Sending Eritrea to UN Security Council have been replaced by AU " luck of sophistication"

 The United Nations rights council has called on the African Union to investigate Eritrean leaders over alleged crimes against humanity after a damning report by a UN commission.

In that report, the UN’s Commission of Inquiry (COI) for Eritrea said the government of President Isaias Afwerki had committed heinous crimes since independence a quarter-century ago, including the “enslavement” of 400,000 people.

Many of those abuses are allegedly linked to a harsh national service programme in the secretive Horn of Africa state, which for many is almost impossible to escape and which the COI compared to lifetime enslavement.

In a resolution that passed on Friday with consensus by the body’s 47 members, the Human Rights Council said it “strongly encourages the African Union to follow up on the [COI] report”. 

The AU should set up “an investigation … with a view to examining and bringing to justice those responsible for violations and abuses of human rights identified by the commission of inquiry, including any that may amount to a crime against humanity”. 

"Russia, Cuba, and China for disassociating their countries from the Council’s Resolution on Eritrea while Bolivia and Ecuador from Paragraph 17 of the resolution that is regarding submission of the report to the UN Security Council.

According to the Reuters, the text of the Eritrea resolution, which was initiated by Somalia and Djibouti, was watered down after several countries – among them the United States and China – objected to the tough language.

U.S. diplomat Eric Richardson at a drafting meeting earlier in the week said the Eritrea report prepared by the Commission of Inquiry did not have “the same level of sophistication and precision” as the report on North Korea and the United States could not simply support the language of the text without revisions.