rights group warned.

 

Eritrea - key facts

- Nation of six million on Red Sea - one of Africa's poorest countries

- One-party state - no functioning constitution or independent media

- Former Italian colony, later formed loose federation with Ethiopia

- 1962 - Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie dissolved Eritrean parliament, seized Eritrea

- Eritrean separatists - the Eritrean People's Liberation Front - fought guerrilla war until 1991, when they captured capital Asmara

- Eritrea voted for independence in 1993

- May 1998 border dispute with Ethiopia led to two-year war costing 100,000 lives

- Still no peace settlement - thousands of troops face each other along 1,000km (620-mile) border

^ Most countries today to not need conscription of any kind much less conscription that lasts decades. I can understand why Eritreans are fleeing their country by the droves. The only countries I believe that still need conscription are: Israel, South Korea and the Ukraine. The rest only have it as a relic to their past. Even the countries that have conscription aren't prepared for being attacked. Forcing conscripts to stand against another military usually doesn't yield great results - especially in the past 40 years. Conscription works in a place like Israel because of the constant threat of violence. That threat has come to mean real bombs, missiles, tanks, etc from countless Muslim and Arab countries that still call for the complete destruction of Israel. That means the Israelis know they can never loose a war (and they never have since they were founded in 1948 - while those Muslim and Arab countries continually loose even if they have lots of men (mostly conscripts) and more weapons. Getting back to the article: Eritrea has no real need to keep a conscripted military.  There may have been a time with they were fighting Ethiopia for their independence, but that is no longer the case. Having conscription forces all the citizens to pay more attention to what their country does militarily. The best example is in the United States. There was the Draft (ie conscription) during World War 1 and World War 2 and then in the 1950s the Draft was made permanent. By the time the Draft ended in 1973 more than half of every American knew someone or was themselves serving in the military. Despite all the current wars and missions the US carries out less than 1% of every American knows someone or is themselves serving in the military. That leads to the majority of ordinary people not caring about the men and women who risk their lives protecting us or those that died while serving or the veterans who come home. While I don't think we need conscription in the military having some sort of national service (non-military, etc) could be a way to make Americans stop thinking only about themselves and more about what their country means and does. Of course serving inside the country isn't the same as fighting in a war-zone it is the closest alternative. ^

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34985205