It’s part of Eritrea’s folklore that the Eritrean Parliament of the 1950s committed a horrible mistake when some of its members voted for dissolution of the Federal Act with Ethiopia and opted for annexation.  What is less commented on is that another Eritrean Parliament, the Eritrean National Assembly of 2002, committed an egregious mistake that was a trigger for the nearly 20-year decline Eritrea has been experiencing.  Thanks to the inimitable Aida Kidane, we now have audio/video of that stain on Eritrean history.

But first, some context of critical developments of the previous 5 years:

May 23, 1997: Eritrea constitution ratified:

May 12, 1998: Eritrea-Ethiopia War Ignited:

May 12, 2000: Ethiopia’s Final Offensive To End The War is waged.

June 18, 2000: Cessation of Hostilities Agreement is signed with Ethiopia occupying large swathes of Eritrea.

September 29 – October 2, 2000: National Assembly meets and decides the following: “…to form committees to make overall review of the 10 year performance of the government, as well as specifically of the third Ethiopian offensive. It also decided to form a military committee to review the organization and performance of the Eritrean Defense Forces and the peace process with Ethiopia, and to advise the president in these areas in the future. It further decided to hold national elections on the basis of the constitution no later than the end of 2001, and to declare the laws governing the formation of political parties. To that effect, a committee charged with drafting laws governing political parties was formed. This committee was instructed to organize public discussions of the party law it drafted, review the views provided by the public, and bring its final draft to the National Council for approval.”

October 1, 2000: G-13 Berlin Manifesto : Eritrean scholars and professionals call on President Isaias Afwerki to reform.

December 12, 2000: Eritrea-Ethiopia “Algiers” Peace Agreement: formally ends the two-year war with Ethiopia

January 2001: Less than a month after the peace treaty with Ethiopia is signed, PFDJ circulates a paper entitled “Weyane’s Third Offensive And the Political Campaign That Followed It” and organizes secret seminars to its loyalists accusing unnamed officials of grave crimes.

May 24, 2001: Senior government and party officials, later identified as G-15 (based on the number of final signatories), issue an “Open Letter To PFDJ Members” also calling for reform.

September 18, 2001: All of the authors of the “Open Letter To PFDJ Members” who were in Eritrea, their supporters, and the free press that provided them a platform to air their views, are arrested. They haven’t been heard of since that day.

This takes us to that shameful day of February 2, 2002, the last day of the 14th session of the National Assembly. But first, a little intro to the National Assembly.

About The National Assembly

The National Assembly was made up of 150 individuals: 75 of whom were the entirety of PFDJ’s Central Committee; and the other 75 were their fans: “civilians”, which is to say former members of the EPLF’s “Mass Organizations.” The National Assembly (Hagherawi Bayto) was the legislative arm of the government, ratifying Proclamations issued by the executive (Land, Macro-economy, National Service, Press, etc.) As is customary for EPLF and later PFDJ, they had no specific timetable for their meetings: they met when the Chairman of the National Assembly (that would be Isaias Afwerki) convened them. Their own bylaws said that a super-majority can convene a meeting if the Chairman doesn’t, but that was not, as PFDJ is fond of saying, “part of our organizational culture.” They met when they were summoned.

The Three Deadlines Isaias Faced

Speaking of the Chairman, there were three deadlines that must have been on his mind around the time the conflict with Ethiopia flared up.

Or, if you want to be more specific, as the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission (EECC) would eventually decide, when Isaias started the war with Ethiopia.  Whatever provocation there may have been by Weyane in early May 1998,  decided EECC, Isaias Afwerki’s decision to roll his tanks and artillery to Badme and beyond was an act of aggression: “Consequently, the Commission holds that Eritrea violated Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter of the United Nations by resorting to armed force to attack and occupy Badme, then under peaceful administration by Ethiopia, as well as other territory in the Tahtay Adiabo and Laelay Adiabo Weredas of Ethiopia, in an attack that began on May 12, 1998, and is liable to compensate Ethiopia, for the damages caused by that violation of international law.”  PCA-CPA, Jus Ad Bellum, Paragraph 16.

But I digress because nobody cares about who started the war, not Eritreans, not Ethiopians because that’s the last chapter; and we have opened a new chapter with peace bridges and Nobel Peace Prizes, and Industrial Parks, don’t you know.  So what if 120,000 souls perished? It is not in the “political culture” of Eritrea or Ethiopia to hold any government official responsible for national disasters.  “New Chapters” are opened.

So what was on his mind when Isaias did what he did on that fateful Tuesday in May 1998? Same thing, as always: his career. Recall:

1. The Chairmanship of the PFDJ was expiring, because the 4th Congress was supposed to be held in 1998. Many believed that he stole the election of February 1994 (Mesfin Hagos came in “2nd”) because what counts in Africa is not who votes but who counts the votes;
2. The term of President of the Provisional Government (5 year term) was also expiring.  He was elected President by the National Assembly in 1993.  Yes, thanks for asking: the government is still “Provisional.”
3. The Constitution was ratified, and, reflecting the zeitgeist, it had term limits for Presidents: two more and you are out.  Dangerous for a man with ambitions to rule for life.

After the catastrophic War, particularly the May 2000 Ethiopian Offensive resulting in Ethiopia occupying a third of Eritrea, an angry population, and a government made up entirely of military veterans,  was demanding an explanation.   In a great propaganda coup for President Isaias, the May 2000 Offensive is still called “The Third Offensive” by Eritreans, implying the first offensive of May 12, 1998 was also an Ethiopian Offensive. (The Second Offensive being February 1999.) So, there was a lot of anger at Ethiopia’s Weyane and at the leadership of PFDJ and that is why the October 2, 2000 National Assembly demanded, among others, “to form committees to make overall review of the 10 year performance of the government, as well as specifically of the third Ethiopian offensive.” While we are at it, they said, we need Electoral Laws, Party Formation Laws and a National Election to be held no later than December 2001.

Not only was there a chance that Isaias Afwerki could lose power in the chain of events that would be triggered by the 14th National Assembly meeting late-January/early February 2002, he could also have been partly or fully responsible for the 1998-2000 carnage between Eritrea and Ethiopia.  So, Isaias and Isaiasists had to act: destroy the reputation of all those who could testify against him (the G-15); not just destroy but ensure that they never, ever have a chance to speak.  Thus, they brought the National Security-experienced Naizghi Kflu from his ambassadorship to Russia to run the Ministry of Information, which had been in the “transitional” hands of Zemehret Yohannes (after Beraki Gebreselasse was detained).  Naizghi Kflu proceeded to arrest/exile all journalists and ban all private press.  Isaias and Isaiasists had to  cancel the National Elections which were scheduled for December 2001;  and they had to void Electoral Law and Party-Formation Law, which were drafted by a committee chaired by one of the G-15, Mahmud Sherifo.

And since he wasn’t yet a full-fledged authoritarian, he needed the cover of the law to do all of the above, which is why he convened the 14th National Assembly between January 31 and February 2.

The 2002 National Assembly

As indicated above, beginning in January 2001, the Isaias Afwerki regime had organized a vast campaign to redirect the anger and sense of loss Eritreans were feeling after the May 2000 Offensive and what ensued (Algiers Agreement, while Ethiopia was occupying a third of Eritrea; UNMEE forces ensuring Eritreans were artillery-range distance away from the common border; massive internal displacement and exile.)  Part of the anger would be directed at Weyane: they were deserving villains whose acts made them easy to despise–particularly their deportation of Eritreans, and the psychopathic way their leader announced the deportation; their desecration of Martyr’s Cemetery, etc.  But the other anger was at the Isaias Afwerki regime for starting a war it could not finish; and for rejecting peace treaties only to accept worse ones–and only after it had, in two years, given up the lives of 20,000 combatants.  For comparison, the lives of combatants lost in our 30 year war of Independence was 65,000.

That Isaias Afwerki and his Band of Misfits who mismanaged the war would do everything in their power to misdirect investigation into it was a given.  What was most shameful in all this was the role of the 2002 National Assembly.

There are many Eritrean expressions, proverbs, aphorisms that testify to what we as a people point to as evidence that we are a civilized people governed by law.  The Former Great & Now Desolate minds of some of the Chroniclers of Eritrea’s History (like Asmerom Legesse) have pointed to our Customary Laws to explain why we are a people of Law & Order.   But fundamental to law and order is fairness and one of the most commonly known expressions is: “Don’t Pass Judgement Without Hearing Both Sides Of The Story.”

The National Assembly’s Eternal Shame On The Matter of G-15 & Journalists

So, the first shameful act of the 2002 National Assembly was to ignore this fundamental tenet of fairness and pass its judgement only after hearing the one, and self-serving, side of the story told by its Chairman, Isaias Afwerki.  And it was a fantastic story:

• “They” committed crimes of “Defeatism.” (although defeatism is not listed as a crime anywhere in the criminal code);
• “They”, through the peace facilitators, relayed a message to Weyane asking if they could stop their offensive if “we” removed from power President Isaias Afwerki;
• “They” disclosed our secrets to the enemy and weakened our negotiating leverage;
• “They” gave direct orders to the army to not fight back;
• “They” committed treason

The “they” in the above list included individuals who had no known role or interaction with military commanders or the peace facilitators. None of the National Assembly members (who repeatedly claimed they represent us the people) asked: How did Aster Fessehazion do this exactly?  And when did Germano Naty meet with peace facilitators? How did then-Foreign Minister Haile Derue communicate with the peace facilitators if Yemane Gebreab accompanied him everywhere ALL THE TIME. Or: what could compel a people who spent most of their youth fighting for Eritrea’s independence, some in wars more severe than the Weyane Offensives, to capitulate now?  Is saying “given our strength and weakness; the enemy’s strength and weakness right now, this is not a war we can win” defeatism?  If so, was EPLF’s 1978 Strategic Retreat “Defeatism”?

Not only did the Useless National Assembly not ask about the whereabouts of its disappeared colleagues, it complimented the Isaias Afwerki regime for its wise handling of the situation thus far.  One of them even asked, “why weren’t they arrested earlier?”   The Eritrean Private Press journalists were accused of violating the Press Proclamation (no specific clause cited), and they were lumped with the colluders and defeatists and treasonous for committing journalism in broad daylight.

That took care of the immediate threat: the G-15 and the Journalists.  But there were other mines planted to term-limit Isaias Afwerki and those, too, had to be removed and here, too, the 2002 National Assembly added more shame to its already shameful act.

The National Assembly & Elections

Recall that their own colleagues, empowered by them in a previous session, had drafted the afore-mentioned Electoral Law and Party-Formation Law and, as instructed by the National Assembly,  were getting ready to present the draft laws to State TV when the Chairman intervened and aborted the process. What would the Shameful National Assembly have to say about that? Well, it turned out that they went village to village, hamlet to hamlet, and the unanimous response of the people was, “What parties? We only know one party: it is the one that brought our independence: the EPLF!” They heard this same message from 95% of the people, no, it was 99.5%, well, actually, said one, it was 100%! People were mad at us for even entertaining political pluralism. They all said, “we don’t want it!.”

Grrm Eba. You spend decades telling people political pluralism is bad, and then when they repeat back to you the message you had drilled into them for decades, you report what they told you, which is what you had told them.  An echo chamber.

One National Assembly member said words to the effect, “well, it is true that political pluralism is guaranteed in our constitution. And, yes, it is true we have entered into some treaties with Africa pledging to it. But we have never knelt down before and we never will!” Apparently, fulfilling a pledge is “kneeling down.”

So, they all agreed there was no need for elections and the December 2001 Elections would be cancelled.  How about future elections?  Well, for that they will form a committee to study it, a committee headed by a man who has been on a 26 year campaign to tarnish his Ghedli legacy: Ramadan Mohammed Nur.  What? Me neither: 18 years later, I have never heard of what this imaginary committee eventually decided on.

Similarly, with the private press: a committee would be constituted to determine how to revise the press proclamation to allow a “responsible” private press.  They haven’t figured that out, either: it appears you have to work for the government to be responsible.

One more thing: all these people, all these Constituent Assembly and National Assembly members, took an oath to defend the Constitution of Eritrea.

Postscript to the 2002 National Assembly

As I indicated above, the National Assembly was made up of the 75 Central Committee (CC) Members of the PFDJ and their 75 Ardent Fans (aka former mass organization members.)  If we were to do a “where are they now” update, well, nobody knows about the 75 Ardent Fans (not even the 75 Central Committee Members.)  As for the 75 CC Members, awate.com used to provide regular updates before it realized their story is too tragic to narrate:

The Fate of The 75 Central Committee Members

• The National Assembly which sentenced its own colleagues sentenced itself to extinction: it hasn’t met as an institution since 2002 and most of its members are arrested, exiled, or dead;
• The Organizational Congress of the PFDJ hasn’t been held since 1994;
• The National Constitution which allowed for political pluralism and free press has been declared dead and its replacement announced 5+ years ago is not here;
• National Elections are permanently postponed;
• The Security Man brought from Russia to shut down the private press and arrest journalists died in exile; his body denied burial in Eritrea.
• The G-15, their supporters and the Independent Journalists are either dead or dying in jail

When the history of Eritrea is written, the chapter dealing with Isaias Afwerki and his band of misfits will be a gruesome one.  And either as a footnote or as sub-chapter, the role of 2002 National Assembly and its decisions of February 2 will instill shame on them and their grandchildren, just as the 1950s parliament did on some of its members and children and grandchildren.

Not that Eritreans of a certain generation celebrate birthdays, but Isaias Afwerki’s birthday is also February 2.  So, in a sense, the National Assembly’s birthday present to the President were the tools to be President-for-Life.

ኣብ ዘይወግዓዊ መራኸቢታት ከምዝተጠቐሰ፡ ሎምቅነ 100 ዝኾኑ ኤርትራውያን ካብ ማእሰርቲ ተፈቲሖም ኣለዉ።

“ካብዚ ዝኸፍእ ‘ውን ኣሎ!” ዝብል ምኽኒት ከም ምኽንያት ቅቡል ስለ ዝኾነ፥ “ንምንታይ ተኣሲሮም? እቶም ዝተረፉ’ኸ ስልምንታይ ዘይወጽኡ? ንምዃኑኸ: እንታዩ ሃለዋቶም?” ምሕታት ነውሪ’ ዩ::

እዞም እሱራት ገበኖም፡ ሕሉፍ ሓሊፍዎም እቲ “ጉጅላዊ” (“ፈላለየ”: “ተኹታዂ:”ወዘተ”) ኣላሁ ኣክበር (God Is Great) “ላ ኢላህ ኢላ ኣላህ” (there is no god but God) ኣብ ማእሰርቲን ቀብሪን ሓጂ ሙሳ ኣብ ጎደናታት ኣስመራ ብዘይ ስክፍታ ስለ ዝጨርሕዎ እዩ፥፥

ይብሉ ኢሳይያስን ወይጦታቱን

ፍርዲን ፍትሕን ዘይብሉ ሃገር: ሕጊን ተጣበቕቲ ሕጊን መዘንቲ ሕጊን ኣየፍርን ኮይኑ ምበር: “ንምዃኑ: እዞም ኣስላም መዓስን ንምንታይን ‘ዮም ኣላሁ ኣክበር ዝብሉ?” ኢሎም ዝምርምሩን ዝምሟጎቱ ምሁራት መጥረየት እዛ በላዒት ቶልዑ ሃገርና። እሞ እቶም ዘይፈለጥኩም: እዛ ሓረግ “ኣላሁ ኣክበር” ጤልን ሰብን ክትሓርድ ተቓንያ መዝሙር ኣይኮነትን:: ካብ መሳጊድ ሃገርና ሙኣዝን መዓልታዊ ሓሙሽተ ግዜ፥ ኣብ ነፍሲ ወከፍ ኣዛን ድማ 6 ግዜ ክደግማ ከሎ (ማለት 5×6 = 30 time a day) ኣባጊዕን ሰብን ንምሕራድ ዝግበር ጻውዒት ዘይኮነስ ጎይታኻ ንምዝካር መዘኻከሪ እየን:: ካብኡ ሓሊፉ: ነቲ ዕቡይ ካብኡ ዝዓቢ ከምዘሎ መዘኻከሪ: ነታ ሕጉስቲ ምንጪ ባህታኣ መዝኻኸሪ: ነቲ ጭኑቕ ፈውሲ ልቡ: ነቶም ዝራዓዱ መፈልፈሊ ትብዕዓቶም እያ:: ነቲ ወዝባዊ ብጽእና እትምህርያ… ሓንሳብሲ ኩሉሙሉ እያ::

ንኣብነት፥ ድሕሪ ናጽነት ኤርትራ፥ ህዝብና “በቲ ባህልኻን ሃይማኖትካን ዘፍቅደልካ ስውኣትና ዘክር” ምስ ተባህለ (ጥዋፍን: ዓወት ንሓፋሽን: ገንዘብ ኣዋጽኡን ቅድሚ ዘይጽሑፍ ሕጊ ምዃኑ ማለትዩ): ኣካል ህዝብና በዚ ዝስዕብ ኣገባብ ከም ዘኽበርዎም ናይ ታሪኽ ሰነድ እዩ:

(1992: video of Eritrean Muslims chanting “Allahu Akbar!” to remember martyrs)

እቶም ዜጋታት ናብ እምነቶም ስለዝኣመኑ፡ እቲ “ናብቲ ኣነ ዝኣዘዝኩልኩም ኣምላኽን ናባይን ጥራይ ዘይትሰግዱ” ዝብል ናይዚ ዘመን ናዚ፡ ኣብ ናይዚ ዘመን Auschwitz ዳጉንዎም ጸኒሑ።

ብርክት ዝበሉ ካብቶም እሱራት  ትሕቲ ዕድመ ህጻናት ኢዮም። ኣብ ንቡር ዓለም፡ ኣብ ንቡር ስርዓት፡ኣብ ንቡር ሃገር እዞም ህጻናት ኣብ ሑቕፊ ኣዴታቶም ኪሕንቅቑ፡ ምሸት ብድራር ክዓግቡ፡ቅድሚ ምድቃሶም ብውዑይ ማይ ኽሕጸቡ፡ ለይቲ ድርዕቶን ኮበርታን ተኸዲኖም ኪማሙቑ፡ ንግሆ ጸባን ቁርሲን ጸጊቦም ናብ ምህሮ ኪግስግሱ ኢዩ ዝግባእ ነይሩ።

የግዳስ እቶም መራሕቲ ሃገር ኢና ዝብሉ ባንዳ ሰነፋት: ኣብ ክንዲ ነቲ ተወሪሩ ዘሎ መሬቶም ኪመልሱ ውጥን ዝሕንጽጹ፡ ነዘን ቆልዑ ከመይ ጌርና ነሳቕየን፡ ንኣዴታቶም ከመይ ጌርና ደም ነንበዐን ኢሎም ኪመኽሩ ስለዘሓድሩ፡ እቶም ህጻናት ኣብ ቤት ትምህርቲ ዘይኮነስ ኣብ ቤትማእሰርቲ ሓግዮም። ኮይኑ ድማ እቲ ዝበለጸ ወርቃዊ ዕድሚኦምን መጻኢኦምን ተቖጺዩ።

ሎሚ ካብቲ ቤት ማእሰርቲ ምስወጹ ዝተራእየ ምስሎም፡ ነቲ ኣብ ቤት ማእሰርቲ ዘሕለፍዎ መከራን ስቓይን፡ ብዘስካሕክሕ መንገዲ ዘረጋግጽ ኢዩ። እቶም ህጻናት፡ ዳርጋ ከምቲ ኣብ ስእልታት Auschwitz ማለት መዳጎኒ መዓስከራት ናዚ ዝረኣዩ ኣይሁድ፡ መሰናግለኦም ቆርበቶም ሰንጢቑ ክወጽእ ዝደለየ ኢዩ። የዒንቶም ክሳብ ምስ ነብሶም ኣሎ ዲዩ ዘብል ቆርቂሩ፡ ካብ ገጾም ተንቀሳቒሱስ ናይ ባዕሉ ቅርጺ ጊድጓድ ሒዙ ኢዩ። ደመ-ስገኦም ብመግረፍትን ብስጭትን ከምዝሳጸየ ትርኢቶም ምስክር ኢዩ። ምስ ኩሉዚ ጸገማቱ ግን እዚ ኣብ ዓጽመ-ስገኦም ዝወረደ ግፍዕን ዓመጽን እቲ ዝቐለለ ናይ ጸገማቶም ኢዩ።

እቲ ዝኸፍአ ስቓዮም፡ ኣብቲ ኣብ ኣእምሮኦም ተፈጢሩ ዘሎ ነውጺ ኢዩ ዘንጸባርቕ። እቶም ህጻናት ዝገብርዎ ዘየቋርጽ ብኽያት፡ ዘርእይዎ ስንባደን ምሹቕራርን፡ክበጽሕዎም ንዝመጹ ሰባት ዝህብዎ ናይ ምብህራር ግብረ መልሲ፡ መርኣያ ናይቲ ዝወረዶም ስቓይ ኢዩ። ኩሉ ምልክታት ኣእምሮኦም ብከቢድ ግፍዕታት፡ ብዘየቛርጽ ኣሳቓዩ መርመራታት፡ ብማህረምቲን ግፍዕታትን፡ ኣእምሮኦም ከምዝተዳህከ ዝገልጽ ኢዩ። ዘይውንንዎ ጥምረት ስለ ዘስግኦም፥ ነዞም ህጻናት ፍልልያቶም ከግፍሑ መርዛም ኤትኒካዊ ስብከት ነዚሖሞም::

እወ እዚ ኩሉ ግፍዕታት ሳላ እቲ ንህጻናት ዘንበርከኸ ጅግና ላዕለዋይ ኣዛዚ ሰራዊት ኤርትራ ፊልድማርሻል ኢሳያስ ኣፍወርቂ ዘጋጠመ ኢዩ። ህዝባዊ ግንባር ንዴሞክራስን ፍትሕን ዝበሃል ስም ዝሓዘ ወዲ ዓዲ ካብቲ መንግስቱ ዝበሃል ፋሺሽታዊ ስርዓት ዝገበሮ ግፍዒ ንላዕሊ ክፍጽም ምርኣይ እንታይ ይበሃል። እረ ኣዴታት ናይዞም ህጻናት ኣብ ቅድሚ ዓይነን፡ ህጻናት ደቀን ናይ ወሎ ሬሳታት መሲሎም ዓይኖም ቆርቂሩ ልዕሊ ኩሉ ድማ እቲ ንጹህ ኣእምሮኦም ብግፍዕታትን ስቓይን ሰብነቱ ስሒቱ ክርእዩን ካብኡ ባህታ ክፈጥሩን ምስ ምንታይ ይቑጸር።

ጀነራልን መራሒ ሃገርን ምስ ህጻናት ዶ ይዋግኡ ኢዮም። ጀንራልን መራሒ ሃገርን ዶ ምስ ሓላላት ቦቕባቓት ኤዴታት ውግእ ይገጥሙ ኢዮም።

ንሙኻኑ እንታይ ኢዩ ገበኖም እዞም ህጻናት፡ ኣብ ቀብሪ ናይ ሓደ ሸኽ ስለዝተረኸቡስ፡ ከም ብርቱዕ ኩናት ትመርሕ ዘለካ ያኢ ሬድዮታት ወሊዕካ፡ ማዕጾ ዓጺኻ ኣካቢብካ ኣብ በጣሓት ጺዒንካ ናብ መዳጎኒ ምውሳድ እንታይ ኣምጸኦ።

ንሙኻኑ እዞም ሕያዎት ኣመንቲ “ጴንጠ” እንታይ ኢዩ ኣበሰኦም። ክንዲ ንኣምላኾም እንዳነብዑ ዝለመኑ፡ ክንዲ ስርዓቶምን ኣኽብረቶምን ናብ ሰማይ ዘዕረጉስ፡ ከምቶም ንሕና እንደልዮ ኣብ ለይታዊ ትልሂትን ዝርጋንን ዘይተኣለኹም ኢልካ ሰባት ዶ ተሳቒ ኢኻ።

ብስቓይ ህዝቢ፡ ብፍላይ ድማ ብስቓይ ህጻናት ዝድሰት ሳዲስት (sadist) ኢዩ። ምስ ህጻናትን ኣረግቶትንን ዝተሃላለኽ መራሒ ቦጅባጅ መራሒ ጥራይ ኢዩ። እቶም ዝኸፍኡ ስርዓታት ወላ እውን እቶም ዝኸፍኡ ኣሸበርቲ፡ ኣብ ገለ ገለ እዋን ህጻናትን ኣዴታትን ሽማግለታትን ከይጎድኡ፡ ቅድሚ ውግእ ምግባርና ህጻናትን ኣረጋውያንን ካብዚ ከባቢ ይውጽኡ ክብሉ ተራእዮም ኢዩም። እሞኸደኣ ኣዚ ስርዓት ኢየ ዝብል ጉጅለ፡ እዚ ዜጋየ ዝብል ጉጅለ፡ ንገዛእ ህዝቡ ክሳብ ክንድዚ ከሳቒ ምስ ምንታይ ይቑጸር።መምዘኒ ምዕበለ ሃገር  “ነቲ ዝደኸመ ኣካል ሕብረተ-ሰበን ከመይ ይናድዮዮኦ?” ንዝበል ሕቶ ሓደን ወሳኒን እዩ:: እሞ ኤርትራ ብከመይ ንምልሶ?  እዚ ስርዓት ኢሳይያስ ንደፋር ዘሕንኽ:  ንርጉም ዘደንግጽዩ::ከምኡ ስለዝኾነ ድማ ነዚ መሐበሪኡ ከም ናእዳዩ ዝቕበሎ::  ሕላገት ኤርትራ:  ቀጻሊ መቕጻዕቲ ህጻናትን ሽማግለታት እዩ::  መልሰ-ግብሪ: በቲ ክላ! በቲ ኤህ!  ባንዳ ኢሳይያስን ደገፍቶምን: መርገም-ስንቆም: ክሳዕ ዕለተ መኣከብ፥  ሰንከልከል ክበሉዮም:: ምስ ወደቑ ውን ዝኽረቶም : ንወለዶታት:  “ኣብ ዘለዎ እቲ ርህሩህ ፈጣሪ ዘይኮነስ እቲ ቂመኛ የጟንፎም ኣሚን”  ምባል ባህርያዊን ፈውሳዊን እዩ::

እቲ ዘሕዝን እዞም ህጻናት ሕልሞም ተሰሪቑ ኢዩ። ባህጎም ተኾሊፉ ኢዩ። ምናልባት ሓደ ካብኦም ኤንጂነር ኮይኑ ክምረቕ እሞ ዓዱ ኪሃንጽ ይሓስብ ነይሩ ይኸውን። የግዳስ ሎሚ፡ ክሃንጽ ዘይኮነ ሓንጎሉ፡ መንፈሱ፡ ክብሩ ሰብነቱ ሃደሽደሽ ክብል ዝረኣዮ፡ ተስፋ ዝቖረጸ፡ ዝተሳዕረ ህጻን ኮይኑ ኣሎ። እዚ ትራጀዲ ናይዚ ህጻን ንዝበዝሐ ህዝቢ መዓንጥኡ ከሕርር ከሎ፡ ነቶም ብስቓይ ህዝቢን ህጻናትን ባህታ ዝረኽቡ ሳዲስት ግን፡ ዝለዓለ ጥርዚ ናይ ባህተኦም ኢዩ።

ኤርትራ ግን ንኽልቲኦም ትዕዘብ ኣላ። ነቶም ግዳያት ኣጆኹም 7 ግዜ ወዲቕኩም ሸሞንተ ግዜ ተስኡ እሞ፡ ሓደ መዓልቲ እታ እትብህግዋ ኣደ እትዕልለላ፡ እዚ ሬሳ መሲሉ ዝነብዕ ዘሎ ህጻን ዝስሕቀላ ሃገር ኪኸውን ኢየ ትብሎም ኣላ። ነቶም ሳዲስት ድማ፡ ኣብ ነብሲ ወከፍ መዓልቲ ኣብ ልዕሊ ህዝቢ ኤርትራ እትውስኽዋ ስቓይ፡ ጽባሕ ንግሆ ንእትኸፍልዎ ዕዳ ብማዕሪኡ ይውስኽ ኣሎ እሞ ወይልኹም ትብሎም ኣላ።

ኤርትራ ነቶም ዓመጽቲ ከምዚ ትብሎም ኣላ። ኣንቱም ኣብ ልዕሊ ደቂ ሰብ ግፍዕታት እትፍጽሙ ዘለኽም፡ እቲ ሓጥያት ናትኩም ኢዩ፡ እቲ ገበን ዋናታቱ ንስኹም ኢኹም፡ እቲ ናይ ሓዋሩ ከቢድ ዋጋ ድማ ኣብ ዝባንኩም የንብሮ ኣለኽሞ ንስኹም ክትከፍልዎ ኢኹም።

ኣያታቶም’ከ

ነቶም ሱቕ ኢሎም ዝርእዩ ዘለዉ? ቕድሚ 20 ዓመታት ይኸውን እቶም ኣብ ዊዓ ተሓቢሶም ዝነበሩ መንእሰያት University of Asmara: ድሕሪ ክንደይ ታህዲዳትን ጉዕዞ እግሪን ናብ ናብ ዳህላክን: “ዓርኪ ሰይጣን” ጀነራል ዉጩ: ናይ ጣዕሳ ወረቐት ኣዚዙ:: መሊኦም:  ከም ሰቦም ተሰዲዶም::  ስለ ምንታይ ምስ ተሓተቱ “ግልጽ ምልጽ ተበልናስ ረዳኢ ዘይብልና: ቐቢጽና ኢድና ሂብና!”  ዝብል ዘሕዝን መልሲ ሂቦም። እቲ ዋሕዚ ሽዑ’ ዩ መዕገቲ ዝስኣነ፥ ወይ ማሕዩር: ወይ ደረት-ኣልቦ ጊላነት ጥራይ ስለ ዝነበረ ሕርያታት መንእሰይ:: “እዚኣ ተኾይና ናጻ ኤርትራስ ጠቕሊልኩም ብልዑዋ”ቢሎም ሃፈፉ::

Testimony of UoA Students At WiA

ቤት ማእሰርቲ ዊዓ (ካብ እሱራት ነበር ዝተላእክት)

ኽሳራታት ኤርትራ ድማ ነሃረ:: እቶም ካብ ጌግኦም ዘይመሃሩ መንግስቲ ኢና በሃልቲ; ነብሶም ከይመርመሩ ሓንሳብ ወያነ ሓንሳብ ሲ.ኣይ.ኤ. እናበሉ እታ ሓንቲ ዝሰንዕዋ ፋብሪካ Blame, Inc. ዓመት ዓመት ደርቢ ዛይዳ:: እሞ ሕጂ’ኸ ኣብ ግዜ ሰላም ስለምንታይ እቲ ፍልሰት ደው ዘይብል? እቲ ምህዞ ይቕጽል: Game Over, Qatar, ገለመለ::

ድሕሪ 30 ዓመት: ሱቕ?

ኤርትራ ነቶም ሱቕ ኢሎም ዝርእዩ ዘለዉ እውን ከምዚ ትብሎም ኣላ። ኣቱም ስቕ ኢልኩም እትርእዩ ዘለኹም ናይ ጽቡቕ ምግባር ኣንጻር ሕማቕ ምግባር ኢዩ ዝብል ርድኢት እንተሊዩኩም ተጋጊኹም ኣለኹም ናይ ጽቡቕ ምግባር ኣንጻር ሕላገት ኢዩ። እቶም ዓመጽቲ ህዝቢ እንዳኣሳቐዩ፡ ዘይንሶም ኢዮም ገበርቲ ንሕና እንታይ ገደሰና ትብሉ እንተሊኹም፡ ነቲ ሰይጣን ጉልባብ ኢኹም ትኸድንዎ ዘለኹም፡ ኮይኑ ድማ ከምቶም ዓመጽቲ፡ ስምኩም ዳርጋ ዓመጽቲ ኪኸውን ኢዩ። ስለዚ ሓደው ምስቲ ውጹዕ ተንስኡ፡ ሓደው ምስቶም ዓመጽቲ ተሰርዑ።

saay (ሳዓኣዩ)

Dr. Newitol is a composite of three characters, one of whom is the editor. He takes questions from Horn Africans (yes, it is a thing now) and pretends to give answers. Dr. Newitol is now so popular, so big, he inexplicably disappears and reappears.

120: HamedAdem from Ambori, Gash Barka asks: Wo Dr. Newitol, welcome back! I was recently watching an Eri-TV documentary narrated by Abraha Kassa and Alamin Mohammed Seid on the anniversary of September 1 and I learned that Isaias Afwerki started the Eritrean revolution in 1961 (when he was 15 years old) by slaying something called the Eritrean Liberation Front which was made up of feudal lords, who mysteriously also waved the 1993 flag (in 1961.)  My question is about Eritrea Director of National Security Abraha Kassa…

Dr. Newitol: Your question is why is the Director of National Security all of a sudden a history narrator?

HamedAdem: No, Doc, that doesn’t surprise me at all.  Eritrea is,  after all,  a country where dropouts are subject matter experts: that is the norm.  My question is: why is he wearing a jacket 4 times his size? Aren’t Eritreans supposed to be elegant?

Dr Newitol: In his long list of crimes, on top of which is overseeing a National Security System that commits crimes against humanity on Eritreans, and imprisons underage children, I don’t think his shabbiness (Jelgadism) or his Hitler moustache will make the list of what history and the Prime Mover will hold him accountable for.  Besides, Jelgedged is the official fashion consultant of all PFDJ members, including their chairman.  It is the party uniform.

121: My name is Yosief but everybody calls me Jossy from Uppsala, Sweden and I am a big supporter of the Government of Eritrea and His Excellency, the World’s Best President Isaias Afwerki! Brings tears to my eyes that I am stuck here in Sweden in a strange land when I should be with my people and my government.  My question is: my government told me “Game Over Weyane!” in 2018 and it is over two years and those double-crossers are still in power in Tigray.  What is wrong with them: on top of all their evil, are they also deaf?  Why won’t they just go away?

Dr. Newitol: We are, per the rules of the game,  in stoppage time, or injury time.  The Game was played for twenty years (1998-2018) and you can imagine how long the injury time for a 20-year long game is.  At least 8 years.  So be prepared to hear “Game Over” for 8 years, by which point, the people saying “Game Over” will be dead.  And then, if we are not lucky, those who treat life like a video game can start the game all over again.

122: Dear Dr Newitol, my name is Michelle Moore and I am a documentary maker from Michigan.  I was in Addis Abeba with an NGO group to adopt an Ethiopian child and I stumbled on this: inauguration of a park.  Friendship Park.  The event included military parade saluting nothing, helicopters with airborne soldiers climbing rope ladders, drones, kung-fu and cheerleaders marching.  My question:  Is this an Ethiopia thing, or an Africa thing? 

Dr. Newitol: it is an Abiy thing. He loves military parades, extreme makeover of offices and waterparks. His Prosperity Party political platform states that if you are very poor and you think rich, you will become rich. One of your people, Napoleon Hill, wrote “Think and Grow Rich” and Abiy Ahmed believes in it and acts on it, as this dancing water shows in a city with no water or electricity.

123: Elsa Gaber from Adi Enkirti Hegua, Debub region asks: I am a Tewahdo Eritrean. On September 11, am I supposed to say “Happy New Year!” or “Happy Qdus Yohannes!” or “Happy Geez Calendar New Year”? I am so confused!

Dr. Newitol: When Haile Selasse I (irie!) sought the independence of the Ethiopian Tewaho Church from the Egyptian Church, he did it the right way. When Isaias Afwerki sought the independence of the Eritrean Tewahdo Church from the Ethiopian, he did it the Isaias Way: rushed and half-baked. So now, it depends on whether Eritrea and Ethiopia governments are talking or angry with each other. Now that they are talking, it is perfectly alright to say Happy New Year, as the Transitional Patriarch, appointed by the Transitional Government of Eritrea, just did: “ዘመን ሓሊፉ ዘመን ዝትክእ ካብ ዘይምንባር ናብ ምንባር ኣምጺኡ ትውልዲ ዘሕልፍን ትውልዲ ዝትክእን እግዚኣብሔር ኣምላኽ እዩ ( ዘፍ. 1:14-18) (ዳን.2:20-22) እነሆ ኲሉ ዝከኣሎ እግዚኣብሔር ኣምላኽ ዓመት 2012 ኣፈጺሙ ኣብ ዋዜማ 2013 ኣብጺሑና ኣሎ።”

124: Selam Dr. Newitol! I will not disclose my name but I am from Kwazien, in Serejeka, Maekel (Hamasien) Eritrea.   Recently, hundreds of my extended family and my neighboring village of Adi Regit were rounded up and arrested.  Many are saying this is because a so-called Eritrean opposition leader Mesfin Hagos, who is from the area, aired anti-Eritrea messages and the people were caught listening and talking about it.  My question is: why do these so-called opposition endanger the people recklessly?

Dr Newitol: Selam Nameless! When I hear questions like yours, I become more convinced that Eritrea deserves the government it has.  When hundreds of underaged students were rounded up and arrested, you blamed Haji Mussa, instead of blaming the system that arrests underaged Eritreans.  Like these:

You also blamed the leadership of Pentecostal Church when underage Eritreans like Dehab and Whibta spent 12-14 years of their lives (half their young age) in jail:

Unless you reconcile yourself with the truth, unless you acknowledge that there is something broken with your culture, you will be forever ruled by Banda Jelgadat, and their tools and replacements:

125.  Selam Ato Newitol! This is Azbte Gonte from Mendida, Shewa, Ethiopia.  My question is: why does Ethiopia need not 1, not 2, but 3 State Media (Fana, Walta and EBC)?  Sometimes they simulcast the exact same thing!  Are we a very rich country and someone just hasn’t told us?

Dr Newitol: I thought I answered this already: if you think big, you become big; if you think rich, you become rich: that is Prosperity Party Platform, Article 1, sub article 1.  But if you want the long and boring version: Fana and Walta started out as party organs, but couldn’t continue that way because for no apparent reason they merged (because, why not?) with news outlets that Derg used to lend for African Liberation fighters like ANC and ZANU PF. So they couldn’t justify being party organs any longer and elevated themselves to national media (again, because, why not?) Now all three broadcast almost the same thing with a twist: Walta is like Ethiopian Fox News; Fana is the Abiy Broadcasting Network (ABN) an EBC (85 years old) is like PBS.

126. Fatma from Fatma Are, Gelalo, Semhar, Eritrea asks: Listen, Newton or whoever you are: I am only writing you to tell you we have no food and we are hungry. We have no water. We have no medicine. Why aren’t all Eritreans talking about this instead of all the things they talk about?

Dr. Newitol: This is like saying, “why won’t Eritreans discuss how they lost the war with Ethiopia in 1998-2000?” Eritreans never go hungry, never talk about their hunger, never get thirsty, never have their children abducted from them, and never lose in wars.  Mythology will always defeat reality, if more people are committed to myth than brutal reality.  Because myth comforts, reality bites:

Then,  you decide to call Indefinite National Service, “developmental plans”:

#PFDJ relabelled #IndefiniteNationalService to „ ልምዓታዊ መደባት“. Alamin M.Seid in #Sawa ( 2:40-6:22):
„መንእሰያት ኣብ ኩሉ ዝካየድ ልምዓታዊ መደባት ብዘይተጉላባነት ኣበርክቶኦም ከዕዝዙ ብምልባው…"#StopIndefiniteNationalService!https://t.co/a2uhGeHiWM pic.twitter.com/5DuIxOx8Qb

— almaz zerai (@AlmazZerai) September 10, 2019

And, you decide to share the myth that parents are thrilled when their underage children go to Sawa High School, to COVID-19 petri dishes, like these:

You are complicit in the lies and crimes of your government and there will be no relief for you. Swear in the name of whatever is holy to you to stop telling lies and change will come.

127. Professor Mahari Yohans from Mekele University asks: I am the chairman of Tigray Independence Party (TIP/ውናት). Yeah, sure, we are also Agazian and we enjoy a lot of support from Eritreans in Israel and Tigray. My question is this: despite my great looks and the superiority of my logo, our party lost in the last election. How do I explain it to my flock?

Dr. Newitol: First of all, here’s a “TIP” for you: three-alphabet political organizations have never worked in Tigray: TLF, EDU, etc. I recommend you add a fourth alphabet, something that stands for “Nation”, “Republic”, “Democratic.” Then, I wouldn’t worry about how to explain it to your flock: they are a cult and will believe anything you tell them. I recommend you blame election irregularities caused by Mohammedans, Turks, Muslims or something.

128. This is ኦላና ቀጄላ from the historic ኤጄርሳ ጎሮ in the Great Republic of Eastern Oromiya. Every time Abiy Ahmed speaks of Dr Arkebe Enquay, I am reminded of Donald Trump speaking of “my African American!” Can you explain why?

The ብሽሽቅ between @AbiyAhmedAli and #TPLF continues…#Ethiopia pic.twitter.com/zCLjDIqjcI

— Naty B. Yifru (ናቲ ብ. ይፍሩ) (@Natberh) September 13, 2020

Dr. Newitol: Abiy is just saying just because you are Tigraway you don’t have to be a supporter of TPLF: there is room for you in my Prosperity Party. Specially if you don’t believe in “Yechereqa Mrcha”, are into industrialization, vanity projects and come highly recommended from Japan. Domo arigato!

129. Yasser Mohammed from Khartoum, Sudan asks: Floods have killed hundreds and displaced over a half-a-million Sudanese. Why is the only thing our African neighbors are capable of is “thoughts and prayers”? Where is IGAD? Where is COMESA? Where is the AU?

Dr. Newitol:  Same place they always are, at the intersection of No and Where. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

130.Yared Andom from Endabaguna, Tigray, Ethiopia asks:  Now that we had an election in Tigray, which country is our election model closest to?

Dr. Newitol:  Indonesia.

Somalia is better than many counties at least we know re result after election. pic.twitter.com/pzm4esHtPw

— Mustafe Suldan (@mustafa_suldan) September 7, 2020

131. Gifti Abajobir from Beshaha, Jimma Ethiopia asks:  Hi Dr. Newitol.  I have a serious question and I hope you won’t give me a smart-alec answer: why is Eritrea president Isaias Afwerki in my city? Why does he keep traveling to Ethiopia: is it the only country that can give him an entry visa?  Does he not have a secure phone line to discuss business with my Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed?

Dr. Newitol:  Politicians are under intense pressure not to take vacations when their job is so stressful and sometimes they deserve a vacation.  So until your whole Habesha culture makes peace with the idea of vacation, politicians will keep calling it a “working visit.”  The other reason is that he had promised his old friend Meles Zenawi that he would check on the progress of his projects like Gibe 3 and GERD.  To those of you who are scratching your head and asking didn’t he call all these projects “white elephant projects”, in the words of the Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”  Think big, be inconsistent.

Due to generous rainfall, Water level at #Ethiopia’s Gibe 3 #Hydroelectric Power station is at its highest. What a view pic.twitter.com/zKzLSIn2kX

— ነብዩ ተድላ NEBIYU TEDLA (@NebiyuTedla) October 11, 2020

As for “why Jimma?”, it is one of the few places in Ethiopia where Abiy Ahmed is 100% sure people won’t throw tomatoes at him and can feel perfectly safe in his hometown.  Well, as safe as someone with a bullet-proof vest wearing man would:

132. Semhar from SelaE DaEro, Maekel Eritrea asks:  Since you claim to know it all, is there any country that, on a per capita basis, has lost as many lives, as many limbs, as many liberties, as Eritrea has in the last 60 years?

Dr. Newitol: Russia, from 1917  to 1991? China, from 1943 to now?  Khmer Rouge, 1975-79? North Korea, 1948-present? Equally tragic is that while all the suffering in other countries gave us The Gulag Archipelago and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; end of poverty and Alibaba; Cambodia’s Vatey Seng, North Korea’s ICBMS that need 22-wheel trucks to carry them, you guys have nothing to show for your agony. Not a thing.  But, while your liberties are gone, your dignity is not all gone: unlike North Korea, you are not ruled by Afewerki Dynasty.  Yet.  I see Abraham Isaias Afwerki making appearances whenever Abiy visits; if/when he assumes power, then you can break the “Now Let’s Panic” glass.

133. Suleiman from Serde, Ayromale, Foro, Eritrea asks: Does the Eritrean opposition have any plans to remove Isaias Afwerki from power or, is it, like my pregnant sister Feruz, just counting the days until she delivers?

Dr. Newitol: It is doing the tiresome task of organizing multi-denominational, multi-faith, multi-ethnic days of doing something.   Except that it doesn’t always succeed at organizing or multi-anything or doing something.  It’s called tiresome for a reason; it is tiring.  But they have sizable roadmaps on what happens after the faux-justice PFDJ falls.

134:ጠንክር በርታ from እነሞር ጉራጌ የም ዞን: ኢትዮፕያ in da house: ‘Sup ma Newi!  So listen up: I am actually in DC, from DC,  whateva! So, yo, listen up: did you catch Letesenbet flying?

Dr. Newitol: No I haven’t, nobody has and that’s why they call it a record, and stop talking like Yo MTV Raps 1990s dude.   “Wherever you are in the world, even though she won’t hear you, give a shout out to the TV, give a roar, because this young 22 year old from Ethiopia, is 400 meters away from glory.”  Poetic words, and I didn’t write them.  This man, blown away by Lesenbet Gidey on path to break a world record, did that:

135. Hamed Asli from Asfeda, Ad Dawood, Haykota, Eritrea: What is behind the Abiy-Ahmed/TPLF feud, since they both served in the same EPRDF? What is happening there, who is winning, who is losing: I want to know!

Dr. Newitol: In passing, let me say this: Eritreans, pro-government or opposition, spend more time on this than the rest of Ethiopia.  Where to start the story…. let’s start from 1998-2000 during the Badme Wars,  when Colonel Abiy Ahmed told all his colleagues that when he becomes Prime Minister he will not leave them behind and….

https://www.facebook.com/812142715/posts/10158847270782716/?sfnsn=wa

Hamed Asli from Asfeda, Ad Dawood, Hykota, Eritrea:  Ya Lateef: can you give me the shorter version?

Dr. Newitol: It’s the noblest fight: ideological.  The TPLF is against poverty (slogan: “Enrich the party to enrich the people”) whereas Abiy is for prosperity (slogan: “well, not with that attitude you won’t prosper!”)  So the delegitimizing campaign by each against each was a staring contest to see who would blink first: the Poverty-Fighter (emphasis on fight) or the Prosperity Willer (emphasis on willing) and, in the end, a woman with the campy title of Minister of Peace came up to order truce.  But in the background they are still huffing:

“After October 12, you have no legitimacy over the federal government.”
“No, no, it is you who has no legitimacy because the election you had in Tigray was illegitimate….I am going to de-fund you”…
“Oh that would be war!….”
“Ok, I will funnel the money not to YOU.  But to those who report to you! How does THAT make you feel?”
“Um… I just had an election with 98% win, so I kinda feel good about that… ”

And so goes the dance, in the game that is never over.

136. መሐመድ ማንተጋፍቶት from አረብ ገንዳ ደሴ ኢትዮፕያ:   Subhan Allah.  Masha Allah!  I just heard from FANA TV Jazakum Allahu Khairan! that they are going to introduce an Arabic, Masha Allah, program once a day.  Everyday! Subhan Allah! Is it true, inshallah it is true?

Dr Newitol: Don’t tell the Agazian Nation but it appears to be the case.  I saw them cut a cake so it must be true.  In passing, I don’t know who is more excitable: Muslims when they learn a non-Arab is fluent in Arabic, or Amhara when they hear a non-Amhara speak fluent Amharic.  As we explained in previous edition, FANA TV is FAbiNA TV, and Abi, despite generous (and reasonably priced) offers from Isaias Afwerki to teach him Arabic (“if you can speak Amharic you can speak Arabic”), he doesn’t speak it. (“It is not a supply input nor an output to Prosperity, so what’s the point?”)  Thus, this operation (dubbed “Operation Gemal Abdelnaser 180”) was conceived to influence the Arabs and to elate the Mohammed Mantegaftots of the world.    But, basically, if he spoke Arabic, there would be no need for this channel.  Just like there is no English program at Fana: because he can speak that.

137: Menkemay from Menekuseito, Senafe, Eritrea: It has been months since I heard any news of Eritrea.  I visit places like this, and all they talk about is Abiy and Ethiopia.  So what’s going on?  Has the State, as Friedrich Engels predicted, withered away?  And been replaced by the Isaias Pulse? When he is awake, it exists and when is asleep it de-exists?

Dr. Newitol: COVID-19 has played havoc with the PFDJ Propaganda timetable.  Eritrea’s life revolves around party holidays.  February is Operation Fenkil (Massawa liberation) month; March is Women’s Day (month, actually; just another month, a women-issues-free-month); May is independence day (month);  June is Martyr’s Day (month), July-August were the Expo Days (damn you COVID-19), September is Launching of Armed Struggle For Freedom Day (month); September is also Sawa Inn Road to Indefinite Serfdom month.   It is also Geez Calendar Day month (9/11-12), which in every single way except its name is the New Ethiopian Year, the same saint, the same season,  the same legend of Enqutatash.   Then nothing happens.  Nothing to celebrate, unless the lunar-calendar-based Ramadan & Eids make an appearance.  Until New Year celebration.   So you are in the twilight zone, between the official holidays, because even governments cant’s stretch 7 days into a year.  It’s between these timetables, when Isaias goes absent without leave (awol) that the Eritrean opposition makes another untimely announcement of the expiration of Isaias.  Because he is sighted only in holidays.  Or when he goes to Addis, like now.

138.ማንከልክሎሽ ይታዘዙ from እንጅባራ አገው ዞን Ethiopia (no kidding) asks:  I saw our Prime Minister, may the Almighty extend his health, at the new Entoto Park where he helped our fire-wood collecting mothers? Bless him, bless that child.  Now what is this about him riding a boy’s teshkerkari! Let him, he is young at heart! He likes anything that has wheels: bicycles, go-karts, SUV.  How did he help these mothers?

Dr. Newitol: Ah, the Entoto Mothers.  So these are some of the daily reminders of Ethiopian poverty: ladies going to the forest to fetch firewood and carrying them on their back to sell them in the city.   This was an affront to the One Ethiopia, the anti-poverty (EPRDF)  and pro-prosperity (Prosperity Party) gang so the latter, now in charge, made a revolutionary change.  In the parlance of the Prosperity Party, these ladies are now “input suppliers” (economists to Abiy: that phrase does not mean what you think it means) and they will be providing injera to the restaurants that will pop up in the Entoto area so Addis yuppies can feel good about helping the poor.  Well, yeah, the mothers will still bake injera all day, but now we don’t have to see them blight our African capital city carrying huge loads of firewood.

The strong women of Entoto returning home from their new jobs. Through the Entoto project, hundreds have been trained and organized to engage as input suppliers for business in the new park. Transformation entails lifting others in the process. pic.twitter.com/NMTzAYSBWH

— Abiy Ahmed Ali (@AbiyAhmedAli) October 2, 2020

139. This is Warya from Wajale, Somaliland (not Somalia!): Selam Dr.NoWit! I wonder if you can take a break from your Ethiopia obsession to tell us why the president of neighboring Somalia, Mohammed Formajio, was in Eritrea?

Dr. Newitol: They were having “bilateral discussions” on issues that are of interest to the two countries and the region. You don’t like that?  So, actually, he was in Eritrea because Isaias Afwerki is building for him a Republican Guard (all from one clan, but hey, he didn’t make the rules) to protect Somalia from people that Isaias spent over a decade supporting: Alshabab, Islamist, etc.  (Don’t scratch your head: think of what Ralph Waldo Emerson said.)  Actually, Eritrea is so small for Isaias, the African Union should create a special portfolio for him as the “Guardian of Colonial Treaties.”  Isaias believes in nothing except for the sanctity of colonial borders, unless it no longer serves his purpose (Russia owns Crimea.)  And after that, he is coming after you Somalilanders because he is still mad at South Sudan separating from Sudan, never mind accepting Somaliland splitting from Somalia.  In any event, the Isaias-Formajio, Isaias-Abiy meetings are sideshows: the real action is with their intel officers meeting:

People are focusing on the Eritrean dictator Afwerki’s trip to Ethiopia; but in parallel, there’s a trilateral meeting between the intelligence chiefs of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea that’s currently ongoing in Addis Ababa. No media briefs or statements expected. https://t.co/1JzUcyKuac

— Adam (@adancabdulle) October 13, 2020

140. This is Wasim from Wad Madani, Sudan:  Aloo, Dr Newi Hol! What time is it where you are: I hope I didn’t wake you.  Alooo?  I don’t know if you follow Arab News, but there is now a race between the Gulf Arab countries, who have included my country, to see who can make peace with the Zionist State first.  What is happening here?

Dr. Newitol:  Are you opposed to making peace? You want to give war a chance, for another 60 years?  Your Prime Minister said he doesn’t have the mandate to make peace with Israel that but then your Sovereign Leader said, “hold my camel milk” and said he has the mandate.   So, if you want your country to be removed from terror-sponsoring states, you will do as you are told.  I would recommend you have more conversation with Isaias Afwerki who will show you how to present your new stand as one that has been consistent with your beliefs for decades.   Side benefit is you no longer have to drink Pepsi but, like the rest of the world, drink a beverage from the company you have boycotted for decades: Coca Cola.  Nothing is worth drinking Pepsi for.

When I say “An Eritrea Without Prisons”, I don’t mean it metaphorically.  I mean it literally: what if we had an Eritrea without a single prison, jail or detention center? The focus is on the hypothetical, the “what if?” So, those of you who consider discussing the theoretical as a waste of time can leave now.  In fact, you should leave now.  I am serious: get out; in an article questioning the necessity of prison, we can’t have imprisoned readers.  Those of you who choose to stay, I have no less of an ambition that to argue that prisons in Eritrea should be banned because they are introducing a toxic culture to the people.

Now, let’s unwrap this.  My premise is this: the second worst thing humanity created after war (and its attendant horrors including enslavement) is prison.  (1) I believe in some not-too-distant future, humanity will see prison the way it sees slavery now and (2) I am a Hobbesian: I believe that without law and order, the life of a human would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”  So you are not getting an unrealistic pacifist who thinks roses and unicorns and a sprinkling of love magically solve everything.  I am not even advocating for elimination of all prisons all over the world right now (because I want to narrow my scope); but calling for the elimination of all prisons all over Eritrea beginning now and for future generations.

1. Eritrean Prisons

First, there are so many of them.   Eritrea’s prisoner per 100,000 is yet another secret (in a country where even the census is a State secret) but our eyewitnesses and testimonials from victims and the enforcers of the system have given us an idea.  It is in the hundreds, holding thousands, some in underground prisons, some in containers, some in jails, some in prisons, some in homes converted to prisons.  And because the government is both perennially poor and systematically sadistic, it has invented ever-cruel and inhumane means to punish you. In many countries, treating pets the way the Eritrean mafia regime is treating you is a crime punishable by law.  But in a lawless land, these prisons and jails and containers are the indefinite housing of people like you, and like your child, and like your parents and your siblings:  arbitrarily arrested, forcibly disappeared, and scooped by a system which implements policies of  ክሳብ ዝጻረ (roughly:  “until its all clarified”) and ኣጽንሓለይ ሓደራ (“detain him/her for me, be my trustee!”), a culture that has jumped to Abiy’s Ethiopia but that’s not my business right now.  They are imprisoned indefinitely because they are forgotten by favor-asker and favor-giver for decades.  In the meantime, until they die or lose their faculties, some will be in forced labor building villas of corrupt generals, some will die in prison, but all we be forgotten, denied, denied everything (speech, religion, assembly, sunlight, private space to sleep), abandoned by society.  Including by your own mothers, who are powerless to do anything but pray remotely.

Those are our jails and prisons and detention centers where a “necessary” amount of torture is practiced by the tools of sadism, and thus torture will also be part of your daily ritual.  Because the government does not either understand, or agree with, the civilized way of dealing with humans. If you are hospitalized, you can think about your inevitable return to prison, for an uncertain term, when you get respite from the ravages of your illness.   Its apologists have explained their casual attitude towards prisons brutally to us: it is something Alamin Mohammed Said may have said, or the Charge d’affaires to the US, but I can’t be sure it was, they all run together.  He, they said:  life in prison is not that different from life outside prison in Eritrea.  The only difference is the prison has a purpose, a correctional facility to rehabilitate them.  Had the regime not been filled with sadistic people, it would know the consensus is: torture is no more effective than other means to get information from people who have no idea what information they are asked to give.  But no, they have improvised ever-sadistic means to torture: Helicopter, Jesus Christ, Otto being some of the more notorious. And so, when they say prison is no different from outside prison, they are not just talking about the food portions, but also the fact that people are tortured–specially in the military that swallows up the very young–even when they are not in confinement.  You are tortured inside prison, you are tortured outside prison, so why are you blaming prisons?

It is not just the volume of the prisons, and the general state of awfulness;  it is that they house everybody.  Because the Eritrean government is all of the following: accuser, judge, jury, executioner, the country is littered with criminals and traitors.  Shocking for a government with the One People, One Heart motto not  really knowing how the imprisonment of One People affects All Our Hearts.   Meanwhile,  you, the citizen, can transform, from undetained-going-about-my-business to the disappeared in 60 seconds flat, or less, and you will never be present when you are suspected, accused, tried and sentenced.  Consequently, in jail, one of the things you will be tortured to tell is why YOU think you are in jail.  The escaped pilot Dejen Andehishel said that after a series of “why do you think you are in jail” interrogations,  he came to understand that unless he gave them a theory as to why he thinks he is in jail, then he was implicitly accusing the government of arresting people without cause.  This is, obviously,  a crime.   The transition from ordinary civilian (or soldier, or colonel) to imprisoned, disappeared, እንድዒ (‘I don’t know” because asking about the imprisoned can you get you imprisoned) is fast and mysterious.  How you will be treated while in prison will be inhumane.  If you get out, you won’t be the same person who went in.  A prison warden who knew both the Mengistu regime and the Isaias regime was being interviewed on Paltalk, I think, and he said, “during the Mengistu era, if you go to prison illiterate, you will come out with a college degree.  In the Isaias regime, if you go to prison with a college degree, you will come out illiterate– if you ever come out.”  Everything about PFDJ’s prison system is designed to break you down and to strip you of your shreds of dignity, what you eat, what you endure, and being frog marched to defecate outdoors, or in small cans, and with total disregard for hygiene, including women’s essential sanitation needs.  Governments are not allowed to treat prisoners of war the way the Eritrean mafia regime treats its citizens, partly because it is too poor to run a prison system that large, and partly because it is sadistic and does not believe in the sanctity of life.  Only the sanctity of colonial borders.

2. Eritrean Prisoners

And the variety of prisoners! The old are guilty, the young are guilty, some of the founders of the Eritrean revolution and its early benefactors are guilty (Imaro, Haji Musa), those who led its revolutionary wars are guilty (Petros, Oqbe, Tewil), and those who were in the leadership of the PFDJ itself are guilty (Derue, Abdella Jaber, Germano Nati, Beraki Gebreselasse.)  Men of cloth are guilty (Patriarch Antonios, and the dozens of Muslim religious teachers), women of faith are too (and sometimes they are guilty along with the child they may be breastfeeding.)  Soldiers are guilty; civilians are guilty.  This unquenchable thirst to imprison more and more is the inevitable outcome of the government’s perception that it’s encountering more and more civil disobedience and defiance: inevitable, because the other alternative–self-reflection and perhaps change–are not an option.  Why change when you are infallible?  Change is the one constant that Isaiasists fight to exhaustion: delaying the inevitable and, in their eyes, winning!

Now how to argue against this? With a flood?  Let me try it and correct me if I deviate or misinterpret.  Eritrea’s prison system is dangerous to Eritrean society.  And, no, by that I don’t mean just that prison imprisons more than the prisoner: the extended Eritrean family pain, whose heart is full with sadness alternating with anger.  It is more, because after the hurt and the anger is  the settling into despair due to the sense of helplessness about your disappeared, and your imprisoned loved ones, about whom you may never ever get any closure.  But that is too obvious and, besides, it is just friendly fire: ከኣልዎ (just take it!)  Because ከኣልዎ is part of what defines you as an Eritrean: ጽንዓት: ሓቦ: ኒሕ (to quietly endure, to stubbornly stand, to persevere.)  To behave any other way is unEritrean and you just added one more crime to your long list of crimes.

3. The Toxic Culture It Norms

The impact of this toxic culture is significant and may last generations: nurturing a sense of hopelessness about a once hopeful people and, given the population affected (all of Eritrea),  it is all-enveloping.   But, you may say, you are overstating it: this is a temporary side effect that will dissipate as soon as Isaias and PFDJ disappear.  But there is more: submitted for your consideration:   Societies have bonds of culture and wisdom that tie them together: a flag alone won’t do.  Culture outlasts flags: it is a value system that enables society to enforce law and order and a spirit of tolerance, in the absence of laws and governments.   But it has its ordinances, its sacred adages, its pillars.  One of them is ጽልኣኒ: ፍትሒ ኣይትኽለኣኒ! (hate me all you want; don’t deny me justice); another is ናይ ክልተ ከይሰማዕካ ኣይትፍረድ (don’t pass judgement without hearing both sides of the story.)  Lest people think this is all Tigrinya-centric, I don’t claim to know every tribe or custom in Eritrea but I do know that for a significant percent  (we used to say 50%; ;but we have no census) of the population, the Eritrean Muslims’ Koran teaches: وَلَقَدْ كَرَّمْنَا بَنِي آدَمَ وَحَمَلْنَاهُمْ فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ وَرَزَقْنَاهُم مِّنَ الطَّيِّبَاتِ وَفَضَّلْنَاهُمْ عَلَىٰ كَثِيرٍ مِّمَّنْ خَلَقْنَا تَفْضِيلً  (“And We have certainly honored the children of Adam and carried them on the land and sea and provided for them of the good things and preferred them over much of what We have created, with [definite] preference”).  Notice it is not saying ” we have honored believers”, “we have honored the faithful” or a favor bestowed on a segment of a population but all “Children of Adam” have inherent honor.   That is, this is not a citizen’s right– one can argue you can’t have citizenship without constitution– but a human right.  And if these statements of faith, and of accumulated wisdom are being violated daily, how many more generations before they are viewed as charming but ancient customs now voided in Hadas Ertra?

There is a reason why dictators are called authoritarians: they demand strict obedience.  Recently, a comedian, in an interview, said some production company has not paid him anything despite his allowing it to re-broadcast his shows.  He, a comedian, is now jailed.  Why?  They say (because there are never court proceedings), the production company he is bad-mouthing is owned by the Royal Family: Abraham Isaias Afwerki’s brother-in-law.  So they say.  It could very well be disinformation to hide even more scandalous reasons.   They, the authoritarians, set an impossible goal of perfection: strict obedience from everyone all the time, no exception. Since that is not humanly possible,  more prisons are needed.    Just like they disagree, or don’t want to know, there are studies about the ineffectiveness of torture, they also either don’t know or disagree with the fact that multiplicity of prisons is not always directly related to safety and security.   Japan has one of the lowest prisoners (per 100,000 residents) rate, and Brazil has one of the highest, but one can’t argue Brazil is safer.  Or the US, with more prisons than any other nation,  is safer.   The Isaias Regime is in “More Prison, Safer Society” maximalist approach, damn its lawlessness.

To add more psychological torture to the physical one, in one of the most brazen gaslighting you have ever heard, the Isaias Regime describes itself as an adherent to all laws: domestic but specially, specially international.  But not the international treaties it is a signatory to (including against torture and power monopoly and lack of due process) that it routinely ignores; just the one about border rulings. With Ethiopia, not Yemen.  The border ruling in Yemen is being violated with UAE’s help.  Whenever it is hauled somewhere to explain its inhumane behavior, it always defines itself as “civilized” and “lawful.”  When its representatives are asked to present the sources for their law and civilization, they mention the PFDJ Charter (not law), and the Civil/Penal Codes and Procedures (which derive their authority from a non-existent constitution) and customary laws (but oh so selectively.)  The Justice Minister quotes the Civil/Penal Codes regularly.  So Ok, Ms Minister, how do I go about filling the right form to ensure that I have filled out a habeas corpus: request that you bring, say, my niece, disappeared as a minor 8 years ago,  to a court of law? Isn’t that the law of the land?  You have no idea?   So, please stop gaslighting us, if you have the power over your own mouth that exhales words.  So, on top of every reason I have given you above, the prison system also relies on a culture of lying. Consistent, prolonged, stretch of lies, layered over lies, until they are all woven together.  Government officials lying about laws that were written for their own self-preservation:  in 2015 to avert the march of the criminals from being referred to the ICC for committing crimes against humanity against the people, they wrote the Civil/Penal Code after announcing the death of the constitution.  So, it is no more than a fig leaf, magnifying, not covering, their deceit.  And it is to be expected from an organization that survived only by breaking the prevailing laws it operated under (Ethiopian occupation laws.)  If you are hard-wired to break laws, you assume everybody else is too, and you keep building jails but you deny the one favor that was granted to you when YOU ran afoul of the law: family visitations.

4. So Won’t All This Go Away After Isaias/PFDJ Are Gone?

I have reason to be worried about the durability of this “New Culture.”  A 50-year long indoctrination that EPLF/PFDJ has overseen is almost as long as Italian occupation of Eritrea.  And Italy altered Eritrea forever.  Similarly, if unchecked, PFDJ will alter Eritrea forever and for worse.   So we need to think about all the cultures the PFDJ has drilled in, and to peel them off.  For a number of reasons I mentioned above, the existence of prisons and jails–some inherited from the Italian era (Carcielli), some inherited from Americans (Track B), some brought forth from Nakfa (underground prisons),  some improvised to enhance the sadism (containers)–is a blight on Eritrea and it will never let it heal unless it is depopulated.

5. And What Exactly Is The Alternative?

There is always crime, there are always criminals, so there must always be prisons? No, there must always be punishment, to punish the criminal, to deter future criminals.  Punishment does not have to be jail.  Let the prisoner be housed with whichever family member wants to keep him or her in detention.  Bring in security anklets: restrict movement (punishment), but without the torture, abuse and de-humanization of the Eritrean in hostile territory of jails.  We have been de-humanized long enough.  There are countries, which are doing away with prisons, because prisons are both inhumane and ineffective at altering behavior.  After all, are we any less civilized, as a country, than countries like Iceland?

The Eritrean government is too poor, too sadistic, too authoritarian to manage prisons humanely.  Its culture of sadism and cruelty and inhumanity is seeping into the mainstream culture.  You may argue that all I have made is a case for prison reform and not its elimination.  Yeah, well, maybe: but my opening statement is going to be “let’s close all prisons” and you have to argue why they are necessary and why they are better than the alternative presented.

You can also refer to this article as “An Eritrea Without Wars” to follow up on “An Eritrea Without Prisons.”

Only in Eritrea can the same person who has fought in its Liberation War (1961-1991), then its Senseless War I (1998-2000), will now fight in its So Very Necessary War, later to be named So Very Unnecessary (2020-2???).  And these are just the wars against Ethiopia, not counting those who had to “serve our country” in Congo’s Civil War and in Sudan’s Civil War, and Somalia’s Civil War and maybe Yemen, too.  Eritrea’s president is often aggrieved about one of God’s cruel jokes–that such a visionary leader like him can only, legally, govern a small country.  And so he finds reasons to insert Eritrea in other countries’s civil wars.  Fortunately for him, the “international community” has a short memory and there is this big, complex country to the South, which is always in a state of war or the verge of it.  Ethiopia, again.

Those who ignited and intensified the 1998 war were never pleased that the “border war”, which in actuality was a “Ethiopia-Is-Not-Big Enough-For-Two-Looters” showdown, was interrupted.

Interlude.  In 1991, Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afwerki were two players in the long-running Abyssinian play “Your Submission is My Victory!”

King 1: “You can be a King…!”
King 2: “You can be a King…!”
The Two Kings In Unison: “…But only I can be the King of Kings.”

They (Meles and Isaias) said that, historically, in unison in May 1991. By May 1998, they were ready to act on their oath.  And they did: and they dragged Eritrea and Ethiopia to a devastating war.  And, in the end, neither was the King of Kings, just diminished kings in their own kingdom.

How so very dissatisfying not to have a dead body after a death-match! They nursed this grudge, caused by Deathus Interruptus, from 2000-2020: each forecasting every day the imminent death of the other (from the mortal wounds they had inflicted on it.)  Ethiopia, and thus The Region, is now under new management: you won’t miss it with the remodeling and re-flowering and all the “Now Under New Management” placards.

When Abiy and Isaias met to act in their “Your Submission is My Victory”, they also started with: ” You can be a king” but then introduced a twist ending by saying, in unison, “Privately Abiy, Publicly Isaias: we submit to each other.”  It was a win-win:  from each according to his ambition (Abiy and His Glory of Kings) to each according to his mission (Isaias drive to change history). You will lead us…. no, no, sir, I will drive you.

That was one hella long interlude.

We have a remake of a movie.  But wait, there is more: the same two antagonists are also starring in it, the new movie “1998 Reloaded: This Time, Again, It’s Personal!”

Don’t you hate it when they make sequels of already-terrible movies?

Microcosm of Eritrea and Ethiopia

Here are Eritrea and Ethiopia in a microcosm.   Some will think it is flattering, some very sad:

General Haile Samuel (“China”), an EPLF veteran (Liberation War) who distinguished himself by defying Isaias Afwerki’s orders to evacuate Assab and repelled the Ethiopian Offensive towards the port city(Senseless War I), has now been defrosted from the long, humiliating freezer he had been in for many, many years.  His  unforgivable sin? Having a heroic war story that was outshining Dear President, But Catastrophic Chief Commanding Officer, Isaias Afwerki.

Sadly for Ethiopia, one of the reasons it is hard to envision a vibrant-and-diverse media, and a competitive elections in the country is because it is hard to imagine Abiy Ahmed coping with the reality that somebody is more magnetic, more popular, than him. (we hardly knew ye, Lemma Megersa.)  He shares that megalomania with his Wedi Afey.

But you digress. Haile “China” Samuel has been enlisted to help lead the war efforts in the Rama Front (So Very Necessary War.)   That is the Eritrean microcosm.  To those who are still loyal to President Isaias Afwerki, this “service” is something to be celebrated and emulated. To those who want to return Eritrea to being a normal state (if it ever was), this generational war for ill-defined reasons is abnormal.   To recruit (from their homes!) enmasse underage kids and the elderly, every year for 20 years, is abnormal.  In Eritrea, the old generals like “China” didn’t confront Isaias Afwerki when he humiliated them, or when Eritreans pleaded with them to rescue Eritrea,  because they are tired of war and conflict and just want to live the remainder of their lives in peace, playing with their young children.  Understandable.  Except that now they are being conscripted.  Conscription is not just for the underaged in Eritrea: we have so much respect for elders (there is no ageism),  they are assumed to have as much energy as the youth and subject to the nation’s conscription laws and disappearance fiats.   Now, General “China” is to ally with the Ethiopians he fought against in the Liberation War (literally, some Derg Generals have been defrosted in Ethiopia, too: just as they were in the 1998-2000 wars) against those who were once his allies in the Liberation War to continue the unfinished business of the Senseless War.

What’s important here to know is that Isaias Afwerki was, as usual, prophetic: he had been ready for Operation መደምመር in 2000 (twenty years ago!) when he was ready to evacuate Assab.   Because of their stubborn refusal to listen to him then, Eritreans have to read about him leasing their land from foreign sources (it is a secret, none of your business: do not be eager to learn what does not concern your mission) to UAE.  You were unresponsive when he displaced Afari fishermen to lease it out to UAE.  Why? For the same reason you will also be unresponsive when the Ethiopian Navy, with Green-Yellow-Red (with PP insignia) flag, will be in Asab and, if needed, Massawa.

The Deja-vu Wars

Eritreans were marveling at Colonel Bezabeh, the pilot who was downed in Eritrea twice: during the liberation struggle (1961-91)  and during the senseless wars (1998-2000.)  Fate: like the Djibouti prisoners of war: denied they exist, until they were no longer denied.  Asking about Colonel Bezabeh is so LAST ERA!  Recently, Tigray TV was talking about an Ethiopian pilot who was downed in the Very Necessary War (2020-????) who happens to be the exact same one who was captured and released in their liberation struggle.  They mentioned his name,  to his loved ones, on internet TV, very casually:  he is dead!  3,000 years of civilization.

The record will show that President Isaias Afwerki had, on multiple occasions, referred to the “Senseless War” of 1998 as one instigated by the US.  America also, retroactively, instigated the Hanish Crisis of 1995, in the World According to Tutu Bututu.  So who is instigating the war now because, you have also been told many, many times, that Weyane, as “ኸደምቲ” (servants) can only enforce someone else’s orders.   Whose, this time?  Will Qatar make it to the List of Baddies? Egypt? Turkey?

War Is In The Agreement

And you certainly cannot now all act surprised of the civil war (apologies: I mean clean-up-operations to enforce rule of law) between the Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and that of Tigray Region. You can be angry. You can be hurt. You can be disappointed.  But you cannot be surprised. Because it was Article 2 in the seven very short articles of the 2008 Agreement on Peace, Friendship and Comprehensive Cooperation Between the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the State of Eritrea.

This agreement cannot be accused of having dense, impenetrable language, nor can it be claimed it was done in secret: no! They had the pre-party, the party and the after-party for it in Asmara, Massawa, Sawa, Addis, Jimma, Jigjiga, Hawassa, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi.    In fact, in Saudi Arabia the Agreement is called the Jeddah agreement. Surely you saw all the bling bling Isaias got from the Saudis, Emiraties and Ethiopia. Horses, camels, shawls and jackets and more shawls and ring, necklaces and hats and, yeah, shawls. The honeymoon period of the blessed wedding.  So yes, of course, logic and common sense led you to believe there would be no war despite the fact that the two Unelected Heads of Governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia had told you, over two years ago, that war is part of the Agreement’s trajectory.

On the Eritrean side, they even told you the credits which will roll, and the soundtrack which will play, when the documentary of the war is made:”Game Over Weyane!” It’s the climax of two decades (20 years of young Eritrea’s 30 year life!) of the previous chants: “Weyane is in the IV Unit”, “Weyane is on life support.”  Isaias Afwerki Abraham is 78 years old. A year older than Biden who has been “practicing politics as the businessmen get slowly stoned”, for 48 years (since 1972) and Isaias has even longer experience.”Game Over Weyane” happening 20 years after it was first announced in 2005 also meets the arc of the other story line: Isaias Is Prophetic. The 15 years of Isaias abuse Eritreans were subjected to were just his way, as God was with Prophet Job, of testing your faith and resolve. How did you react when you were subjected to serial, uninterrupted disasters?  Did you, as Job did, look inside yourself to see what terrible things you had done to deserve your punishment or did you, like a whiny Weyto Weyane, lose your faith, and blame your demi-god?  If you are whiny and faithless, just remember ” Aykhesernan! Nibretna b’mulu’u melisna” (We didn’t lose! We have recouped everything)  and everything will be fine.

Because Isaias has an unwritten agreement with the people of Eritrea.  His oppression is not something to be resisted; it is an endurance test so it must be endured.  Your reward is that once in a while he will get emotional, on TV, reflecting on what a stoic, dignified and civilized people you are.  It’s only the whiny, the undignified, and those with no stamina who would complain about the oppression and try to resist it.

But Isaias Afwerki will find out that the unwritten agreement is null and void.  No Eritrean is fighting for his causes.

On the Ethiopian side, well you don’t want to be harsh. Abiy Ahmed Ali just turned 44; he is Africa’s youngest, with only a few years of back-benching, technocrat-izing, and spying and practicing the fine craft of government and party ladder climbing.  It is not a lot of experience, not a match for a large complex country.  But a messianic drive for power, plus a Nobel Peace Prize, is more than adequate to make up for any deficiencies. And so the transition is relatively fast: from calling Weyane  “daylight hyenas” to an appeal, in Tigrinya, to Tegaru audience to side with Dr. Debretsion wing of TPLF, and then to create a Wanted Dead Or Alive List that includes Dr. Debretsion topping the list, and a naming his replacement, a new regional governor/President’s, Dr. Mulu (of the Tigray Prosperity Party and why not) and changing the title from Region President to Chief Executive because it is really annoying that the regional top guys are called presidents when he is only Mr. Prime Minister… That’s all in Article 2 of the Agreement.

Article 2 Explains It All

Eritrea shelled Humera? It is in the agreement.
Ethiopian federal soldiers/Amhara region special forces retreated to Eritrea to regroup and attack from the new Eritrean  front? It’s in the agreement.
Planeloads of Ethiopian soldiers have been landing in Asmara and some in Massawa to create the New Northern Command? It’s in the agreement.
There are frequent trips to and from Eritrea/Ethiopia? It’s in the agreement.
They traveled with a delegation which included so and so? It’s in the agreement.
You say you know about the High Level Delegation but why is Isaias’s itinerary always to visit the Shrines of Weyane (AU, Metec, Dams, and Industrial Cities)? It’s in the agreement, on articles dealing with complementarity and synergy and Hrrr Dea Bela Me’Antakhn. This is how we translate Meddemer, in Tigrinya, apparently.

And all that giggling and chest beating? Surely you understand that is just a human reaction of joy derived from an elder at the craftiness of his protege and the gratitude of a political leper brought back from the dead, reciprocated by the young religious man who sees God’s handwriting everywhere and who feels God sent him the perfect mentor. (I am sure he can find you the verse, if you insist.) You need an ally in your fight against your own countrymen.  It is not taboo to get it from Eritrea because Eritrea and Ethiopia are One People! Well, so were told the One Ethiopia gang very publicly and repeatedly.  Remember: it is a misreading of history to say Eritreans and Ethiopians are two people.   It is in the Agreement title itself: friendship and COMPREHENSIVE COOPERATION.

They will give the nerds at the High Level Joint Committee (the Yemanes, Osmans, Woldays) a chance to hurry up and do nothing on the rest of the articles, but they cannot suck up resources that are needed for Article 2 (Colonel Tesfaldet, Simon Gebredengel, Abraha Kassa.) Banking, commerce, trade are not priorities now (never are: think thou Eritrea not having an ATM machine or mobile data or any construction is an accident?)  Peace and Security are priorities (always are)!  And surely, everyone knows that the path to peace– “lasting peace”, they claim about every agreement they sign and NEVER implement!–goes through war.   They have to destroy the peace to ensure lasting peace, and sometimes that may require bombing assets now because they can be rebuilt later. Because you can’t talk about developing a nation or trusting its citizens with it (elections), until it is secure.  Peace comes from exhaustion from war and it is unreasonable of you to demand peace now before the exhaustion from war has set in.  Ask the Ethiopian Minister of Peace: she said so.

It is in the agreement.

Maybe the reason you didn’t pay attention to the agreement was because, you concluded, it was just meaningless jargon to ensure that the supposedly, for twenty years (May 1998 – June 2018), most important thing, demarcation, is vaporized.   Article 4 (that is, the fourth priority) refers to EEBC, and not Algiers Agreement.    Calling for implementation of the Algiers Agreement would include implementing the decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission (EECC) not just the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC.)  That would require a tiny soul-searching for the 150,000 youth who perished in the Last Senseless War (1998-2000.)  One of the reasons Eritrea and Ethiopia are always at war is because Eritrea is so abnormal that its leaders claimed the loss of “only” 20,000 in two years was miraculous, and Ethiopia is so strange that it is not in its “political culture” to publish the names of its dead.   If they didn’t return, you must assume they are dead is what  TPLF told its people after 1991 and again in 2000.

The other reason war is a regular visitor to Eritrea and Ethiopia:  Shouldn’t the claims the two countries filed against each other, after hiring 70+ lawyers and arguing in front of 6 arbitrators, be read and the courts decisions of the damages be implemented?  NO! Its a New Chapter.  New Era.  Discussing those things is creating obstacles for the complementarity and synergy and rapid development we want (this time we really mean it.)  Also, because it is a New Era, there shall be no discussion of yet another thing the Algiers Agreement called for: investigation into the root cause of the 1998 war. It won’t happen because it will show those posing as Princes of Peace were the Princes of War.

No pause to read the report of the Claims Commission.  No autopsy to study and avoid what caused it.  No review of how last time that created its own alignments and realignments.  No lessons learned.

We also must forget, at all times, that we do does not have an equal and opposite reaction.  A mutual-defense agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia (without any consolidation of intra-Eritrea and intra-Ethiopia peace) expedites that between Sudan and Egypt.  Let’s all now pretend we were surprised by that.  “Zgerm iyu” (“it is so unbelievable!”)  is one of Eritreans favorite expressions: every fucking thing is “zgerm iyu” when it shouldn’t.

An Avoidable War

This is a war to avoid.  First, because all wars must be avoided: they are vile, cyclical and never ending.   Because “collateral damage” is bureaucratese for “we just killed unarmed women and children and the elderly.” Because you are extremely poor.  Because it is the harvest season.  Because you don’t have elected government responsive to the opinion of its constituency. Because it is bad enough you have to deal with the economic destruction of COVID19 and locusts do you need another Jobian test? Because, no Eritrean is fighting for Isaias, since Isaias equated Eritrea with himself.  Because, the three antagonists represent deplorable values.   Abiy wants a return to the defective-at-birth Unitary State with a strong dominant center and tightly controlled peripheries, a model which has never worked for Ethiopia.  Isaias represents Africa’s Old Guard: a totalitarian unitary State which impoverishes and exiles and disappears its people, under One Party, One Strong Man who always manage to create a dynasty or die trying.  And Weyane? Because they governed so atrociously for 27 years, that enough people in the Horn (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia) have said, “anybody, even Abiy and Isaias and Formajio, are better than that group”.

But the war must be stopped.   To those who say what else then, the answer is everything else.

Because war is unpredictable: the whole Northern Command surrender/defection/redeployment to Eritrea did not go the way the Peace, Friendship and Comprehensive Team had plotted.  That’s the only thing we know, based on how it changed the tenor of the war.  We also know that, so far (and it’s “only” a two-week war) everything that the TPLF said they would do they have done and nothing of what Abiy claimed he will do he has done.  That’s all we know for sure. Everything else…. it is worse than the 1998-2000 war.  Why?  Because back then there were independent journalists reporting from Eritrea and Ethiopia.  Now it is social media boasts and very Cheney-like declarations of the enemy in its last throes. When US Vice President Dick Cheney said of Iraq combatants “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency” in 2005, well, sure, he was 6 years ahead of reality but at least he waited two years after the start of the war to say it.  Now we have 4 Ethiopian State media reading from the same hymn book about this being a short term law-and-order operation.  Habesha, please.  Tigray is not Ethiopian Somalia.

The Eritrean Government will say nothing–when Operation ስቕታ መሪጽና (We have chosen to be silent) is in session.  The mouth, the same mouth that never shuts up, must say nothing lest it accidentally distract the limbs.  Isaias had already telegraphed not just in the Peace Agreement but in his State TV interview that he has every intention to be involved in Ethiopia’s internal affairs.  Because Ethiopia’s internal affair is Eritrea’s internal affair.

The worst-kept secret: Are #Eritrea tyrant Isaias Afwerki & his cabal helping out #Ethiopia|s Pastor @AbiyAhmedAli in the war he is waging in Tigray?

Here: the mob-boss and his consigliere Yemane Gebreab confessing that they have every intention to do so. #SayNoToWarEthiopia pic.twitter.com/mA8kH4NIhr

— saay (@saayEritrea) November 9, 2020

Meanwhile, the Weyane have daily briefs using their State media (Dimtsi Weyane) and their version of Hade Lbi Hade Hzbi private media (house) where they talk of precision launches and More To Comes. They are playing the underdog thing now, appealing for peaceful solution, but if the tides turn and they calculate they have the upper hand, they will be talking less of political solution and more of military.  Abiy is racing to stick the label of “terrorist” on them–the only way to get them silenced and booted out of Satellite TV and have all their assets frozen–and he should find some encouragement in the outgoing US government statements on the Civil War.

It is worse than 1998 because then we Eritreans and Ethiopians could say of our governments, “it is a novice government and it is have growing pains.” But now, almost 30 years after the fall of Mengistu Hailemariam regime, we can’t even say that.

It is worse than 1998-2000 because there was no social media then with all its disinformation.  It was centralized then with a certain Salome Taddesse from Walta: now the misinformation and disinformation is diffused.   And the two countries, the oh-so-civilized, so-self-reliant, so-proud nations of Eritrea and Ethiopia will cling to any know-nothing Mzungu, however unqualified they are,  as long as they uncritically support their disinformation.

In some ways, war is very predictable. Especially in poor, marginal, subsistence countries, on the verge of starvation. There will be exile, there will be hunger, lack of water, and electricity. The men who make the decision to go to war (while, of course, claiming they were “forced” to wage it) and those who actually fight the wars (mostly boys and young men) have no familial relationship: the order takers despise the order-givers in Eritrea.  You would, too,  if they committed documented crimes against humanity on you for twenty years.    They live in two worlds: the political tribe, unelected, ordering the subjects to go to war. And the Diaspora PFDJ, with all their children safely tucked in with their tablets and iphones, are already foaming at the mouth for more war.  All will say they are winning. Not only are they winning, “the enemy” is devastated, destroyed, cannot get up without a defibrillator.  It is only a matter of days if not hours, they will tell us for months maybe years.

Don’t you dare say you were surprised: the war will have its surprises. All wars do. There will be catastrophic mistakes. (Read, if you dare, the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission decisions, argued by over 70 (SEVENTY!) lawyers in front of 6 arbitrators.  Nothing to worry about because Smiling Professor Asmerom Legesse told you we are too civilized to commit uncivilized things?  Dive in: discover all the horrific things the very civilized, disciplined soldiers of Eritrea and Ethiopia inflicted on each other, including rape of civilians and what the damages were.  So you can be sure, there will be events that occur during the war that will be used as reasons to continue the war. In fact they will be substitutes for the original reasons given. There will be horrific human rights violations. These reasons will then rationalize dialing up the enmity to raging hot.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has detailed the objectives of this “rule of law” operation. The TPLF (Weyane) has said, “oh yeah, you and what army?” The mutual taunting (of Tigray Region President Debretsion declaring his side will shift from defense to offense, and the Ethiopian Air Force Commander saying with what rockets, all you have is rocks because we control it remotely) invites more and it is always a stark reminder to ask: could this war happen if women were in charge? War appears to be just another form of “let’s take it outside.”

Excepting for some crazy things female praying mantis and female mongoose do, this occasional but habitual resort to violence is a male thing, no?

You have been telling your friends you are more angry than surprised. You tell a friend, “why are we still surprised?” She says, “you know who is not surprised? Women. Eritrean women are so accustomed to tyranny from violent men and toxic patriarchy that we are not surprised or angry. We are numb.” Fine, can you at least be angry? We have things to do and not to do.

Regarding Ethiopia, if you are Eritrean, you shouldn’t presume to know enough to recommend what they should do (unless you are Isaias, of course), but you can say for certain what they shouldn’t do: go to war. And to know the difference between nationalism, and ultranationalism. Ultranationalism is narcissism elevated to a cause.  It makes you believe in absurdities and readies you, in the words of Voltaire, to commit atrocities.

Regarding Eritrea, here’s a question: when was the last time you protested the presence of UAE in Assab, to the Government of UAE?  I have the answer: here’s the list of times, whenever you are ready: you may put down your calculator: it is zero times. Because you correctly assess that it is your government that is doing the inviting to blame, not the guest and business partner who accepted the invite. So, now, if more than two dozen flights arrived from Ethiopia to Eritrea in one day (remember, due to COVID19, there are no flights so that is the only “business” Asmara Airport gets), is that the fault of the guest or the host?  Why are you mad at Ethiopia?  If you tell them you have every intention to take sides and get yourself involved in the war, why would you be surprised if the other sides tries to pre-emptively strike you?  In other words: why aren’t you just a bit smarter and more prudent LIKE Ethiopias 5 other neighboring countries?

Should you freak out by what the frequency of the flights from Addis to Asmara suggest? YES! But then where do you direct your energy? Do you follow the nationalist slogans of counting the balls and the gorilla remains invisible?

We must widen your gaze: you are a citizen of Eritrea (or Ethiopia, or Sudan, or Somalia….) and not the Confederation of East Africa. And as citizens (YOU ARE NOT A SUBJECT!) you have the right to hold accountable the host of this crisis, and the man with the longest rap sheet of crimes,  President Isaias Afwerki. Ethiopia has 5 other neighbors: Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Kenya. Not one of them is involved in Ethiopia’s Civil War. Sudan, which chairs IGAD, wanted to bring the Civil War as an agenda item and PM Abiy took his notes: “slower wedi Afey! Yes,yes, yes? Ok, Got it!” before replying thusly to Sudan: “If you insist on making this an agenda item at IGAD, we will withdraw our membership from it.”

It’s no longer a mystery why some Ethiopians think Isaias Afwerki is fit to mentor them how to govern a large, complex, diverse, ancient land. Here’s a man who has failed at governing a small but diverse population of 4.5 million, a million of whom now live in exile. The only thing he can mentor on is how to create an isolated, totalitarian state. How to exile your people. How to transform a city (Asmara) built as a shrine to Italian architecture, and Massawa, a shrine to Turkish architecture, into shrines to Mengistu Hailemariam: war devastated, ghost towns, exactly how Mengistu left them 30 years ago, now aged and crumbling. The Ethiopians who clamor for his type of leadership are those who believe in the right of an Elect of God, with a special skill to arouse ultranational-erogenous zones, to rule with unquestioned authority because that would “unify the country.”

But you are a citizen of Eritrea and must always focus on the reason your country and your people are always exposed to danger: because of Isaias Afwerki’s emotional decisions and flawed judgements.

We The People 

It is not all politics and politicians. Isn’t it us, the people, too? It is ok to ask, that was what the Eritrean liberation fronts did: itemize all customs and then classified some as ድሑር ባህሊ (backward customs): one of them being tribalism.  The post-World War II Japan is, culturally, very different from World War II Japan and better for it: because it is a country that has done a cultural autopsy.  We, Eritreans and Ethiopians, need to do the same because it is abnormal to be in a continuous state of war for decades.

What fuels ultranationalism is Birtherism:  “If only these __  would ___  then __ would happen.” It is dropping all the sins on the other, with no pause for self-reflection.

Ethiopians: if a country that takes pride in a 3,000 year long civilization is now experiencing ethnic strife, people hacking each other with axes and machetes, kidnapping college girls, and lynching and burning and blocking roads, now in 2020?  Isn’t something broken? Isn’t ሟቹ ባልሽ: ገዳዩ ወንድምሽ just an ironic punchline with no application because you are so estranged to one another you don’t see each other as husbands and wives and brothers and sisters?

Eritreans: if a country that takes pride in its long armed struggle whose objective was independence and whose post-independence platform included freedom, elections, civil liberties, constitutionalism and while those who sacrificed for it are venerated those who demand it are disappeared, now, in 2020? Isn’t something broken?

So what is to be done to oppose the war? Everything else. The war camp (the supporters of Abiy Ahmed,  Isaias Afwerki) will tell you that all Ethiopians and Eritreans support Abiy Ahmed.  The supporters of Weyane will tell you all Tigrayans, all Federalist Ethiopians, and you, too, Eritreans (“Ahwat equa eena”) support them.   Victory is inevitable, claims each side, because  the people are on their side, justice is on their side, and Jesus is on their side.   Do not be the conveyer belet for any misinformation/disinformation from any of the antagonists, all of whom are compulsive liars.  There is no dissent; there is no time for dissent, there is no room for dissent. We have to create it: to express dissent is to say “not in my name!”  You create your own meddemer, synergy, of the Peace Lobby.  Organize, coordinate a trans-Horn petition, protest, work on a trans-Horn civil-society alliance; conduct civil disobedience to express your view that you did not lend your name to supporting war and the ensuing disaster.  Children of the Horn of Africa: Tell the warmongers: your enemies do not automatically become my enemies and your friends are not automatically my friends because you haven’t even bothered to pretend to ask my opinion: you are too busy lecturing me.

Fight the war. Feel more.  Say more.  Do more.  Of everything else besides violence.  Not just to prove to them that you too have the fighting spirit, not just to emphasize the point that generations of people living in wars or state of wars is NOT normal, and Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Somaliland, South Sudan, Djibouti cannot withstand this bleeding out, but also because to speak out is the right thing to do. We do not have to pass an endurance test: we fucking hold the world record for it.  We are done taking tests!    Resisting war and calling for unconditional peace when your country is locked down for COVID and visited by swarms of locusts is the right thing to do: let’s give that one a try.

“What do Eritreans think of TPLF?” Excepting for the areas of overlap, you will not get the same answer from Eritrea’s government-supporters and the opposition. The opposition will say “Whatever I think of them, can’t you, the so-called Eritrean government, see you are so much worse than them and an even more existential threat to me as an Eritrean!?” But to the supporters of the Eritrean government and other self-described nationalists,  the Tigray People’s Liberation Front is evil incarnate, whose crimes are unforgettable and unforgivable. And so those who want to move on or have more nuanced views are Weyane lackeys, Weyto and (this was totally new to me in the long list of adjectives I have gotten) “Ethiopia-haters.” Nowhere is The Unforgiven view of TPLF/Weyane (shared also by Ethiopians) made more explicit than in a powerful speech Eritrean General Sebhat Ephrem once gave, which I will reference below. I am hoping that the speech, and what I have to say about it (it is one-sided), will, maybe, sway one or two people from their absolute conviction that the war in Ethiopia and Eritrea’s support for it are necessary. They are not: it is only in Africa that civil wars are not a figure of speech but quite literal.

A little about Sebhat Ephrem, our only four-star general, and why his speeches are so powerful. (We killed the other four-star general, Ogbe Abraha.)

If Isaias Afwerki is a tortoise, Sebhat Ephrem is a gazelle: faster and more graceful. Whereas Isaias Afwerki’s speech is a concentric chain trapped in parenthesis and ellipses, that of Sebhat Ephrem is spoken word: emotive, full of imagery, geometric and rhythmic. The construction of the sentences is so captivating you may actually believe outlandish claims that float with an air of uber-confidence. If you live in this parallel universe, the speeches are intensely uplifting, if cartoonish: Eritrean good, everybody else bad. He is the only one from the PFDJ/Eritrean Government hierarchy who peppers his speeches with quotations from Jefferson, biographies of European Earls and Emperors; and he invents Tigrinya words that don’t sound like the PFDJ elite’s cringe-inducing word-for-word translation of English concepts, my favorite being his word for the element of surprise: Handebetnet. And whereas the PFDJ elite and the Diaspora Cadres actually think they are making arguments when they are mock-outraging, counter-attacking, Game Overing, cliche-reciting, name-calling and how-dare-you!ing (the Sophia Tesfamariam template), he can make beautifully-constructed arguments that give you pause. Yes, he believes the same batshit crazy conspiracies Isaias believes in (a world where G13, G15, CIA, Weyane, Sudan, Yemen were part of a giant conspiracy to subdue Eritrea.) But, he is the only one who can explain Isaiasism without sounding opportunistic or parrotic. Within the PFDJ, he is considered an Isaias-loyalist for many reasons, not the least of which being he can quote several philosophers and kings and historians who taught him coup d’etats are a bad idea. On the other hand, whenever a post-Isaias Eritrea is discussed, his name is floated as the likely chairman of the transitional government. Thus the assassination attempt on him, with two equally-motivated suspects (Cui bono.) The failed attempt, his hospitalization in UAE, his return back to Eritrea, and his total silence since his return are all taboo subjects: the official State Television, Eri-TV (slogan: Serving The Truth) did not tell its viewers of the assassination attempt, and thus neither his hospitalization, nor return thus no reason for him to be interviewed.

Back to How Much Do We Hate TPLF, a paralyzing serialized show that has been on the air since May 1998.  Here’s how General Sebhat Ephrem explains, beginning at the 4:42 mark, why the crimes of TPLF are unforgettable and unforgivable: the way Jews think of Nazis (actual quote):

Hear that? There will be payback.

Why? For its soldiers raping Eritrean women in Senafe, Barentu and Teseney. For the destruction of cultural property by damaging the Stela of Matara and Tserona Patriots Cemetery. For mistreating Eritrean prisoners of war. For forcible expulsion of population of Awgaro. For depriving Eritrean-Ethiopians of their Ethiopian identity. For wrongful expulsion of Eritrea-Ethiopians. For failure to provide humane and safe treatment of those expelled, and virtually expropriating their property. For detaining Eritrean civilians on security charges and subjecting them to harsh treatment. For violating Eritrean diplomatic premises. For residential, business property losses in Serha, Senafe, Teseney, Alighidir, Guluj, Tabaldia, Gergef, Omhajer, Barentu, Tokombia and Molki.

All true.  But only half the story.  I will come back to that because you are saying, “wait, I thought this was about the Ethiopian War!”  True, true.  Let me deal with my people and I promise I will be back.

And this takes us to Ethiopia’s “Law Enforcement Operation”, which the dictionary insists on calling “civil war.”  Unkind Webster.  And more relevant to us Eritreans (I will come back to you Ethiopians after a couple of paragraphs), when the question of whether we are involved or not is raised, there are those who called it “a claim without evidence propagated by Weyane Weytos’ (Dr. Border Commissioner Andeberhan W/Giogis);  as long as it is to restore its sovereignty and take back its lands, it is allowed by international law (Ambassador Dr. Andeberhan W/Giorgis, again); and finally, those who said–and let me refer to my notes here–yes, here it is: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!

Wasn’t there a video of President Isaias Afwerki famously declaring that we just can’t wait for every adventurer in Ethiopia to victimize us? That we won’t be watching with our hands folded: we will be actively engaged. In case people could not understand his words because they don’t speak Tigrinya, he said the words “actively engaged” in English.

The worst-kept secret: Are #Eritrea tyrant Isaias Afwerki & his cabal helping out #Ethiopia|s Pastor @AbiyAhmedAli in the war he is waging in Tigray?

Here: the mob-boss and his consigliere Yemane Gebreab confessing that they have every intention to do so. #SayNoToWarEthiopia pic.twitter.com/mA8kH4NIhr

— saay (@saayEritrea) November 9, 2020

No? How about artillery shelling coming North of the Eritrea-Ethiopia border? Just Ethiopians who re-positioned to the North to encircle the Weyane. How about Eritrean prisoners of war displayed in Weyane TV? Fake! Do you know how easy it is to give Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia military uniforms? (Andeberhan strikes again.) Ok.

More compelling than any of the above, I think, is the Sebhat Ephrem speech because it distills the Eritrean grievance which happens to be (a) true but (b) incomplete.

Why? Because our soldiers raped women in Irob, Dalul and Elidar.  Because we caused the death, physical injury, disappearance, forced labor and conscription of Ethiopian civilians. Because we looted, damaged and destroyed properties including religious institutions. Because we were responsible for wrongful detention and abusive treatment of Ethiopian civilians in Eritrean custody. Because we caused the death and injury of Ethiopian detainees at Wi’a Camp. We did not protect property of Ethiopian detainees expelled from Eritrea. We failed to ensure the sane and humane repatriation of departing Ethiopians.  Oh, it is itemized:

1.For death, physical injury, disappearance, forced labor and conscription of Ethiopian civilians: US $11,000,000for
2.For failing to prevent rape of known and unknown victims in Irob, Dalul and Elidar Weredas: US$2,000,000
3.For looting, and destruction of and damage to houses: US $ 13,900,000
4.For damage, destruction and looting in Zalambessa: US $20,195,000
5.For death, injury and property damage in Mekele: US $2,500,000
6.For looting of and damage to government buildings and infrastructure: US $315,000
7.For looting, destruction and damage to religious institutions: US $4,500,000
8.For seizure and looting of the Saba Dimensional Stones Share Company: US $3,216,000
9.For mistreatment of Ethiopian prisoners of war: US $7,5000,000
10.For failure to protect Ethiopian civilians in Eritrea from threats and violence: US $2,000,000
11.For failure to ensure Ethiopian civilians in Eritrea access to employment: US $1,500,000
12.For failure to ensure that Ethiopian civilians in Eritrea were able to receive medical care to the same extent as Eritrean nationals: US $50,000
13.For wrongful detention and abusive treatment of Ethiopian civilians in Eritrean custody: US $2,000,000

It goes on and on like that.

All the litany of horrible things we did to each other was investigated, and argued for five years by 70 (!) lawyers in front of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission (EECC) which issued its ruling on the claims filed by Eritrea and Ethiopia here, and here, which were shared via a press release on August 17,2009 Like the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) ruling, that of the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission (EECC)  is also unappealable, based on the Algiers Agreement both countries signed.  Verdict was passed, penalties assessed.

The monetary value of the damages we inflicted on each other, said EECC, was $161,455,000 (owed to Eritrea by Ethiopia) and US $174,036,520 (owed to Ethiopia by Eritrea.) And this huge amount could have been even more massive if the judges had not considered “the difficult economic conditions” in Eritrea and Ethiopia which must be “taken into account in assessing compensation here.” And this does not include the bombing of Eritrea’s Hirgigo Power Plant or Ethiopia’s Mekele Ayder School, for which the arbitrators at EECC found without adequate merit.   Even the puny compensation for the rapes that was committed is while acknowledging that the rape cases are probably more, but the “culture” prevents victims from speaking out.

Now, why would an intelligent man like Sebhat Ephrem, speaking in 2009, make it seem like the atrocities were one-sided, committed only by the Unforgotten and Unforgiven TPLF ? Why would the occasion not be a moment for self-reflection? Because PFDJ is just not wired that way: it has perfected victimology into an art form. Our war-story-telling matches all our novels: Eritreans good, everybody else bad. I think my nemesis (RIP) Paul Henze called it “groupie journalism.” It’s a cartoonish view of the world that has gotten our country stuck in quicksand for 29 years now. There are no institutions, so there is no institutional memory: by the time EECC issued its decision in 2009, we were already knee-deep in another war (Somalia’s Civil War) and months before a UN sanction that would be in effect for 9 years, until Abiy Ahmed had it lifted.

Now, Ethiopians. Meet me at Camera 2:

I was born after Ethiopia annexed Eritrea so I was born an Ethiopian and was, on paper, an Ethiopian until 1993. I know how you think. I love you but you don’t value the sanctity of life: every provocation, no matter how slight, is reason enough for you to go to war. And when your people die in wars, you don’t even do what we do: tell your people the names of those who died (say their name!) and how many of them there were. You didn’t do that in 1991. You didn’t do that in 2000. And you most certainly won’t do that after you conclude your Profoundly Wrong Civil War now. Arguably, we Eritreans are a little better than you on this: we list the names of all our martyrs. Yes, sure, we include in our martyrs list anybody who was not released from military service at time of death, regardless of how he or she died. People who die from snake bite, malaria, suicide, or from wounds inflicted at the torture cells of the PFDJ are all martyrs. I said we are arguably better, don’t argue with me.

Many of you have told me “but what then if not war? If war is not justified now, when renegade region is flouting the government’s authority, then when? What about the 27 years of tyranny the TPLF ran in Ethiopia? There has to be payback!”

Let’s begin with the last claim: it is a matter of record that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (who was a junior member of the TPLF Crime Syndicate, enforcing its Anti Terrorism Proclamation, ATP) claimed, on national television, that the EPRDF (TPLF Plus 3 Other Parties including his) apologized and the Ethiopian people have forgiven it (including him, including TPLF.) He argued that Ethiopia is tired of the cycle of revenge (Lij Iyasu, Haile Selasse, Mengistu…) where the new king punishes the overthrown king and the People have given EPRDF a second chance. I don’t know which survey he took that told him EPRDF was forgiven, but let’s say that’s the case. If so, it is illogical to say that the people have forgiven us (EPRDF), but not this subset, this driver of EPRDF called Weyane. Thats Telata Waraga 101, the Three Card Monte broadcast to the world:

What made Abiy Ahmed Ali a Prime Minister this website you are reading was fanboying all of 2018 is because he was different from all the previous Ethiopian rulers who, in search of TOTAL VICTORY, arrested, disappeared, and declared endless wars.  In the process, arresting the development of their country.

All you Pan-Africanist Ethiopians: how does it make you feel to know that any advanced country, say Denmark, faced with the same dilemma, would not declare war on a rebellious region in the 21st century? Why is resort to war considered a logical extension of politics: because military theorist/strategist Clausewitz said war is “the continuation of policy by other means”? (Yep, again, quoted by Dr. Andeberhan:)  But, fun fact, Clausewitz never said that. What he said is war is “the continuation of policy WITH other means.” Not “BY” but “WITH.” That is: there should always be negotiations. In fact, one of the few things the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission praised the two countries for was that during their two-year senseless war, they never broke diplomatic relations: they always had representation in each country. Meanwhile, Abiy and TPLF are not even talking to each other because, in Habeshese, that is a sign of weakness.

Can you pause for a second and consider that war is a very outdated mode of bringing about change, as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in the same address to the Ethiopian House of Representatives? How can it be outmoded in 2018 and in fashion in 2020? Would this war be waged if the sons and daughters of the TPLF elite, the Prosperity Party elite and the PFDJ elite were fighting it? What is the acceptable price to be paid to remove Weyane from power in Tigray? Ten thousand Ethiopians? A hundred thousand? A million, as some Dergista said on Twitter? Speaking of Derg, you are aware that in your attempt to separate the people of Tigray from TPLF, the absolute worst strategy is to employ Derg-era generals and slogans and symbols? It is not just TPLF which hates Derg; it is the people of Tigray. And, don’t let Isaias and his cult deceive you: the Derg remnants are also despised in Eritrea. The second worst strategy is to bring a Tigrayan Ahmed Chalabi and say, “Hello people of Tigray! Here’s your new Chief Executive.” This is what feeds insurgencies.

And where are the dissidents? Where are the Tigrayans who will tell the TPLF: we are tired of war: you have had your turn, now please stop this war? Where are the Ethiopian people who will tell the Prime Minister: you told us “peace comes via peace”, you forgave all the Eritrea-based armed groups and welcomed them home: you convinced me Ethiopia has turned its back on war: why are you so eager to go to war? Where are the independent Ethiopian media? Where are your religious leaders: why do they always get co-opted by whoever is in charge of the armed forces? Where is the Peace Lobby? Where is your Civil Society? How do you expect to be Africa’s “New Horizon for Hope” when you can’t go more than 5 years without war?  Do you actually think that if “Weyane is defeated” (whatever that means), you will not be in an endless cycle of violence?

From our 1998-2000 war, many of us Eritreans have learned bitter lessons, that you Ethiopians apparently have not. Please, please listen:

1. If you are expecting your government or revolutionary movement to be honest with you, it won’t.  The Ethiopian State Media and the TPLF Media are not here to serve you the people, but those who sign their paychecks.  This is why if you hear something that sounds remotely truthful, it was accidental;

2. You have no dissident voices because, in war time, using the logic of war, dissidents are traitors. You must avoid groupthink and seek out your dissidents.

3. You will do terrible things to each other, and then use these same terrible things that happened to you, to justify more terrible things.

4. You will be told that you have sustained no losses, no casualties: the battle is going amazingly well.  Your side will tell you that the only challenge your soldiers have is sheer exhaustion from pulling triggers to mow down the enemy, who is always unmotivated, and hungry, and badly armed whereas your side has superior morale, and is well armed, well trained, fighting for a just cause, led by able leaders. ስንኖር ኢትዮጵያውያን ስንሞት ኢትዮጵያ! (Unless, of course, you are wearing the wrong uniform.)

5.  You will learn new Latin phrases. “Jus Ad Bellum” describes when a war is just and righteous (yes, that’s a thing.) Observe the antagonists:  Why, what could be more just than to defend your identity and self rule (Tigray) and what could be more just than imposing rule of law (Federal Government)? In Eritrea, we were told our jus ad bellum (our justification for going to war, which was imposed on us, honest to god we didn’t start it) was Weyane killing officers and soldiers on patrol and despite the fact that 22 years later we don’t even know for sure the names of the officers and soldiers (for all we know, the pictures circulating on social media maybe of another group of “martyrs”: people the PFDJ kills in its prisons and then buries at “martyr’s cemetery” as it did with General Oqbe Abraha.) And the EECC told us, even if what you are saying is true,  that was no jus ad bellum and your act will cost you 73 million USD.  But, eleven years later,  we still persist in saying Ethiopia declared war! (EECC said no it didn’t) and waged 3 offensives (etched in our Eternal Calendar of Grudges.) You will also learn “jus in bello” (the laws of warfare, humanitarianism) and you will be told that your side is in perfect observance of jus in bello, while the the other side (savages! barbarians!) are violating it left and right. Why not: there is no independent media to witness it, just propagandists wearing a mic.

6. When all is said and done, there will be no accountability for the “winner”: you will move on to the next crisis.  New Chapter!

War is not the answer.  Start with that.  So what is? It’s like you are telling someone who is about to commit suicide and you say that’s not the answer and he asks so what is the answer? Do you have to give him the answer right then or is the only thing you know for sure is that suicide is not the answer?  Civil War, whether you call it Operation Rule Of Law or Defending Our Identity is national suicide.  What to do? The answer is: pretend you are from Denmark before you answer that. Please shut off all the highly compromised foreign “experts” and “consultants” and tyranny-groupies: they would never tell Denmark to go to war, but they expect Africans to do so! There is nothing more degrading than quoting clueless foreigners to justify killing your own people.

In passing, I would like to mention that when I say “we”, of course I as an Eritrean have to inherit everything–good or bad–that happened in my name: the Algiers Agreement is not between Isaias Afwerki and Meles Zenawi but between the States of Eritrea and Ethiopia.  I don’t forget, but I forgive.  Speaking of good things that happened under my name, I am very proud of the Eritrean Catholic Church for being the only religious institution–Christian, Muslim, Agnostic; Eritrean, Ethiopian–to issue an extraordinarily well-reasoned and morally righteous statement condemning Ethiopia’s latest episode of “King of Kings demands total obedience from a king.” I wish the other institutions would find their voices.

Say No To War. Say Yes to Negotiations.

What follows is a synapsis of what transpired in, and to, Eritrea and Eritreans in 2020. Retrospectives are selective, reflecting the author’s bias so, forewarned, it will not include lines like “The Habela-Cheatat road construction has begun. When finished, it will reduce the Asmara-Akordet distance by 20 kilometers.” There are people who do a good job with that.  I tend to focus on the abnormality of Eritrea.  For example, last year General Sebhat Ephrem returned from his assassination-attempt-recovery in Dubai, and friends can visit him and discuss anything except the assassination attempt.  This year, Eritrea’s chief of security for the Horn of Africa, the conduit for the Eritrea-based Ethiopian opposition, the Somali Shabab liaison who was on every Somalia Eritrean Monitoring Group (SEMG)  Report, Brigadier General Te’ame Goitom Kinfu (also known as Wedi Meqelle, aka Meqelle, Mekele) yeah that guy, joined the list of the Disappeared in Eritrea and he is presumed under arrest.  When we began the year, there still was no pretense of even bothering with a constitution (draft, ratified, or being drafted), nor free press, nor election calendar, and tens of thousands of Eritreans remain in prisons, jails, hold-him-for-me’s, underground and overground, in containers, in the desert in the temperate, where people need a permit to travel within their own region (never mind country), where compulsory education defines the sole place for the compulsion: military base Sawa, where education to military is a revolving door, a country without ATM, where you are restricted to USD 300 a month. Of withdrawal. Of your own damn money. A place where thousands leave a country AFTER it signed a peace agreement.  A place with 1% internet penetration….   These abnormalities are normal to Eritreans.  And the abnormality follows Eritreans outside Eritrea. 

Quarter I:

1. The Case of the Football Players

Meet Hannibal, Hermon, Simon and Mewael.

Remember the Eritrean footballers who asked for asylum? Not the year in Botswana or the year in Malawi or Kenya, where Isaias told an Aljazeera interviewer it was the first time he was hearing of it.  I am talking about the year in Uganda. While the teammates and coaches were celebrating their win, the 4 players were plotting their escape. A football team defecting normally happens during Olympics; but there is nothing normal in Eritrea where the predatory government abuses you, and you fear its tentacles will reach you in the land you seek asylum, so you reach out to UNHCR via social media, as reported by The Guardian. This was in January 2020; so was the death of two Eritrean asylum-seekers in Tripoli: two were shot dead. So was that of another, a 16-year-old, died of unknown illness. As was the acquittal in Italy of the smuggled accused of being smugglers. As was the case of Eritrean asylum seekers protesting in……Ljubljana, Slovenia! Also in January 2020, the Ethiopia government re-defined the requirement for asylum cases to exclude certain categories. Nobody asked why of the 140,000 refugees in Afar and Tigray, 70,129 had arrived in 2019: a full year and half after the Peace and Friendship Agreement.

2. African-Arab Council Formed: Or, if you are not into the whole brevity thing, its full name is “Council of Arab and African States Border the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden” and it was formed in Riyadh in January 6, 2020. The Council includes Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Jordan and Yemen. If you are saying some of these members are barely countries (Somalia, Yemen) and others barely talk to each other (Eritrea and Djibouti; Yemen and Saudi Arabia), what’s your point? Look at the spectacular failure of IGAD.  Later on,  King Salman hosted King Isaias to a buffet fit for kings.

3. Visa Ban: Eritrea was inducted into Trump’s famous ShitHole Countries which also include Krygyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania. Reuters reached out to our Foreign Minister Osman Saleh who said: “We find this move unacceptable. We will, however, not expel the U.S. ambassador.”

The US has no ambassador to Eritrea.

In Germany, the biggest problems settled Eritreans face (Eritrean immigrants are the largest from Africa) is in family reunification visas. The German embassy in Eritrea does not have consular services, which means Eritreans have to try the ones in Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan, without much success because the papers from the churches testifying to the marriage are dismissed as forgeries.  Those who somehow raised the money to flee to the West?  Here are some in Italy:

4. Center of Gravity for Eternal Peace & Bliss: In January, the heads of governments of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia met in Asmara to have discussions “on a wide range of issues”, and the discussions were “candid and extensive.” This is the second meeting the three are having to follow up on the Tripatriate Agreement of 2018 whose single focus so far is: security. The previous month, Eritrea’s president had traveled to Ethiopia for the 4th time since the peace treaty of 2018, where he performed a personnel shuffle with Abiy: Ethiopia’s Barely Accredited Ambassador to Eritrea (Redwan Hussein) would become State Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia (and the subsequent face of the Stupid War.) Abiy Ahmed, who traveled with his then Defense Minister Lemma Megersa (thoughts and prayers) announced that “our dear and welcoming city of Asmara will make our stay delightful.” Our. Because Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia are forming their own dysfunctional mini-IGAD, towards a dysfunctional confederation or federation.

5. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights: Meanwhile, speaking of “our” Asmara, Special Rapporteur Daniela Kravetz reported the Eritrean government’s “engagement” with the international community has not curtailed its appetite for arrests and disappearance which continue unabated. Included in the list of prisoners who have been made to disappear without a day in court were the cases of Paulos Eyasus, Isaac Mogos and Negede Teklemariam, in prison for 25 years. (they would make news in October.)

6. Fiery February: February is a historic month for Eritrea (Liberation of Massawa in 1990) and Tigray (formation of TPLF in 1975) and when the two are not getting along, which is most of the time they have been in existence, they exchange some very cordial words. As he has since the 2005 Ethiopian elections, Isaias lamented what TPLF had done to Ethiopia and predicted its demise. Meanwhile, marking its 45th anniversary, the TPLF fielded its heavy-hitters like Seyoum Mesfin (who asked a reasonable, but slightly hyperbolic, question: “How can Isaias Afwerki find solutions to Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa after failing in Eritrea and making half of its people refugees?”) and Tsegai Berhe (“if Eritrean government interferes in Ethiopia, we will chop off its hands!” ) made grandiose predictions from Axum, a historic place in their own Tigray, the birthplace of Ethiopia, a place they have no control over months  later.  February was the beginning of muscle-flexing season in Eritrea, Tigray, and Addis Abeba.  The world would be subjected to their marching soldiers for months.

And to paraphrase Samuel Jackson in “Death To 2020”: and this is still ________ February!

7. “Dual Track Approach”: That is what the European Union called its decision to give the Eritrean Government 22 million dollars for road construction (even if it is using modern slavery labor) because we just can’t make engagement conditional on change in Eritrea. We will just throw money at it because maybe, somehow, it will result in fewer than the 5,000 – 30,000 Eritrean asylum-seekers to Europe every year. Another Euro 95 million was pledged as Phase 2 because, why not.

8, Cardinal Who: It was still February and Ethiopian Catholic Church’s Cardinal Berhaneyesus, who happens to be head of the Church as well as Chancellor to the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, arriving in Asmara, Eritrea, was denied exit from the airport. On orders from above, explained the airport administration. The Cardinal was there on an invite from Eritrea’s Catholic Church to commemorate the 50th anniversary of construction of Kidane Mehret Cathedral. But he was stuck at Asmara Airport for hours, multiple his travel time from Addis Abeba. Eritreans shrugged because they had experienced worse. That Ethiopia shrugged it off was an indication that it had higher priorities than safeguarding the rights of minorities. Of course, such hostility is not sanctioned by the Eritrea Ethiopia Peace & Friendship Agreement. It can only be understood if you use its shorter name: Eritrea Ethiopia Mutual Defense Pact. Beqa::

9. You Down With DPW? Dubai’s DP World, fresh from being fired by Djibouti, picked up a contract to renovate the ports, at the request of Eritrean port authorities. Asked for comment, Eritrea’s Minister of Information told Bloomerg… nothing. Because it was all news to him.

10. “Game Changer” is how the Colluli Potash Project in Southeastern Eritrea was described. The company is licensed to unearth 472,000 tonnes of sulphate of potash per year for over 200 years. Sulphate of potash is a glorified name for fertilizer and pest control. Game changer because it is expected to contribute 3% to GDP, 10,000 jobs and 50% of the nation’s export by 2030. Unless Isaias Nevsunizes it, for part of the 200 years he will preside over Eritrea. (nevsunize: the act of wasting 100s of millions of cash from Nevsun sales of minerals.).

11. Corrupt and Unfair: Three Eritreans who sued Canada’s Nevsun received favorable ruling that they can bring a case against Nevsun for having controlling share of Eritrea’s Mining at Bisha and are, therefore, responsible for “conditions that were inhuman” where “work was carried out under the constant threat of physical punishment, torture and imprisonment.” Nevsun lost its case to have the case heard in Eritrea because, according to the British Columbian court, the Eritrean courts are “corrupt and unfair.”

12. Pestilence 1.0. As part of their East Africa tour, The Locusts 2.0.2.0 made grass fall in February invading 400 hectares of land in Northern Red Sea, which used to be called Semhar back when earlier versions of locusts toured. The invasion was foiled with national fervor, (no need to comment on the contribution of Italy or FAO: with our nails!) redirecting the invading horde to Southern Red Sea and Debub. As far as pestilences go, it was no easy challenge, but at least it wasn’t a pandemic or war: that would be crazy.

13. Patient 0: Eritrea’s Patient 0 for COVID19 was a 39-year old expatriate who lives in Norway and had gone home for a visit, after the total ban was imposed except for “extremely urgent and unavoidable purposes.” His case, reported in March, would re-define the job of Eritrea’s Minister of Information to being a Minister of Health, providing daily tallies of infections (all of whom are, always, people who come from outside and may or may not have been quarantined.)

14. Vestiges of the Old: On his drive from home to work, the convoy of Sudan’s Prime Minister Hamdok was met with explosions and gunfire. Nobody was seriously harmed, and the Prime Minister had his Cabinet of Ministers Meeting. Regional leaders expressed their horror at what happened and their total solidarity with the Sudanese government. Eritrea, characteristically, went overboard: “The GOE reiterates its full solidarity with the Government of sudan in its vigorous undertakings to overhaul vestiges of the old regime…..” Name me one other head of state who regularly comments on the domestic politics of a foreign country. I will wait.

QUARTER II

15. Covid All The Time: The beginning of April is when the daily reports of COVID-19 News Ticker started. Confirmed cases, recoveries, deaths (lately.) The occasion was an opportunity to do it all: raise funds AND lock down the country completely. UNICEF and WHO are never mentioned despite the funding they provide. They can’t be heard from because they keep contradicting the “With Our Nails” self-reliance mythology.

The Eritrean lockdown is one of, if not the most, restrictive.

The harshest hit society appears to be the Afar population: between the lockdown, the lack of “Bahri” rain (December to March), the flood from the regular rain (June-September), and the government’s decision to prioritize military alliance with UAE, based in Assab, has meant that the people were experiencing famine— never reported by State media

16. Tantamount To Slavery: Eritrea Focus and Amsterdam-based Human Rights for Eritrea sued the European Union for funding conscripted labor in Eritrea, while the UN (that EU is a big part of) has called the conscripted labor “tantamount to slavery.” The EU sang and danced and played its favorite sports Head-In-The-Sand.

17. Hitsats No More: Tigray Regional State hosted four UNHCR refugee camps for Eritreans: Shimelba, Hitsats, Mai Aini and Adi Harush. The Ethiopian Government announced that it was shutting down Hitsats and moving the 25,000 Eritrean refugees to one of the other three camps, which were already at capacity, per UNHCR.  Fun Fact: Hitsats was necessary because the other camps were at capacity. Well, the government didn’t announce: it just did it and UNHCR caught up with the change 3 months later.

In the first 3 months of 2020, 9,463 Eritreans sought asylum in Ethiopia. This, if you are counting, is 21 months after the signing of War Is Your Peace Dividend Agreement. COVID19 closed all borders, otherwise that is one lagging indicator that defines Eritrea: the exile rate, with nothing to excuse it anymore.

18. Alibaba’s Open Sesame Is Closed: The Eritrean Government which takes pride in its policy of self-reliance rejected the goody two shoeism PPE  donation of Ali Baba founder Jack Ma.   “Self-reliance” does not reject help from WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO, FAO, UNAIDS and UNFPA.

19. One More Wound To The Wounded: The politicos at European Union, who have yet to turn down a bad idea with sufficient funding, allocated €357 million to “voluntarily repatriate” asylum seekers. Including to a country where every returnee who had left “illegally” has to sign a Remorse Letter which reads, “I regret having committed an offence by not completing the national service and am ready to accept appropriate punishment in due course.” Since, technically, leaving while on “national service” is post-abandonment whose punishment may include death penalty, why,  anything less than that is appropriate. Violence, torture, humiliation. It’s never clear whenever EU funds such projects whether it doesn’t know the Reality in Eritrea or it just doesn’t care. Or, what they are leaving (Libya) even worse than the nightmare that awaits them at home.

20. Rape, Extrajudicial Executions, Homes Set Alight: “Ethiopian security forces committed horrendous human rights violations including burning homes to the ground, extrajudicial executions, rape, arbitrary arrests and detentions, sometimes of entire families” is the introduction to grizzly report by Amnesty International issued in May.  As happens often with wars, the antagonists say “our side is disciplined! It never does that!” But every war shows that our side, whatever your side is does do that.  If you doubt it, read the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission (EECC) decisions.

21. Bitu Bitutu Isaias Afwerki Visits Batu Dugda: It has been so last quarter since we talking about the Abiy Isaias Fireside Chats, and it was time for Isaias to fly to Ethiopia to discuss, with said Abiy “COVID19 pandemic and desert locust infestation.” And that’s all. They discussed nothing else. Then it was time for President Isaias to visit the Batu Dugda irrigation project in Oromia and do his usual ooooh aaaaah.

22. Daniela Kravetz Is Still Reporting: Daniela who? Exactly. When Sheila Keetharuth was the Special Rapporteur, the supporters had a collective mental breakdown but when Daniela Kravetz replaced her, they just decided to ignore her on the assumption that it all felt like some UN Pleonasm: traditional but unnecessary. So when she was reminding people that Isaias still has a disappeared girl (Ciham Ali) in prison and he should release her, the PFDJ only called her “the mouthpiece of Eritrea’s archenemies.” She, as well the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the UN there has been no tangible improvements in Eritrea since the Peace & Encirclement Agreement of 2018. The UN shrugged.

23. Gedim Warya: Nearly 600 Somalians, who were in military training in Eritrea for 10 months, returned back to Mogadishu, and a new batch were sent to be inspected by Somalia President Formajio. Somali Affairs speculated on whether the armed elite were going to safeguard Somalia, or the politics of incumbency (a leader using any means to stay in power) since the country is scheduled for its election in 2021.

24. Cancel Culture Eritrean Edition: A certain Indro Montanelli was a leader of an Eritrean battalion for fascist Italy and later, until his death at the age of 92, a renowned foreign war correspondent, deserving of a statue. Somewhere along the way, he disclosed he had bought(!) his Eritrean wife when she was 12. Italian progressives got all offended by this terrible thing this long-dead man had done 80 years ago and demanded the removal of his statue. There is, of course, zero information about his Eritrean wife.

25. The Fire Next Sea: If you want to understand the fire next door, now entering its sixth year of destruction, this map describes most of the depressing reality.

If you are tempted to say: “It all started with the Arab Spring and that’s why you expat Eritreans with your know-nothing ideas should just shut the hell up!” consider this great passage from one of my favorite authors:

Saleh’s regime is subsumed by tribalism. Saleh belongs to the Hashid tribe, the smaller of the two main tribal confederations in western Yemen; the other is the Bakil. Of the two, the Hashids are better organized, and have saved the President during a number of confrontations in the past, especially with Marxist South Yemen. Officially, the country holds elections and has ministries. Unofficially, local elections are often a means of institutionalizing a sheikh’s rule, so that a ministry can be partly a tribal fiefdom. Whereas rulers in the Persian Gulf states have used profits from oil to build roads and institutions in order to strengthen the grip of central government, from which modernization can ensue, this has not happened to quite the same degree in Yemen, partly because Saleh has had to use his petroleum profits—which account for two thirds of all government revenues—to bribe tribal leaders into quiescence, though these bribes will often go by the name of development assistance.

Saleh, no relation, is short for Ali Abdullah Saleh, the lieutenant colonel, the Unifier of North and South Yemen, succumbed to what is respectfully called in the West “constituency serving”, but is called “tribalism” in Africa and the Arab World. The man I called one of my favorite authors used the word “tribal” 26 times in the article. I counted. But you can see how his brand of constituency serving can be exclusionary and suffocating specially on minority rights (which is everybody else), including you.

As Stefon would put it: This .War. Has. Everything.: a separatist group, extreme social polarization, with each looking down on the other with the bottom rung occupied by the black Al Akhdam, religious sects that never learned co-existence, shifting alliances (Saleh shifted alliances with the Houthi, then a break up, and was shot), extreme poverty and illiteracy, Muslim Brotherhood, Alqaida In The Peninsula, ISIS, Iran, Saudi Arabia all sitting atop an extremely strategic land. When Saudi Arabia created the Alliance it had announced it would bomb the place to orderliness within 3 weeks, and that was in 2015, and they too were bragging about their Situation Room.

Back to the Yeoman of Yemen, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki: Independent Republic of Eritrea’s maiden voyage to Fight Every Neighbor was The Three Day Battle with Yemen over the “disputed territories”  of Hanish. back when Eritrea was a cute 4-year-old country. A quick jump to arbitration (she was cute and smart) led to a lengthy process which yielded the unappealable ruling in 1999: the islands were awarded custody, with Yemen getting the bigger one. So for years, we argued that our ready acceptance of an unfavorable ruling contrasted sharply with Ethiopia’s waffling on Badme. Then the Saudis came with their alliance in 2015, which we joined, and so we started complaining how the Hanish ruling was not just unfair, but it is a poison pill designed to perpetuate enmity.

So, we got Hanish back because, look at the map, and also the nephew of Ali Abdullah Saleh, Tareq Saleh (no relation), better known as Tareq Afash (and Awet n’Afash to you too), is fighting for the universal ideology of “I shall avenge my uncle.” So now, Isaias, an equal opportunity oppressor, is preventing Yemenis from fishing in their own waters, just as he did with the Afar, Eritrean counterparts. Fishing boats confiscated regularly. Five years later, everybody wants a way out, but nothing sustainable is on the table. Leaving war, the war of choice, is now a war of necessity. Always everywhere.

26. The Banality of The Abnormal: One of Eritrea’s passions that even PFDJ couldn’t destroy is cycling. When was the last time you heard of a cyclist defecting? In Eritrea, they do. Actually, it is not defection: it is worse. It is hopelessness. It is leaving your country at the age of 14 to be far, far away from the predatory government, separated from your family, missing the social norms of Eritreans on the side road, cheering you on and giving you water and mango as you raced. That’s the story of Haben Gebrehiwet, as profiled in Cycling Plus in June of 2020.

27. Potash Unlimited: Danakili Limited (ASX:DNK) (LSE:DNK) (OTCMKTS:SBMSF) is half of Colluli Mining Share Company (CMSC), the other half being Eritrean National Mining Corporation (ENAMCO.) Looks a lot like the NEVSUN arrangement: including the nature of the updates you will get: it will never be from ENAMCO but Danakali or their future partners Eurochem Trading GmbH. They are telling you they conducted their sustainability study and found that they are working on production of the open pit mining, open pit because the minerals happen to be in the world’s shallowest potash deposit (16 meters) and only 75 kilometers from the Red Sea. This potash is potassium sulphate, not the lame potassium sulphate, said the Press Release. Ordinarily, this is fantastic news that has the means to transform our people’s quality of life. But Isaias Afwerki is in charge and you know he is incapable of resisting the pull into darkness, whatever shape the silhouette

28. Three Turkish Adventurers Enter Eritrea: Touring the world, in the Red Sea, after a stop in Djibouti, the weather changed, COVID19 lockdown in full effect, three self-described adventurers were intercepted by the Eritrean Navy in Massawa, who then directed them to a more hospitable location, Buri (aka the Penisola di Buri) , 29 nautical miles away. There are many reasons for a country to be suspicious of self-described adventurers, but the Eritrean regime completely loses its ability to communicate during crisis, even as it knows it has, to be normal, communicate during crisis. This is to say, the regime occasionally gives the world a glimpse at how sadistic it is. Let’s just not over expect what the world does with the profile.

They were released 56 days later.

29. Isaias Afwerki In Sudan: President Isaias Afwerki visited Sudan to consult with Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, as to which candidates are acceptable to both leaders when it comes to Governor of border state of Kassala. In the BenAmer, Hadendawa, Beja, Rashaida push-and-pull and ethnic conflict, President Isaias Afwerki has a list that are fit and unfit to govern the region. All this was called “bilateral affairs” and glossed over and the bleeding in East Sudan continued.

30. 24, 10, 13: Those were the yay, no and abstain votes on the Human Right Councils decision to extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea for another year.

As usual, the abstentions are more interesting than the yes and no, particularly when looking at the Africa bloc.

31. AfCTFA Afoot Except In Eritrea: 54 out of 55 African nations signed to join the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and 31 of them submitted instruments for its ratification. Eritrea explained that, on principle, it doesn’t like “Abstract Platitudes” like AfCFTA and prefers strengthening local regional organizations. Like IGAD. Which it has boycotted for years. Or the Eritrea-Ethiopia Peace & Friendship (which has yielded nothing) and the Eritrea Ethiopia Somalia Tripartite Agreement which will yield even less. And the African Arab Council which exists on paper. “Let’s clean our house and neighborhood is in order”  is rich coming from these guys, But at least they responded: usually they prefer the mute communication strategy.

32. Our Jealous and Possessive Eritrea: The New York Times featured Eritrean artist Ficre Ghebreyesus. The world was posthumously introduced to his art by his wife and what a piece of art! Ficre was not just a painter but he also practiced culinary art, as a cook at Caffe Adulis. The works of art, 700 paintings, were all inspired by a search for space, one that accommodates half Eritreans half Americans. And his cooking was hybrid, Eritrea, Ethiopian and Imaginary Places that serves Shrimp Barka. Well worth your reading, especially if you suffer from separation and heightened awareness of our people’s suffering.  Here’s one of my favorite: The Sardine Fisherman’s Funeral.

Quarter III

33. Selsoye Selso: Ethiopian Prime Minister woke up one mid-July and said, “you know what I haven’t done in a while? Visit Wedi Afey!” And off he went where he had, um, discussions on bilateral issues followed by “they were once at war now they are the best of friends” reporting. At this point, the visits had achieved the “I wonder what he is wearing?” stage of familiarity breeding contempt. Misdirected, to be sure, but: you have visited us half a dozen times and nothing changes for us I will give you something to talk about besides what I am wearing, vowed Abiy, and (with his wifey) inspected the graduating Sawa soldiers. The only person less qualified than Ambassador Sofia Tesfamariam, Abraham Isaias Afwerki, was also there. Isaias briefed his Ethiopian counterpart on his visit to Egypt a couple of days earlier War does not make itself happen.

34. Too Abnormal Even For Abnormal Eritrea:   Eritrea Takes COVID19 Seriously! Stay home, don’t move for any reason, and if you have to convert the whole country into a Segreto, the masculine for Secret in Italian, an unlicensed restaurant or bar. That means no taxis, no buses: it is horse-carriage if you are lucky. But there are exceptions. National salvation and national development. So, COVID or KEBID, Sawa—a COVID19 Super Spreader camp is right on schedule: both Warsay-Yikealo Secondary School (the last year of high school) boarding the and the military service. Yes, yes, Sawa has its own burial place, with unmarked graves, and no, we are not going to call a martyr a victim of COVID19! Our youth die mysteriously in public, and our elders die of heart attacks in private. We didn’t earn our African Sparta title in jest.This begs the question, who will they take this year to 12th grade in Sawa, since there was no 11th grade in 2020?

35. The Limping Miner: Danakali staggered to the third quarter, more loss-laden than ever, more desperate to raise cash, with its penny stocks flatlining. Obviously, this required a swashbuckling Aussie to will his way through with pure concentrated swagger. This Coluli is a “game changer”, get in now while you can; we will figure out the pesky enforced labor issue later, much later, after we mine ourselves some sulphate! The miner also contracted with RA International , a remote site service provider to construct the camp, manage the facilities and come up with very creative ways to pretend that the preferred local vendor, the State owned Red Sea Trading Corporation won’t actually be using modern slave labor.

36. More Hot Air: Well, this is a form of “zura n hagerka” (tour your country): where do you think is the highest potential in Eritrea for wind energy? That would be the coastal area, specifically the southern Red Sea. And some parts of the Eritrean highlands. If and when Eritrea rids itself of Isaias Afwerki (with a little help from God), the next government will have to exploit that to rid Eritrea from over-reliance on diesel fuel turbines.

37. Now You Do What They Told You: The Eritrean Ministry of Information is pissed! “Two years after the signing of the Peace Agreement, Ethiopian troops continue to be present in our sovereign territories. Trade and economic ties of both countries have not resume to the desired extent or scale.” Speed it up, bruh, speed it up. The news (from Bloomberg) ends the story with “A spokeswoman for Abiy didn’t immediately respond to text message seeking comment.” The choreographers were practicing.

38. Diversity Israeli Style: The Israeli Government named Ishmael Khaldi, a Bedouin, as its ambassador to Eritrea. This is still quarter 3 and Isaias meets ambassadors “bjimla” so, technically, he is not fully accredited. The ambassador had a George Floyd moment (before George Floyd) when Israeli security forces placed a knee on his neck to subdue him. Good times.

39. The Hit on Hitsats: The Catholic News is not generally noted for its hyperbole so it was slightly jarring when it showed a picture of Eritreans apparently moving, with the caption “Eritrean refugees abandoned by Ethiopia.” Ouch. When the Ethiopian Government had no Plan A never mind Plan B when it shut down the UNHCR camp for Eritrean refugees at Hitsats. And in the vacuum, the predators targeted the vulnerable: women and unaccompanied minors.

40. In Secretly, Out Secretly: 31 Evangelical Christians Released Prison: There was no public court, adjudication, sentencing, verdict, so nobody, including most government officials, knew why they were arrested and what their sentencing was. And so, when they were released, some a decade later, nobody except Europeans and Americans celebrated. There are an estimated 300 Christians from the non-approved denominations, INCLUDING CHILDREN, at Mai Serwa prison. In secretly, out secretly.

41. Out Secretly, In Secretly: 30 Eritreans attending a wedding of a Christian denomination which is illegal in Eritrea (that would be Abiy Ahmed Ali’s denomination, if you are taking notes) were arrested. At the wedding. They are spending the wedding day, the honey moon period, and the social visits that follow at Mai Serwa Prison. In Eritrea, three denominations of Christianity (Orthodox, Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran) and one Muslim (Sunni) are the only legal, government-recognized religions. Everybody else is an outlaw subject to immediate arrest.

42. Abdela Fattah al Burhan in Asmara: Sudan’s President of Transitional Foreign Council pays Eritrea a visit and, unlike with Abiy Ahmed, there is no hand-holding, or strolling or giggling. Al Burhan brought his security team and Aawsat reported the purpose of the visit was to discuss border security. Al Burhan supposedly told Isaias that he was shuffling people to the Kassala Region, and Isaias will just have to learn to love the new officials, none of whom are Isaias favorites. Security. Or, as Borkena.com reported, “the two leaders have reportedly reached an agreement to reach an agreement.”

43. The Russians Are Coming To Africa including Eritrea. So reports German newspaper “Bild” relying on a secret document prepared by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The other African countries are all Democratic Shrines including Central African Republic, Egypt, Madgascar, Mozambique and Sudan. The military bases it plans to build in these countries are going to be manned by a contractors (mercenary military) such as the Wagner Group.

44.  Days Has September And Every Month But The 13th, which has 5 or 6 days depending on whether or not it is a leap year. This makes September 11 (12th in leap year), Ethiopia’s New Years Day according to the Justinian(ish) Ethiopian calendar. It is the year 2013 in Ethiopia. This is interesting not just in a touristy way but because Eritrea uses the same calendar in the Eritrean Orthodox Church rituals. This year, the Acting Patriarch (because the real patriarch is in jail, put there by the man kissing the cross), actually referred to it as Kudus Yohannes (St John Memorial)

Over at Ethiopia, where the government had been re-populating the prisons it had emptied with journalists and political activists, and had shut down the Internet on four different occasions, and extra-judicial killing and ethnic tensions were on the rise, the war drum beats were getting louder as Tigray defied the Federal Government and held regional elections. Prime Minister Abiy took the occasion to pen a few words that would appear surreal in December: “In 2013, I call on all Ethiopians to care for the most vulnerable sections of our societies.”

45. Alpha Exploration: While Nevsun mines for gold and bronze and copper in Bisha (western Eritrea), and Dankali is in first stages for potash in southeastern Eritrea, here comes British Columbia’s Alpha Exploration in the early stages of unearthing gold & copper from the entire Arbian-Nubian shield, and they have to start somewhere in Eritrea. Where? Anywhere because the entire of Eritrea (except for Southern Red Sea and Gash area in the west) sitting atop the Nubian shield! So they chose… Kerkasha, near Barentu.

Quarter IV

46. The Prime Minister Is Still The Prime Minister: The quarter started out badly enough with the TPLF constantly asking, “It is October 10: do you know who your Prime Minister is?” A very bored Ethiopia said, “Same one we have had since 2018!” and then the TPLF went deep into the weeds of how there is a constitutional crisis because there was no Federal Election, etc. If you are making a list of TPLF’s miscalculations, add this to the list: they actually thought Ethiopians would fight for an Ethnic Federalism constitution they despise.

47. Eritrea’s New MP: For Eritreans, for the last 20 years, the message has been: if you want to pursue some dreams, pursue them elsewhere.” And in exile, our story is so tragic (organ harvesting, enslavement, hunger, lack of shelter, and a never ending trauma), that when we find that rare news, of dreams successfully pursued, we pause. One such story was that of Ibrahim Omer, not just the first Eritrean, but the first African MP in New Zealand.

While we are on the subject, God bless all those who chose to remain in Eritrea and are helping build the nation, despite, not because of, PFDJ. Healthcare workers, teachers, bureaucrats that have adopted the religious edit that work is a form of worship and are working quietly. 

48. RSF Sues President Isaias In Swedish Court: Long after Google was invented, President Isaias Afwerki had once said, on videotape, in an interview with Swedish journalist (and “Eritrea friend”) Donald Bolstrom, that Eritrea-Swedish journalist Dawit Isaac would never be brought before a court of law because ‘we know what to do with people like him. Dawit Isaac has been in prison since September 2001, and a signatory to the complaint was Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi who said, “Justice in Eritrea will not progress as long as these persons [Isaias and 7 others] are able to act with complete impunity and no attempt is made to convict them by the countries that can.” One of the countries that can’t is the one ranked 178/180 in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

49. Modern Slaves vs Nevsun: The three Eritrean refugees who had sued Nevsun for overseeing modern slavery in Bisha, Eritrea, settled out of court. This was considered “precedent setting” in the mining industry and keep that in mind Alpha and Danakali.  I know it is a fun for Eritreans to beat up on the opposition, but this did not happen by accident and many thanks to the Eritrean Opposition (awate.com, Elsa Chyrum, others) who helped to make this happen:

50. New Quarter New Visit: Somalia president Mohammed Abullahi Formajo arrived in Asmara, Eritrea for a 2-day visit to discuss “bilateral issues”, less commonly known as “how is the training of my soldiers coming along?”visit.

A week later, President Isaias Afwerki visited Ethiopia, in “Operation ሕርር ደኣ በላ ወያኔ!” (“In Your Face, TPLF!”), whose entire purpose was to taunt and troll Weyane, the former rulers of Ethiopia, for three days. Stops were made to The Greatest Hits Of Weyane including GERD & GIBE2 dams and METEC construction company. The visit was also “Yeah, It’s Like That Now”, to Egypt, his former allies in thinking GERD was dangerous and wasteful white elephant. For good measure, the spy chiefs of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia also met in Addis Abeba.

51. New Quarter New Counter-Taunt: Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister during the Meles administration, Seyoum Mesfin, called PM Abiy Ahmed “the former Ethiopian Minister” who is allowing Isaias Afwerki to rape Ethiopia, is guilty of “treason” on scale much larger than the alleged embezzlement of billions by General Kinfe Dagnew. Since the term of the Prime Minister and both Houses (Peoples and Federation) has expired, it is time to prepare for a transitional government, he offered.

52. Before and After: Before. PM Abiy Ahmed appears to be in charge of a country coming at the seams: Non-stop harassing TPLF is running Tigray, feeling legitimized by an election. Strife everywhere in Ethiopia, with Oromo Protests, and kidnapped university students, assassinations, internet cuts, and an ethnic blow up here, an ethnic blow up there. After: PM Abiy Ahmed forces in Mekele Tigray; TPLF largely silenced, election day announced in Ethiopia, with most of the opposition arrested, disbanded, caved. In between and after: massive displacement (Ethiopia already has more Internally Displaced Persons than Syria!), looting, shelling towns, hospitals, mosque, (Asmara!) and massive human rights violations against civilians. And Eritrea was all over it.

If you can only find glory in war, you won’t recognize it in peace. If you are having war, you failed.  The end. 

53. After The After: Sudan jumped in and it turns out pride is unilingual: you don’t have to understand the language to hear the Nationalism that wraps a country. So we reappointed this Sudanese general that Isaias hates, and that is who is returning every sacred Sudanese land (every meriet is Halal, it turns out.) And to direct the war, this much-higher-ranking-than-necessary general will set up base in Gedaref. To its credit, Ethiopia gave dignified silence to the harsh language from Sudan and also, to its merit, it has not once pretended there is disputed land between Ethiopia and Sudan, but then, to its demerit, pivoted to Egypt to say, “we know what you did.” Then Egypt called the Ethiopian ambassador to explain himself, but the press release was all about Egypt detailing its complaint. Sovereignty, internal intervention, and other weaponized words may have been used.

54. The peace dividend was war. We started the year with 0 countries fighting in the neighborhood and we have jumped to 3. With another, Egypt, oh so begging to join the party. Somalia and Kenya were heading there but then, at the IGAD meeting, it suddenly dawned them: that there is an alternative. Specially in an election year.

55. Video of the Year: A video of a crocodiles being moved from land to lake, Lake Adi Halo Dam aka Diga Logo. Crocodile in a sack is moved to the shores, and then the sack is removed. Now, which one is more wondrous to you:

A. That there are Eritrean crocodile tamers/handlers who can move one in a sack?
B. That the job of a crocodile is to balance a lake by killing sick fish and dominant fish?

Our tortoise is a crocodile. And he will balance you to extinction.

56. Abnormalism On Steroids: Life under totalitarianism still allowed two socialization rituals: people could throw as big a party as they wanted at weddings; and they could mount the biggest tent for commemorating death of a loved one. But now, “due to COVID19”: No travel except for groceries, no use of private cards, no use of bus, mini bus or taxis, no public gathering of more than 10 people (and that’s only for funerals, weddings), no bars, no restaurants, no cafes, no nightclubs, 8:00 pm lockdown of grocery stores and pharmacies, and all court sessions are indefinitely postponed.  And, most of the time, no electricity.  A subpar medical care awaits the sick. The Eritrean people are under house arrest.

The question is no longer “what will Isaias do?” but “what will the Eritrean people do?”  Eritreans are definitely fighting in the war in Ethiopia; they can’t even grieve the death of their lost loved ones, and are now in a situation where the media is insulting them by lying to them and filling the air space with news about vaccination of goats and chicken.

እንዳ Eረ-ቲቪ እተን ኣባጊዕ #ኽልዩና_ስከ!! ክንደይ ግዜ ኢና ክንክተብ ? ኢለን ግዲ ኣጭበርቢረን ኮኦይነን ናብ "ጨቓዊት ተሰጋጊሮም ኣለዉ። #PFDJ #Eri_Tv#Eritrea pic.twitter.com/aeHscVZFGE

— BIL@L|ቢላል (@Wedi_Ferej) November 26, 2020

So the question is “what will the Eritrean people do?”

Nineteen years ago today, on February 2nd 2002, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki corrupted the Eritrean Parliament into taking measures that were effectively institutional suicide.  How and why it took this shameful and fatal step is chronicled here.  Unquestionably, the removal of an institution that was the last check on the executive accelerated Eritrea’s slide into a One Man Manocracy, which has led Eritrea from one self-inflected wound to another to arrive where it is now: a country without a constitution, without any liberties, where its citizens live in fear of their government and, unlike some people who live in totalitarian states but have something to show for it by way of a higher living standard, our people are poorer for it: materially, spiritually, and any other “ly” that measures human development.

This author had argued before that the solution is a “democratic coup”: meaning, for the ruling party to reset itself and set the country on a path to democracy. (article published at awate can be found here. ) This, obviously, would mean that those who are in a position to do so–the leaders of the Eritrean government’s civilian and military institutions–remove Isaias Afwerki from power and resume the path that was started in 1997 when the country’s constitution was ratified.  This idea was further fleshed out in more detail by former Minister of Finance Berhane Abrehe in his book: Hagherey Ertra, whose English summary and critique is available here.  This author and Berhane Abrehe made the assumption that it was still possible for Eritreans inside Eritrea to be the engineers of this change, a prospect that seems distant now in a land ravaged by Isaias Afwerki’s sadism and a pandemic.

It is time that the Eritrean Diaspora assumed more of the responsibility and in this article, I will try to flesh out an idea that I consider viable and, more importantly, grants our future leaders instant legitimacy.

Before I propose my idea, let’s agree on the facts, first:

I.  Eritrea has only one legal party (it calls itself a Front) and this party has not had an organizational congress since 1994.  February 1994 (27 years ago.)

II. Of the 75 members of the Party’s Central Committee, the individuals whose names appear in bold are either dead, in detention, in exile or “frozen” (quietly demoted):

III. There are thousands of EPLF supporters who do not support PFDJ and do not have a political home. These are the “Shaebia Now, Shaebia Forever, But Death To PFDJ” people.

IV. Over the last 20 years, the Eritrean opposition has failed in organizing itself into a potent political force with vibrant institutions of law, media, and communication. During the same period, the Eritrean Diaspora has also failed to create a self-sustaining civil society despite the fact that it has been quite successful at creating ad-hoc groups focused on a single issue (Isaias To ICC, HRC, OneDaySeyoum, and 101 YouTube Channels and Facebook groups and satellite stations.)  All the splinters have been caused, in my opinion, due to lack of legitimacy: nobody accepts the authority of a leader.

Now then, my proposal.

1. The exiled Central Committee members of “PFDJ”, and those who were Central Committee members in the last (1987) EPLF congress should convene an Organizational Congress: the 4th EPLF Congress, as soon as feasible. Its purpose is to address the hijacking (and renaming) of their organization at the 3rd congress.
2. The mixed blessing (gulbub mrqa iye zblo ane) of COVID19 is that congresses do not need to be a logistical nightmare of booking airline tickets, hotels and visas anymore. The Organizational Congress can be a series of Zoom Meetings.
3. This being an organizational congress, the Central Committee members need not worry about the primary obstacle of deciding whom to invite and not invite: those inviting and those being invited should be proud EPLF leaders and members.  Again, this is an Organizational Congress.
4. Unaffiliated Eritreans, friends of Eritrea and other opposition organizations should be invited as observers, as is always the case with organizational congresses.
5. The Organizational Congress should focus on re-drafting the Organizational Charter (including renaming itself back to EPLF although EPLF need not stand for People’s Liberation Front–it can be Eritrean People’s Liberty Forum–but the idea is to rid the country of the toxicity associated with PFDJ.)
6. The Organizational Congress should stay true to the calls made by the now-arrested members of the Central Committee (the G-15, the Forto Mutiny engineers.) That is, the beginning documents should be the EPLF’s 1987 resolution coupled with the Open Letters of the G-15.
7. If the Central Committee members are saying, “But I can’t stand so-and-so”, you are still being victims of Isaias Afwerki whose ascendancy to, and monopoly of, power was facilitated by having his colleagues in constant suspicion of each other.  If the Central Committee members are saying “we are old, etc, etc”, remember your cohorts at Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)  did not say that when they felt the fate of their country and all they paid to make it happen was at risk: they went to the mountains to fight. Ambassador Seyoum Mesfin chose to go to the mountains, to side with his people, and got shot in the head for it (with gun powder still visible on his forehead, for the cold assassination. If you don’t admire that, check your Hamot.)   You are only being asked to organize an organizational congress and your role will be transitional.
8. The Organizational Congress should have a democratic election where it elects its leadership, who then elect the executive team. This ensures continuity and grants the new leadership something sorely lacking in the Eritrean Opposition: legitimacy.
9. It is important that the EPLF Central Committee know that it cannot do anything on its own.  Therefore, its resolutions must be opposition-friendly.  What that means is part of the agenda of the Organizational Congress must be to study and evaluate the blueprints that have been issued by various political organizations over the last 20 years (leave the arrogance to the PFDJ at home) and arrive at decisions with the assumption that it will be forming a United Front with the other groups.
10. All of this must be pursued with a sense of urgency: it must be started and finished before May 24, 2021: Eritrea’s 30 anniversary of Independence which, sadly, has been transformed to total subservience to Isaias Afwerki.

What Then?

Shortly following the convening of the EPLF Organizational Congress, Eritrea’s other half must hold its own Organizational Congress.   By “other half” I refer to Eritreans who do not think the EPLF represents their values.   The two organizations (not ten, but two) then create a Unity Government In Exile, representing themselves as an alternative to the Band of Misfits and Enslavers in Eritrea.  This will not enable them to do all the things a government does, but it will empower and legitimize them to do some of the things governments do including meeting with foreign dignitaries and fashioning alternative policies to the suicidal ones pursued by the PFDJ.

If you are thinking it is too bold to announce oneself a government in exile: you shouldn’t even try. The only reason the one in Eritrea calls itself a government is not because it is governing by the consent of the people (whereas you will) but because it has guns.  If that is your argument,  that only people with guns should hold power, then you should forget about the Organizational Congress and organize an army.  Geisha Alla ember eta ghedli, as wedi tkabo sang. But doing nothing is not an option. 

Besides, what is the alternative?  For people like General Filipos to organize a coup?  For a people who are under house arrest and banned from organizing in groups of 10 to organize a popular uprising? For Isaias Afwerki to die? News alert: his mama is still alive.

Let’s get to it.

ደራሲ: ሳልሕ ዩኑስ
ተርጓሚ ሳሙኤል ኣማሃ

ቅድሚ 19 ዓመታት፡ ልክዕ ንምዃን ኣብ 2 ለካቲት 2002፡ ኢሳይያስ ኣፈወርቂ ንሃገራዊ ባይቶ ብምርካስ ብገዛእ ኢዱ ነብሱ ከሕቅቕ ገይሩዎ እዩ። እቲ ሃገራዊ ባይቶ ብኸመይን ስለምንታይን ነቲ ዘሕፍር ነብሰ-ቕትለታዊ ዝጕምቲ እቲ ወሲዱ ኣብዚ መላግቦ ተገሊጹ ኣሎ (ኣብዚ)። ንፈጻሚ ኣካል መንግስቲ ልጓም ኰይኑ ክቕይድ ዝኽእል ዝነበረ ኣውራ ትካል ምፍራሱ፡ ኤርትራ ናብ ህጉም ድስቡጣነት ብፍጥነት ክትምርሽ ከም ዘቀላጠፈ ዘሻሙ ኣይኰነን። ካብኡ ንደሓር፡ ኤርትራ ኣብ ገዛእ ዝባና ብዘይዕረፍቲ ጽሖትን ቍስልን እና’ውርደት፡ ካብ ቅልውላው ናብ ቅልውላው እና’ንደልሃጸት፡ ቅዋምን ስርዓትን መሰረታውያን ሓርነታትን ዘይብላ፡ ንመንግስቶም ዝፈርሑ ዜጋታት ዝሰፍሩላ ሃገር ክትከውን ተገዲዳ። ዘይከም’ቶም ኣብ ትሕቲ ምልካውያን ስርዓታት እናነበሩ ክንሶም ዝሓሸ ንብረት ዘለዎም ህዝቢታት፡ ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ብንዋት ይኹን ብመንፈስ ወይ’ውን ብኻልእ መስፈሪታት ሰብኣዊ ምዕባለ ፍጹም በቲኹ እዩ።

ቅድሚ ገለ እዋን፡ ‘ሽግር ኤርትራ ብደሞክራስያዊ ዕልዋ እዩ ክፍታሕ ዝኽእል’ ኢለ መጒተ ነበርኩ። እቲ ናይ ደሞክራስያዊ ዕልዋ እማመይ፡ ህግደፍ ነብሱ ኣስተኻኺሉ፡ ንኤርትራ ናብ መንገዲ ደሞክራስያ ክመልሳ ዝብል እዩ ዝነበረ። (ነዚ ሓሳብ ዘርዚረ ዝገለጽክሉ ዓንቀጽ ኣብ መርበብ ሓበሬታ ዓዋተ በዚ መላግቦ ክርከብ ይከኣል – ኣብዚ) ደሞክራስያ ዕልዋ ክሳኻዕ፡ እቶም ነዚ ንምግባር ኣኻእሎ ዘሎዎም ሰባት፡ ማለት ሓለፍቲ በርጌሳውያንን ወተሃደራውያንን ትካላት መንግስቲ ኤርትራ፡ ንኢሳይያስ ኣፈወርቂ ካብ ስልጣን ኣልዮም፡ ነቲ ኣብ 1997 ሃገራዊ ቅዋም ብምጽዳቕ ዝተኾትመ ቅዋማዊ መንገዲ ዳግም ከበራብሩዎ ነቢርዎም። እዚ ሓሳብ’ዚ፡ ምኒስተር ብርሃነ ኣብርሀ ኣብ ዝጸሓፎ፡ “ኤርትራ ሃገረይ” ዝብል መጽሓፍ ብዝርዝር ተቐሚጢ ኣሎ። (ጽማቝን ገምጋማዊ ትንተናን ናይታ መጽሓፍ ኣብዚ ብምእታው ክንበብ ይክኣል)። ኣነን ምኒስተር ብርሃነን በብወገንና ነዚ ደሞክራስያዊ ዕልዋ ዝብል ሓሳብ ክንእምም እንከለና፡ ኣብ ውሽጢ ኤርትራ ዝነበሩ ኤርትራውያን መሃንድሳት ለውጢ ኰይኖም ክበቕዑ እዮም ዝብል ሓሳብ ነበረና። እንተዀነ፡ ብውድዓዊ ገምጋም፡ ብሰሪ ኢሳይያስ ኣፈወርቂን ለበዳ ቫይረስ ኮሮናን ኣብ ዝተዳኸመት ኤርትራ፡ እዚ ተኽእሎ’ዚ ኣዝዩ ዝረሓቐ መሲሉ ኣሎ።

ስለዚ እምበኣር እዩ፡ ኣብ ስደት ዘለና ኤርትራውያን ዝያዳ ሓላፍነት ክንሰክም የግዲ ዝዀነና። ኣብዚ ዓንቀጽ’ዚ፡ ክውንነታዊ፡ ኣድማዒ፡ ልዕሊ ኵሉ ድማ ኣብ መጻኢ ንዝመርሑና ሰባት ቅጽበታዊ ፖለቲካዊ መባሕት ወይ መዝነትን ዘልብስ ዝመስለኒ ሓሳብ ክእምም ክፍትን እየ። ቀንዲ ሓሳበይ ቅድሚ ምግላጸይ፡ በዞም ዝስዕቡ ሓቅታት ከም ንእመንን ንሰማማዕን ከነረጋግጽ ይግባእ፥

1. ኣብ ኤርትራ ሓንቲ ሕጋዊት ፖለቲካዊት ውድብ (እታ ንነብሳ ግንባር ኢላ እትረቍሕ) ጥራሕ እያ ዘላ። እዛ ውድብ ካብ 1994 ንደሓር ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ኣይገበረትን።
2. ካብ’ዞም ኣብዚ ኣስማቶም ተዘርዚሩ ዘሎ 75 ኣባላት ማእከላይ ሽማግለ ናይታ ውድብ፡ እቶም ኣስማቶም ብደሚቕ ፊደል ተጻሒፉ ዘሎ፡ ዓሪፎም፡ ተሓይሮም፡ ተሰዲዶም ወይ’ውን ደስኪሎም ይርከቡ።

 ኣብ ሳልሳይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ዝተመርጹ ኣባላት ማእከላይ ሽማግለ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ንዲሞክራስን ፍትሕን

3. ኣሽሓት ደገፍቲ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ዝዀኑ’ሞ፡ ነቲ ስምን ዝናን ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ዝሰረቐን ዘባዕለገን ህዝባዊ ግንባር ንደሞክራስን ፍትሒን (ህግደፍ) ዘይድግፉ፡ ፖለቲካዊ ቤት ዘይብሎም ኣለዉ። እዚኦም “ሻዕብያ ቀደም! ሻዕብያ ሎሚ! ሻዕብያ ንዘልኣለም፡ ሞት ንህግደፍ!” ዝብል መቆምያ ዘሎዎም ፖለቲካዊ ጅር እዮም።

4. ኣብዚ ዝሓለፈ ዕስራ ዓመታት፡ ኤርትራዊ ሓይሊ ተቓውሞ ንነብሱ ናብ ሓደ ሓያል ትካላት ሕጊ፡ ዜናን መራኸቢታትን ዝውንን ፖለቲካዊ ሓይሊ ኣብቂዑ ንምውዳብ ኣይከኣለን። ኣብ ተመሳሳሊ እዋን፡ ኣብ ስደት ዝርከቡ ኤርትራውያን ሓይሊታት ተቓውሞ፡ ዋላ’ኳ ኣብ ፍሉያት ጉዳያት ኣተኵረን ዝነጥፋ፡ ከም ኢሳይያስ ናብ ኣህጉራዊ ገበናዊ ቤት ፍርዲ፡ ዋንደይ ስዩም፡ ማሕበር ሓልዮት ሰብኣዊ መሰላት ኤርትራ፡ ናይ ዩትዩብን ፈይስቡክን ቻነላት፡ ማዕከናት ተለቪዝዮናት፡ ዝኣመሰላ ጉጅለታት ኣብ ምምስራት እኳ እንተ ተዓወተ፡ ትካላዊ ብቕዓት ዘለወን፡ ካብተን ዝመስረትወንን ዝመስረትአንን ውልቀ-ሰባት ዝዓብያ፡ ቀጻልነት ዘረጋገጻ በርጌሳውያን ማሕበራት ኣብ ምፍጣር ግን ኣይተዓወተን። ብገምጋመይ፡ ኣብ መንጎ ተቓለስቲ ፍትሒ ክርኣይ ዝጸንሐ ምፍንጫላት ኣውራ ጠንቁ ስእነት ፖለቲካዊ መባሕት ወይ ስእነት ህዝባዊ ፖለቲካዊ መዚ እዩ። መሪሒነታት ተቓለስቲ ውድባት ኤርትራ ዘየወላውል ንጹር መዝነትን ተቐባልነትን ኣይጸንሖምን።

እማመይ

1. ኣብ ስደት ዝነብሩ ኣባላት ማእከላይ ሽማግለ ህግደፍን ኣብ ካልኣይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ (1987) ኣባላት ማእከላይ ሽማግለ ኰይኖም ዝተመርጹ ኤርትራውያን፡ ኣብ ዝቐልጠፈ ግዜ ራብዓይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ክጽውዑ ኣለዎም። ኣውራ ዕላማ ናይዚ ጉባኤ’ዚ፡ ነቲ ኣብ ሳልሳይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ (1994) ዝተፈጸመ ጭውያ፣ ምኽላስ ስምን ምርኻስን ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ንምዕራይ ይኸውን።

2. ሳላ ለበዳ ቫይረስ ኮሮና ጉባኤ ውድብ ንምስንዳው ዘድሊ ዝነበረ ናይ ነፋሪት ትኬታት፡ መዕረፊ ኣጋይሻት፡ ቪዛታትን ዝኣመሰለ ሎጂስቲካዊ ሃልኪ ኣይክህሉን እዩ። እቲ ዝጽዋዕ ራብዓይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ብመንገዲ ዙም ክሳኻዕ ይኽእል እዩ።

3. ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ብምዃኑ፡ ኣባላት ማእከላይ ሽማግለ ንመን ዓዲምካ ንመን ትገድፍ፧ ዝብል ሕቶ ኣይክህልዎምን እዩ። እቶም ዝዕድሙን ዝዕደሙን፡ ሕቡናት መራሕቲን ተራ ኣባላትን ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ክዀኑ’ዩ ዘለዎም። ዘክሩ! እዚ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ እዩ።

4. ከም ወዮ ወትሩ ዝግበር፡ ውድባዊ ቤት ዘይብሎም ኤርትራውያን፡ መሓዙት ኤርትራን ካልኦት መዛኑ ኤርትራውያ ውድባትን ከም ተዓዘብቲ ኣብቲ ራብዓይ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ይዕደሙ።

5. ኣውራ ኣተኵሮ ራብዓይ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ፡ ውድባዊ ቻርተር ናይ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ዳግም ምኽላስ ይኸውን። እዚ ነቲ ኣብ መዋእለ-ሰውራ ዝነበሮ ስም ንምምላስ’ውን የጠቓልል። እቲ ዕላማ፡ ንኤርትራ ካብቲ ምስ ህግደፍ ዝተኣሳሰር መርዝን ርስሓትን ምንጽሃ እዩ።

6. ራብዓይ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ፡ ንጻውዒታት ኣብ ቤት-ማእሰርትታት ስርዓት ህግደፍ ዝበልዩ ዘለዉ ኣባላት ጉጅለ 15ን መራሕቲ ስርሒት ፎርቶን እሙን ኰይኑ ክርከብ ይግባእ። እዚ ማለት፡ እቲ ኣባላት ጉጅለ-15 ዝጸሓፉዎ ቅሉዕ ደብዳቤን ገስጋሳዊን ሊበራላዊን ውሳኔታት ካልኣይ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር (1987)፡ መሰረታዊያን ሰነዳት ናይ ራብዓይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ክዀኑ ይግባእ።

7. ኣባላት ማእከላይ ሽማግለ ህዝባዊ ግንባር፡ “ምስ እገለስ ከመይ ኢልካዩ ዝጋባእ፧ ክሳዕ ሞተይ እየ ዝጽየኖ! ምስ እገሊትስ ከመይ ኢልካ’ዩ ዝዕየ፧ ዘይበሊ ሓዳሪ ጽልኢ ኣለና” ዝብሉ እንተዀይኖም ግና፡ ግኒ ኢሳይያስ ገና ኣይወረደሎምን ማለት እዩ። ምስ ብጾቶም ምስራሕ ዘይኰነሎም እንተዀይኑ፡ ገና ግዳያት ኢሳይያስ ኣለዉ ማለት እዩ። ዘክሩ! ኢሳይያስ ኣብ ልዕሌኹም ክስልጥን፡ ውድብኩም ክብሕት፡ ብጾትኩም ክሸርብ፡ ዕላማኹም ክዓሉ ዝኽኣለ ንሓድሕድኩም ምትእምማን ምእንቲ ከይህልወኩም ከየባተኸ ዘርኢ ጽልኢን ህልኽን ዘይምስምማዕን ምንዕዓቕን ስለ ዝተኸለ እዩ። ኣባላት ማእከላይ ሽማግለ፡ “ኣይ ደጊምስ ኣሪግና ኢና። ዳግማይ ንምግባእ፡ ንምውዳብ፡ ንምዕጣቕን ኣይከኣለናን እዩ!” ዝብሉ እንተዀይኖም፡ መዘናታቶም መራሕቲ ህወሓት፡ ዝኸፈልሉን ነዊሕ ዝተቓለስሉን ዕላማን ሃገሮምን ኣብ ሓደጋ ወዲቑ ኢሎም ምስ ኣመኑ፡ ንጎቦታት ትግራይ ደይቦም ዳግም ወይኖም እዮም። ንኣብነት ኣምባሳዶር ስዩም መስፍን ናብ በረኻታት ትግራይ ወፊሩ፡ ኣብ ጐድኒ ህዝቡ ተሰሊፉ ግንባሩ ንዓረር ሂቡ እዩ። ነዚ ኣይትድነቑሉን ኣኽብሮት ኣይትህብዎን ዲኹም፧ ግንባርኩም ንቐታሊ ዓረር ሃቡ ኣይተበሃልኩምን። እቲ እማመ ካብዚ ኣዝዩ ዝቐለለ እዩ። እቲ እማመ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ምጽዋዕን ምስራዕን እዩ። እጃምኩም ድማ መሰጋገሪ ጥራሕ እዩ።

8. ራብዓይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ብደሞክራስያዊ ኣገባብ ዝምረጹ መሪሕነት ከቕዉም ከድልዮ እዩ። እዚ መሪሕነት ድማ ፈጸምቲ ኣካላት ይስይም። እዚ ስያመ’ዚ ሓድሽ መሪሕነት፡ ቀጻልነት ዘረጋግጽ፣ ብቐንዱ ድማ ፖለቲካዊ መባሕት ወይ መዚ ዘውህብ እዩ። እዚ፡ ነቲ ኣብ ተቓወምቲ ውድባት ንነዊሕ እዋን ከሰንክል ዝጸንሐ ጸገም ስእነት ፖለቲካዊ መባሕት ክፈትሕ እዩ።

9. ማእከላይ ሽማግለ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ብገዛእ ፍቓዱ፡ ብፊንታኡ ከየማኸረ ዝውድኦ ነገር ከም ዘየሎ ክፈልጥ ከድልዮ እዩ። ስለዚ ድማ፡ ካብ ጉባኤ ሒዙዎም ዝወጽእ ውሳኔታት ምስ ካልኦት ተቓወምቲ ውድባት ዘሳንዩዎን ክላፈን ዘኽእልዎን ክዀኑ ይግባእ። ሓደ ካብቲ ሓጀታት ራብዓይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ክኸውን ዘለዎ፡ ኣብ ዝሓለፈ ዕስራ ዓመታት ብዝተፈላለያ ተቓወምቲ ውድባት ኤርትራ ዝተሳእለ ፖለቲካዊ መደባት፡ ትልሚታት፡ እማመታት፡ ውድባዊ ፕሮግራማትን ምጽናዕን ምምዛንን እዩ። ትዕቢት፡ ግብዝና፡ ንሕና ጥራይ ኢና መንገዲ ሓቂን ፍትሕን ሃገራዊ ትንሳኤን ንፈልጥ ዝብል ዝምባለታት ንህግደፍ ብምግዳፍ ምስ ካልኦት መዘናኹም ናይ ተቓውሞ ውድባት ሓባርዊ ግንባር ክትምስርቱ ዘኽለኩም መደብን ኣደብን ክህልወኩም ክትገብሩ ይግባእ።

10. እዚ ኵሉ ነገር (ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ምውዳብ፡ ውድባዊ መደባት ዳግም ምኽላስ፡ ሓድሽ መሪሕነት ምምራጽ፡ መደባትን ትልሚታትን ካልኦት ናይ ተቓውሞ ውድባት ምጽናዕን ምምዛንን) ብህጹጹ ክግበር ከድሊ እዩ። ቅድሚ 24 ግንቦት 2021 ተጀሚሩ ክዛዘም ኣለዎ።

እቲ ድሕሪ ጉባኤ ዝኸውን’ከ፧

ህዝባዊ ግንባር ራብዓይ ጉባኤኡ ምስ ኣሳኽዐ፡ እቲ ዝተረፈ ፍርቂ ኤርትራ ድማ ናቱ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ክጽውዕ ኣለዎ። ፍርቂ ኤርትራ ማለተይ፡ እቲ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ንፖለቲካዊ መርገጺና ኣየንጸባርቕን እዩ ዝብል ክፋል ኤርትራውያን ማለተይ እየ። ብድሕሪ’ዚ፡ እዘን ክልተ ውድባት (ኣስተውዕሉ! ክልተ ውድባት እየ ዝብል ዘለኹ። ዓሰርተ ኣይበልኩን!) ሓድነታዊ መሰጋገሪ ህዝባዊ መንግስቲ የቊማ። እዚ መሰጋገሪ መንግስቲ፡ መለሳ ናይቶም ንኤርትራ ዘባድሙ ዘለዉ ሕሱማት ጉራቌናትን ኮብኮብቲ ግልያታትን ኰይኑ፡ ንመሰላትን ፍትሒን ኤርትራውያን ዜጋታት ዝቐውም ይኸውን። ምቛም መሰጋገሪ መንግስቲ፡ ሓደ መንግስቲ ክገብሮ ዝኽእል ኵሉ ነገር ንምግባር የኽእለካ ማለት ኣይኰነን። እንተዀነ፡ ገለ ካብቶም ክግበሩ ዝኽእሉ ዕዮታት ምስ ልኡኻት መንግስታት ምርኻብ፣ መለሳ ኣዕናዊ ፖሊስታት ህግደፍ ምርቃቅን ዝኣመሰሉ ዕማማት እዮም።

መንግስቲ ምትካል ከም ዘይክውንነታውን ደፋርን ስጉምቲ ዝሓስብ እንተልዩ ንምፍታኑ’ውን ኣይበገስ። ኣብ ኤርትራ ዘሎ ሓይሊ ንነብሱ ከም መንግስቲ ዝረቝሓሉ ምኽንያት፡ ፍቓድን ርድየትን ስምየትን ህዝቢ ስለ ዘሎዎ ዘይኰነስ፡ ሓይሊ ብረት ስለ ዝውንን እዩ። ንስኹም ግን ፍቓድን ርድየትን ስምየትን ህዝቢ ክህልወኩም እዩ። ብዓል ብረት ጥራሕ’ዩ ኣብ ሃገርን ህዝብን ክስልጥን ዝኽእል ዝብል እንተሎ፡ ወድባዊ ጉባኤ ዝብሃል መደብ ገዲፉ ተዋጋኢ ሰራዊት ይወድብ። “ገይሻ ኣላ’ምበር እታ ገድሊ. . .” እናበለ ድዩ ዘዝየመ ዮሃንስ ትካቦ፧ እቲ ክኸውን እቲ፡ ትም ምባል ኣማራጺ ኣይኰነን። እቲ’ባ ክብሃል ዝኽእል ካልእ ኣማራጺኸ እንታይ ኣሎ፧ ጀነራል ፊሊፖስ ወልደዮሃንስ ኣንጻር ኢሳይያስ ክዓሉ ምጽባይ፧ ኣብ ፍጹም ዕጽዋን ማሕዩር-ቤትን ዝርከብ፡ ካብ ዓሰርተ ንላዕሊ ከይእከብ ዝተኸልከለ ህዝቢ፡ ህዝባዊ ምልዕዓል ወዲቡ መንግስቲ ክኣሊ ምጽባይ፧ ኢሳይያስ ኣፈወርቂ ክመውት ምምህላል፧ ኣሽንኳይ ንሱስ ወላዲቱ’ኳ ክሳዕ ሕጂ ብህይወት ኣለዋ።

ያላ ንበገስ ብጾት!

መወከሲ ሰነዳት፥
1. ሰነዳት ጉባኤ ካልኣይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ

2. ቅሉዕ መልእኽቲ ጉጅለ-15 ናብ ኩሎም ኣባላት ህግደፍ

3. ቅልዕቲ ወረቀት ናብ ህዝቢ ኤርትራ፣ እዋናውያን ጉዳያት

The response to the proposal for A Unity Government In Exile has been extremely positive and encouraging.  As a follow-up, after several weeks of consultations and a “listening tour”, in this edition, the following questions will be addressed:

1. Why Government In Exile?
2. If one is needed, why with the EPLF-legacy and ELF-legacy only? Why Unitary Government? Why not Bayto Yiakl, for example?
3. What are the specific building blocs envisioned for the government in exile?
4. How can I help/contribute?

1. Why Government In Exile?

Let’s begin with the arguments AGAINST forming a government in exile. (a) No State, No Government: there can be no government unless there is sovereign, recognized territorial state. (b) No Territory, No International Recognition; China’s entire foreign policy, specially with regard to black Africa, has been to run a game show entitled: “Have You Memorized One China Policy?” One China Policy says while there are now, due to a temporary misunderstanding, two governments (one for China and one for Taiwan), the mainland and the island are part of one entity named China.  You have no territory to do that and you are not Taiwan   (c) No representation, No Government: whoever claims to be such a government, cannot, in the least, be representative of the State and thus has no popular sovereignty; (d) No Territory, No Autonomy.  A government in exile is entirely dependent on its host country and has zero autonomy. (e) No chance, No Success:   Except in war and occupation (France, for example), there hasn’t been a successful government-in-exile: Just Hush And Eat Your Hamburger. ሱቕ ኢልክን ሃምቡርገርክን ብልዓ.

Yes, these are all powerful arguments: I probably even made some of them a few years ago.  But behold! There are even more powerful arguments to make for having an Eritrean Government In Exile.

And that’s where I begin with my counterpoint: hamburger.  You see, that statement (Just Hush And Eat Your Hamburger…), which is designed to diminish you, betrays deep ignorance about Eritrea’s history.  For the most consistent thing about Eritrea’s history is this:  from each generation, it is the exiled Eritrean that directed it, infused it, and gave it life.   Let’s begin where post-occupation modern Eritrea begins: Ibrahim Sultan.

By 1948, Ibrahim Sultan’s Muslim League (Eritrea’s first nationalist party in the 1940s) was stagnant due to intense competition from other parties, “internal fragmentation, economic limitations, and the notable increase in Ethiopian-sponsored political violence.” (See End Notes.)  It had to survive even the defection of Siddi Mohammed Abu Bakr al-Mirghani.   Trust me, as big as a gut punch the death of Adhanom Ghebremariam might have been to a people of a certain generation (very much similar to the death of Seyoum Harestay and Ahmed M Nasser), it is not comparable: the Al-Mirghani family were the spiritual leaders of a significant proportion of the Muslim League constituency (Suffi Islam.)  And Ibrahim Sultan’s leadership survived it. How? Because (a) the UN at long last decided to go to Eritrea to verify for itself what the Eritrean pulse was, rather than relying on its representation by Haile Selasse I;  (b) the assassination of Abdulkader Kebire (by agents loyal to Haile Selasse)  was traumatic shock, whose grief electrified and reinvigorated the Muslim League; and then (c) the Foreign Ministers of England and France (Bevin and Sforza) said to themselves, hey, we know what’s best: let’s divide this country into two.  The combination of blows and threats further solidified the League’s Leap Frog: the murderous and scheming forces arrayed against us are powerful: we can’t face them alone–and thus was born the Independence Bloc Party.  And throughout Ibrahim Sultan got counsel from exiled Eritreans.

While 1959 could not be called the beginning of exiled activism, it certainly was another epoch: the Secretary General of the Muslim League, Ibrahim Sultan, and the president of the now-Ethiopianized Eritrean parliament, Idris Mohammed Adem,  evaded Ethiopian arrest of Eritrea’s senior leadership and went to exile, to maintain Eritrea’s voice.  A year earlier, Mohammed Nawud had established the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) in exile: Port Sudan, Sudan.  Comrade Mohammed Nawud’s communist leanings were pruned in Eritrea: his movement became known as “Mahber Shewate” (The League of 7 to signify the size of cell) to the Christian and Tigrinya-speaking Eritrea, whereas it was “haraka” (movement) to the Lowland & Muslim Eritrea.  The Exiled Eritrean were instrumental in the establishment in Egypt of Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF): intellectuals, university students and lawyers, were its core, its brains: and Hamed Idris Awate, with whom they co-ordindated inside Eritrea, was its conscience and its muscle.  And this muscle was strengthened by another exiled Eritrean group: Eritreans in Sudan, some of whom were even in the Sudanese army. One of the giants of Exiled Eritreans is, of course, Woldeab Woldemariam, who spent half his life in exile, broadcasting emboldening radio messages in Tigrinya from Egypt.  Our friend Dawit Mesfin has a book about him and for all of you English-speaking Eritreans, that is a good start to learn about one of our Pillars( ኣርካን) and you can read all about him here.  And the EPLF?  Many of its leading lights had moved from Ethiopia (Addis Abeba: Haile Selasse University) to Eritrea to heed the call of the People’s Revolution.   The two Fronts were (AND STILL ARE) sustained by Exiled Eritrea: Eritrean Student Union (all over the Middle East), E.NA.SE.A  (North America), Bologna Mothers (Italy) and others too many to mention.  Many of our pillars (ኣርካን) spent much of their time in exile, and some died in exile, including the State’s co-founder, Ibrahim Sultan and our first face to the world, Osman Saleh Sabbe.

The point is: Exiled Eritrea has always been, is, and will always be part of Mainland Eritrea.  Not just part, but the founding part of every single one of its movements.  So, do not allow anyone to make you feel like you are an outsider-looking-in: you are Eritrea.  Each generation of Exiled Eritrea had the responsibility to correct the path of Eritrea, and it’s this generation’s responsibility to correct its current path.

A skeptic would say: “all of the above shows that an Exiled Eritrean had nearly 80 years of uninterrupted service to the nation, but it doesn’t argue for Government In Exile (GiE)”  Let’s tackle that. You would agree with me that a GiE is formed when the Government In Power (GiP) is a puppet government in the service of foreign powers and has absolutely zero legitimacy to govern.  For example, French General De Gaulle’s “Comité National Français.” was a recognized government in exile after France was occupied by Nazi Germany.  Now, before we dismiss as absurd the comparison between Nazi-occupied France and PFDJ-occupied Eritrea, here are the similarities:

• Nazi-occupied France was subservient to one man (Hitler); PFDJ-occupied Eritrea is subservient to one man (Isaias)
• Both Hitler and Isaias have zero legitimacy to govern other than brute force
• Hitler’s France and Isaias’s Eritrea are war-staging stations for other forces
• Hitler’s France and Isaias’ Eritrea have been brought to their knees: crumbling buildings, dead industries and ports, and a severely malnourished people.

We are not saying we need a Government-in-Exile because the Isaias government is dictatorial.  By that standard,  half the world would have a government in exile.  We are saying the government in Eritrea is illegitimate and actively works for the destruction of the State and, unless interrupted,  Eritrea’s future existence is in serious doubt.  If you think that Eritrea’s situation is dire–jumping from one war to another war, a crumbling state, a state whose foreign policy is dictated by one man–jumping from alliance with Iran, to Qatar, to UAE, to Saudi Arabia; jumping from “Ethiopia is our mortal enemy” to “Ethiopia is our country”, then one has an obligation to act.  All the measures Isaias Afwerki took since 2001 when he engineered his coup have solidified his power but came at great cost to future Eritrea.  To pretend that everything will be fine, we all have to pretend that Isaias is not a 78 year old man, without a vice president, without working institutions, a constitution, or a functioning political party.  There is no succession plan in Eritrea and if you are saying, surely, the governing party has its bylaws, remember, this is the quality of the document that has been the most consequential to Eritrea in the last 25 years: 82/1995 – Proclamation of National Service.  And this is how it looks and reads like.  Given the un-seriousness of the government, do not be surprised if there are 3 PFDJ bylaws floating about and, given the Isaias regime’s contempt of institutions and documents (recall how easily he killed the constitution with a wave of hand), don’t be surprised if his lieutenants have the same contempt for any documents that binds them together.

I was speaking to a highly intelligent and potentially one of the leaders of our envisioned government. When he gave his reasons for why he doesn’t support the Government-in-Exile, he told me that he expects change to come from within.  I didn’t challenge it: I was in my listening and taking notes mode, not my debating mode.  But now I am. So my question to those who say “change from within” is: after the abrupt end of the Isaias Rule, do you have absolute certainty as to which faction from the fragmented PFDJ within will assume power?  Are you sure it is the faction YOU are speaking with or the one I am speaking with?  Remember, the comrades at home despise one another with the same ferocity as the comrades in exile.  The only difference is that those at home have lots of guns and very willing users of those guns (if we are to judge it by the recent adventure in Tigray.)  So my question is: are you willing to take that risk, that power transfer in Eritrea will be peaceful and orderly after Isaias Afwerki is gone?   If your answer is “I don’t know”, then you owe it to Eritrea to build a government in exile.  A government in exile that presents to Eritreans at home what a normal government looks like.  You might, if you prefer, call it Government-in-waiting.  The form is less important than the essence.

Finally, one of the main questions/criticisms is: is the Government-in-Exile formed by a host country? NO. Host countries have been suggesting it and been rejected for decades.  It is an all-Eritrean initiative.  “Well, you say that now but eventually you will yield to your host country because you are dependent on them!” NO.  You seem to forget that Eritreans are known throughout the world, especially in Africa, for being fund-raising machines, for the right cause.  If you doubt yourself, talk to the leaders of the Yiakl movement.

2. Why ELF-EPLF Only? Why Unity Government?

Eritrea is too small (population) and too diverse (ethnically) to have half a dozen political parties. The first clarification is that “ELF”, “EPLF” are short-hand for “ELF School of Thought” and “EPLF School of Thought.” And for those of you who may not be familiar with it, they are real schools of thought: on governance (centralized vs decentralized), on education policy (mother tongue vs Tigrina/Arabic), on land, on refugees, on military, on foreign policy and a whole slew of issues.  For the last 50 years, the two have been criminalizing one another–as if each policy is taboo–when in fact both are respectable, mainstream views.   In post-Isaias Eritrea, these two visions for Eritrea are what will be on the political menu, for our people to choose that which is most compatible with their reality.   But for now, when we are talking about Government-in-exile, the two have to suspend it and focus all on their energies on the quickest way to put an end to Eritrea’s undeclared state of emergency.   That’s what “unity government” means: a temporary arrangement of actors with different visions for the country, united towards an overriding goal: creation of a people’s government.

But why only ELF-EPLF?  In my interview with Fanus Network, I had said that I would explain in further detail why and here is my reasoning:

(a) Knowledge: They know Eritrea and its composition: from Adi Quala to Karora; from Marsa Fatma to Tessenei, from Marsa Gulbub to Omhajjer. They know the land, the people, their customs and their history.  Nobody else can say that.  To talk to a Tegadalai is to be humbled: they can tell you which hamlet is between which villages.  If we believe in craftsmanship, those most qualified for a job should do the job, then it is ELF & EPLF.

(b) Representative: They represent(ed) Eritrea’s diversity.  It was ELF and EPLF, and only ELF and EPLF, that were true microcosms of Eritrea.  Everything else that has been tried since, including within the Government in Power, including with Bayto Yiakl, has been a monochrome with superficial colors.

(c) Continuity: Only ELF and EPLF have had the ability to sustain themselves as viable organizations.  The rest are unknown quantities, too mysterious to give such a huge responsibility.  They are either too new to gamble on, or too fragmented to bet on.

(d) Unquestionable Eritreanness:  The two are national movements who embrace all Eritreans and are loyal to the foundational ideology of Eritrea.  Sadly, one can’t always say the same about all political organizations: with some of them gravitating towards whatever appears to be the fad of the day: Tigray Tigrini, Agazian, Dekebat and other birther movements.

(e) Unabashedly Political:  ELF and EPLF are unabashedly, proud political organizations whose stated goal is to assume power and lead the country.   This is not the case with many of our organizations who are, at best, political movements.   In fact, the answer to the question of “why not Yiakl” is because it is not a political party; it is a movement.  My former mentee and now my peer Ghezae Hagos told me he is disappointed that I did not include Yiakl Bayto in my calculation and my answer is: let’s start with the two, and then Bayto, Eritrea Focus and ten other organizations I am not listing, can negotiate with the two political parties.

What about us, the Opposition to the Opposition, asked me a friend who spends most of his time cursing the opposition.  I told him that not everyone can be in the government: he can now be an opposition to our government-in-exile and we won’t call him names but recognize his right to be an opposition.

3. The Building Blocs Of GiE:   Here’s what my comrades and I have been working on since the publication of the article proposing government in exile: creating its blueprint.  Broadly speaking this is what it looks like:

a. Phase 1: National Task Force.  Composition: 5-7.  Task: identify ELF and EPLF members who can become the Congress Preparatory Committee.
b. Phase 2: Congress Preparatory Committee.  Composition: 11 each, from ELF and EPLF Schools of Thought.   The two Congress Preparatory Committees each have members in the National Task Force.  Mission: to organize an ELF and to organize an EPLF Congress. With help of the National Task Force,  prepare documents including draft chapters, agendas, invitee list.
c. Phase 3: ELF Congress and EPLF Congress.   Hold congress, adopt charter and bylaws, elect leadership.
d. Phase 4: Leadership of ELF and EPLF meet with National Task Force to identify personnel for new government, policies, departments, fund-raising.
e. Phase 5: the National Task Force dissolves itself.

All of this will need a spirit of volunteerism and an attitude of “it’s happening!” Can it be done within the May 24 deadline we gave ourselves? YES, but we all have to kill our inner-Gobye (thoughts and prayers.)

And finally, what is that Tigrinya proverb about “መርዓት ከይሓዝክን….?” I never like proverbs: they are invitations to believe that nothing changes.  But, since you asked, those whom we have reached out to have given us the following answer: “Yes, in principle but…”   And “No, but…”  This is entirely reasonable: how can one give enthusiastic endorsement to something that came out of nowhere and is not fleshed out with details.  These organizations did not ensure their continuity by embracing every proposal.  So the burden of proof is, for now, on us to show them that this is real, and it can happen.   It is a lot of work, but very much worth it.  Not only worth it, but it is necessary: the nation calls for it!

4. How Can I Help? As I have said, I have been overwhelmed with the positive response to the proposal (until the ክተት zombies showed up to try to douse the enthusiasm for it.)  How you can help is as follows:

(a) To make this a truly people’s initiative, ask of the congress participants to heed the call.  Hit the reset button on all prior antagonisms and reboot.

(b) All Exiled Eritreans spend their week days and week-ends in zoom meetings discussing our beloved Eritrea.  Please raise the intellectual level of these discussions and come up with ideas and suggestions on how to make the Government-in-Exile work.   Create professional associations (of teachers, scientists, lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc) as they will all be needed to guide our incoming government and to present our people back home a Face of Competence and not what we have shown them so far.

(c) Volunteer to join either national task force, or the preparatory committee or the congress itself.  How? You know how to reach me and SGJ.  But there will be a vetting process because of the lessons learned from the previous 20 years of opposition-building.  Please join and take ownership of the organizations.

(d) Mindset: Whether you believe something will happen or not, either way, you are right! So said someone whose name I don’t want to research now.  The point being: we manifest what we believe and if we believe it won’t happen and it can’t happen: it won’t.  If you believe it can and it will, it can and it will.  I am surrounded by hard-working, brilliant people and I always believe we can and we will.

(e) This is really the last part of awate.com’s mission: reconciliation.  Reconciliation cannot happen without ELF and EPLF treating each other with respect and as equal stakeholders.  An Eritrea that recognizes the mother of EPLF martyr but doesn’t recognize the mother of an ELF martyr is not reconciled with itself.  Reconciliation begins with ELF-EPLF.

(e) No Eritrean Left Behind: This, if done right, should be an all-inclusive Eritrean endeavor.  While different players will have different roles at different stages, we can’t consider it a success until, once consolidated, it welcomes and embraces anyone who believes that Eritrea is too important to be the playing ground of Isaias Afwerki and his enablers.  For example, I can’t envision a government which does not include all our educated and focused Eritreans, particularly the youth, who pretty much reflect Eritrea’s current demographics.  And, remember, the purpose of the ELF and EPLF is to lend our efforts legitimacy and their role will be transitional.

Are you in?

End Notes

“Paths toward the Nation: Islam, Community, and Early Nationalist Mobilization in Eritrea, 1941–1961 (Volume 92) (Ohio RIS Africa Series): Venosa, Joseph L., Venosa, Joseph L.: 9780896802896: Amazon.Com: Books.” Amazon.Com, 2014, www.amazon.com/Paths-toward-Nation-Nationalist-Mobilization/dp/0896802892.

“What are the new Eritrean questions that have been neither asked nor answered during our Revolution and, in fact, going back to the 1940s”
~ Historian Samuel Emaha

This is my 3rd article on the Government-in-Exile (GiE) proposal. The first (It’s Time for a Unity Government In Exile) dealt with introduction of the concept and its rationale: the total loss of legitimacy of the PFDJ as a ruling party, the failure to gain legitimacy by the opposition to declare itself as people’s representatives and, thus, the urgency for reinstitution of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) headed by its exiled Central Committee members to form a unity government in partnership with other opposition parties whose roots were in the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF.) The second article (Fleshing Out Our Unity Government In Exile) attempted to answer some of the questions that were posed as a result of the first: why government in exile? Why back to ELF and EPLF? What is the process to be followed? In this third installment, I will include the Concept Note (Concept Note) (Tigrinya and Arabic editions to follow) that was presented to the media by the National Taskforce Team (NTT) on Government In Exile. I will also attempt to address the questions that were raised to the NTT such as: what do you mean by ELF, Jebha, Te.Ha.E, and EPLF, Shaebia, h.g.Ha.E? And what is this “school of thought” you keep talking about: can you give us specifics? These organizations are long gone, some for decades: are you trying to resuscitate the dead? How do they, in any way, meet the questions posed by the youth? Do these organizations even believe the same things they believed when it comes to Eritrean self-determination and territorial integrity? Why do you want to take us back to them when we have vibrant social movements? And what exactly is meant by “unity government”?

I. Concept Note Summarized: Whereas, the Government-in-Power has lost all legitimacy to govern on legal, political and socio-economic grounds; whereas it has rejected all calls to return power to the people and earn its legitimacy to govern; whereas there are a million Eritreans in exile in comparison to the 3.65 million Eritreans in Eritrea, and whereas all prior attempts to create an effective opposition to meet the challenges Eritreans face have not succeeded, a National Taskforce Team (NTT) has taken the initiative to attempt to help the leaders and members of the two historic organizations and their iterations to convene organizational congresses, draft/renew political charters and call for an Inaugural Plenary Assembly and name, in equal numbers, their nominees to a Consultative Council (CC). To ensure accountability and checks and balances and to avoid deadlock, (a) the CC will also include members of Civil Society and Esteemed Citizens and (b) the Executive Council (EC) will be ratified by, but not from within, the CC. Instead, the Directors who make up the EC will be nominated by a joint commission of NTT and CC, and then will be ratified (or rejected) by the CC. The NTT, which is entirely independent of the government, will end its mandate once the government is constituted and will dissolve itself.

Below are some of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

II. Jebha (ELF) & Shaebia (EPLF)

By Jebha & Shaebia, what is meant is the value system and not the people or the organizations. And by value system, what is meant is the formulas they espoused for an Eritrea that is at peace with itself and its neighbors, a democratic, just, prospering Eritrea where citizens (and peoples) have guaranteed rights and shared obligations. While Jebha and Shaebia are historical entities, and they happen to be the two Eritrean trunks–ELF: 1961-1981; EPLF: 1971-1991–they have given birth to many branches. The call now is to focus on the trunks and not the branches.

III. “Schools of Thought” or Political Tendencies or Belief Systems

Just as religions have their tenets, political organizations have their programs & principles. These programs and principles encompass the tangible (mission, goals, objectives and vision) as well as the intangibles (culture, will, fortitude, etc.) For comparison only, let’s list how these two different schools of thought deal with a variety of controversial tangibles, as outlined in their most recent definitive political documents of the two schools of thought: 1997 Eritrean Constitution (yes, the document espouses EPLF Value System) and the 2019 ENCDC Political Charter (ELF Value System.)

1. State Structure: “Eritrea is a unitary State divided into units of local government. The powers and duties of these units shall be determined by law.” (1997 Constitution, Article 1.5) “Recognition of a decentralized system of government guaranteed by the Constitution…” (ENCDC Charter, Chapter I.12). There are strengths, and weaknesses, to each view.

The above–degree of autonomy of Eritrea’s regions, and its outline in a constitution or statute–is the most fundamental difference between the two Schools of Thought and it informs their views on all other issues including:

2. Land Ownership: In Eritrea, says the EPLF School of Thought, “[a]ll land and all natural resources below and above the surface of the territory of Eritrea belongs to the State. The interests citizens shall have in land shall be determined by law” (1997 Constitution, Article 23.2) No, says the ELF School of Thought: “[l]and belongs to its own people, and any land and property appropriated unlawfully belongs to its owners….” (ENCDC Political Charter, Chapter I.17.) Again, there are strengths and weaknesses to both. If land belongs to the State, then the State does not have to negotiate with every district, every province, every region, every self-proclaimed collective, before mapping out its macroeconomic policy for rapid development. The negative to this is that it places the balance of power between the State and the People heavily in favor of the State and in countries like Eritrea where identity and citizenship are strongly tied to land, it creates layers of confusion.

3. Language Policy. “The equality of all Eritrean languages is guaranteed”: so says the EPLF in the 1997 Constitution, Article 4.3 and all its political programs that preceded it. No, says ELF, in Eritrea, going back to the 1940s, the very agreement to have a country called Eritrea was partly premised on the idea of having Tigrinya and Arabic as official languages. Therefore, while all languages are equal, “Tigrinya and Arabic are the official languages.’ (ENCDC Political Charter, Chapter I.9 )

4. Definition of Ethnicity. In Eritrea, ethnicity is defined by language and uniqueness of customs: there are 9 languages spoken in Eritrea, so there are 9 ethnic groups. So says EPLF in every single EPLF poster, every festival, its currency & textbook.  Nope, says the ELF School of Thought: ethnicity is not just defined by language and customs only but uniqueness of history, ancestry, social treatment and psychology therefore it is the people, not the government, that will identify the number of ethnicities Eritrea has. “Any nation has the right to call itself the name it wishes, and the enforced integration of the regime should be prevented.” (ENCDC Political Charter, Chapter I, 16 )

5. Citizens vs People As State Units:  Rights and duties are applied to citizens, in the EPLF political culture. Citizens have rights; and people have a right to develop their culture. In contrast, in the ELF political culture it is not just citizens but a people who have an individual right and group rights.

In addition to the 5 above, there are other issues that deal with Eritrean Narrative, i.e. how we interpret history where the two schools of thoughts have different perspectives.

Sadly for Eritrea, these two schools of thought have never been allowed to see one another as anything but “The Other” instead of what they actually are: different approaches towards the same goal. To the extent they even acknowledge the existence of each other, it is in accusations. One accuses the other of being an exclusive hegemon-wanna-be, and the other accuses the former of being a dangerous agent of fragmentation across religious and regional divide. Those who want to “rise above” this division think it is best to ignore it, or to pretend it is not there, if only we can have discussions only with people who think exactly the way we do. But the above are healthy, issues-based-differences and, yes, there is a lot of overlap: but the fundamental difference is about degree of regional autonomy, which manifests in any number of ways.

IV. What About The Youth?

Well, to go back to what Samuel Emaha asked, “what are the new questions, and new answers the youth have that were not asked and answered?” Incidentally, these questions were posed by the youth and answered by the youth of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, etc. So what are they? Even radical question like:

“Is Eritrea really necessary? Can’t we just be part of Tigray or Ethiopia? Can the Eritrean people really co-exist together? What do I, as _______ have in common with ______? I actually have more in common with ________”, were asked and answered decades ago.

So, what is it that the youth are asking that haven’t been asked and answered by the Schools of Thought mentioned above? If it is a case of “well, I agree with their questions and the answers, I just don’t have faith in their ability to lead”, remember: people come, organizations go, but values are permanent. We are asking the leaders to be transitional leaders and transfer their knowledge and experience to a new generation so they don’t keep reinventing the wheel, or building houses on a sand. Besides, this is deja vu: over a decade ago, “the youth” said the same thing and formed EYSC, which was supposed to transcend everything we do not like about our political organizations: fragmentation on the basis of the usual fracture lines. Where is EYSC now?

In organizational psychology, there is a new concept called “radical candor”, which is very different from “brutal honesty.” Radical candor says the most effective way to lead or to follow is to (a) care personally and (b) challenge directly. If you are not personally vested in the success of leaders, and if you are unable to follow, you can’t challenge effectively and bring the desired outcome. On the other hand, if you challenge directly but don’t care personally, your behavior is mistaken for obnoxious aggression and rejected.  Besides, why is it that these Eritrean leaders (Arkan!) are only praised when they are dead? Appreciate them when they are alive, then you can challenge directly. But nobody is going to give up on the tried and true for the untried and untrue.

V. What About The Social Movements & Civil Society

A government is a composition of political parties. It is not a collection of individuals (concerned or otherwise); it is not civil society (professional associations, cultural institutions, religious institutions, advocacy groups.) In fact, the very definition of civil society is “organizations not affiliated with government.” However, since some Eritrean “civil society” are political organizations masquerading as civil society, since the success of the GiE requires that nobody feels left out,  the National Taskforce Team (NTT) envisions a role for them and “esteemed individuals” in the Government-in-exile. This is an outcome of the feedback from Eritreans responding to the GiE proposal. (Refer to the Concept Note.) Otherwise, a civil society is supposed to keep a watchful eye on the government, not be part of it!

VI. Why “Unity Government”?

A fairly intelligent friend actually thought that unity government means working on uniting ELF and EPLF.  Heavens, no.  If she mistook its meaning, chances are others have: it is actually the opposite. It is asking the ELF and EPLF Schools of Thought: please do not give up your beliefs, stand for your principles because your constituencies believe in what you stand for. Do not give up the demands of your constituents for the sake of faux-unity that won’t stand the test of time. Safeguard it, fight for it. Just make sure to serve your people by forming a partnership because, on your own, you don’t represent the entire people of the nation and without negotiating in goodwill you will achieve nothing but standstill.

VII. But Why GiE? Why Not An Umbrella or United Front?

At NTT, we are convinced a Government-in-Exile is the answer to the total absence of legitimacy of the Government-in-Power, which continues to enter into ruinous relationships with Ethiopia, UAE, Saudi Arabia using our name. We strongly believe that we owe it to history to say that there were two governments for a period of time and one of them rejected all the secret treaties, all the adventurous wars when the bill comes due to future generations of Eritreans.  Remember: GiE would not be necessary if the GiP had not totally and completely betrayed the promises of our Revolution.  We also believe, strongly, that GiE will enable us to speak with unified voice and help the world to separate the pretenders and posers from the true advocates. But, at the end of the day, whether we have a government or an umbrella organization is the decision of the people and the leaders we will elect. What matters is that (a) we, not fringe groups, own what it means to be an Opposition (one that, at minimum, accepts the formulas for peaceful co-existence, uncompromising position on Eritrean sovereignty and the righteousness of its Struggle for Self-Determination that were argued and settled by the historic organizations); (b) we in exile present a less ominous and less threatening face to our comrades-in-struggle inside Eritrea who, ultimately, are the stakeholders who have to live with the decisions that are being made.

VIII. Who Is Going To Be The President?

I was once asked, jokingly, “who is your Shelebi?” I had dismissed this question as entirely hypothetical but since people might be serious about the question, the answer is (a) there will not be a president but a Chairperson of Executive Council and (b) I have absolutely no idea: that is a decision for the CC. While we are on the subject, one of the requirements of being a member of the National Taskforce Team is to NOT be a contender for the Executive Council. Hope that answers another question that may or may not have been asked. While we are on the subject of answering the unserious questions, no, this has nothing to do with Weyane and those who say the “defeat of Weyane” and the “GiE” are related are the same people who say the arrival of Abiy in a town is related to rainfall. In logic, that is called the false cause fallacy: if A preceded B, it doesn’t mean A caused B. But for those who see that there are no accidents, no coincidences and everything is synchronized, and for those who have allowed Weyane to live rent-free in their head for decades, trying to explain this is a lost cause.

IX. What Is This Thing About NTT Members Who Want To Remain Anonymous

When we started NTT, we had to start with people who understood the urgency of getting started. Some had said they want to do the work but for reasons we found acceptable, they could not be public. But equally understandable is the people’s demand that ALL NTT members be transparent. So, the anonymous members have become advisors and the NTT is now in the process of replacing them using the same criteria it has outlined in the Concept Note. We will update the people on the make-up of the entire NTT which is now composed of myself, Samuel Emaha, Dr. Almaz Zerai and Habteab Yemane. NTT is under no illusions that it has all the answers and it will continue to have conversations with all stakeholders because the objective is a government that enjoys the support of the people.

X. What Can I Do?

First, we would like to thank all those who have praised us and criticized us and given us the platform to share our views. The Opposition is composed of human beings with human frailties. Some are afraid to try something new, fearing failure. Some are afraid of trying something new because they think they are being asked to leave their comfort zone. Encourage them, support them, and challenge them directly and respectfully. At the end of the day, all politicians want to make sure they have the support of the people. Show them by words and deeds that you will support such an endeavor which is the least we can do to bring relief to the long, long-suffering Eritrean people. If you are an organization, endorse the proposal. The time was yesterday, but yesterday is gone, so let’s do it today!  If you want to volunteer your services, you can reach us at eritreangovernment@gmail.com.   Yes, we will have an EriGie website too.

نحو حكومة إرترية في المنفى: المتطلبات والتوقعات

(مذكرة حول توضيح المفهوم)

١. المنطلقات المنطقية:

توضِّح هذه المذكرة خطوطاً عريضة للإجراءات والنتائج الخاصة بتأسيس حكومة إرترية في المنفى؛ وتأتي ضرورة هذه الخطوة لأنَّ السلطة الحاكمة في إرتريا قد فقدت شرعيتها في الحكم على الأسس القانونية والسياسية والاقتصادية التالية:

١-١ الأسس القانونية – انعدام شرعية النظام الحاكم:

أ. إثر سيطرة الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير إرتريا على كامل التراب الإرتري وفرضها لسلطتها عليه، أصدرت الإعلان رقم ٢٣\١٩٩٢ بشأن تركيبة وحكم وأداء الحكومة الإرترية المؤقتة. بيَّن الإعلان بطريقة لا لبس فيها أنَّ الحكومة الإرترية المؤقتة ستحكم حتى “يقرِّر الشعب الإرتري حقَّه في تقرير مصيره عبر الاستفتاء وتشكيل حكومة دستورية، على أن تتولَّى الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير إرتريا خلال المرحلة الانتقالية مسؤولية تأسيس حكومة انتقالية لتوصيل النضال الإرتري من أجل الاستقلال إلى وجهته النهائية .

ب. انتهى التفويض مع إجراء استفتاء ناجح العام ١٩٩٣ أعطى الاستقلال الفعلي لإرتريا صبغته القانونية، فنالت بموجبه الاستقلال والسيادة الوطنية وحصُلت على اعتراف دولي.

ج. في عشية الاستفتاء تمَّ تعديل الإعلان رقم ٢٣\١٩٩٢ إلى الإعلان رقم ٣٧\١٩٩٣، فحوَّلت بموجبه الحكومة الارترية المؤقتة  نفسها  إلى حكومة انتقالية لإرتريا. وبناءً على هذا الإعلان تتولَّى الحكومة الانتقالية الحكم حتى التصديق على الدستور. وعلاوة على ذلك، نصَّ الإعلان على تقسيم السلطات وتحديد الضوابط والتوازنات. وتمَّ بناءً عليه التأسيس الرسمي للأفرع الثلاث للدولة؛ وتحديداً: تأسَّس برلمان من غرفة واحدة بإنشاء الجمعية الوطنية “المجلس الوطني”؛ وقضاء مستقل؛ وهيئة تنفيذية “مجلس الوزراء” بقيادة رئيس الدولة.

د. تمَّت المصادقة على الدستور في مايو ١٩٩٧. بالرغم من ذلك، استغل النظام ثغرة في  الدستور المُصادَق عليه أغفلت تاريخ سريان مفعوله، فاستمرَّ في الحكم دون أي تفويض قانوني ما بين ما١٩٩٧ و مايو١٩٩٨.

ه. منحت الحرب الحدودية مع إثيوبيا النظام الحاكم فرصة للاستمرار في الحكم ما بين مايو ١٩٩٨ – و ديسمبر ٢٠٠٠ تحت حكومة طوارئ غير معلنة. وبحلول العام٢٠٠٢، فقد المجلس الوطني صلاحياته واستمرَّ النظام في الحكم بدون تفويض قانوني، بذريعة ما عُرِفَ بحالة “اللاحرب-اللاسلم”.

و. بالتوقيع على اتفاق السلم والصداقة مع إثيوبيا في العام ٢٠١٨، انتهت كل الذرائع التي استخدمها النظام لثلاثين عاماً  لتبرير حكم الرجل الواحد الذي استمرَّ وما يزال دون أي أساس قانوني يقف عليه.

١-٢ الأسس السياسية :

أ. تبرهن الحقائق المذكورة أعلاه على أنَّ لاشرعية النظام هي ضد قيم وتقاليد الشعب الإرتري الذي أسَّس لنظم تشريعية معقَّدة لحكم وقيادة الحياة العامة والخاصة على مرِّ العهود. وهي أيضاً ضد المبادئ القيمية والأهداف الصادرة عن الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير إرتريا في مؤتمرَيْها  الوطني الثاني في العام ١٩٨٧ والثالث في العام ١٩٩٤. إنَّ هاتين الوثيقتين هما بمثابة عقود اجتماعية قدَّمتهما الجبهة الشعبية سابقاً، أو لاحقاً الجبهة الشعبية للديمقراطية والعدالة – قدَّمتها للإرتريين الذين آمنوا بشرعيتها الثورية للحكم.

ب. من غير إسهاب، ينصُّ الميثاق الوطني للجبهة الشعبية للديمقراطية والعدالة، والذي تبنَّاه الحزب الحاكم في أبريل ١٩٩٤، على:

“التأكيد على نظام سياسي – مؤسَّس على ضمان مشاركة الشعب في القرارت المحلية والشؤون الوطنية، ومبني على القاعدة الشعبية التي تؤسِّس لامركزية الحكم والتعددية السياسية والتسامح والمساءلة والشفافية واحترام الحقوق والحريات الأساسية للتظيمات السياسية وحرية التعبير، على أن يكون نظاماً ديمقراطياً تشاركياً ومتعدداً. وزيادة على ذلك، ينصُّ الميثاق على: “أنَّ القيادة مسؤولية جماعية. وعليه، يُعدُّ أمراً أساسياً أن تكون هناك إجراءات مؤسَّسية لتمكين القيادة من التداول والتنفيذ والمراجعة الجماعية. ومن المهم عقد اجتماعات منتظمة على كل المستويات؛ وأن تُؤخَذَ هذه الاجتماعات على محمل الجد، وتكونُ طرقاً للتداول وصناعة القرارات. وإن لم يُطبَق ذلك، ستضعف وحدة القيادة ويتضاءل الحماس وتسود هيمنة قرارات الفرد الواحد، بدلاً عن الجماعة، وما سيتبع ذلك من جوانب قصور غير مرغوبة. ومع ذلك، تحدَّت الجبهة الشعبية للديمقراطية والعدالة عقدها الاجتماعي الخاص، وبانتظام خلال الثلاثين عاماً الماضية. وفي واقع الأمر، إنَّ فشل الجبهة الشعبية في عقد مؤتمرها التنظيمي التالي قلَّصها إلى منظمة سياسية وهمية، ذات هيكلية بالية لصنع القرارات، وليست أكثر من أداة لأهواء رجل واحد.

ج. كانت توقعات الشعب الإرتري منذ البداية أنَّ استقلال إرتريا فاتحة لعهد جديد من التصالح والانسجام الوطني على أسس الاندماج والقبول. وتبعاً لذلك، لم يكن من المتوقع أن تؤسِّس نفسها كحكومة في العام ١٩٩١، على حساب إبعاد المجموعات السياسية الوطنية الأخرى. إنَّ الانغماس في موقف “ينفردُ فيه المنتصر بكل شيء”، والمستمرُّ لثلاثين عاماً، لم يكن متخيَّلاً للشعب الإرتري الذي قدَّم عظيم التضحيات من أجل استقلاله الوطني.

د. أدَّت سلطة الفرد الواحد الاحتكارية – غير الشرعية إلى غياب كل من دور القانون والفضاء السياسي الإرتري. لقد أصبح نظام الحكم مقروناً بثقافة الإفلات من العقاب والخوف. وتشهد على ذلك تقارير كثيرة مستقلة، بما فيها تقارير لجنة الأمم المتحدة لتقصي الحقائق ٢٠١٥-٢٠١٦، ومنظمة العفو الدولية “أمنستي إنترناشيونال”، ومنظمة هيومن رايتس، وغيرها. في العام ٢٠٢٠، وفيما يتعلَّق بحرية التعبير عن الرأي، احتلَّت إرتريا المرتبة ١٧٨ من بين ١٨٠ بلداً. أمَّا فيما يتعلَّق بالشفافية والفساد، كانت مرتبة إرتريا ١٩٣ من ١٩٨ بلداً. وفي نظام الحكم، كانت في المرتبة ٥٢ من ٥٤ بلداً أفريقياً، متقدمةً فقط على جنوب السودان والصومال.

ه. لمواجهة الحقائق المذكورة، لا يمَلُّ النظام من ذكر الخطوات القانونية التي يدَّعي أنَّه اتَّخذها. وغالباً ما يتمُّ ذكر الإعلان رقم ٨٦\١٩٩٦ الذي أسَّس لهيكل الحكومات المحلية في إرتريا”، نسخة معدَّلة عن الإعلان رقم ٢٦\١٩٩٢”، وذلك في معرض ردِّه على ضعف أداء حكمه ومشاركة الشعب في العملية السياسية، التي فرضت القيادة على المجتمعات بالمحسوبية، وانتهكت حقوق المواطنين تعسُّفياً دون عدالة أو إجراءات قانونية. يذكر ممثلو النظام القوانين المدنية والجنائية لإعلان العام ٢٠١٥، باعتبارها حججاً مضادة لانتهاكاتهم لحقوق الإنسان مع الإفلات من العقاب. وبالرغم من المحتوى الرائع لهاتين الوثيقتين التشريعيتين، إلَّا أنَّ النظام لم يكن ولن يكونَ له النيَّة في تطبيقهما.

و. يذهب النظام أبعد من ذلك في انتهاكه لإعلان الخدمة الوطنية ٥\١٩٩٥، بالحكم على الشباب بالخدمة الأبدية التي تحرمهم من فرص بناء حيواتهم الخاصة. وليزداد الأمر سوءاً، تحت غطاء “تعزيز السلام” على إثر توقيع اتفاق “السلام والصداقة”، تدخَّل النظام عسكرياً في صراع إثيوبي داخلي، معرِّضاً بذلك حياة الآلاف من الشباب للخطر. 

١.https://rsf.org/en/ranking_table

٢.https://risk-indexes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Brochure_GCI_EN_2020.pdf

٣.2020-index-report.pdf

وهكذا مرَّةً أخرى، حُكِمَ على الشباب الإرتري الخوض في حرب لاجدوى منها “الرابعة منذ الاستقلال”. وبهذه المغامرة العسكرية، يزجُّ النظام إرتريا في دائرة الكونفدرالية الإثيوبية دون تفويض شعبي، الأمر الذي كان وراء اندلاع الكفاح المسلح الذي ضحَّى الآلاف من الإرتريين بحياتهم في سبيله.

١-٣ الأسس الاجتماعية- الاقتصادية:

أ. يدَّعي النظام أنَّه يتَّبع سياسة اجتماعية- اقتصادية متقدمة، تقوم على مبدأ “الاعتماد على الذات” وتحقيق إنجازات مهمَّة في هذا الإطار. ولكن لا يمكن لأيِّ شخص التحقُّق من هذا الأداء لعدم توفُّر البيِّنات حوله، وذلك بسبب ثقافة السرِّية التامَّة التي يتَّبعها النظام. وبغضِّ النظر عمَّا يمكن أن نقول به بشأنِ وجود بيِّنات أم عدمه، فإنَّ الحياة العادية للإنسان الإرتري هي خيرُ دليل. وفي واقع الأمر، إنَّ نظام الحصص التموينية  الذي يعتمده النظام على مدى السنوات الماضية قد أودى بمعظم الإرتريين إلى الاعتماد على الهبات. ويعاني ليس فقط الأطفال وكبار السن من سوء التغذية، بل الشباب أيضاً الذين يؤدُّون الخدمة العسكرية؛ والفقر أصبح متفشيَّاً. وحقيقة الأمر، لولا المساعدات التي تأتي من خارج البلاد، لعانت عائلات كثيرة من الفقر والمجاعة. هذا الوضع ازداد شدَّةً بفرض النظام لإجراءات الحظر الصحي، بسبب تفشِّي فيروس الكورونا مابين “أبريل٢٠٢٠- مارس٢٠٢١”.

ب. لتقديم رأي تحليلي فيما يتعلَّق بالوضع الاجتماعي- الاقتصادي في إرتريا، يكفي أن نشير إلى بعض النقاط البيانية. يشير تقرير منظمة الأمم المتحدة للتنمية للعام٢٠٢٠ إلى أنَّ وضع التنمية البشرية لإرتريا للعام ٢٠١٩ يصِلُ إلى 0.459 تحت الحدِّ الأدنى 0.513 لمجموعة الدول المتدنية في التنمية البشرية؛ وهو تحت الحدِّ المتوسط لدول الصحراء الأفريقية، الذي يصِلُ إلى 0.547. وتأتي إرتريا في المرتبة ١٨٠ من أصل ١٨٩ في فهرس التنمية البشرية.

في الثلاثين عاماً الماضية منذ الاستقلال، نلاحظ التقدُّم الهامشي المسجَّل لإجمالي الدخل القومي ومتوسط العمر المتوقع عند الولادة. وهكذا، تدنَّى معدَّل سنوات الدراسة بين الأطفال والشباب، عكس ما يدَّعيه النظام، إلى 3.8 للعام ١٩٩١، مقابل  5.0 للعام ٢٠١٩”؛ مقارنةً بإثيوبيا بمعدَّل” 2.5 للعام ١٩٩٥، مقابل 5.0 للعام ٢٠١٩”. تؤكِّد مجموعة البنك الأفريقي للتنمية للعام ٢٠٢١: أنَّ الفقر ينتشر عندما يصِلُ معدَّل دخل العامل إلى 3.10 دولار، مقابل القوة الشرائية؛ ويُقدَّر ذلك بنسبة 75.2 من القوة العاملة. ويجب ملاحظة أنَّ هؤلاء العمال الفقراء هم مَن يعملون بدون أجور، تحت مُسمَّى الخدمة الوطنية .

ج. دفعت التعبئة العسكرية المستمرَّة، والتي تتمحور حول الخدمة الوطنية والإفلات من العقاب والأمن والسلامة الشخصية، بمئات الآلاف من الشباب الإرتري إلى مغادرة البلاد والبحث عن ملجأ آمن. ذكرت المفوَّضية العليا لشوؤن اللاجئين، في تقريرها الأخير للعام ٢٠١٩، أنَّ نحو ٦٠٠٠ من الإرتريين يغادرون إرتريا شهرياً بحثاً عن الحماية، بل أكثر من ذلك؛ 15.4% من هولاء اللاجئين هم من القُصَّر غير المصحوبين. يُضافُ هذا النزوح إلى عهود طويلة من النزوح الإرتري خلال الثلاثين عاماً من حرب التحرير، ويتركُ ندوباً على النسيج الاجتماعي الإرتري الذي يستند على التماسك العائلي. 

د. بالرغم من أنَّ هذا الحرمان الاجتماعي قد تضرَّر منه الشباب، إلَّا أنَّ النساء والأطفال هم الأكثر تضرُّراً منه. تتحمَّل النساء في داخل البلاد مسؤولية رعاية الأطفال وكبار السن من غير مصادر مالية كافية، في ظل غياب المُعيل التقليدي أي “الرجل” أو بسبب الخدمة العسكرية غير المحدودة  أو اللجوء. هذا إذا لم يتم جرُّ النساء إلى الخدمة العسكرية، حيث يواجهن المعاملة القاسية والتحرُّش الجنسي؛ كما تُجبَرُ الفتيات الصغيرات على الزواج القسري لتجنُّب الخدمة الوطنية الإلزامية. وغالباً ما يكون هذا الزواج من رجال كبار في السن من المهاجرين الذين ينعمون بأوضاع مادية أفضل، ممَّا يخلق علاقة غير متوازنة أو متساوية تعاني فيها الفتيات الشابات كثيراً. أمَّا الخيار الآخر أمام الفتيات الشابات، فهو مغادرة البلاد بحثاً عن الأمان. كما تقع الفتيات خلال الرحلة، تماماً مثل الشباب الذكور، ضحايا للعديد من الانتهاكات، بما في ذلك انتهاكات جنسية تترك آثاراً نفسية عميقة طيلة حياتهن.

٤.ERI.pdf

٥. https://www.afdb.org/en/countries/east-africa/eritrea/eritrea-economic-outlook.

٦.https://eritreanrefugees.org/refugee-stats/

ه. بالرغم من أنَّ الميثاق الوطني للجبهة الشعبية للديمقراطية والعدالة قد صمَّم على “أنَّ بناء نظام اقتصادي يلبي احتياجات الأغلبية وتحسين ظروفهم المعيشية وإيجاد تنمية عادلة تُدارُ من خلال اقتصاد السوق، وتشجِّع على الاستثمار الخاص والمبادرات والمنافسة بما يضمن نمواً اقتصادياً متوازناً”، إلَّا أنَّ الواقع بعيد عن هذه الطموحات. ففي واقع الأمر، قامت الجبهة الشعبية للديمقراطية والعدالة على ترسيح اقتصاد الحصص التموينية وتدمير القطاع الخاص وتهجير قطاع الإنتاج، ودفع الناس إلى حالة الفقر المدقع وسوء التغذية. في الواقع، ونسبة لسياساتها الخاطئة وانعدام الإصلاح والابتكار مقرونَيْن بنقصٍ في القوة العاملة (تجنيد الشباب المنتج في الخدمة العسكرية غير المحدودة)، أُصيب القطاع المُنتِج، بما في ذلك القطاع الزراعي، بالشلل الدائم. إنَّ الزراعة المستدامة، وهي مصدر حياة لنحو ٨٠٪ من السكان، لم يتم إصلاحها على مدى ثلاثين عاماً منذ الاستقلال، ولهذا ضعُفت .على سبيل المثال، تقول منظمة إيفاد (IFAD) إنَّ ٦٥٪ من سكان الريف الإرتري فقراء، ويواجه ٣٧٪ منهم تهديداً كبيراً بانعدام الأمن الغذائي؛ ويهبط هذا المعدَّل إلى ٢٥٪ في مواسم شُحِّ الأمطار.

و. لقد نكثت الجبهة الشعبية بعهودها لتضييق التفاوت التاريخي واللامساوة الاجتماعية – الاقتصادية بين الريف والمدينة، إضافةً إلى الانقسامات العرقية -اللغوية. وعلى فقرها، فإنَّ الخدمات والمصالح العامة تُقدَّم  بأسلوب وضيع وغير مُنصِف.

١-٤  المعارضة :

أ. إنَّ المعارضة التي أُجبِرت على التهجير لانعدام الفضاء السياسي في إرتريا، قد شكَّلت على مدى العشرين إلى ثلاثين عاماً الماضية جُلَّ العملَ المقاوِم. إلَّا أنَّها لم تتمكَّن من مراكمة حملة فعَّالة ومستمرَّة لاقتلاع النظام من السلطة .

ب. يعود السبب في ذلك إلى عدم قدرتها على تشكيل إدراة موحَّدة لعملٍ منسَّق وموحَّد، وإلى أنَّها اختارت خلق مجموعاتٍ سياسية جديدة هشَّة تخدم دوائرَ مخصَّصة، بدلاً من ترسيخ نفسها عبر التنظيمات التي كانت قائمة أصلاً.

ج. أدَّى هذا التشتُّت إلى استقواء المجموعات الهشَّة والتي تمتلك منصَّات سياسية خطيرة، تشكِّك في وجود الدولة الإرترية من أساسها وإمكانية تجانسها بخلق فضاء سياسي موحَّد، ومن ثمَّ الهيمنة على الخطاب السياسي الإرتري بمجمله.

وعليه، وبقدر ما تمَّ مناقشته بشكلٍ متواتر في المجال العام الإرتري على مرِّ السنين، فإنَّ مبادرة تأسيس حكومة في المنفى هي مبادرةٌ جريئة، تسعى إلى تسريع النضال من أجل تحقيق الديمقراطية في إرتريا.

أ. تأخذ الفكرة بعين الاعتبار وبجدية العبر من النجاحات والتحديات التي واجهت الوحدة الوطنية في السنوات السابقة.

ب. تستند الفكرة على رؤية نقدية وفهم عميق للشعب الإرتري ونضالاته السابقة والحالية من أجل تحقيق الديمقراطية في إرتريا، وتحديد المسار الذي يجب اتِّخاذه على المدَيَيْن القصير والمتوسط في المستقبل.

ج. تضع الفكرة أولويةً لما يجري هنا والآن من أجل إنقاذ الشعب الإرتري من القهر الطويل وإهانة الكرامة وانفراط دولته الذي يلوح في الأفق.

٧.https://www.ifad.org/en/web/operations/w/country/eritrea

د. تستند الفكرة على الإيمان الثابت بأنَّ حقوق الشعوب وكرامتها والحفاظ على هويتها الوطنية لا تنفصمُ عُراها عن الوطن الأم، وحماية استقلال إرتريا الغالي وسيادة ووحدة أراضيها.

ومن الأهمية القصوى أيضاً إبراز النقاط التالية:

ه. تطور المفهوم وصياغة المبادرة لتأسيس حكومة في المنفى لا يتمُّ بإقصاء أو على حساب الإرتريين في الداخل الذين لا يملكون المساحة ولا الوسائل لتنظيم أنفسهم سياسياً والتعبير عن رؤاهم.

و. في الواقع، سعت المبادرة بكل الطرق الممكنة إلى التماس الأفكار والآراء والمواقف من داخل إرتريا، لتستند على الوضع الإرتري السائد في الداخل والخارج .

ز. وبالتالي: بينما تعمل المبادرة على صون جوهر أهدافها ومبادئها الأساسية، إلَّا أنَّها في نفس الوقت وثيقة حيَّة، قابلة للإثراء عبر النقاشات والحوارات والمشورات التي يجريها القائمون عليها مع شرائحَ متعدِّدة من مجتمعنا وبطرق مختلفة .

٢. النتائج المتوقعة:

النتائج المتوقعة من هذا الإجراء هو تأسيس حكومة في المنفى، تتمتَّع بدعم جماهيري واسع وقادرة على تمثيل المصالح الوطنية للإرتريين ونشر التغيير السياسي في البلاد .

٣. حكومة في المنفى:

يجب أن تتألَّف حكومة المنفى من هيئتين، هما: المجلس الاستشاري والمجلس التنفيذي. وعلى حكومة المنفى العمل بالمبادئ السياسية التي يتبنَّاها المجلس الاستشاري .

٣. ١ المجلس الاستشاري:

يجب أن يتكوَّن المجلس الاستشاري من ممثلين عن المجموعات الإرترية السياسية والمدنية في المهجر، وكذلك من الشخصيات العامَّة البارزة. وسيتمُّ تحديد عدد الممثلين من القائمة المرسلة من المنظمات السياسية والمدنية بتحاصُص نسبي يُؤسَّسُ لاحقاً.

٣. ١. ١ التفويض:

يجب أن يكون تفويض المجلس الاستشاري، ضمن مسؤوليات أخرى، على النحو التالي:

– تبنِّي المباديء السياسية العامة كوثيقة مُلزِمة لحكومة المنفى.

– التصديق على مرشحي المجلس التنفيذي.

– انتخاب رئيس المجلس التنفيذي وأعضاء المكتب الآخرين للمناصب والمسؤوليات المحدَّدة.

– في ظل الظروف الراهنة، يقوم بالمهام الاستشارية.

– نظراً للظروف الراهنة، يشرف على عمل المجلس التنفيذي .

– حشد كل الإرتريين في المهجر حول القضية الوطنية.

– العمل على تقوية النسيج الاجتماعي للإرتريين.

– تطوير نظم إجراءاتها وهياكل لجانها الداخلية،

– القيام بكل المهام الموكلة إليها.

٣. ١. ٢ مدَّة القيام بأعباء المكتب الاستشاري:

سيؤدي أعضاء المكتب الاستشاري مهامهم في مناصبهم لمدَّة لا تزيد عن ٢٤ شهراً من تاريخ تأديتهم للقسم. وفي حال حدوث تغيير سياسي في إرتريا، يعقد المجلس اجتماعاً استثنائياً لتقييم الوضع وتقرير مصيره.

٣. ٢ المجلس التنفيذي:

يجب أن يتكوَّن المجلس التنفيذي من مهنيين ذوي خبرات شخصية ومكانة اجتماعية وسياسية معتبرة.

يُقدَّم المرشَّحون من قبل لجنة مشتركة، تتألَّف من لجنة يشكِّلها المجلس الاستشاري الذي يعمل بالتنسيق مع فريق العمل الوطني. 

يجب أن يُصادَق على أعضاء المجلس التنفيذي من قبل المجلس الاستشاري قبل تولِّيهم مناصبهم.

٣. ٢. ١ التفويض:

يجب أن يكون تفويض المجلس التنفيذي، ضمن مسؤوليات أخرى، على النحو التالي:

– الإشراف على الشوؤن الوطنية وإدارتها.

– تمثيل إرتريا والإرتريين والتحدُّث باسمهم في المحافل الدولية. 

– تنسيق كل المناشط السياسية الوطنية.

– القيام بكل المهام الموكلة إليه من قبل المجلس الاستشاري .

إضافةً إلى ذلك، يجب أن يكون للمجلس التنفيذي وكل الأقسام اختصاصاتها وخطة عمل مدَّتها عامان ونصف العام؛ ويجب أن تُشمل كل هذه التفاصيل في وثائقَ منفصلة .

٣. ٢. ٢ الأقسام:

يترأس المجلس التنفيذي تحت إدارة رئيسه تسع مكاتب إدارية يرأسها مديرون؛ وهؤلاء المديرون هم:

١-  مدير مكتب الرئاسة.

٢-  مدير مكتب نائب الرئيس .

٣-  مدير مكتب العلاقات الدولية والدبلوماسية.

٤-  مدير مكتب إعادة البناء والتنمية الاقتصادية.

٥-   مدير الإدارة المالية (الخزانة).

٦-  مدير إدارة الإعلام.

٧-  مدير إدارة الشؤون الاجتماعية والإنسانية .

٨-  مدير إدارة الشؤون الانتقالية والدستورية.

٩-  مدير إدارة الأمن والسلامة.

٣. ٢. ٢ يتلو المتحدث باسم المجلس الاستشاري “انظر أدناه” صيغة القسم لترديدها من قبل روؤساء الإدارات. يخدم أعضاء المجلس التنفيذي في مهمامهم لمدَّة ٣٠ شهراً.

٤. العملية السياسية:

٤. ١ المرحلة الأولى: تأسيس فريق العمل الوطني.

٤. ١ . ١ مهامه :

 يجب أن يفوَّض فريق العمل الوطني للقيام بمهام: المبادرة، والتسهيل، والإشراف على إجراءات تشكيل حكومة المنفى. والفريقُ مسؤولٌ أيضاً عن التواصل مع التنظيمات السياسية وأجهزة الإعلام بشأنِ هذه الإجراءات، حسب الضرورة. وتنتهي صلاحية فريق العمل الوطني مع تشكيل حكومة المنفى، إلَّا إذا تقرَّر فيما بعد خلاف ذلك من قبل الحكومة.

٤. ١ . ٢ تكوينه:

يتشكَّل فريق العمل الوطني من عضوية لا تقلُّ عن خمسة أشخاص. ينضمُّ الأعضاء إلى الفريق بدعوة تُقدَّمُ لهم بناءً على المواصفات التالية:  “ملاحظة: قد لا تتوفر كل هذه المواصفات في شخص واحد، ولذا يجب الأخذ بعين الاعتبار حين تشكيل الفريق أنَّ الأشخاص والمواصفات تُكمِّلُ بعضها البعض”. ويحقُّ لفريق العمل الوطني الاستعانة عند الضرورة بأشخاص آخرين لتقديم خدمات ودعم محدَّدين.

-السمات الشخصية: أن يكون شخصاً مشهوداً له بالنزاهة، بعيداً عن السجالات السياسية؛ متواضعاً ومستعِدَّاً لخدمة الصالح العام.

– القناعات السياسية: أن يكون شخصاً مؤمناً بالكرامة والسيادة الوطنية وتنوُّع ووحدة الشعب، وله إسهامات إيجابية في العمل الوطني.

– المعرفة: أن يكون مُلِمَّاً وبعمق بالتاريخ السياسي الإرتري المعاصر؛ وعلى معرفة جيدة بالتضاريس السياسية للمعارضة في المهجر، بتعدُّد أوجهها.

– الكفاءة: أن يكون معروفاً بأنَّ لديه مهارات تحليلية وتسهيلية، وأن يكون معتدلاً ولديه مهارات في التواصل الاجتماعي. 

٤. ٢ المرحلة الثانية: التشاور والتواصل.

– يقوم فريق العمل الوطني بالتشاور مع المجموعات السياسية والمدنية وكذلك أصحاب المصلحة الذين بإمكانهم لعب دور في إنجاح العملية السياسية.

– يعمل فريق العمل الوطني من خلال المشاورات على تقديم وتوضيح مفهوم حكومة المنفى والحصول على الإجماع والالتزام بمضامينه لدى المنظمات والأفراد المؤثرين.

– يتواصل فريق العمل الوطني مع مجموعات متنوِّعة وجمهور واسع من خلال عقد الندوات العامة وعبر أجهزة الإعلام لنشر الوعي ورفع الدعم الشعبي لهذه العملية السياسية ونتائجها.

– يقدم فريق العمل الوطني، عند الطلب، الدعم الضروري للمجموعات السياسية والمدنية المؤهَّلة، في مجال برمجة وتغطية مؤتمراتها.

٤. ٣ المرحلة الثالثة: المؤتمرات الانتخابية المتزامنة.

– على المنظمات السياسية والمدنية عقد مؤتمراتها الداخلية لاختيار ممثليها في المجلس الاستشاري، حسب الإجراءات الخاصة بهم.

– وبالمثل: على المنظمات المدنية عقد مؤتمر شامل لمناقشة خارطة الطريق نحو تأسيس حكومة في المنفى؛ وعليها اختيار ممثليها في المجلس الاستشاري.

– فريق العمل الوطني مستعِدٌّ لتقديم الدعم الفني للمنظمات السياسية والمدنية لعقد مؤتمرات ناجحة.

– تتقدَّم المنظمات علناً بأسماء ممثِّليها في المجلس الاستشاري.

٤. ٤ المرحلة الرابعة: الجلسة الافتتاحية العامة.

– يتشكَّل المجلس الاستشاري وبشكلٍ رسمي  في الجلسة الافتتاحية العامة.

– يترأس رئيس فريق العمل الوطني الجلسة الافتتاحية العامة.

– تعتمد الجلسة الافتتاحية العامة قواعد المجلس الاستشاري (سيتمُّ تضمينها في وثيقة منفصلة).

– تختار الجلسة الافتتاحية رئيساً لها، ونائبين للرئيس؛ وتنشئ مكتب الأمين العام الذي يشرف على الشؤون الداخلية للمجلس.

– يجب على الجلسة الافتتاحية العامة اعتماد نظام الترشُّح والانتخاب للمجلس التنفيذي (إجراءات الترشيح ستُضمَّن في وثيقة منفصلة).

1.ንምምስራት ሓድነታዊ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ ዝደፍኡ ቀንዲ ምኽንያታት

1.1 ሕጋዊ ምኽንያታት

ሀ. ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ ብወተሃደራዊ ሓይሊ ንኤርትራ ሓራ ገይሩ፣ ኣብ መላእ ኤርትራ ምምሕዳሩ ምስ ተኸለን ኣደልደለን፣  ንኣቃውማን ስልጣንን ዕማማትን ስራሕን ግዝያዊ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ዘነጽር ኣዋጅ ቁ.23/1992 ኣውጺኡ። ኣዋጅ ቁ.23/1992 ብዘየወላውል ከም ዘመልክቶ፣ “ህዝቢ ኤርትራ መሰል ርእሰ-ውሳኔኡ ብመንገዲ ረፈረንዱም ብሕጊ ክሳብ ዘረጋግጽ፣ ኣብ ኤርትራ ቅዋማዊ መንግስቲ ክሳብ ዝምስረትን፣ መሰጋገሪ መድረኽ ከምዘድሊ ብምርዳእ፣ ኣብ’ዚ መሰጋገሪ መድረኽ’ዚ… ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ (ህ.ግ.ሓ.ኤ) ንሓርነታዊ ቃልሲ ኤርትራ ብዓወት ንምምዝዛም ዝተሰከሞ ሓላፍነት ብምቕጻል፡ ድሕሪ ሓርነት ግዝያዊ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ክእውጅን ከቕውምን ሓላፍነት ኣለዎ።”

ለ. እዚ ክብ ኢሉ ዝተጠቕሰ መዚ፣ እቲ ብሓይሊ ብረት ንዝተረጋገጸ ናጽነትን ሃገራዊ ልዑላውነትን ኤርትራ ሕጋውነት ዘልበሰን፣ ዓለም-ለኻዊ ኣፍልጦን ተቀባልነትን ከም ዝህልዎ ዝገብረ ረፈረንዱም ብዓወት ምስ ተሳኽዐ ኣብቂዑ እዩ።

ሐ. ኣብ ድሮ ረፈረንዱም፣ ኣዋጅ ቁ.23/1992 ብኣዋጅ ቁ.37/1993 ተመሓይሹ። ብመሰረት ዝተመሓየሸ ኣዋጅ ቁ.37/1993 ድማ ግዝያዊ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ናብ መሰጋገሪ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ተሰጋጊሩ። ብመሰረት ዝተመሓየሸ ኣዋጅ ቁ.37/1993፣ መሰጋገሪ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ፣ ክሳብ ቅዋም ኤርትራ ኣብ ግንቦት 1997 ዝጸድቕ ንኤርትራ ናይ ምምሕዳር ሓላፍነት ተዋሀበ። ብተወሳኺ፣ እቲ ኣዋጅ፣ ምክፍፋል ስልጣን፡ ሚዛንን ቁጽጽርን ስልጣናት ዘውሕስ ምክፍፋል መንግስታዊ መዋቃራት ስኢሉ፣ ነዚ ዘኽእል ሓደ-ህንጻዊ ሃገራዊ ባይቶ፣ ናጻ ፍርዳዊ ኣካል፣ ብፕረዚደንት ዝምራሕ ፈጻሚ ኣካላት መንግስቲ ክቐውም ኣሚሙ።

መ. ቅዋም ኣብ ወርሒ ግንቦት 1997 ጸዲቁ። እንተኾነ፣ ነቲ ኣብቲ ቅዋም ብንጹር ዘይተቀመጠ፣ ቅዋም ኣብ ግብሪ ዝውዕለሉ ወይ ዝተርጎመሉ ናይ ግዜ መቃን ዝምልከት ነጥቢ ከም ነቓዕ ብምጥቃም፣ ኢሳይያስ ኣፈወርቂ ብዘይ ዝኾነ ሕጋዊ መዝነት ካብ ግንቦት 1997 ክስብ ግንቦት 1998 ንኤርትራ ኣመሓዲሩ።

ረ. ኣብ ግንቦት 1998 ዝተወለዐ ኲናት ዶብ ኢትዮጵያን ኤርትራን፣ ንስርዓት ኢሳይያስ ንኤርትራ ኣብቲ ትሕቲ ዘይዕላዊ ኣዋጅ ህጹጽ ግዜ ካብ ግንቦት 1998 ክሳብ ታሕሳስ 2000 ከመሓድር ዕድል ሂብዎ። ሃገራዊ ባይቶ ኤርትራ ኣብ 2002 ድሕሪ ምፍራሱ ድማ፣ እቲ ስርዓት ብምስምስ ኩነተ ኣይኲናት ኣይሰላም፣ እገዳን ዘይምትግባር ውሳኔ ኮምሽን ዶብ ኤርትራን ኢትዮጵያ፣ ብዘይ ዝኾነ ሕጋዊ መዝነት ንኤርትራ ምምሕዳር ቀጺሉ።

ሰ. እቲ ንልዕሊ 20 ዓመታት ከም መመሳመሲ ዝተጠቕመሉ ኩነተ “ኣይኲናት ኣይሰላም”፣ ኤርትራን ኢትዮጵያን ኣብ 2018 ናይ ሰላምን ምሕዝነትን ስምምዕ ተፈራሪመን ምስ ኣብቅዐ’ውን እንተኾነ፣ ግዝኣት ሓደ ሰብ ብዘይ ዝኾነ ሕጋዊ መሰረት ይቅጽል ኣሎ።

1.2.        ፖለቲካዊ ምኽንያታት

ሀ. እዞም ክብ ኢሎም ዝተጠቕሱ ንዘይሕጋውነት እቲ ስርዓት ዘርእዩ ሓቅታት፣ ነቲ ንመዋእላት ዝጸንሐ፡ ሓባርዊን ውልቃውን ህይወቱ ዝገዝእን ዘምሓድርን ዝተራቀቀ ያታዊ ስርዓትን ሕግታትን ዝሃነጸ ስልጡን ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ዘይምጥኑን፣ ንስልጡን ባህሉን ድግነቱን ዘዋርዱን ዝጻረሩን እዮም። ብተወሳኺ፣ እዞም ክብ ኢሎም ዝተጠቕሱ ሓቅታት፣ ኣንጻር’ቶም ኣብ ካልኣይን ሓድነታውን ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር (1987) ዝጸደቀ ሃገራዊ ደሞክራስያዊ ፕሮግራምን፣ ኣብ ሳልሳይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር (1994) ዝተነድፈ ሃገራዊ ቻርተርን ዝርከቡ ክብርታትን መትከላትን እዮም። እዘን ክልተ ሰነዳት፣ ቅድሚ ሓርነት ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ፣ ድሕሪ ሓርነት ድማ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ንዲሞክራስን ፍትሕን፣ ንህዝቢ ኤርትራ ዝቀረባሉ መሰረታውያን ማሕበረ-ፖለቲካዊ ኪዳናት’የን ነይረን።

ለ. ንድሕሪት ብዙሕ ከይተመለስና፣ ኣብ ሳልሳይ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ዝተነድፈ ሃገራዊ ቻርተር፣ ዕላማ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ንዲሞክራስን ፍትሕን ብዘርኢ ከምዚ ኢሉ ኣስፊርዎ ኣሎ፡

“እቲ [ኣብ ኤርትራ ክህሉ ዝኾነ] ፖለቲካዊ ስርዓት፣ ኣብ ህዝቢ ዝተሰረተ፣ ተሳታፍነት ህዝቢ ኣብ ምውሳን ጉዳያት ከባቢኡን ሃገሩን ዘረጋጋጽ፣ ካብ ታሕቲ ንላዕሊ ዝተሃንጸ፣ ብመትከላት ዘይምምእካል፣ ፖለቲካዊ ብዙሕነት፣ ግሉጽነት፣ ምጽውዋር፣ ተሓታትነት ዝምራሕ፣ መሰረታዊ ናይ ፖለቲካዊ ምውዳብን ርእይቶ ምግላጽን መሰላት ዘኽብር፣ ደሞክራስያውን ብዙሓውን ኣሳታፍን ምኳኑ ምርግጋጽ።“

ሐ. ብተወሳኺ፣ እቲ ሃገራዊ ቻርተር ይብል፡

“መሪሕነት እኩብ ሓላፍነት ብምዃኑ፣ ብእኩብ ክግምገምን ክውሰንን ክከታተልን ዘኽእሎ ትካላዊ ኣሰራርሓ ክህልዎ ግድን’ዩ። ኣብ ዝተፈላለየ ጽፍሕታት ስሩዕ ኣኼባታት ክህልዎን፣ እዚ ኣኼባታት’ዚ ብዕቱብ ክረአን ናይ ውሳነን ገምጋምን መድረኽ ክኸውንን ኣገዳሲ’ዩ። ከምኡ ምስ ዘይከውን፣ ሓድነት መሪሕነት ምልሕላሕ፣ ናይ እንታይ ገደሰኒ ስምዒት ምምዕባል፣ ብእኩብ ክውሰድ ዝምረጽ ውሳነ ብውልቂ ምውሳድን ካልእ ጉድለታትን ይስዕብ።”

እንተኾነ፣ ኣብ ዝሓለፈ ርብዒ-ዘመን ህግደፍ ንመብጽዓታትን ራእይን ሃገራዊ ቻርተር ዝመጥን ኮይኑ’ዩ ኣይጸንሐን። ኣሽንኳይ ንመብጽዓታቱን ራኢታቱ በቂዑ ክርከብስ፣ ፖሊስታት ዘርቅቅን ግብራዊ ዕማማት ዘሰላስልን መዋቕራቱ ዝቆነቆነን ዝተባሕጎገን፣ ንገዛእ-ነብሱ ናብ ምትሃት ናይቲ ቀደም ዝነበሮ ፖለቲካዊን ውድባዊን ቁመና ዘውረደ ‘ውድብ’ ኮይኑ’ዩ ዝርከብ ዘሎ። እቲ ውድብ፣ መሳርሒ ድልየታትን ዊንታን ፋሉልነትን ናይ ሓደ ዓላዊ ውልቀሰብ  ኮይኑ’ዩ ዝርከብ ዘሎ።

መ. ካብ መፈለምታኡ፣ እቲ ትጽቢት ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ዝነበረ፣ ናጽነት ኤርትራ ኣብ ትርጉም ዘለዎ ተሳተፍነትን ምጽውዋርን ዝምርኮስ፣ ባብ ሓዲሽ ዘመነ-ዕርቅን፣ ሃገራዊ ስኒትን ሓድነትን ክኸፍት’ዩ። ስለ’ዚ ድማ እዩ ህዝባዊ ግንባር ሓርነት ኤርትራ፣ ኣብ 1991 ድሕሪኡን፣ ንኻልኦት ሃገራውያን ፖለቲካዊ ሓይልታት ኣጓንዩ ንበይኑ ጥራይ ዝብሕቶ መንግስቲ ከቅውም ትጽቢት ዘይነበረ። ንሃገራዊ ናጽነቱ ከቢድ ዋጋ ዝኸፈለ ህዝቢ ኤርትራ፣ እዚ ሓንሳብ ምስ ተናሕፈ ንሰላሳ ዓመታት ቀጺሉ ዝርከብ “ዝሰዓረ ኩሉ’ግብት” ዝብል ኣረእኣእያ ከመጽእ እዩ ዝብል ግምት ኣይነበሮን።

ረ. ዘይሕጋዊ ግበታ ስልጣን ብሓደ ዓለወኛ ሰብኣይ፣ ብኩራት ግዝኣተ-ሕጊን ናጻ ፖለቲካዊ መድረኽን ኣኸቲሉ፡ ፍጹም ፍርሕን፣ ዘይተሓታትነትን ሰፊኑ።  እዚ ሓቂ’ዚ ብዝተፈላለዩ፣ ከም መርማሪት ኮምሽን ቤት ምኽሪ ሰብኣዊ መሰላት ውድብ ሕቡራት ሃገራት፣ ኣምነስቲ ኢንተርናሽናል፣ ህዩማን ራይትስ ዎች ወዘተ ዝኣመሰላ ኣካላት ዘዳለውኦ፣ ዘይሻራዊ ጸብጻባት ተረጋጊጹ እዩ።

ሰ. ኣብ 2020 ዓመተ-ምሕረት፣ ኤርትራ  ንናጽነት ፕረስ ብዘርኢ ካብ 180 ሃገራት መበል 178፣ ንብልሽውናን ግሉጽነትን ብዘርኢ ካብ 198 ሃገራት መበል 193፣ ንሰናይ ምሕደራ ብዘርኢ ንደቡብ ሱዳንን ሶማልያን ጥራይ በሊጻ ካብ 54 ሃገራት ኣፍሪቃ መበል 52 ተሰሪዓ’ያ።

ሸ. ነዚ ክብ ኢሉ ዝተጠቅሰ ሓቅታት ንምብዳህ ያኢ፣ ስርዓት ህግደፍ ነቶም ኣብ ግብሪ ዘየውዓሎም ኣብ ከብሕታት ብዓለባ ሳሬት ዝጥቅሩ ዘለዉ ሕግታት ይጠቅስ እዩ። ንኣብነት፣ እቲ ስርዓት፣ ብስእነት ሰናይ ምሕደራን፣ ሓቀኛ ህዝባዊ ተሳትፎ ኣብ ፖለቲካዊ መስርሓት ብዘይምፍቃዱ ክውቀስ እንከሎ፣ ንኣቃውማ ዞባዊ ምምሕዳር ኣመልኪቱ ዝወጸ ኣዋጅ ቁ. 86/1996 (ዝተመሓየሸ ኣዋጅ ቁ. 26/1992) ወትሩ ምስ ጠቀሰ’ዩ። ካድረታትን ወከልትን እቲ ስርዓት፣ ህግደፍ ብሰፊሕ ምግሃስ ሰብኣዊ መሰላትን፣ ስእነት ሕጋዊ ተሓታትነትን ኣብ ዝኽሰሰሉ ግዜ፣ ነቲ ኣብ 2015 ዝወጸ ገበናዊ ሕጊን ገበናዊ ስርዓትን፣ ሲቪላዊ ሕጊን ሲቪላዊ ስርዓትን ሃገረ-ኤርትራ ይጠቅሱ’ዮም። ዋላ’ኳ እዚ ክልተ ሰነዳት ዓብዪን ብሉጽን ትሕዝቶ እንተለዎም፣ ስርዓት ህግደፍ ንትሕዝትኦም ኣብ ግብሪ ንምትርጓም ንፈውሲ ማሕላ’ውን ፈቲኑ ኣይፈልጥን’ዩ። ኣብ መጻኢ ንምትርጓሙ’ውን ፍጹም ድልየት የብሉን። ብሰሪ’ዚ ድማ፣ ኣብ ሃገራዊ ቻርተር ሰፊሮም ዘለዉ ዕላማታትን ራእይን ኣብ ዕለታዊ ናብራ ተራ ኤርትራውያን ዜጋታትን ብፍጹም ኣይንጸባረቁን እዮም። መሪሕነትን ምምሕዳርን ካብ ላዕሊ፣ ብሌላን ጒሌላን ኣብ ህዝቢ ዝተስገደዱን ዝተስየሙን እዮም። መሰረታውያን መሰላትን ሓርነታትን ዜጋታት ብዘይ ሕጋዊ መስርሕን ኣገባባትን ከመ-ወዝቢን ብሰፊሕን ክግሃሱን ክቅንጡኡን ጸኒሖምን ኣለዉን።

ቀ. ብተወሳኺ፣ ስርዓት ህግደፍ ንመሰረታውያን መትከላትን ዓናቅጽን ኣዋጅ ሃገራዊ ኣገልግሎት ቁ. 5/1995 ብምጥሓስ፣ ንመንሰያት ኤርትራ ኣብ ገደብ ዘይብሉ ወተሃደራዊ ኣገልግሎት ብምዕስካር፣ ውልቃዊ ህይወቶም ከይሃንጹን ከይሰርዑን ኮኒንዎም ይርከብ። እዚ ከይኣክል፣ ንምፍራም ስምምዕ ሰላምን ሕውነትን ኤርትራን ኢትዮጵያን ስዒቡ፣ “ሰላም ንምርግጋእ” ብዝብል ምኽንያት፣ እቲ ስርዓት ኣብ ውሽጣዊ ፖለቲካዊ ጉዳያት ኢትዮጵያ ቀጥታዊ ወተሃደራዊ ምትእትታው ብምክያድ፣ ህይወት ዓሰርተታት ኣሽሓት ኤርትራውያን መንእሰያት ንሓደጋ ኣቃሊዑ ኣሎ።

በ. ኤርትራ ናጽነታ ካብ ትረክብ ንነጀው፣ ስርዓት ህግደፍ፣ ንመንሰያት ኤርትራ ኣብ ኣርባዕተ ትርጉም ዘይብሉን ክውገድ ዝነበሮን ዝኽልን ኲናት ጠቢስውም እዩ። ብግብራዊ መስፈሪታት፣ ኢሳይያስ ኣፈወርቂ፣በዚ ናይ ሕጂ ወተሃደራዊ ዕንደርኡ፣ ንኤርትራ ብዘይዝኾነ ህዝባዊ ፍቃድ፣ ናብቲ ኣሽሓት ከፊላ ዝተገላገለትሉ ክሊ ዓንኬል ኮንፈደረሽን ኢትዮጵያ ጸንቢርዋ ይርከብ።

1.3.        ማሕበረ-ምጣነሃብታዊ ምኽንያታት

ሀ. ስርዓት ኢሳይያስ መትከላት ርእሰ-ምርኮሳ ዝሰረቱ፣ ገስጋሳዊ ማሕበረ-ምጣነሃብታዊ ፖሊሲ ከም ዝኽተልን፣ ኣብዚ መዳይ ድማ ገዚፍ ዓወት ከም ዝተጎናጸፈን እዩ ዝከራኸር። እንተኾነ፣ እቲ ስርዓት ብሰሪ ዘለዎ ሕሉፍ ናይ ምምስጣርን ዘይግሉጽነትን ባህሊ፣ ነቲ ኣብ ማሕበረ-ምጣነሃብታዊ መዳያት ኣመዝጊበዮ ዝብሎ ዓወታታት ከመሳኽር ዝኽእል ጻልጣ ሓበሬታ ንምርካብ ቀሊል ኣይኮነን። እቶም ሓበሬታታት ዘግህድዎን ዝሓብእዎን ሓቅታት ብዘየገድስ፣ ዕለታዊ ንብረትን ሃለዋትን ተራ ኤርትራውያን ዜጋታት ግን ኣይሕሱን እዩ። ብግብሪ፣ እቲ ስርዓት ኣብ ዝሓለፈ ዓመታት ዘተኣታተዎ ናይ ኩፖን ቁጠባ፣ ንዝበዝሑ ኤርትራውያን ኣብ ምጽወታ ከም ዝምርኮሱ ገይርዎም እዩ። ዓጸቦ፣ ኣብ መንጎ ህጻናትን ኣረገውትን ጥራይ ከይተሓጽረ፣ ነቶም ኣብ ወትሃደራዊ ዕስክርና ብግዲ ተታሒዞም ዘለዉ መንሰያት’ውን ብሰፊሑ ከጥቅዖም ጸኒሑን ኣሎን። ዝበዝሓ ስድራቤታት ብድኽነትን ቁጠባዊ ብትከትን ተሃስየን እየን። ብግደ ሓቂ፣ ብዘይካ’ቲ ካብ ኣብ ስደት ብዝነብሩ ኤርትራውያን ዝስደድ ናይ ሓዋላ ገንዘብ፣ ብዙሕ ካብ ህዝብና ግዳይ ጥምየትን ዓጸቦን ምኾነ ነይሩ። እዚ ሕሱም ኩነታት ንብረት ኤርትራውያን ዜጋታት፣ በቲ ለበዳ ቫይረስ ኮቪድ-19 ንምግታእ ተባሂሉ ብመንግስቲ ካብ ሚያዝያ 2020 ክሳብ መጋቢት 2021 ዝተኣወጆ ፍጹም “ዕጽዋን ምርጋጥን” ተጋዲዱ እዩ።

ለ. ነቲ ኣብ ኤርትራ ዘሎ ሕሱም ማሕበረ-ምጣነሃብታዊ ኩነታት መብርሂ ዝኸውን ገለ ሓቅታትን ሓበሬታትን ክንጠቅስ። ኣብ 2020 ዝወጸ ጸብጻብ ሰብኣዊ ምዕባለ ፕሮግራም ልምዓት ውድብ ሕቡራት ሃገራት (UNDP) ከም ዘመልክቶ፣ ናይ ኤርትራ ገምጋም መለክዒ ሰብኣዊ ምዕባለ 0.459 እዩ። እዚ ካብቲ ኣብ ምድብ ዝደኸያ ሃገራት ዝርከባ ሃገራት ዘመዝግብኦ ናይ 0.513 ማእከላይ ገምጋም ሰብኣዊ ምዕባለን፣  ካብቲ ሃገራት ትሕተ-ሰሃራ ዘለወን ናይ 0.547  ማእከላይ ገምጋም ሰብኣዊ ምዕባለን ዝተሓተ እዩ።  ብመሰረት ጸብጻባት፣ ኤርትራ ብመስፈሪ ሰብኣዊ ምዕባለ ካብ 189 ሃገራት ኣብ መበል 180 እያ ትርከብ። ኣብ ዝሓለፈ 30 ዓመታት ናጽነት፣ ኣብ ጃምላ ሃገራዊ እቶት፣ ኣብ ማእከላይ ገምጋም ዕድመ ኤርትራውያን ዜጋታት፣ ኣብ ህጻናትን መንሰያትን ኣብ ትምህርቲ ዝጸንሕሉ ገምጋማዊ ዓመታት ዝተራእየ ገስጋስ ካብቲ ስርዓት ህግደፍ ዝብሎ ዝተሓተ እዩ።  ጸብጻብ ባንክ ልምዓት ኣፍሪቃ፣ ኣብ ኤርትራ ሃገር-ለኸ ድኽነት ከም ዘሎን፣ ካብቶም ኣብ ሽቅለት ዝርከቡ ኤርትራውያን ዜጋታት እቶም 75.2% ኣብ መዓልቲ  ትሕቲ 3.10 ዶላር ጥራይ እቶት ከም ዝረኽቡን እዩ ዘመላኽት።  ኣብዚ ክስመረሉን ክምልከትን ዘለዎ ሓቂ፣ እቶም ዝበዝሑ ኣብ ድኽነት ዝርከቡ ኤርትራውያን ሸቃሎ ዝግብኦም ዓስብን መሃያን ዘይረኽቡ ኣባላት ሃገራዊ ኣገልግሎት እዮም።

ሐ. ብሰሪ ገደብ ግዜ ዘይብሉ ወተሃደራዊ ዕስክርና፣ ምስኡ ተኣሳሲሩ ኣብ ኣባላት ሃገራዊ ኣገልግሎት ብዘይተሓታትነት ዝወርድ ናብራ ከርተትን ግህሰት ሰብኣዊ መሰላትን፣ ስእነት ውልቃዊ ውሕስነትን፣ ኣማኢት ኣሽሓት ኤርትራውያን ውሕስነትን ድሕነትን ንምንዳይ ሃገሮም ገዲፎም ወጺኦም እዮም። ብመሰረት ኣብ 2019 ዝወጸ ጸብጻብ ላዕለዋይ ተጸዋዒ ስደተኛታት ውድብ ሕቡራት ሃገራት፣ ኣብ ነፍሲ-ወከፍ ወርሒ ኣስታት 6000 ኤርትራውያን፣ ዕቁባ ንምርካብ ካብ ሃገሮም ፈሊሶም ኢዮም። 15.4% ካብኦም ኣላዩ ዘይብሎም ትሕቲ ዕድመ እዮም። እዚ ፍልሰት እዚ ምስቲ ቅድሚ ናጽነት ኤርትራ ዝነበረ ጽኣት ኤርትራውያን ተደማሚሩ፣ ኣብ ልዕሊ’ቲ ስድራቤት ዝዓንዲ ማእከሉ ሕብረተሰባዊ ስርርዓትና ዓምዪቕ ቁስሊ ኣስዒቡ እዩ።

መ. ኣደራዕ ናይዚ ኩሉ-መዳያዊ ምቅንጣእ ዜግነታዊ መሰላት ዝስከሙ ዘለዉ ብሓፈሻ መንእሰያት፣ ብፍላይ ድማ ደቂ-ኣንስትዮን ቆልዑትን እዮም። ኣብ ውሽጢ ኤርትራ፣ ደቂተባዕትዮ ብሰሪ ሃገራዊ ኣገልግሎትን ስደትን ካብ ዘቤታውን ስድራቤታውን ሓላፍነት ስለ ዝበዂሩ፣ ብዘይ እኹል ገንዘባዊ ጸጋታት፣ ቆልዑ ናይ ምዕባይን ኣረገውቲ ናይ ምንባይን ሓላፍነት ደቂ-ኣንስትዮ እየን ዝስከምኦ ዘለዋ። ብዙሓት ኤርትራውያን ደቂ-ኣንስትዮ ወይ ናብቲ ጾታዊ ዓመጽን ካልእ ግህሰታትን ዘቃልዐን ወተሃደራዊ ኣገልግሎት ብግዲ ክኽተባ፣ ካብኡ እንተተማሕራ ወይ ካብኡ ንምምላጥ ድማ ናብ ዘይደልይኦ መርዓ’የን ዝጽመዳ ዘለዋ። ብዙሕ ግዜ፣ ንኣሽቱ ደቀንስትዮ ምስ ኣብ ስደት ዝነብሩ፣ ብዕደመን ገንዘባዊ ጉልበትን ካብአን ኣዝዮም ዝምሕድጉ ስለ ዝምርዓዋ፣ እቲ ዝኣትውኦ ዝምድና ንማዕረነትን ናጽነተንን ዘይቀዱ፣ ሃሳይአን ኮይኑ እዩ ዝርከብ። ካልእ ዘለወን ኣማራጺ፣ ሃገረን ገዲፈን ዕቁባን ድሕነትን ናብ ዝረኽባሉ ሃገራት ምፍላስ እዩ። ኣብ ጉዕዞ ስደተን፣ ልክዕ ከም ደቂ-ተባዕትዮ መዘንአን፣ ንዕምረን ዝነብር ስነ-ኣእምሮኣዊ ጸማልያ ዝገድፈለን፣ ኣሰቃቂ ግፍዕታን ጾታዊ ዓመጽን ይጎንፈን።

ረ. ኣብ ቁጠባዊ መዳይ ምስ ንመጽእ፣ ሃገራዊ ቻርተር ህግደፍ ከምዚ ዝስዕብ መብጽዓ ኣስፊሩ ኣሎ፡

“ኣብ ኤርትራ እንሃንጾ ቁጠባዊ ስርዓት ድሌት ዝበዝሐ ህዝቢ ዘርውን መነባብሮኡ ዘመሓይሽን፣ ኣብ መላእ ሃገር ምዕሩይ ዝርገሐ ዘለዎ፣ ብሕግታት ዕዳጋ ዝሰርሕ፣ ግላዊ ወፍርን ተበግሶን ውድድርን ዘተባብዕ፣ ዝተመዛዘነ ቁጠባዊ ዕብየት ዘረጋግጽ ቁጠባዊ ስርዓት ማለት‘ዩ። ብሓጺሩ፣ እቲ እንሃንጾ ቁጠባዊ ስርዓት ማሕበራዊ ፍትሒ ዘስፍን ክኸውን ኣለዎ።“

ኣብ ባይታ ዘሎ ሓቂ ግን ምስዚ ቁጠባዊ ራኢ ሃገራዊ ቻርተር ዘራኽብ’ውን የብሉን። ህግደፍ፣ ግላዊ ወፍርን ዋኒናትን፣ ኣፍራዪ ጽላታት ቁጠባን ብምዕናው፣ ህዝብና ንድኽነትን ዓጸቦን ብምቅላዕ ናይ ኩፖን ቁጠባ እዩ ተኺሉ።  ብሰሪ ግጉይ ፖሊስታት፣ ስእነት ጽገናን ተሃድሶን፣ ሕጽረት ዓያዪ ሓይልን፣ ሕርሻዊን ኣፍራይ ጽላታት ቁጠባ ኤርትራ ኣብ ዝተናውሐ ልምሰት እዩ ዝርከብ። 80% ካብ ህዝብና ዝምርኮሰሉ ናይ ዕንጋሎ ሕርሻ ኣብ ዝሓለፈ 30 ዓመታት ናጽነት ትርጉም ዘለዎ ለውጢ ኣይተገብረሉን። በዚ ዝኣክል ድማ እዚ ጽላት ሕርሻ እዚ ንሓደጋ ኩሉሳዕ ምስ ተቃልዐ’ዩ። ብመሰረት ጸብጻብ ኣህጉራዊ ማዕከን ሕርሻዊ ልምዓት (IFAD) ንኣብነት “65% ካብ ኣብ ገጠር ዝነብር ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ኣብ ድኽነት እዩ ዝነብር። 37% ካብ ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ዘይውሑስ ሕጽረት መግቢ የጋጥሞ። ዝናብ ጽቡቕ ኣብ ዝኾነሉ እዋን’ውን እንተኾነ፣ 60% ካብ ህዝቢ ኤርትራ’ዩ ውሕስነት መግቢ ዝረክብ። ዝናብ ኣብ ዝጠልመሉ ግዜ ድማ ውሕስነት መግቢ ዝህልዎ ክፋል ሕብረተሰብ ኤርትራ ናብ 25% ይወርድ።

ሰ. ህግደፍ፣ ኣብ መሰረታውያን ፖለቲካዊ ሰነዳቱ፣ ኣብ መንጎ ገጠርን-ከተማን ኣብ መንጎ ዝተፋላለያ ብሄራትን ነዊሕ ንዝጸንሐ ማሕበረ-ምጣነሃብታዊ ፍልልያት ከጽብብ ዝኣተዎ መብጽዓታት ጠሊምዎ እዩ። ዝርካቡ ማሕበራዊ ኣገልግሎታትን ጸጋታትን ብምዕሩይነት ናብ ኩሉ ክፋል ህዝብና ዝተባጽሐ ኣይኮነን።

1.4.        ገምጋም ተቛውሞ

ሀ. ኣብ ኤርትራ ብሰንኪ ናጻ ፖለቲካዊ መድረኽ ዘይምህላዉ፣ ኣብ ስደት ኮይኑ ክነጥፍ ዝተገደደ ደምበ ተቋውሞ፣ ንዓሰርተታት ዓመታት ኣንጻር ስርዓት ህግደፍ ክጋደል ጸኒሑ ኣሎ። እንተኾነ፣ ንስርዓት ህግደፍ ንምእላይ ዘኽእል ዘላቅን ኣድማዕን ኩሉ-መደያዊ ወፍሪ ከካይድ ኣይክኣለን።

ለ. ደምበ ተቋውሞ ኤርትራ ኣድማዕን ዘላቅን ቃልሲ ከካይደሉ ዘይክኣለ ኣውራ ምኽንያት፣ ኣብ ትሕቲ ጽላል ስሙር መሪሕነት ኮይኑ ዝተወሃሃደን ጥርኑፍን ቃልሲ ከካይድ ዘኽእሎ ቁመና ስለ ዘይጸንሖ እዩ። ደምበ ተቋውሞ ኤርትራ፣ ዋላ’ኳ ንልዕሊ ዕስራ ዓመት፣ ኣብ ዝጸንሐ ትካላትን ውድባትን ተመርኲሱ ነብሱ ከደልድል ክፍትን እንተጸንሐ፣ ጎኒ ጎኒ እዚ ግን፣ ሓደስትን ንረብሓታትን ኣጠማምታን ውሕዳን ጉጅለታት ጥራይ ዝውክላ ንኣሽቱ ፖለቲካዊ ምትእኽኻባት ናይ ምፍጣር ዝምባለ’ውን ጸኒሑ እዩ።

ሐ. ነዚ ክብ ኢሉ ዝተገልጸ ሓቅታት ኣብ ግምት ብምእታው እምበኣር ኢና ነቲ ብዙሕ ሰብ ብፍኑው መንገዲ ክዛረበሉ ዝጸንሐ፣ ኣብ ኤርትራ ደሞክራስን ግዝኣተ-ሕግን ኣብ ምስፋን ንዝግበር ቃልሲ ክመርሕን ከቃላጥፍን ዝኽእል ምምስራት መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ ንእምም ዘለና።

እዚ ጽንሰ-ሓሳብ፥

ሀ. ኣብ ዝሓለፈ ዓመታት ነቶም ኣብ ኤርትራ ደሞክራስን ግዝኣተ-ሕግን ኣብ ምስፋን ክቃለሱ ዝጸንሑ ሓይልታትን ጉጅለታትን ንምስማር ዝተኻየዱ ፈተነታት ብዕቱብ ገምጊሙን ካብ ዓወታቱን ብድሆታቱን ትምህርቲ ወሲዱን እዩ።

ለ. ኣብ ዓምዪቕ ትንተናን ርድኢትን ህዝቢ ኤርትራን ደሞክራሲ ንምስፋን ክካይዶ ዝጸንሐ ናይ  ሕሉፉን ሕጂን ቃልሱን ናይ ቀረባን ማእከላይን እዋን ክኽተሎም ዘለዎ መንገዲን ዝምርኮስ እዩ።

ሐ. ኤርትራ ካብ ዝተናውሐ ምልኪን ውርደትን ዘንጸላልዋ ዘሎ ሓደጋ ምብትታንን ብህጹጽ ንምድሓና እቲ እዋን ሕጂ ምዃኑ ጸቂጡ ኣስሚርሉ ኣሎ።

መ. ናይ ህዝቢ መሰላት፣ መዓርግን ክብርን፣ ምዕቓብ ሃገራዊ መንነት ምስ ህላወ ሃገር፣ ምዕቃብ ብብዙሕ መስዋእትን ገድልን ዝተረኸበ ሃገራዊ ናጽነት፣ ልዑላውነትን መሬታዊ ሓድነትን ዝተኣሳሰረ ምዃኑ ካብ ዝብገስ ጽኑዕ እምነት፣ እቲ ኣብ ደገ ዝቀውም መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ነዚ ጉዳያት ከም ቀንዲ ዕማሙ ገይሩ ክሰርሕ ይእምም።

ብተወሳኺ፣ ኣጸቢቅና ከነስምረሉ እንደሊ ነጥብታት፣ ንድፊ እዚ ጽንሰ-ሓሳብ ንምቋም መንግስቲ ኣብ ወጻኢ፥

ሀ. ነቶም ክውደቡን ሓሳባቶም ክገልጹን ኣኽእሎን መድረኽን ዘይብሎም ኣብ ውሽጢ ኤርትራ ዘለዉ ዜጋታትና ብምጉናይ ብዋጋኦም ይእመም ከም ዘየለ

ለ. ብኣንጻሩ፣ ብዝተኻእለ መጠን ሓሳባትን፣ መርገጽታትን ኣጠማምታትን ኣብ ውሽጢ ኤርትራ ዘለዉ ሰባት ክንረክብን ኣብዚ ጽንሰ-ሓሳብ ከነካትትን ከም ዝፈተንና

ሐ. በዚ ክብ ዝበለ ምኽንያታት፣ እዚ ጽንሰ-ሓሳብ፣ ሕመረት ዕላማኡን መትከላቱን ከም መርሓ ተዓቂቦም፣ ኣብ መንጎ ዝተፋለልዩ ሰብ ብርኪ ብዝካየድ ዝርርባት፣ ክትዓትን ምምኽኻርን ክህብትምን ክምዕብልን ዘለዎ ህያው ሰነድ ምዃኑ ንኣምን።

 2.    ትጽቢት ዝግበረሉ ውጽኢታት

ናይ መወዳእታ ዕላማ ናይዚ ኮቲምናዮ ዘለና መስርሕ፣ ምምስራት ሰፊሕ ህዝባዊ ደገፍ ዘለዎ፣ ንሃገራዊ ረብሓታት ኤርትራ ብብቅዓትን ብኽእለትን ዝውክል፣ ኣብ ኤርትራ ፖለቲካዊ ለውጢ ንምምጻእ ኣብ ዝግበር ቃልሲ ፊተውራሪኣዊ ተራ ዝጻወት መንግስቲ እዩ።

2.1.        መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ

መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ ክልተ ኣካላት ይህልዎ፥ ቤት-ምኽርን ፈጻሚ ኣካልን። እቲ ዝቀውም መንግስቲ ብመሰረት ቤት-ምኽሪ ዘጽድቆ ሓፈሻዊ ፖለቲካዊ መትከላት ዕማሙ የሰላስል።

2.2.       ቤት-ምኽሪ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ

ቤት-ምኽሪ ብወከልቲ ፖለቲካውያን ውድባትን በርጌሳዊ ማሕበራትን ስሙያትን ዓበይቲ ዓዲ ኤርትራውያንን ይቀውም። ብዝሒ ናብ ቤት ምኽሪ ዝስደዱ ወከልቲ ፖለቲካዊ ውድባትን በርጌሳውያን ማበራትን ኣብ መጻኢ ብዝውሰን ብጽሒት ይውሰን። መንዩ ፖለቲካዊ ውድብ መን ኣዩ በርጌስዊ ማሕበር ዝብል ሕቶ ብዙሕ ከካትዕ ይኽል እዩ። ብናትና ገምጋም ሓደ ፖለቲካዊ ውድብ ኣብ ውድባዊ ጉባኤ ዝጸደቀ ፖለቲካዊ ፕሮግራም ዘለዎ፣ ጉባኤእኡ ብስሩዕ ዝገብር፣ ፍሉጣት ሰብ ካርዲ ኣባልት ዘለውዎ፣ መሪሕነት ዝመረጸ፣ ምስ ህዝቢ ቀጻሊ ርክብ፣ ምብብሃሃልወዘተ ዘካይድ፣ ኣባልት ብቀጻሊ ዝኸትብ ዝውድብ ዘንቅሕ፣ ናይ ሚድያ፣ ናይ ዲፕሎማሲ፣ ናይ ፖለትክካን ካልን ስርሓት ብቀጻሊ ብስሩዕ ኣገባብ ዘካይድ።

ሓላፍነታት ቤት-ምኽሪ

• ንመንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ደገ ዝገዝእ ሓፈሻዊ ፖለቲካዊ መትከላት ምንዳፍን ምጽዳቅን
• ኣባላት ፈጻሚ ኣካል መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ ኽኾኑ ንሕጸ ዝቀርቡ ሰባት ምጽራይን ምጽዳቅን
• ኣደ/ኣቦ መንበር ፈጻሚ ኣካል መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ምምራጽን ዝተፈላለዩ ክፍልታታት ናይቲ መንግስቲ ዝመርሑ/ሓ ሰባት ምምዛዝን
• ብዝተኻእለ መጠን ከከም ኣድላይነቱ ናይ ቤት ምኽሪ ዕማማት ምስልሳል
• ዕማማትን ስርሓትን ፈጻሚ ኣካል መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ምክትታልን ምግምጋምን
• ኣብ ወጻኢ ዝነብሩ ኤርትራውያን ምውዳብን ኣብ ክሊ ሃገራዊ ዕላማ ምኽታትን
• ማሕበራዊ ስኒትን ሓድነትን ኤርትራውያን ክሕይል ምስራሕ
• ንውሽጣዊ ኣሰራርሓ ዝገዝእኡ ሕጋጋታትን ስርዓትን ውሽጣዊ ኮሚተታትን ዝህልወን ቅርጽታታን ምምዕባል
• ካልእ ኣብ መጻኢ ንገዛእ ነብሳ እትህቦ ዕማማት ተሰላስል

ዕምሪ ስልጣን ቤት-ምኽሪ

ኣባላት ቤት ምኽሪ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ፣ ቃለ-ማሕላ ካብ ዝገብርሉ ዕለት ጀሚሩ፣ ንዕራን ኣርባዕተን ኣዋርሕ ጥራይ ኣብ መዝነቶም ይጸንሑ። ዕምረ-ስልጣኖም ከየብቅዐ ኣብ ኤርትራ ፖለቲካዊ ለውጢ እንተመጽዩ፣ ማእከላይ ቤት ምኽሪ ህጹጽ ኣኼባ ብምጽዋዕ ኩነታት ይግምግምን መጻኢ ዕድሉ ይውስንን።

2.3.       ሃገራዊት ፈጻሚት ኣካል መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ

ሃገራዊት ፈጻሚት ኣካል መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ ንክብ ዝበለ ሓላፍነቶም ዝምጥን ሞያ፣ ውልቃዊ ድግነትን ማሕበራዊን ፖለቲካዊ ዝናን ተሰማዕነትን ብዘለዎም ክኢላታታ ትቀውም።

ሓላፍነታት ፈጻሚት ኣካል መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ

• ንሃገራዊ ጉዳያት ትግምግምን ትከታተልን
• ኣብ ኣህጉራዊ መድረኻት ንኤርትራን ትውክልን ኣብ ክንዳኦም ትከራኸርን
• ኩሉ-መዳያት ሃገራዊ ፖለቲካዊ ስርሓት ተወሃህድ
• ኣብ መጻኢ ንነብሳ እትምድቦ ካልእ ሓጀታታ ትዓምም

ንሃገራዊት ፈጻሚት ኣካል መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢን ነፍሲ ወከፍ ክፍሊን መቃን መወከሲ ዝኸውን ናይ ክልተ ዓመት ንድፊ ስራሕ ይህልወን።

ክፍልታት ፈጻሚት ኣካል መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ

1. ቤት ጽሕፈት ኣቦ መንበር ፈጻሚት ኣካል
2. ቤት ጽሕፈት ምክትል ኣቦ መንበር ፈጻሚት ኣካል
3. ክፍሊ ኣህጉራዊ ዝምድናታትን ዲፕሎማስን
4. ክፍሊ ቁጠባዊ ዳግመ-ህንጻን ልምዓትን
5. ክፍሊ ፋይናንስ
6. ክፍሊ ሓበሬታን መጽናዕትን
7. ክፍሊ ማሕበራዊን ሰብኣዊ ጉዳያትን
8. ክፍሊ መሰጋገርን ቅዋማዊን ጉዳያት
9. ክፍሊ ጸጥታን ድሕነትን

ዕምሪ ስልጣን ቤት-ምኽሪ

ኣባላት ሃገራዊ ፈጻሚት ቤት ምኽሪ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ደገ ንሳላሳ ወርሒ ዝጸንሕ ዕምሪ ስልጣን ይህልዎም።
3.    መስርሕ ምምስራት መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ

ቀዳማይ መድረኽ፥ ምምስራት ሃገራዊ ሓይሊ ዕማም

3.1.        ተልእኾ ሃገራዊ ሓይሊ ዕማም

ቀንዲ ተልእኾኣ፡ ኣብ ጽንሰ-ሓሳብ ኣቀሚጣቶ ዘላ መስርሕ ምምስራት መንግስቲ ኣብ ወጻኢ ባዕለ ተበግሶን ሓላፈነትን ብምውሳድ ኣብ መፈጸምትኡ ንምብጻሕ እዩ።  ብተወሳኺ፣ እዛ ሓይሊ ዕማም ምስ ማዕከናት ዜና ንጉዳይ ምስረታ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ ኣመልኪታ ሓበሬታትን ዝርርባትን ተካይድ፣ ምስ ፖለቲካዊ ውድባትን በርጌሳውያን ማሕበራትን ትራኸብን ትላዘብን። ተልእኾኣን ህላወኣን ድማ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ደገ ምስ ተመስረተ የብቕዕ።

3.2.       ኣቋውማ ሃገራዊ ሓይሊ ዕማም

ሃገራዊ ሓይሊ ዕማም፡ ብሸውዓተ (7) ግዱሳት ኤርትራውያን ዝቖመት እያ። ኣባላት ናይ ሓይሊ ዕማም ኮይኖም ዝተመርጹ ውልቀሰባት ነዚ ዝስዕብ ረቛሒታት ወይ ብከፊል ወይ ብምሉእ ዘማልኡ’ዮም፥

1. ፖለቲካዊ እምነት፥ ኣብ ሃገራዊ ልዑላውነትን መሬታዊ ሓድነትን ኤርትራ ዝኣምኑ፣ ሓድነትን ብዙሕነትን ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ዝቅበሉን ዝጽንብሉን፣ ንሃገራዊ ዕላማ ኣብ ምስጓም ዘበርከቱ
2. ፍልጠት፥ ብዛዕባ ፖለቲካዊ ታሪኽ ኤርትራ ዓምዩቕ ዝፈልጡ፣ ንፖለቲካዊ ሜዳ ደምበ ተቋውሞ ብጽቡቕ ዝግንዘቡን ንኩሉ መዳያዊ ሸነኻት ኣብ ስደት ዝነብር ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ዝርድኡን
3. ብቕዓት፥ ናይ ትንተና፣ ምብህሃል፣ ኣሳልጦ፣ ርክብ፣ ዓንኬላት ዝምድናታት ናይ ምምስራት ክእለት ዘለዎም

ካልኣይ መድረኽ፥ ምምኽካርን ርክባትን

• ሓይሊ ዕማም ምስ ኤርትራውያን ፖለቲካዊ ውድባትን በርጌሳውያን ማሕበራትን ካልኦት ነዚ መደብ ንምዕዋት ዓቢ ግደ ክጻወቱ ዝኽእሉ ሰብ ብርክን ምምኽኻራት ተካይድ
• ሓይሊ ዕማም ኣብ ትገብሮም ምምኽኻራት፣ ጽንሰሓሳብ ምምስራት መንግስቲ ተቅርብ፣ ኣብ ትሕዝቶኡ ስምምዕ ክህሉ ትጽዕት፣ ንእማመኣን ጽንሰሓሳባን ካብ ኣገደስቲ ውድባትን ውልቀሰባትን መብጽዓን ደገፍን ተውሕስ
• ምስ ዝተፈላለዩ ጉጅለታትን ሓፋሽ ህዝቢን ብመንገዲ ሰሚናራትን ማዕከናት ዜናን ርክባት ተካይድ፣ ብዛዕባ ምምስራት መንግስቲ ኣብ ደገን ውጽኢቱን ኣፍልጦን ንቅሓትን ደገፍን ንኽዓቢ ትሰርሕ
• ሃገራዊ ሓይሊ ዕማም፣ ፖለቲካዊ ውድባትን በርጌሳውያን ማሕበራትን ጉባኤታትን ንኸካይዳ ሞያዊ ሓገዝ ኣብ ዝሓታሉ እዋን ሞያዊ ምድግጋፍን ሓገዛትን ተበርክት

ሳልሳይ መድረኽ፥ ምርጫኣዊ ጉባኤታት ምክያድ

• ብቑዓት ፖለቲካዊ ውድባትን በርጌሳውያን ማሕበራትን ኣባላት ባይቶ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ስደት ዝኾኑ ሕጹያት ዝመርጻሉ ጉባኤታት ይሰርዓ።
• በርጌሳውያን ማሕበራት ኣሳታፊ ጉባኤ ክጽውዓ፣ ንመርሓ መንገዲ መንግስቲ ኣብ ስደት ብዘርኢ ዘተ ከካይዳን ኣባላት ባይቶ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ዝኾኑ ወኪላት ክመርጻን ምትብባዕ
• ፖለቲካዊ ውድባትን በርጌሳውያን ማሕበራትን ዕዉት ጉባኤ ንምክያድ ተክኒካዊ ሓገዝ እንተድኣ ኣድልይወን ሃገራዊ ሓይሊ ዕማም ሞያዊ ሓገዝ ከተበርክት ድልውቲ እያ።
• ፖለቲካዊ ውድባትን በርጌሳውያን ማሕበራትን ኣባላት ባይቶ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ክኾኑ ዝሓጸይኦም ኣባላት ንህዝቢ ብዕሊ የፍልጣ።

ራብዓይ መድረኽ፥ ፈላሚ ኣጠቃላሊ ኣኼባ ቤት-ምኽሪ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ

• ናይ መኽፈቲ ኣጠቃላሊ ኣኼባ ቤት-ምኽሪ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ ይካየድ
• ፈላሚ ኣጠቃላሊ ኣኼባ ቤት-ምኽሪ ብዕሊ ምምስራት ባይቶ መንግስቲ ኤርትራ የበስር
• ፈላሚ ኣጠቃላሊ ኣኼባ ቤት-ምኽሪ፣ ንሕጋጋት ኣሰራርሓ ባይቶ ዝገዝእ ንድፊ የርቅቅ
• ቤት-ምኽሪ፣ ወሃብ ቃልን ክልተ ምክትላት ወሃቢ ቃልን ይመርጽ፣ ብተወሳኺ ቤት-ምኽሪ ንውሽጣዊ ጉዳያት ቤት-ምኽሪ ዘካይድ ቤት-ጽሕፈት መዝገብ የቕውም
• ፈላሚ ኣጠቃላሊ ኣኼባ ቤት-ምኽሪ ሕጹያት ኣባላት ፈጻሚ ኣካል የጽድቅ
• ቤት-ምኽሪ ንኣደ/ኣቦ መንበር ፈጻሚት ኣካል መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ምክትልን ሓለፍቲ ክፍልታትን ይመርጽ
• ወሃብ ቃል ቤት-ምኽሪ ንኣባላት ፈጻሚት ኣካል ቃለ-ማሕላ የግብርን ምምስራት መንግስቲ ኤርትራ ኣብ ወጻኢ ይእውጅን።

PRESS RELEASE

Hilton Hotels hosting event for group accused of committing crimes against humanity

Eritrean Americans are urging Hilton Hotel to cancel an event it is hosting for representatives of one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world,  the PFDJ, Eritrea’s ruling party.   The event is set to take place at the Hilton Houston Westchase this Saturday November 13, 2021 at 2pm.

PFDJ hosts various events in support of, and as propaganda for, the brutal dictator of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki, who has been in power for over 30 years.  During his reign, the dictator has imprisoned thousands of citizens including journalists, students, artists, politicians, religious leaders, the youth and the elderly.  Eritrea is now the only African country without a constitution, a parliament, or a private press.  Eritrea is the only country that has experienced mass exodus due to indefinite conscription of youth into national service, also known as “national slavery.”   According to Global Slavery Index, there are 451,000 Eritreans living in Eritrea under modern slavery.

The full list of abuses is horrific, including widespread and systematic enslavement and sexual abuse of girls as young as 17 years old.  The UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed in Eritrea since 1991” because of the dictatorship’s policy of “arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, killings, sexual and gender-based violence, discrimination on the basis of religion and ethnicity, and reprisals for the alleged conduct of family members.”

Eritrean Americans point to Hilton’s robust Human Rights Policy Statement to encourage all of their properties to “conduct business operations in a manner that respects human rights.” Hilton’s Social Impact dedication on their website further states “we are committed to fostering respect for human rights for all.”  Hilton is also a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact vowing to abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Eritrean Americans are urging Hilton Hotels to abide by their above commitments to human rights and reject complicity in the activities of the dictatorial group. They call on Hilton hotels to immediately cancel the event being held by the same group the UN has accused of committing crimes against humanity in Eritrea.

For Eritrea and Ethiopia, 2021 was an eventful year, which is to say a frequent shower-upper guest showed up to screech hello: hello back, WAR.

And although there are contestants still arguing with the non-existent referee that he blew the Game Over whistle prematurely, it appears people are eager for finality to something that won’t be finalized for decades. None more so than the oldest Ethiopian opposition political party, PFDJ, which is feeling quite triumphant.  In this immaculately stupid Ethiopian Civil War, you are declared a genocidaire if you question, politely, if  the war in Tigray legally meets the definition of the heavy word. You are accused of being tit-biting, neo-colonialist, የጠላት ተላላኪ: አገር አፍራሽ: ጁንታ, enemy of the State of Ethiopia, Africa if you don’t think the genesis of the war is the attack against the Northern Command (BUT THE NORTHERN COMMAND!)  And you are definitely a Tigrayan, by ideology or ancestry or both, if you don’t think Eritrea should have been involved in the war to the extent it is.

And 2022 appears to pick up where 2021 left off in its ability to surprise you with something you had no business being surprised by, revealing your idealistic self is stronger than your cynical. Worse, it’s making you a suspect in your own right-wing sphere of being a closet liberal. Never! Liberalism is now authoritarian progressivism with zero progress.  At this point, Samuel Tsegai would give me a long lecture about the differences between Marxism as postulated and Marxism as practiced, but he is too busy celebrating the release from jail of his elderly father.  Eritrea is such a strange country that when people come out of prison, the one topic you can’t discuss with them was about the days preceding, during, and post imprisonment.  That is one other club we belong to:  Eritreans who lived to see the imprisonment and release of their fathers.  Eritreans have so many clubs without support groups: a club for those who shared the walk in Sinai;  a club for those who negotiated with the same boat brokers of Libya; those who were exiled together in Adi Harush, who were made political football of combatants in their host country; those who are trapped still, paperless, in menacing Ethiopia, some of whom are from same families of those who were (a) deported in 1999, (b) returned in 2015, tiring of tyranny at home, just in time to be arrested with the Dimxachn Yisemma Ethiopian movement, to be released, (c) and re-arrested again because they speak Tigrinya and the PP just can’t tell you apart from the junta and they will round you up “just to be safe.”  Be’kidmiya Ethiopia.  Of course the Eritrean embassy can vouch for them, which it will, after they get caught up on their 2% national obligation, thanks for your donation.  Hello? Yes.  No,  there is really nothing we can do: that’s an internal Ethiopian matter. I mean: when has the Eritrean regime spoken on behalf of Eritreans in foreign countries, except for the right of Eritreans in America to protest by holding placards of young Isaias–it is PFDJ culture, and you can’t spell “culture” without “cult”–to show support to his governance which outlaws protests?

I was going to give you 2021 insights in mind-melting prose, flowing like a stream, but you won’t read it, and so I will punish you with a bullet list.   But because order is bias and I can’t hide mine: Eritrea first.

1. Enter The Judge

Spoken Word Artists have a voice as they fire off their verses.  Dr. Reesom Haile did. So does Rumana Berhanu, and all vocal poets, as does Amanuel Asrat, and, yes, Awel Said.

The voice for the first three is the voice of our opposition. One, Dr. Reesom, joined G-13 to reform her; another, Romana, gave a limb for her, and Amanuel, is serving 20-to-life at her maximum security prison for practicing his freedom of expression, freedom guaranteed in the constitution the president swore an oath to.  Their voice is the voice of conscience, and it’s a universal language, even if the voice may have different accents.

The last, Awel Seid, sounds to me like the voice of a judge, from a medieval era.  A judge reading, in a booming voice, the counts against HISTORY and ordering history, with hand gestures, to comply with the PFDJ NARRATIVE pronto, as was foretold in days of old (“Awet nHafash!“) Resistance is futile, and compliance is inevitable, so sooner is better than later, is always Awel’s judgement.  The PFDJ NARRATIVE is the ERITREAN NARRATIVE, and dissent is just another word for treason.  There are a rotating cast of characters in the Enemies of the State gallery who populate his videos, and in the most recent edition, I showed up.

Yes, it is unsettling to occasionally wake up to “holy shit, some people believe this crap!” but the picture they show, to prove my enemy status, is of me standing next to Ms Sheila Keetharuth, commissioned by the UN itself to investigate if crimes against humanity occurred in Eritrea.  Since they would not let her in to Eritrea to investigate, she ended up collecting the testimonies of those who can shed some light on it: Exiled Eritrea.  The kids pictured next to me are the son and daughter of Petros Solomon and Aster Yohannes (disappeared since 2001 and 2003 respectively); the elderly lady is the mother of Aster Yohannes.  Their crime, my crime, is that I was there when we gave our testimony of how and when family members disappeared in Eritrea.  It is an unforgivable crime to accuse Mother Eritrea of disappearing your mother.  It is also a crime, as Pilot Dejen Andeheshel once narrated, to ask why you have been imprisoned, because to ask is to accuse Eritrea of arresting without probable cause.  If you are arrested, you are guilty.

Because PFDJ NARRATIVE = ERITREAN NARRATIVE, government officials who disappear citizens in their dungeons, or exile hundreds of thousands of Eritreans while calling them, on live television, “a burden” are not traitors because How can Eritrea (PFDJ) betray Eritrea (PFDJ)? Utter nonsense! AybezHen do (isn’t it too much), asked Eritrea’s Charge d’affaires to America, Berhane, in one of his “public seminars” where he chastised us for daring to question whether a group of people including Isaias, who publicly, on television, pledged allegiance to a foreign power (Abiy Ahmed) can be entrusted with Eritrean sovereignty.  And that is the objective situation in the home front.

Back to the judge.  Judging by the viewer count of his performance art, and the viewers engagement with it, Awel is very popular.  Ignoring for a second the merit of the poems, what exactly is the point of anything that riles half your tiny population to look with seething anger at the other half? Is that the purpose of high art?

If you want an easy demonstration of high art and low art, compare the feelings generated from all that fist pumping, chest-beating, self-praising swagger of Awel Said with that of a once equally-famous poet, the late Dr Reesom Haile’s and his simple “alewuna alewana.”

When you first hear Dr. Reessom Haile’s  “We Have Them”, you are struck by the rapid-fire delivery of cataloging what we have, followed by the slow unfolding of aleh-wuna. Pause. Aleh-wana.  It ain’t shouting.    The depth of the poem emerges: it is not a celebration of geography but breathing, walking Eritreans, in the present.  It is forward looking, not grieving of the past triumphantly.  That is why it was inspiring and contagious.   It was a “We Are Whole, Not Damaged” message.  Street kids in Eritrea would approach Dr. Reesom Haile, recognizable by his distinct looks, to smile and mimic his style of delivery on “Alewuna! Alewana!”

Awel Said, the new voice of Eritrea’s Indignation At The World, has only one voice: triumphant bitterness.  What exactly will kids approach Awel Said with?  Fist raising? Will they just exchange knowing smiles about a victory,  specifically Tribe of Eritrea’s triumph over the Tribe of Tigray but they have to do it in hush tones since the Tribe of Eritrea, officially, never fought in Tigray?

If only their triumphant attitude translated into doing what the victorious do: release prisoners; issue a draft of the constitution for popular discussion;  reduce compulsory military service to 18 months; build the 12th grade schools you promised you would build when you “temporarily” created Sawa High School; legalize private press, the one you closed “temporarily” for 20 years.   That would be a good start to convince us you truly won an un-winnable war. Otherwise, it is more empty sloganeering with no change: and those are the facts on the homeland, homey.

2. When Writers Stop Writing

Speaking of poets, I don’t know why dictators don’t know this but when you censor writers, you create activists.  Even imprisoned writers are activist: 19 years after his arrest, Eritrea journalist Amanuel Asrat was named PEN Prize ‘s International Writer of Courage by Jamaican artist Linton Kwesi Johnson.  

It was only a few years ago, oh maybe more, but Writer Ghezae Hagos and I were debating the quality of Writer Yosief Ghebrehiwet’s haiku poems, with Ghezae lavishing praise.   And now? Writer Ghezae Hagos writes no more:  he is now one of the leaders of Global Yiakl.  Writer Yosief Ghebrehiwet writes no more.  Instead, ubiquitous TV Guest Yosief shows up with his 10-point answers to questions that Tigray Media House, et al asks.  You may not agree with his answers (I don’t) but, unlike most guests and hosts on most YouTube shows, Yosief comes prepared to push his advocacy.  And I, well, you know about the media-shy NTT on GiE.  So, if you want us to go back to writing, you do the politicking and organizing, so we can write about it.  Otherwise, you will get AMBASSADOR Sophia Tesfamariam, once a writer, now the least qualified ambassador in the history of UN ambassadors.

Or, maybe reading is an inefficient way of information intake, thanks to the information age? And maybe this is the last generation of readers?

3. The No Information Age

Ethiopia’s #StupidWar is quite possibly the only war, in modern times, that had no independent journalists reporting on it, even as it consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands (US estimate.)  This was also a surprise.  The information that the Information Age promised us did not age well.  RIP, Information Age (1947-2021.)  Or, we misread them: I definitely did.  You see, what they meant by Information Age is that even if there is a news blackout, there will still be a lot of information (information age!) from the talking heads channels on whether there was a news blackout.  We report, you decide.   Opinion about the news or non-news will replace the news.  There will be votes (please don’t forget to like, subscribe and share) on whether you really think there is a news blackout.  We will also read your comments.  Live!  There will be evidence and counter-evidence (much of it fake) to argue for or against the fact that there is news blackout.   In the end you will be very informed (Information Age!) on what some random people and trolls think about the news blackout, but you will still be confused on whether there was or wasn’t a news blackout.  Despite the fact that most reputable media outlets told you conclusively that it did.  But you KNOW there is no such thing as reputable media, so hating on media (#FAKENEWS) closes a door for clarity, ensuring the need for the pull of the dictatorship, because it speaks of what is “real” with certainty, owning history as its driver and front row observer.

You choose your bubble and settle nice and comfy: social media knows your every little confirmation bias and it will give it to you: for free! Artificial Intelligence is no help at all: AI is just a date-fixer, a mob organizer: “Users who think as stupidly as you, also liked this other content. Like?” You either got doses of ትግራይ  ትስዕር! slogans,  በሎም (dances!) and #TigrayPrevails news of scientific lightening, stunning military victories of Tigray Defense Forces (the killing of their own countrymen/women); or a steady diet (on a dozen channels, in multiple language including Tigrinya) of how the Ethiopian National Defense Forces is annihilating its own people who happen to speak Tigrinya.  The Ethiopian Diaspora showed that, just as the Eritrean Diaspora, sees itself as ambassadors of their nations (and nationalities, in the case of Ethiopia) to their host countries, with no corresponding remittance of knowledge acquired in years of living in the West to their native country’s government.   Worse, they rationalize the war in Ethiopia by citing the civil war in the US and that the former is as inevitable as the former.  So, Diaspora Ethiopians largely divided according to their tribes: Tigrayans for TDF and the Rest of Ethiopia for ENDF.   They could not be counted on to give us reliable information, much less be peace ambassadors.

Now, each side says that the other has set it back 30 years! In every war zone!  Many, including Ethiopians, mock the Eritrean opposition.  But it is our unwillingness to raise arms against our own conscripted siblings and children and destroy our country that has permitted the Monocracy of Isaias to reign.   But to shoot at your own people and then brag (including by the Prime Minister himself) that እንደ ቅጠል እየረገፉ ነው(they are falling like leaves)? A tasteless, uncivilized comment.

There is no Ethiopian independent media to carry a spade and dig for the truth.  They have all been replaced by those who carry the spade to bury the truth.  Grave diggers.  But they do it professionally, with polite bows and telegenic faces.  Once in a while, you have to pause at the numbers: Ethiopia, a nation of over 100 million citizens, does not have a private, independent press that has not been shut-down, blocked, or its reporters arrested.  And this is the country that wants to tell Africans it is our model nation.

But for a special kind of eccentricity, Asmara is the capital: 14 months and counting, the Eritrean regime has not once reported on the war-next-door through its State media while its spokespersons tour the world and UN halls making it known that they grieve inconsolably for the death of the NORTHERN COMMAND of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and we stand in solidarity with Prime Minister Abiy. And those are the facts on the ground in the homeland, as they like to say.  This is after making it known, again on LIVE TV before the war happened, that they are not just going to observe the developments in Ethiopia; they will influence it.   So their refusal now to talk about the war is not some diplomatic wisdom; it is simply an extension of the total contempt they hold Eritreans in.

But from the information worm-hole, wait! Verily, I see two YouTubers, a heavily-accented Indian, and a “needs-some-water” American, who is constantly parching his lips, presenting themselves as unbiased sources of information.  Well, gentlemen, you may have every intention of wanting to be unbiased, but your sources are, and all you can do then is aggregate the “news”, much of which is unreliable.  Still, two guys who cannot pronounce the names of the war zone they are reporting on, was the best we could do in 2021, to balance the uni-dimensional Ethiopian State/Party TV.

4. The Surprise

If you listened to the points of dispute between TDF and PP supporters, you quickly learn it is a tragic case of Your Villain Is My Hero; Your Hero Is My Villain. If you hate him, I love him; and if you love him, I hate him.  From 19th century tales of King-of-Kings Yohannes IV &  Menelik II & Tewodros II; to 20th century characters Emperor Haile Selasse I and President Mengistu Hailemariam; to the 21st century of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. And, yes, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki: he is the only one who switched columns. We are now carbon-dating the grievances in half-centuries: if, by accident, the antagonists agree on a common hero, they will ancesty.com him and tell us he is actually from their tribe (Alula and Tedros.)   And every day this war drags on, the polarization and the enmity, that has been marinated for 150 years will bubble up and then simmer down until it bubbles up again.  It’s really like the other legendary disputes: Turks vs Greeks, Palestinians vs Israel: a deep and complex issue that has been difficult to resolve.  And my question is: how is it in Eritrea’s national interest to involve itself, solidly on one side, in a country where fratricide is celebrated? A country like Ethiopia where revolutions and counter revolutions see-saw?

That the Eritrean government, which has obsessed over Weyane since the 2005 elections and made its defeat its prime directive, would go all-in on Ethiopia is unsurprising.  But still RECKLESS: the FANOs they are grooming now can DMHT them later.  DMHT, you may remember, is Tigrinya acronym for Democratic Movement for Tigrayan Liberation, which trained in Sawa, Eritrea for years only to return to Tigray and join TDF.  Doesn’t FANO (Amhara militia) constitute a large swathe of the “Red Sea Is Ours” constituency? Reckless.

But the real surprise was the alignment of the Eritrean opposition.   Every day, people were discovering new reasons to show solidarity with TDF (almost always on the worst day of TDF) or wrapping themselves with the Eritrean flag and “standing with our people.”  It is as if the 2000s and 2010s did not happen and we forgot the people with whom we are standing are not “standing with our people”: they are responsible for crimes against humanity against Eritreans (Eritrean regime) or doing everything in their power to paralyze the Eritrean opposition and its Tbah TBAH,  and, by refusing to vacate Eritrean land, entrenching the dictatorship (the Weyane regime.)  How will regimes–which are made of human beings–reform themselves if your support is always unconditional?

That still managed to surprise me.  And in the end, I actually came to realize that, sometimes, when the fever pitch is that high, you have to give it time and space for the convulsions to die down.  It is no using shouting at the storm unless you are King Lear.

5. NTT on GiE

While there are many factors for the delay in the progress of the National Task Team on Government In Exile, topping the list has to be that the Civil War in Ethiopia sucking the attention of most Eritreans, particularly given the surprising alignment of the Eritrean opposition.  In other words, they found yet another wedge-issue to fight over, a particular talent the opposition nurtures.  In this environment, a respectable person like Ambassador Andeberhan W. Giorgis doesn’t just have to reject the GiE concept; no, he can go full tabloidy: attack us, nay convict us, of being agents of TPLF trying to turn Eritrea into Lebanon, after making it Syria and Libya. Our only choices were to be silent or to jump on one of the dozen youtube shows to add to the cacophony.  Since the latter has the effect of communicating to the people: “there go the opposition again!”, you choose silence and trust the wisdom of the listener.  Another factor is that the years of Paltalk shows raining insults on Ghedli have not only created a significant number of Ghedli-haters (Ghedli to include its leaders) but, (and here is the second surprise of 2021), some of the Tegadelti themselves appear to have bought into it, questioning their own historical role and even participation.  A third factor is the pace of Eritrean politics, its gobye (tortoise) nature apparently being of Eritrean and not PFDJ variety.  To the extent criticism should be directed at NTT’s own performance, this writer carries the responsibility.

The goal remains the same: to create a GiE as a higher form of organizing so as to speed up the pace of change (with no defined role for GiE after change comes, other than that of any citizen.) But for most of 2021, Eritreans were fully immersed in Ethiopia. We will have to see how they emerge in 2022–hopefully on their terms. Meanwhile, we continue with our consultation of Eritrean stakeholders (ONLY): civil society and political organizations.

I believe, and I apologize if I haven’t made my case forcefully in the scores (dozens? hundreds?)  of articles, many with sources, that  I have written over the last 20 years;  or maybe because of the nature of social media, where this article is likely shared, you have come to doubt everything unless it has your pope’s imprimatur;  or maybe there are just too many Mohammeds in my name and you know how they are; or maybe you don’t like that it is written in English; or you were told I am not organic Eritrean, whatever that means: I believe, and I have supporting evidence for it, that the ruling regime in Eritrea is an imminent danger to Eritrea (its continued sovereign state status) and Eritreans (the systematic diminishment of the people.)  From their severely-malnourished childhood which has life-long impacts; to their sudden death or martyrdom at old age, Eritreans witness or experience torture; they see jails where the citizens right to live with dignity is severely ignored; they  are separated from families at a young age to attend a High School in a Military Desert; they are in prolonged military encampment and never ending wars, and they are exiled, and they are forcibly returned.  And I take people at face value when they publicly pledge allegiance to a foreign power, as the Isaias Administration did, no matter how many times Awel and Berhane yell at me.

War is ever-present with this crew in charge.

Consider this: When Eritrea accepted the Ethiopian invite to send delegation to discuss normalization of relationship in 2018, we heard about it from President Isaias Afwerki.  Later, it would come to light that Andargachew Tsigge was the middle man, but the point is, in this peace negotiation, while the reality of real peace, for the first time in 20 years, was in the horizon,  Isaias told the assembled Sawa graduates, that we had sent delegation to Ethiopia.   In the meantime, continued Isaias, the youth are to tighten their belts and remain on alert.  This is not the time for relaxation.  Or something similarly un-assuring. Recall: Yemane G and Osman Saleh did not go to Addis to negotiate anything, that was done earlier, they were there to announce, as they were instructed by Isaias, publicly, on live television, that Abiy Ahmed, a foreign national, is  “our leader.”  And if you don’t agree with the policy to surrender your sovereignty to a foreign power, you are probably not an Eritrean.  So: war in times of peace, to protect ourselves from enemies of the peace.  War, obviously, during war.  And war preparations after war.  War, war, war for 30 years.   Muting, for now, the moral implications of this policy, how viable is such a policy for a country with such a small population.   And when it dawns on you that the only reaction to this is outrage, then even NTT on GIE will start making sense to you.

6. The Premature Post-Mortem

If supporters of TDF want to now know how come everyone, except them, knew that the rise would be followed by a fall,  I have pointers that they are free (and they will exercise that freedom) to ignore it.  But it is from neighbor with genuine goodwill who wants Tigrayan people’s (the praying moms!) peace and prosperity:

(A) People, young people, on Tigray TV said this (REPEATEDLY) after a war: እሶም ናይ ኣቦታቶም ጌሮም: ንሕና ድማ ናይ ኣቦታትና (They did as their fathers had done; we did as our fathers had done) and the “they” in that shorthand were fellow Ethiopians who were killed, wounded, dispersed, captured.
(B) That toxic mindset is definitely a culture, a brew of Weyin, Weyanay, Yohannes IV, Ras Alula, Axum and a procession of saints who are always fighting on the side of TDF.  TPLF has to be the first communist organization that encourages superstitions.
(C) When they were not saying እሶም ናይ ኣቦታቶም ጌሮም, they would talk about military science, singing about scientific lightning ሳይንሳዊ መብረቕ, they are praising their own ቖረጻ and mocking others, as if ቖረጻ is a military strategy invented in Dedebit.  They are at war with three of their neighbors.  Simultaneously.  27 years in power bought them goodwill only at the State Department and UN, but nowhere else.  Still they marched towards Addis Abeba, stretching their supply line to its absolute limit, and being surprised by the power of drones AFTER the events in Libya and Syria.
(D) Only they believed their own “there is no power that can stop us” message, but bubbles are more than dangerous, they really are deadly.

If supporters of Prosperity Party want to know how come the war was executed so poorly by their side:

(A) Tigray youth of October 2020 were indistinguishable from any other Ethiopian youth of October 2020: their affinity was to the international youth culture (music, fashion, art, movements, career-search) never mind Tigray much less TPLF.  Ethiopians must ask themselves: what terrible things did we do; what horrific things did we allow to be done;  what ghastly facts did we not know that we should have known between Novemeber 2020 and June 2021 that transformed the Tigray youth of September 2020 into a fighting machine?
(B) Is the former minister (the only one to resign during the war) telling the truth when she said in cabinet meetings Abiy was discussing war long, long before “NORTHERN COMMAND!” That she was prevented from sharing damning information she collected about Ethiopians conduct during the war.
(C) You have set back your country back 30 years.  You can no longer even console yourself by saying “the Weyane rule was terrible, but at least they built some infrastructure” because you have methodically destroyed your country and impoverished her even more.  A Prime Minister who got his PhD by writing a thesis on alternative dispute resolution should not have gone rushing to war, no matter the provocations.  This embrace of peace at almost all costs deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.  Sadly, its  premature conferring, has the opposite effect: if peace is making me appear weak, then war can change my image quickly!  It is what resulted in Obama bombing Libya and what contributed to Abiy bombing Mekele.  And denying her citizens food, medicine, banking, electricity, internet so they “can pressure the people to overthrow Weyane.” Barbaric.

7. Covid-19 Vaccination:

It was a valiant effort by Burundi to also be special, but in the end, it yielded to Eritrea. Eritrea is the only country in Africa that doesn’t allow COVID vaccinations.  Except for high-ranking officials because they can’t do their job–travel internationally–without getting vaccinated.   I hope you understand.  Never mind if the question has not been answered: has it been asked?  Why is Eritrea not allowing vaccinations?   Or did we just file this in our “Eritrea Is Special” folder and await patiently for our leaders to tell us why?  Is the silence part of the strategy to keep our enemies off-balance?

And just so you are up-to-date on the Eritrean Narrative (I don’t want Awel to yell at us again): Eri-TV has a 3-part documentary updating it: Eritrea’s independent political stance which resulted in phenomenal economic growth in the 1990s was so terrifying to the USA (because Eritrea was creating an alternative success model) that the US ordered Weyane to declare war on Eritrea in 1998.   If you are thinking, well, I read of Hillary Clinton visiting, I read of Bill Clinton praising Eritrea, I know the glowing reports about Eritrea were actually published by American institutions (press, IMF, World Bank), I know of the manic efforts to fight two bald men fighting over a comb, and so only the most ill-informed would believe this Eritrean Narrative, you are sadly mistaken about the value of confirmation bias:  in the hands of True Believers and Mzungus Who Blame America First For Everything, it will always have currency.  It is actually our only export to Ethiopia now: the power of conspiracy theories.

8.  Exit the Veterans:

If you read Hadas Ertra regularly, you will notice there are daily death announcements of veterans.  This is natural, given their age, except that the people dying occupied large spaces in our imagination once.  So as with all deaths you are mourning the passing of the YOU at the time you met, or heard of,  the departed so many years ago.  Two of the three, to be exact: Ramadan Mohammed Nur and Alamin Mohammed Said.  The latter I had always thought of as a humble man until he became the Voice of Isaias on G-15 in 2001, and on that I will say nothing because at his funeral I briefly saw his daughter, and it is a father-to-father courtesy.

To an entire generation of Eritreans, Ramadan Mohammed Nur is A Man Famous For Resigning With Dignity, one of the most hopeful things that happened in 1994, which we enjoyed thoroughly, in the honeymoon years, as a sign of Eritrea’s readiness for electoral democracy: The Co-Founder Of The Front Resigns At The Front’s Congress To Give Front New Blood.  No threat of dynasties here! Well, until we were told the truth: he was arm-twisted into resigning.   Wait, it gets worse.  Some of those who did the arm-twisting in 1994 disappeared in 2001.

But to prior generations, including mine, Ramadan Mohammed Nur is one of the pillars of modern Eritrea.  My pillars include ELF, EPLF, ELF-PLF, SAGEM, ETC, anyone who was influential in raising Eritrea from the ashes in 1991.   Yes, I know, some of our pillars were crushed by a fallen pillar, a pushed pillar.   And so when he passed on just last week, well it is like any death: I thought of the first time I heard of him; I thought of the last image I saw of him was at a hotel reception for Abiy Ahmed Ali in Asmara.  Seen, not heard from, voiceless: basically, Eritrea.

Earlier in the year, Ambassador Adhanom Gebremariam passed away.  I happened to have narrated my recollection of him in my interview with Yoel Lino, in the same interview when I proposed GiE as a solution to our country’s lawlessness, and I will never know what he thinks of GiE.

Is it just me or do you ask, every time you hear of death, are people still being born in Eritrea?  The ratified Eritrean Constitution of 1997 says ” The family is the natural and fundamental unit of society and is entitled to the protection and special care of the State and society.” and the PFDJ National Charter, which the NNNN quote like a Bible says, “our vision is for Eritrea to preserve its identity and uniqueness, develop commitment to family and community care.”  Does it show commitment to family, never mind protection by State, to break up families by separating husband from wife for decades; for children 16-17 years old are compulsory bussed to a high school in the middle of hottest regions of Eritrea?  Does it show care to family when it is denying prisoners family visitation which is recognized world-wide as a form of torture?  Those are the things a righteous poet should rail against!

There was another veteran who passed away around the same week as Alamin Mohammed Seid.  The fact that his name escapes me humbles me: Eritrea required and will always require many like him, who work tireless and quietly:  its too bad, in his case, it was mostly pushing the rock up the hill and that these quiet workers focus on their work deafens them from hearing the cries of their own family, friends, relatives, neighbors: their Eritrean community.

Happy New Year

There is a parable, commonly attributed to activist Irving Zola: two friends are at a picnic, by the river, and they hear the sound of a child drowning.  They jump in, successfully rescue the child, and are going back to the river bank, and they hear another drowning voice, rescue, return…then another. “Wait, where are you going?” asks one of the other. “I am going upstream to stop the person throwing all these children in to the river!” answers the other.   How much time do we devote to go upstream, and what is stopping us from doing so? And because of that, how is the state of the State on the eve of its 31st independence anniversary? And, one more time, what should be done?

A supporter of the government may say: When our government improves delivery of clean water in the villages; clean energy to replace firewood; planting trees and terracing hills; building schools and clinics in remote areas guaranteeing social justice; meeting all Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), eradicating malaria, HIV/AIDS; pursuing food security by refusing all aid; defying the rules of the unipolar world at great cost to preserve our sovereignty,  isn’t that the very definition of upstream: to deliver the next generation a much better quality of life than that of our generation, including our government?

An opposition member will say: it is not the details that matter, as every claim above can be challenged on its accuracy or its lack of context.  What matters is the total dismissal of the current generation as a people with no agency, no voice, no autonomy over their lives.  Their entire lives.  Those who remind the people that they do have a voice are the “enemies of the State.”  Those in Eritrea have been, and will be, made to disappear and those who oppose this from exile will lose their passports and their living permits and work permits or marginalized. But, my PFDJ compatriots, believe it or not: we are the reasonable ones on this argument and you are extremists leading bougie lives.

From the perspective of those who support the Eritrean government, greatness can come to Eritrea, but only if President Isaias Afwerki and his trusted compatriots and preferred successor (?) are leading the country.  I mean: this is so obvious–who delivered Eritrea’s independence against all odds after all? It was EPLF which rebranded itself as PFDJ.  Only compulsive gamblers (ተቌመርቲ!) would take a risk on something so consequential!

From our perspective, that is a lot of pots, kettles in the dark sea calling each other black.  Who is the compulsive gambler? The compulsive gamblers are the president and government of Eritrea who have mired Eritrea into never ending wars, with all their attendant catastrophes, since 1995.  Since we are approaching Eritrea’s 31st independence anniversary, and since Poet Laureate Awel Saeed insists on telling us mythologies invented at the Office of the President (and looking damn good doing it!),  let’s take a short walk down Bad Memories Lane:

Acute Adventurism and Gambling 

1. There was the Hanish Islands (Yemen) Crisis of 1995, a senseless, but mercifully brief 2-day war.  But there were still casualties, about a dozen on each side.  The tribunal, 4 years later, awarded the bigger island to Yemen, but it allowed for generous fishing rights to all sides. We said it was a new telemedien government still learning to govern, we forgave.  No, this was yet another US conspiracy to perpetuate war (it instigated the war and the award), explained Isaias Afwerki commenting two decades later about a 2-day war.  True to form, he likes to talk alone, so his bogus verdict came long after the journalists (The Economist), scholars (Professor Jeffrey A Lefebvre), mediators (France), UN (which passed a resolution to order Eritrea out of Lesser Hanish Islands) and investigators (the Permanent Court of Arbitration, same place that would also arbitrate our eventual war with Ethiopia) had closed their files.  Isaias the Zeragito begins to spin his fantastic stories when the witnesses are all gone and now that tale is being repeated by Awel in his booming voice.

2. A year later, (96-97) Eritrea joined Rwanda’s Coalition of the Looting along with Uganda, Burundi and Angola in the Congo (then Zaire.) Why? All we can say, in the immortal words of Trump, is Laurent-Desire Kabila and Isaias Afwerki “got along.” Until they didn’t and Kabila kicked everybody from the looting coalition out of his country, until some of them re-grouped in the East and came back.  It was during Eritrea’s telemedien government years so nobody asked questions and nobody volunteered answers.  Although Ambassador Andeberhan Ghebregiorgis was Eritrea’s envoy to the Great Lakes, you won’t find a mention about Congo or Zaire (except in the abbreviation page) in his book “Eritrea At Crossroads”, which chronicled Eritrea’s history from pre-colonial times to the time he disassociated himself from the government.

3. A year later, (98-00) we stumbled into Baduma, Eritrea.  Everything you are now hearing in the Ethiopian civil war–killing, maiming, prisoners of war, displacement, property destruction and rape were committed then, too, by both parties as the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission ruled.  Everybody knows what the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission said but nobody, apparently, has read the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission ruling on what the two sides did to each other.   So now, both Eritrea and Tigray get to tell their mythologies, victimizing themselves and defaming the other. Although both sides have increased their literacy rates to over 70%, they still act like pre-literate societies relying on songs and folktales instead of facts presented following investigations interrogating witnesses and experts interrogating history books.

4. A year later, Beja (Bidhaawyeet) Territory, Sudan.  This eventually resulted in the 2006 East Sudan & Khartoum Peace Agreement, brought to the world by the Government of Eritrea.  You can read the details of the peace agreement here to see how well that has aged. What matters is that, at the time, the event was celebrated in the courtyard of the presidential palace with Presidents Isaias and Al-beshir and their wives being serenaded by musicians.  Proving, once again, that Eritrea is the center of gravity for peace in the region….

5. Except that the exact same year, in 2006, Eritrea joined a proxy war in Somalia.  It wasn’t the only one fighting this war, everybody else was including Ethiopia, US, European countries, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, UAE and Ukraine (thoughts and prayers) whose pilots and planes were also there.  The UNSC finally blew the whistle that there will be an arms embargo on Somalia and no foreign forces other than those blessed by AU and UN can remain. Eritrea composed the Anthem of the Belligerent: ኣይሰምዕን የ! This was a huge gamble which resulted in mild sanctions (2009) against the PFDJ/military hierarchy. Two years of more belligerence resulted in more sanctions (2011), and these ones were harsh enough to expand to the entire economy costing Eritrea a decade of malaise and regression.

6. In 2008, the “center of gravity for regional peace” spread its peace (by which I mean, obviously, war) at Ras Doumaira, Djibouti/Eritrea.  This war was vociferously denied by the Eritrean government: it was all a fabrication, it repeatedly said, to numerous AU/IGAD efforts to mediate, and UN resolutions for its forces to withdraw.  The Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea investigated and published its findings, including the fact that Djibouti prisoners of war, who were held in prisons in Sahel, had escaped to Sudan.  Even wilder fabrication, said Eritrea’s government.  But the mediator, Qatar, had to eventually discuss exchange of prisoners of war, and Eritrea’s official answer was that some of the Djibouti prisoners had escaped. It lied about there not being a war, nor prisoners of war.  Thus, when Djibouti released 100s of what it called Eritrean POWs and defectors, hardly anybody covered the news.  It certainly was NOT a subject of discussion for even Eritreans.  And 14 years later, the dispute is unresolved (leaving future generations more IEDs–Isaias’s Explosive Devices) because, ready for this, Eritrea said that the only country that can mediate its dispute with Djibouti is Qatar, a country with whom we have no relationship anymore, having accused them of being religious extremists, at the behest of our newer, bigger, better allies: Saudi Arabia and UAE.  Also, Qatar is suing us for millions of dollars that the self-reliant Isaias took and refused to pay.

7. Now, twelve years later, we are in a stealth war.  In a war that not a single independent reporter has been embedded in, unlike 1998-2000 war.  A war, where our participation has not been confirmed to Eritreans in Eritrea by Eritrean officials,  while Ambassador Sophia Tesfamariam and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed tells the world (in English only) that we will withdraw (from places we are not in).

Now, really, judging it objectively: who is the compulsive gambler, the opposition or the government? The Government of Eritrea has pursued a policy that zigzags Eritrea from one terrible war to another and it is hard to resist the temptation that war is its preferred ecosystem.  But at what cost to Eritreans?  So many refugees living in terrible conditions, and they got there to escape a Predatory State which wants to build a Hawaiian garden for the future generation on their backs, their mind, and their muscles–indefinitely.  Till death does them part and they are called martyrs.

The Ethiopian Civil War & Eritrean Responses

All wars are terrible, but the Ethiopian civil war appears to be more so because it is a personal war; a war not for justice but revenge.  All sides are seething with a sense of deep betrayal, and you can be betrayed only by those whom you once trusted.  Enemies cannot betray because there is no trust to betray.  So, what we have is not normal politics, but politics of kin.   TPLF feels betrayed by Abiy because it feels he owes his entire career as leader of ODP to them. Where is his gratitude?  Abiy is mad at TPLF because they wouldn’t be Prosperity Party’s Tigray franchise and allow him to rule in peace just as he had let them for decades.  Where is their gratitude?   PFDJ is seething at TPLF because of the 20 year (98-18) purgatory it was put in and all the atrocities of the 98-00 war (same atrocities it had committed per, again, EECC.)  Eventually Weyane will pay the price for this unforgivable crime, as Sebhat Ephrem once explained. TPLF is seething at PFDJ for presiding over an actual country with a Sea.  And…other stuff.  This book explains the other stuff about TPLF: “Identity Jilted or Reimagining Identity: The Divergent Paths of Eritrean and Tigrayan Nationalist Struggles. (The surveys are most revealing.)  Meanwhile, PFDJ is looking wearily at Abiy (after all that hand-holding, hugging and chauffeuring)  because it doesn’t think he has the mental toughness to endure hardship; and Abiy is looking at PFDJ as a rogue group he is tired of explaining to the West.  Wait until you have to explain them to your people, dear Abiy.  Anyway, it is all personal.  Personalized politics leads to personalized wars.  And those are the worst.

All wars are brutal, but this one appears even more savage: dehumanization, extrajudicial killing, torture, rape.  Calls for investigation are answered by seeking asylum in a culture or a custom: why, lordy lordy lordy, I never! We are so civilized we would do no such thing! How dare you? There is nothing to investigate, they say, because it is unthinkable that our side would ever ever do that.  It is all fake news so hashtag no more.  If armies with reputations for being highly disciplined have rogue elements doing terrible things, how disciplined are they really? It is also to avoid that question that investigations are stalled by all sides.  There is no introspection or genuine desire to seek the truth.  ‘እቲ ድርዕቶ ከም ባህሊ ወይ ልምዲ ተቐቢልናዮ… ክቅንጠጥ ኣለዎ!” as a Tigrayan intellectual said in one of the few occasions where introspection was allowed.  But the barbarity on display is beyond troublesome and in countries where religious leaders are in the service of the State, there doesn’t appear to be an institution able to shout “no!”

The Eritrean state media is still silent about the war but in the quasi-official ruling-party affiliated media, videos of Eritrean soldiers celebrating are shared. Mendelay is mendelaying.   The message appears to be: hell, yeah, not only are we there, we are winning.  It is more gambling, more IEDs.

In response to all this churning, the Eritrean opposition has gone into three different movements.  The most recent coalition is the Seedling group whose biggest coalition member is probably (based on social media audience size and participation) Bright Future.  You can read about their values and belief system from their manifesto, available here.  You can also listen to their leader here.  They are the “let’s ally with Tigray and TPLF” forces, a strategy that has failed many formerly Ethiopia-based opposition groups and their member groups (the Alliance), will also fail the most recent Global Bayto (a significant number of whom challenged the unauthorized alliance with Weyane), and every acronym and two-man group that pledged and pledges to do that. This is probably because none of these groups have proven that they can deliver a constituency that will make whatever revolutionary democratic plans they have in mind for Eritrea (ethnic federation reloaded.)

In response to Bright Future and its fellow-travelers (Agazian, Tigray-Tigrina), a coalition (with no name or slogan or logo) of Eritreans who believe the TPLF is a bigger threat to Eritrea than Isaias or PFDJ is forming (or has formed.)  They include media (AAN, Facebook Live and YouTube celebrities), One Nation, and those disenchanted with everybody else–Yiakl, Bright Future, and the traditional opposition. They have no time to ponder on what the unexploded mines Isaias Afwerki is spreading all over Ethiopia mean, nor do they question Eritrean involvement in a medieval war, or how much we are paying for it.  It is all about national security, beqa. So we are going to trust the judgement of the one man whose judgement we consider flawed about everything else, including exiling us.

In a different field, using their own balls, and referencing old rules are the original opposition–the remnants of ELF and its splinter groups. They play in a field with no audience and reject any calls to make themselves relevant to the Eritrean discourse.

Incompetence vs Sadism

The biggest indictment on the opposition is its incompetence and disorganization.  And lack of leadership, organizational discipline, and equating Eritrea’s national interest with PFDJ’s political interest.  And on most, I think, we are guilty as charged.

The biggest indictment on the supporters of the government is their selfishness and sadism.  It’s their willing embrace of policies that mire Eritrea in endless wars, that exiles them by the hundreds of thousands, that disappears them in prisons that are waiting rooms for graveyards. That Eritrea continues to fail in many areas that the rest of sub-Saharan Africa continues to fail in–provide running water and electricity to residents of its capital city; decent education and healthcare to all; and an economy that works–is just maladministration. We can live with that.  It is the mundaneness of its cruelty that is inexplicable and unbearable. As is their casual use of lies:

When the G-15 were arrested, the Eritrean government said it is not disclosing the crimes against them because it did not want to tip its hands to their confederates who are still at large.  That was in 2001, 21 years ago.  Are the confederates still at large? And what could they possibly learn if the government brought its charges? The independent press were closed “temporarily”, also 21 years ago.  The ratified constitution was the greatest thing the PFDJ produced, said the PFDJ, until it told us such a 3-year long, participatory process producing a liberal, democratic and a unitary state guaranteeing its citizens rights, was actually so fragile that it was fatally wounded when its chief drafter, Dr. Berekhet Habtselassie, then 70 and a free citizen,  “fatally compromised it” by fraternizing with his compatriots who were not big fans of the document he helped draft.  I will give you a new one, said the king, disingenuously, in 2014.  That is 8 years ago, almost as long as it would have taken Dr. Berekhet to draft three different constitutions for 3 different countries.

What Is To Be Done?

For the supporters of the government, going upstream means fighting the United States and ending the unipolar, hegemonic world order. Even if we assume this is a desirable goal, what is it that Eritrea can offer the countries that will help make the world multi-polar, i.e. Russia and China? A vote at the UN, and rent-seeking on the ports of Massawa and Asab?  Given that we are a small country (small market) won’t these super-powers-in-waiting have other alternatives like Sudan? (Russia already does.)  How long will it take for the “hegemony” to end? A decade? Two? And can Eritrea sustain that? And towards what national security interest when we know that if the Biden Administration was to invite Isaias Afwerki to the White House he would sing a different tune as he did many times with previous “the sky is the limit” allies like Iran?

The Eritrean government bemoans the fate of Somalia, but that was largely driven by a president who had long outstayed his welcome and, while pretending to be a secular nationalist, was playing clan/ethnic politics with zero succession plan.  And the Eritrean government, without a party congress, party elections, constitutionalism, institution-building, even Council of Ministers, or even a vice president, has been on the same path of countries ruled by those who believed “The Man Is The State”, as was the case in Zaire’s Mobutu and Somalia’s Barre.

The most painless path to change in Eritrea would be if the ruling party asserted itself as a political party; held congresses and elections; implemented its constitution; legalized opposition; opened the press; and emptied out its prisons. Then we would have an evolutionary change: bloodless and healing.  But because the regime is addicted to gambling, it would rather postpone all of that to fight US imperialism.

So what must the opposition do?

1. If you have nothing to offer the TPLF, you cannot be an ally.  All the opposition members (and individuals!) who publish press releases telling us they have agreed to ally with TPLF have to ask themselves: what am I offering? And can I deliver on what I am offering?  Can Bright Future deliver on its belief that it wants to reset Eritreanism to pre-Ghedli, pre-colonial times?  It cannot, I don’t think, get away with equating freedom fighters with bandits.  Because Eritreans are proud of their ghedli–warts and all–and have accepted Italian colonialism as an irreversible and transformative development that Eritrea can capitalize on.  Can anyone selling ethnic federalism deliver? Those who had that vision–Sagem, de.me.Ha.E, and the various ethnic groups didn’t even come close to doing that, rejected as they were by their alleged core constituencies.   This approach is a non-starter for any post-Ghedli generation, and definitely the post-Sawa High School generation.  In short, the overwhelming majority of Eritreans.  And in the end, all TPLF has to sell is its first principle: ethnic federalism.

2. If you are not organized, and if you don’t believe in organizational discipline, you will break apart and your effectiveness will decrease until you are a totally irrelevant two-man crew.  This is basically the history of Eritrean Opposition 1.0 (1991-2001), Opposition 2.0 (2001-2005), Opposition 3.0 (2006 to present.)  I thought, and I proposed, that the highest form of organizational discipline is a government-in-exile, but many of those who were nominated to lead it would rather be news analysts, EU-funded symposium organizers, and maintaining their cordial relationship with their friends at the UN and Geneva.  (More on this when National Task Team on Government-in-Exile issues its report.)

3. You cannot start an “armed struggle” because, as the hundreds of thousands of armed Eritreans who threw away their arms and sought asylum in lieu of “fighting back” demonstrated, there is zero appetite for civil war in Eritrea. Especially after the “melting pot” of Sawa.   If there were any doubts about that, the front row seat we had to Ethiopia’s civil war should compel us to renounce war as a means of bringing change.  This, even as we know that the ruling party would never extend that courtesy to us in the opposition.

This leaves us with: back to the basics! Organize as civil society or political party (on the basis of values not tribes); commit to the foundational principles of the organization, embrace organizational discipline, relentlessly work without let up to win.  To go upstream, to stop it at the cause.  Define winning as an Eritrea that has rule of law, is constitutional and democratic that is big enough for all Eritreans.  The goal should always be to win and the strategies pursued have to always be about winning.  It is a tedious, thankless job that will take time because we didn’t do it right.  Dont worry yourself too much about alliances when you are small: you will always be a junior partner.  Be big and strong and truly represent the Eritrean heartbeat and the world will come a-knocking.

Engineered by a coalition of revolutionaries, infiltrators, civil rights activists and not-a- small contribution from Eritrea’s ruling party, People’s Front for Democracy & Justice (PFDJ), the overthrow of  an entrenched Ethiopian political party, Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), was supposed to herald Ethiopia’s Great Realignment.  Instead, they ended up transforming Ethiopia from an ethnic-federalism dominated by some ethnicities into an ethnic-federalism dominated by other ethnicities.   It was quite a feat.  The question is: has the new Ethiopian Civil War,  2020-present, brought about Eritrea’s Great Realignment, with not- a-small contribution from Ethiopia’s former ruling party, TPLF?  Has this happened by crystallizing the choices?   Political party dis-alignments and realignments are all-too-common in Eritrean history, going back to 1940’s politics, although the historians among you will find examples of those that go back decades, if not centuries, earlier.  So, is what we are witnessing the Great Eritrean Realignment or a Collective Primal Scream?

2.  For those of you who are too young to remember the political literature of our Eritrean Fronts, both of whom were Marxist-Leninists who took their ideologies extremely seriously, to the point of translating the prevailing gospels to Tigrinya, there were some discussions on thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, as postulated by the German philosophers Fichte, Kant, Hegel, and Marx.  Specially Marx, who based his philosophy of feudalism-capitalism-communism (“Do you hear that, Mr Anderson? That’s The Sound Of Inevitability!”) on Hegel’s (actually Kant’s) theory of thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis.   ድርሳን: ጸረ -ድርሳን: ጽምራ::  The vicious cycle of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis is non-stop:  no sooner has a synthesis been born before it becomes a thesis inviting an anti-thesis.

Let’s see if this applies to what we see happening in the Eritrean Diaspora:

3. Thesis: ድርሳን: Eritreans are great examples to the world of how self-determination can be achieved, against-all-odds,  through persistent effort, a spirit of volunteerism, self-sacrifice, and tenacity to defeat Superpowers.

Anti-thesis: ጸረ -ድርሳን: Eritrea is an artificial country which defines its existence and nationalism by its hatred of Ethiopia (later Tigray), daring to deny Mother Ethiopia (later Tigray) its God-given and history-proven right to the Sea.  Their combatants,  Tegadelti,  were bandits; and now their soldiers are rapists responsible for genocide, and there will be pay back, and we are coming, here we come…..  PS: ጥባሕ ጥባሕ::

Synthesis:ጽምራ.  I may have my differences with the government that Isaias leads, but I very much like having a sovereign country. I don’t have a parliament or even a Council of Ministers to sit around and discuss it, but I will out-sing and out-dance anybody.  

I. A Non-negotiated Settlement

4.  In the Diaspora, it appears like an alignment has been formed between Eritrea’s ruling party (PFDJ) and….Individuals With-No-Requests (IWNR).  Because, unlike 1987 with Sagem, there is no party to negotiate with now, even if the PFDJ was inclined to.  What we have is just individuals trekking to the Neo Nationalist camp for reasons stated above and below.   Individuals only, because Eritrean opposition has only groups just-forming, or groups just-dying. Groups liberated from the chokehold of TPLF; groups pledging solidarity with the TPLF.   The speed of the alignment between the Eritrean regime and “Individuals With No Requests” was dictated by the frequency and amplitude of pro-TPLF war-talk by some: “Eritrea is an artificial country, a disfigurement whose nationalism is held together by hatred towards Tigray; it has an army of barbarians who have committed genocide.  They are guilty.  We are coming, and this time we will have no respect for your sovereignty just as you didn’t for ours.”

5. Moreover, 31 years after Eritrea’s independence, 29 years after it joined the UN as a sovereign nation, there is still a large segment of Ethiopians that Ethiopian politicians feel compelled to pacify, by making vague promises about reclaiming The Red Sea.  The weary view that “When It Comes To Ethiopia, Eritrea Has To Always Have One Eye Open” (ሰለም ዘይብል ዓይኒ ዓሳ) was recently re-enforced by Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed Ali (or his social media guru), who just reminded the world that all that ails Ethiopia can be solved by a prayer, if only Ethiopians would stretch their hands to God, and also, let’s remember that domestic and historical enemies denied Ethiopia its access to The Sea. Forever and ever amen.

6. Well.  If you don’t want to hear only your country is artificial (as if all aren’t);  if you don’t want to hear that your love of your country–your good-will and good-wishes towards your people to have freedom, equality, stability, full citizenship–is driven by hatred;  if you don’t want to hear that your siblings have committed war crimes;  if you don’t automatically accept that you committed genocide and now you are genocide-denier; if you don’t want to be bullied into fearing and believing that war, occupation and destruction and vengeance is coming to your people; if you are tired of hearing that what is yours is not really yours and the Repo Man is coming…,what do you do? Many Eritreans took a look at two bullies and assessed that one (Foreign TPLF) is a bigger existential threat than the other (Domestic PFDJ.)  The domestic one had only exiled them; the foreign one is threatening to come after their families and homes with malice aforethought.

7. For two decades, waves of the youth, the Prey that had escaped the Predator, were looking for shelter in the Diaspora.  But, as we all know, the Eritrean opposition has a logo, not a location.  Efforts to elevate it to a Coalition, to a Government even, have been rebuffed.  “I don’t want to drive the bus; I want to sit on the sidewalk and analyze the driver, the passengers and its speed,” they said.   The Opposition has not been able to create a community, a center, to provide emotional shelter to the battered and traumatized Prey.  There was no organized and sustained effort to give them a spread of Tayta and chopped onions.  So many of the Prey just fell off Eritrea-sphere as they navigated survival in the jungles of Europe and America.   Some eventually found a way to reach some kind of co-existence with their tormenter.  In the study of species adoption,  this is called co-evolution.  The result of the co-evolution is the youth recognize social events (festivals, expos) as Eritrean and not PFDJian; in return they don’t have to wear a flag to attend it and they are exempted from all the Mekete (Challenge!) demonstrations and you, PFDJ, can forget your 2% bilking.  In exchange, they avoid social isolation; they are with their people and their tongue; the strength in numbers assures them the country will be fine.   They listen to musicians they love, and they get to travel home.

8a. They still have siblings in indentured servitude; they still have family members who disappeared; they still have people they know in refugee camps who are abandoned or targeted by all the combatants in Ethiopia’s Civil War; they still have their weddings at some third country; they still have to live off half of their meager wages because they have to send the other half to support their families; they still know that by setting the exchange rates artificially low, the government is confiscating 75% of what they are sending. ($100 becomes 1500 NKFA instead its free market equilibrium rate of 6000 NKFA with the Mafia Regime robbing 4500 Nakfa.)

8b. The only thing that changed is now maybe some think the government had to do all the vile things it did, to fight the conspiracy of The Named and The Un-named.  They are hopeful that those bad times are now over because Team ኩራዕ ኤርትራዊ! ኣርዓዶም! ኣህደሞም! ደምሰሶም! prevailed (?) over Team በሎም! ኣይሰምዕን’ የ.  Jr.  The lessons of “እኔም ዜሮ ዜሮ ኣንተም ዜሮ ዜሮ” (we both lost), a song that was famous after 1998-2000 war–that war brings nothing but destruction, no winners; only losers–have been forgotten.   The new ዜሮ ዜሮ song is a taunt, it’s sports-trash-talking, except the Sports is War.

8c. Ask our traumatized youth, “should Eritreans have been arrested without charges over the last 30 years”, they may say they wouldn’t know–because, for some, it is about things that happened BEFORE they were born. But would they say the same if you changed the question to: “should they still be in jail?”  The youth shall ask, “After all, isn’t this triumphant celebration I am part of, right now, an end of an era– an era when people used to be arrested without charges, without self-defense, without visitation rights?

9. While TPLF’s ecosystem was the vehicle that decided the speed by which the synthesis arrived, it was Eritrean media, and Opposition media at that, which countered the anti-thesis; and, it is partly responsible for the synthesis. Obviously, the Eritrean State media could not comment on a war it hadn’t even admitted it is involved in. How can you report on the activities of that which you called dead-and-buried in November 2020?  In the absence of State media (just as it was absent in the early stages of 98-00 Eritrea-Ethiopia War), it was opposition media like AAN and Solo Media that was calling bullshit on the TPLF narrative.  So, for those of you who will say, “hey, Saleh, remember when you used to write and post pics saying PFDJ is left only with the elderly; it has lost the youth: check this, in your face!” the answer is you had lost them–not to us in the Opposition, but to the ether. And it was partly thanks to the opposition media like AAN and Solo Media who brought them to Eritrea: they had given up on it.

10. In prose and poetry, Awel Seid, the Spokesperson of the Neo Nationalism, the Citizen Ambassador, has little to say except  መንግስትና ደው ትበለልና (long live our government) with a hyper-focus on another competing Marxist Leninist organization (Marxist Leninist League of Tigray, MLLT, ማለሊት), an organization that mostly lives rent-free in the propeller heads of People’s Front for Democracy & Justice flunkies. All that can be said, in favor and against the Citizen Ambassador has been said.  For those of us who have been around the block, he is a highly polished version of two previous spokespersons–Sophia Tesfamariam and Thomas Mountain–only more engaging.  I don’t remember his rules of engagement: they have something to do with a socket.

II. The Thesis

11. This Nationalism Born of War,  this Neo Nationalism, has a problem.  It is born with its own seed of destruction, its antithesis.   For, at some point, it will bother more and more people that the Neo Nationalism has ugly traces of ultranationalism, of mocking The Other.  To be sure, war, in all its ugliness, also brings out ugly songs.  In the 98-00 war, there was also Us and Them–Tareke’s Hilmi Abay Tigray is an example–but back then the “them” was understood to be Tigray People’s Liberation Front founders and not Tigray people.  Because it was the TPLF that had deported him.  But now, with the multiplying social media and exponential growth of communication, the line between TPLF and Tigray people keeps getting blurred.  The tone is angrier, preparing the People for the Final Confrontation.   There are words and videos that appear to demean a people not a political organization.   I say “appear” because it is not consistent with the history of EPLF/PFDJ literature to be this transparent on that subject.  Then there is the stress of cognitive dissonance: how long can you hear ክዛርቡና እንድዮም ደልዮም (they are forcing us to speak) voiced by a 90-year old sounding man, with his metaphors of dough and baking, lamenting that we have been forced to speak, when our real problem is ክንዛረብ ኣይከኣልናን (we have no freedom of speech)!

12. In all this, there is a large group of a People (not a Front) which is asking, “oh, so you are the victim in this story?”  They are Tegaru, our immediate neighbors, and whatever you say about their Tigray People’s Liberation Front, they are as committed to it as the Eritrean version.  So, what is our end game with them? Eternal war? A strategy of hope that the TPLF will meet the fate many political organizations, many at its hands: disintegration? And how long will this take: will yet another generation go through what 3 generation of Eritreans have gone through?  Will we, at long last, try peace?

13. What has this “Create Enemy, Fight Enemy, Claim & Celebrate Victory; Create Enemy, Fight Enemy, Claim & Celebrate Victory” governance brought Eritrea except militarization, mass exile, stagnation, and decay in the last 30 years?  How can one claim “victory” after losing the lives and limbs and mental health of so many to war, or exile, or uncountable prisons? Is Victory simply defined as “not lost its sovereignty?”  No reasonable government, anywhere in the world, would claim that its primary achievement in the last 30 years is that it wasn’t reoccupied but, in Eritrea, that is still the case–helped now and then by Ethiopian rulers. Is this violence part of the so-called “Habesha Culture?”  The same culture that, you know, is late to everything, except airports?  Why are we so late again to pursue peace with the same intensity we pursue war…?

14. …Because the Government of Isaias Afwerki can only exist in times of war.  This is not unique to Eritrea: war against an enemy makes all people everywhere focus their attention to the new threat.  But few countries would pursue that as a policy, year after year, because all except the very wealthy nations know it is not economically sustainable. The rulers of Eritrea have found a new way to showcase what they hope to be a Best-Practice adopted by Africa: Sawa!  This is where the rulers forcefully take the very-likely-to-be underemployed and agitated youth, to a high school, a feeder to Indoctrination And War-Readiness, Inc. (Free labor included.)   The reason there is such sense of triumphalism in the Eritrean festivals is because they believe that the Future Best Practice of Africa, of which they were part-and-parcel, is not something to be ashamed of (as if you were enslaved or human trafficked: the definition of forced labor)  but something to be proud of, because Best Practice of Africa has been repeatedly tested domestically (against internal enemies) and foreign (Weyane) and been “proven wildly successful.”  ኩራዕ ኤርትራዊ.  The Festival of Triumphalism is celebrating the end of a war, even as it readies itself for another. It knows that its unity is glued by war, because in peace time, all the disparities (gender, ethnicity, religion, war veteran status) will be made clear, and eventually a subject for debate.

III. Three Generations & Counting

15. Consider this: “We must pass on to our children a country that is free from war and conflict, a country of which they can be proud, a country in which independence, peace, and prosperity prevail.”  It is from PFDJ’s National Charter of February 1994 revealed at the PFDJ’s First (and last) Congress.  Whatever the Eritrean equivalent its name may be, Eritrea, too, has its:  boomers (58-67 years old), Gen X’ers (42-57 years old), Millenials (26 – 41 years old) and Gen Z (10-25 years old). In the end, all it means is in the time (30 years) Eritrea has been maladministered by PFDJ,  people have aged from one bracket to another, without seeing peace, never mind pride or prosperity. There is no reason to expect anything else from the Party of War. 

16. On top of all that, Eritrea is now a land of tiered citizenship.  Eritreans who can travel; Eritreans who can’t; Eritrean Diaspora who can go home; Eritrean Diaspora who can’t; Eritreans who can be visited in prison; and Eritreans who can’t.  Eritreans who can elect and be elected (hey, hey only in local governments!); Eritreans who can’t.  Eritreans with light military service (you know, like Isaias Afwerki’s kids); Eritreans in indefinite hard labor.  There is no worse corruption than abuse of power, and the Eritrean rulers are so abusive of their power they will go to the extent of denying burial in Eritrea, to an Eritrean corpse.  In the end, all the PFDJ Citizen Ambassadors have failed this test: have you contributed to the polarization of Eritreans or have you contributed to their coming-together for civil discussions?

17. If the PFDJ and its NNNN cult think they have won, well, in “winning”, they have lost.  While Eritrea has never been more in agreement about a foreign threat, it has never been more in disagreement on the type of governance Eritrea needs, and the the nature of the Supreme Law, constitution, that must bind its citizens together.  The Neo Nationalism fanned by the PFDJ can only thrive in the vapors of wars, and this is why the Isaias Afwerki regime has stumbled Eritrea from one war to another (Yemen, Ethiopia, Djibouti, East Sudan) for 30 years, and will continue to do so.   The alternative,  Paleo Nationalism,  the traditional culture of dialogue, order, limited power has been rejected by the Neo Nationalist party. Or maybe it can’t hear the invitation to do so over the sound of angry guns and celebratory drums it orchestrates.

18. Whether it is a Primal Scream of a long-delayed response, or a political realignment to expand the base, something significant has happened in the Eritrean Diaspora.  To recognize it is to define it and present Eritreans a real choice – one that asks them: do you want to be in eternal wars or do you want to pursue peace fiercely?  Do you want to be sovereign, or a subject of the State.  That is the true meaning of “independent choice” – because independent choice can only be made by independent persons.  Independent not just from dependence on foreign power, but independence from tyrannical governments. This can only come from people’s (humans) sovereignty, popular sovereignty, which doesn’t exist in Eritrea.