Earlier this year, for example, about 100 Eritreans living across the United States joined a Zoom call co-hosted by officials from the Eritrean Embassy aimed at raising money to support their country’s struggle against its opponents, according to a recording of the call made by one of the participants and shared with The Washington Post. The Eritrean chargé d’affaires pressed those on the call to hold their own fundraising events and to urge fellow members of the diaspora to contribute as much as they could.
It is not clear whether such fundraising on behalf of Eritrea violates U.S. law. But experts in sanctions law and in the rules governing foreign agents said the practices deserve closer scrutiny, including the role played by nonprofit groups that have joined Eritrea in its efforts to raise money in the United States.
Eritrea has been ruled since its independence three decades ago by the country’s sole party, the unelected People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ). Supporters of the Eritrean opposition say the country’s government and ruling party are practically identical.
Eritrean government officials, in this one regard, share a similar view. “An attempt to separate Eritreanism from the PFDJ is simply to weaken and dismantle the power of the people,” said Berhane G. Solomon, the embassy’s chargé d’affaires, on the call. “Our enemies’ tactic is to divide
us … The notion of ‘I am Eritrean but not PFDJ’. These assertions are silly and expected from the fool.”
Eritreans opposing their government take part in a May protest in Tel Aviv ahead of Eritrean Independence Day. (Ilia Yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP)
The U.S. Treasury Departmentimposed economic sanctionson the party for sending soldiers into neighboring Ethiopia and contributing to the humanitarian and human rights crisis there. But that has not stopped the PFDJ from continuing to work closely over recent years with the Eritrean Embassy and Eritrean-run nonprofit groups in the United States to raise funds, as evidenced on the Zoom call.
None of the details about Eritrean fundraising in the United States has been previously reported.
It is illegal under U.S. law to raise money on behalf of a sanctioned entity unless Treasury grants an exemption. In the case of Eritrea, it is the ruling party and not the government that is under Treasury sanctions, but the two are often indistinguishable and the party controls the government. Only the Treasury can say whether its sanctions are being violated, and it doesn’t make such assessments public until any official action is taken.
The March 28 call was part of an ongoing, concerted Eritrean effort to raise funds across the United States. “We have to mobilize our people,” Berhane said on the call. “Our plans must be enforced in every city.” Among the participants were representatives of Eritrean nonprofit groups based in the United States.
ny group acting on behalf a foreign government must register under the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). None of the groups represented on the call have done so, though the recording of the call indicates that the Eritrean government was closely coordinating with them and leading their fundraising effort. It is up to the Justice Department to determine whether FARA has been violated, and officials have not weighed in publicly.
Officials at the Eritrean Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
Eritreans clash with Israeli police in Tel Aviv in September after street brawls broke out between supporters and opponents of the Eritrean government. (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)
On the call, participants discussed several proposals to broaden the fundraising effort beyond fund drives, including a new tax on Eritrean expatriates in the United States and compelling overseas Eritrean churches to turn over more of their money.
The Eritrean officials on the call said the money, in this instance, would finance a lawsuit in the United States against demonstrators who had been protesting against Eritrean government abuses. Such protests have at times triggered street brawls between government supporters and detractors. The U.S. State Department has accused Eritrea of arbitrarily arresting, torturing and executing its citizens, severely restricting freedom of expression and religion, and engaging in crimes against humanity, including gang rapes and mass killings of civilians during a war in Ethiopia.
The Eritrean government has earlier denied committing atrocities.
Previous fundraisers, often held as part of Eritrean cultural festivals in various American cities as well as online and at fundraising dinners, have generated millions of dollars. These include $4 million said to be for covid relief in Eritrea, according to a speaker on the Zoom call. About $2.5 million was previously raised purportedly for cancer treatment, Eritrean state-run media reported.
The contributions are often channeled by nonprofits to the Eritrean Embassy, according to Facebook posts promoting festivals and comments made by emcees at the fundraisers. It’s unclear how the funds are spent. Eritrea has never published a national budget, and ministries do not oversee their own budgets, according to former health minister Assefaw Tekeste and former deputy finance minister Kubrom Dafla Hosabay.
Kubrom said that embassies typically hold cash in personal, private accounts. “It is kept in individual accounts and used as a slush fund,” said Kubrom, who now lives in Amsterdam. “Yemane [Ghebreab], head of the political wing of PFDJ, has oversight. The embassies move the money between themselves.”
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control placed sanctions on Eritrea’s ruling party and the Eritrean military in 2021. Treasury imposed sanctions on the military for engaging in sexual assault, killing civilians and blocking humanitarian aid during the recent war in Ethiopia. Noting that the military is commanded and controlled by Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, who leads the PFDJ, Treasury imposed sanctions on the ruling party, holding it responsible for the military’s atrocities.
American legal experts said that close, undisclosed coordination among a foreign government, a sanctioned ruling party and U.S. nonprofits could violate U.S. sanctions and other laws requiring entities to declare when they represent foreign interests and prohibiting nonprofits from engaging in political activities.
Andrew Adams, former head of the Justice Department’s Russian sanctions task force, said, “Where ruling parties or powerful authoritarians are sanctioned, one must be extremely cautious … Even humanitarian activities that involve transacting with a sanctioned party would require a license.”
It is unclear whether sanction exemptions for the Eritrean activities have been sought or granted, because licenses for sanction exemptions are not public. The U.S. Treasury declined to comment for this article.
Attendees at the 32nd anniversary of independence celebration wave flags and dance at Asmara Stadium in 2023. (J. Countess/Getty Images)
A one-party state
Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after 30 years of war. Afwerki led the Eritrean forces to victory and then, as president and leader of the ruling party, built a one-party state backed by Russia. He is the only leader Eritrea has ever known.
Tens of thousands of refugees flee Eritrea every year. Many are teenagers seeking to escape a mandatory military service of indefinite length, when soldiers are frequently physically and sexually abused, according to human rights groups. Avoiding military service is punishable by a long sentence in Eritrea’snotorious prison gulag. So is attempting to leave the country, worshiping outside the official religions and questioning the government. In total, about 15 percent of Eritrea’s population has left the country, according to United Nations data.
Eritrea relies in part on mining revenue from Chinese companies. But the country is also desperately dependent on its diaspora for money, including remittances sent back via government-run cash transfer agencies at highly unfavorable exchange rates, and taxes and fees paid by Eritreans abroad. Anyone requiring Eritrean consular services, permission to visit the country or official paperwork — vital, for instance, for asylum claims — must pay 2 percent of their income and sign a form admitting guilt for leaving Eritrea.
Much of the outreach to the large diaspora in the United States is conducted by the nonprofit National Council of Eritrean Americans. A top figure in the council, Ghidewon Abay-Asmerom, described it in a 2022 interview with Eri-TV, an Eritrean state-owned television network, as “an umbrella group from PFDJ.” An organizational chart shown on a Zoom call in January attended by pro-government activists and reviewed by The Post also showed that the council acts as an umbrella group for several Eritrean entities active in the United States, including the PFDJ.
The address provided by the council in official statements is the same as the Washington address used by the PFDJ in its statements. Records from D.C.’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs show the council was registered by Freweini Abraham — the same name as an information officer at the Eritrean Embassy.
Ghidewon did not respond to requests for comment, but in the 2022 interview he said “Eritrea’s image should not be vilified or sullied.”
Toronto police on horses push people back during a protest against the Eritrean government in downtown Toronto in August 2023. The city of Toronto revoked the permit for an Eritrean cultural festival after clashes between participants and protesters. (Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press/AP)
Festivals and fundraising
The coordination between the Eritrean government and outside groups was clear during the 100-minute Zoom call in March. The recording and screenshots, obtained by The Post, show that chargé d’affaires Berhane and the embassy’s public affairs chief Hadnet Keleta hosted the call along with Ghidewon and a top fundraiser named Mhretab Andebrham Tedlla from Charlotte (Mhretab’s Facebook page shows he met last year in Eritrea with Yemane Ghebreab, who in addition to being a top PFDJ official is also a close adviser to the Eritrean president.)
Mhretab did not respond to requests for comment.
The council, whose public diplomacy group says it is active in more than 50 U.S. cities, works with local Eritrean nonprofits. The groups frequently sponsor Eritrean festivals, where women in diaphanous white dresses twirl in traditional dances, pro-government musicians croon before rapt audiences, and attendees feast on steaming bowls of Eritrean cuisine. For the event, youngsters often don military fatigues or T-shirts from the Young People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, which is the ruling party’s youth wing in the diaspora. The YPFDJ helps organize, publicize and run the festivals.
Fundraising is an essential feature at these events. At a festival hosted by the nonprofit Eritrean Cultural & Civic Center Las Vegas in March 2023 and attended by embassy officials, for example, an emcee said no one could leave until they hit the embassy’s $100,000 target, according to a recording of the call, which indicated that the target was hit.
The Las Vegas group did not respond to requests for comment.
Among the Eritrean nonprofit groups represented on the March Zoom call was the Eritrean Association of Greater Seattle. The call ended with an appeal for contributions to help the Seattle group pay for a lawsuit against protesters at a cultural festival in Tacoma last year.
Lawyers for the Seattle group said it was an apolitical center and its engagement with Eritrean government officials was limited to occasional updates about Eritrea or assistance with paperwork. The lawyers said charitable fundraisers were held by members of the Eritrean community, not the center itself, so it did not know where the money went. Lawyer Eduardo G. Roy said staff and attendees at the center had been threatened and physically attacked by protesters and described these assaults as hate crimes, not attacks by anti-government protesters.
Members of Eritrea's armed forces march past a reviewing stand where President Isaias Afewerki and numerous dignitaries and government officials were seated during the independence celebration in 2023 in Asmara. (J. Countess/Getty Images)
‘Like a snake’s head’
Much of the March Zoom call was taken up by participants hailing the government, praising the party and vilifying the opposition, along with chatter about how to set up online payments and a proposed GoFundMe drive.
One of those on the March call was an Alexandria resident named Raesi Mahray. He’d gained attention in the Eritrean diaspora community seven years ago, after he was put on trial in federal court in Maryland for allegedly lying to U.S. immigration officers.
Raesi had entered the United States legally, but his residency was rescinded after he served 43 months in jail on charges of robbery and theft, court documents show. The court found that he then falsely claimed to be an asylum seeker under a different name. Raesi has been convicted twice and released with orders of supervision, according to a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In March 2017, while he was on trial, the Eritrean Community Cultural and Civic Center located in Washington publicized an event called “Help brother Raesi with Immigration Legal Fees.” The Center, a nonprofit group, was incorporated by Dawit Haile, a person with the same name as the embassy’s political chief, and shares an address in Washington with the PFDJ, documents show.
Then, in 2021, months after the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Eritrea’s armed forces, Raesi launched a GoFundMe drive for the military that raised $40,000 before it was shut down, a screenshot shows.
Later, Raesi recorded a video that circulated on Facebook and WhatsApp threatening specific anti-government activists, urging, “Their heads have to be smashed like a snake’s head. If they have families in Eritrea, action should be taken on them!” In the video, he listed the names of anti-Eritrean government activists in the United States and elsewhere.
Raesi did not respond to requests for comment.
Among the activists Raesi threatened on the video was an Eritrean-American resident of Indiana named Seltene Girmay, who is a harsh critic of the Eritrean government and hosts a talk show on YouTube with about 137,000 subscribers.
“Many of my friends are in jail or they drowned trying to escape. The whole country is a prison. We have to speak the truth,” said Seltene, now a U.S. citizen. “They want us to be quiet so they try to threaten us. … But we will not be silent.”
