September is a month of contrasts in Eritrea, on one hand it is the month in which Eritreans launched the armed struggle in 1961 followed by a long and arduous struggle culminated into the Independence of Eritrea in 1991. On the other hand, twelve years ago in September 18, the PFDJ waged war against our inalienable liberties that we reclaimed after 30 years of bloody war. The PFDJ, one of the worst tyrannical regimes that the world has known maliciously decimated the liberties that the Eritrean people have heavily paid for.

The EYSC-NA and EYSNS have collaborated on the project to remember all prisons of consciousness to tell the PFDJ and its supporters that we have not forgot them. Our history is a vivid guide that Eritreans will be undaunted by the thuggish and cowardice intimidation of PFDJ and its mercenary supporters.

Profoundly peaceful and loyal people, Eritreans have endured tremendous torture and murder under Isaias Afwerki and the regime he presides over for two decades. We are cognizant that the names featured here are only the tip of the iceberg. But we had to start somewhere. And start somewhere we did.

I invite all Peace and Justice loving Eritreans to purchase the calendar that features some of the prisons who have disappeared. In deference to the ultimate sacrifices they have paid, in defiance to the PFDJ and as a symbol of solidarity with our voiceless compatriots, we encourage you to hang the calendar in your homes and business. We have embarked on this project to ensure that all Eritreans who are incarcerated in the PFDJ dungeons would not be forgotten. And those who have been brutally murdered by the PFDJ, buried under unmarked tombs did not perish in vain.

We adamantly refuse to forget every Eritrean who has become the victim of PFDJ. While the PFDJ is counting on an old adage, “ካብዓይኒዝገለለ፡ካብልቢረሓቐ “by relegating them to obscurity. We defy the PFDJ’s betrayal of our people and our country by refusing to forget. We mourn their suffering and celebrate their courage.

This project will continue to feature the names of Eritrean political prisoners on a calendar every year, each month features a prisoner along with a brief biography. We ask the support of every Eritrean for this project by sharing a succinct and accurate bio of political prisoners. Your contributions will make this embryonic project a success by etching an indelible memory of those who are suffering for simply exhibiting what is God’s gift to humans: thinking

Next year we intend to publish the names of other twelve prisoners, who faced the same fate under the brutality of PFDJ. We implore you to buy the calendar and contribute with your knowledge to this project, both in defiance to the PFDJ and as a sobering reminder of the suffering of Eritreans under our own version of Hitler.

The organizers worked hard to make it available in English, Tigirina and Arabic. The cover page contains, a tribute poem by Bereket Yohanes (included at the end of the article), an activist with Hidmona Human Right Group, a short introduction behind the motivation of the project and a quote that encapsulates the message of the calendar by Milan Kundera – “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

More information regarding pricing and shipping will be disseminated through Paltalk Eritreans rooms and website by the organizers.We will continue to publish the names of all Eritrean political prisoners every year as we mourn September 18. We have started with these groups, but we pledge to continue to do so every September 18 to mourn and observe the day and to tell the PFDJ that we will never forget and that out of sight is not necessarily out of heart. We ask the support of every Eritrean to continue this project every years by sending us succinct and accurate bio of political prisoners. Next year we intend to publish the names of other political prisoners who faced the same fate under the brutality of the PFDJ.

We implore you to buy the calendar and contribute with your knowledge to this project, both in defiance to the PFDJ and as a sobering reminder of the suffering of Eritreans under our own version of Hitler who is hell bent to cleanse the Eritrean race.

Tribute Poem by Bereket Yohanes

Let us always remember
That fateful day in September,
And the ones who paid the ultimate sacrifice,
Should be remembered by all of us.
Who left the comfort and ended in dungeon,
To face perils as yet unknown,
To melt like a burning candle in a tray,
When men’s heart had gone astray.
Brothers and sisters with bravado,
Who never questioned what to do,
Who are a source of our inspiration and hope,
And strength to others who could not cope.
Heroes that would not turn their back,
With determination that would not crack,
Who bound together in their tasks,
And asking not a word of thanks.
Heroes who bravely gave their lives,
Who left the comfort of their families,
Can proudly look back on their deed,
Who gave citizens all they need.
Actions taken without regret,
Heroisms we shall never forget,
The ones who paid the ultimate price,
Let’s never forget their sacrifice.
Taken their future, but not their past,
Amongst us it will always last,
Cry the beloved country still rage on,
We march for freedom under their icon.
And never forget the ones not around to cheer,
Who stand up for the freedom we all hold dear,
And may their memory never fade,
Lest their sacrifice be in vain,
Lest them be forgotten.

Let me start this with a slogan: Smokers of the world, Unite!

Every time I pass by the Frankfurt airport I have to visit the smoking cabin (more of a jail cell) and meet interesting people who seem to be avenging themselves for not being allowed to smoke elsewhere.

In the cell, a sticker reads, Rauchen kann tödlich sein. Translation: smoking can kill you—the only German sentence that can be properly translated into English. One would think the translation would read: You smoking cigarettes can kill.

All right… it is not as bad as in Australia where packets do not carry the usual branding. The brand is written at the bottom of the pack. The front and back carry harrowing images of cancerous body parts, images fit for a horror movie ad. People slid business cards under the transparent foil to cover the tasteless images. Still, cigarettes cost four-times their price in the USA. Why should Australian smokers pay insurance? The cigarette taxes they pay should be enough to cover them even if they want Botox and other fanciful cosmetic surgery.

I don’t know much about Italian airports; last month I arrived at Bologna after five O’clock and everybody had gone home for the day, including the customs officers. You disembark and walk to the bus. On my return, I didn’t have time, I walked straight to the airplane. But though not as bad as the Australians, the Italians fill half the packets with bold letter, “Il fumo danneggia gravemente te e chi tis ta intorno.” Simple translation: Be scared of cigarettes!

The Brussels airport? In the future I’ll avoid it as much as I can; think of walking for twenty minutes underground through endless passages to reach the gate for a connecting flight! If the airport doesn’t have a smoking lounge, the Belgians must be brought to The Hague to be sentenced.

At the Dulles airport terminal in Washington DC, they have a larger smoking room—five times the cells in Frankfurt. It is located in the far end of the terminal and one would feel walking to downtown DC on foot is easier than walking to that place… but luckily, there are so many Ethiopian employees at the airport, eavesdropping on the conversation among the employees makes it lighter. For some reason, the Ethiopian employees take liberty in discussing their issues, some very intimate, loudly; maybe they do not think anyone understands their language. Maybe they don’t expect someone who understands Amharic should be there.

At the Denver airport, the authorities (God bless their heart) have allowed for some freedom of choice. They have allowed a smoking bar at the second floor—all you need to do is buy a drink. Sure, that is easy. And the place is not full of stiff people who give you faces; for some reason it is full of tattooed people and many others with cowboy hats. They just smoke to their heart’s content and puff heavy smoke.

In California airports, well. If you ask for a smoking area, the employees report you to a mental hospital… If you light up, they hang you up.

One time I went to San-Francisco to meet someone at his office…it was too early and I decided to wait in a coffee shop across the street full of hippie types. I lighted a cigarette and they gave me dirty looks. I murmured, “C’mon, I am not smoking Hashish!”

Minutes later another crowd appeared from the corner and the group joined them. They carried demonstration placards and began to chant: Legalize marijuana! What? They were giving me dirty looks for a cigarette and they want to legalize marijuana? I didn’t have the courage to call them Hypocrites.

In the town where I live, the lady at the Chevron station store insists that I show her my ID card before she gives me the pack—she thinks I am under 21. It would be flattering if I didn’t think it was foolish. “I have instructions to ask for ID from anyone,” she explains. A sticker on her cash register reads, ‘If you are under 35, show your ID.” Or something like that. Ok, I am not even close to 35, but she insists. Then she asks me what year I was born, and I say, “I was born in 1911.” She enters that on the machine. Would a one-hundred-and-two year old man stand in front of her and argue? But she is trained not to use her judgment, but to go by the book that some retard wrote sitting in a corporate office.

Then a friend suggests I watch ‘Mad Men’ on Netflex; I watched two episodes and hated myself. At the same time I remembered sitting on the back half of Saudi Airlines where one could not see the person sitting close to him while swimming in thick smoke.

In Addis Ababa Bole airport, (that is Ethiopia, just in case) you light up and talk to the immigration officer through the smoke that you and the officer puff. Outside, you buy cigarettes from ten-year olds.

In the Middle East, as in most of Africa, you light up at restaurants, taxis, and the airport lounges and no one would even notice—you would look odd if you didn’t smoke. If you do not light up in Dubai, it’s likely people would wonder: what is wrong with him, nothing between his lips! Wesh belaak! Ma tdekhin? If you misplace your lighter, ask any employee for one—the immigration officer, the sweepers and guest receivers—I bet you nine-out of ten people carry lighters.

In my house, the California virus has stung my wife, I sit at the balcony regardless of cold or hot weather… and rain.

All that oppression makes one smoke twice as much; do you think cigarette prohibition works? The alcohol PROHIBITION of the thirties didn’t. And there is no stinking smell worse than the taste of beer—you are better off licking an ashtray!

Now you can imagine how many cigarettes a writer smokes when they write! I do mine at the balcony … and sometimes at Starbucks… 20 feet away from the entrance.

At any rate, I intend to quit smoking one new-year, it is my resolution. I advise you to quit smoking … maybe you would want to try electronic cigarettes… and then, please tell me if it works.

NB: this article is a revised version of what appeared in my Goodreads.com blog a couple of days ago.

Saleh “Gadi” Johar
Miriam Was Here
website: miriamwashere.com

Information Pack for Agrigento Memorial Service

On Monday 21 October at 4 PM in the afternoon there will be a memorial service for the victims of the Lampedusa tragedy in the Italian city of Agrigento. This memorial service is organised by the Italian government for people to pay respect for the victims before the bodies are sent to their final resting place in Eritrea.

All Eritreans in the European Community are welcome to attend this memorial service since Eritreans have been the main victim of this tragedy. It will be an opportunity to pay our respect to the victims in a cultural and dignified manner Eritreans attach to respect for life.

Time of the Memorial Service is 4:00 PM
Place: The city of Agrigento
Airport: Palermo Airport or Catania Airport
Transport: Once you get off the Airport there is around 2 hours drive from the two airports to the City of Agrigento.

The Eritrean Community will be organizing buses from Palermo or Catania Airport if you can inform in the contact details below and you can get to the Airport before 12:00 Midday. There are also public busses that can transport you from the airports to Agrigento.

Hotel: if you need to spend a night in Agrigento please send your email so that we can book for you.

Send your questions to: lampedusatragedy@gmail.com

The mobile number for Enquiries: +39 324 9280549

At times one wonders if we should say shame on us or shame on HGDEF. As if it is not degrading enough to be spat on, we seem to lack the resolve – and a simple one at that by the way, to even be able to wipe the spit off our faces. How degrading could that be?

Many of us were utterly shocked, as we should be, by the tragedy which unfolded a couple of weeks ago just a stone throw away from the shores of Lampedusa. Over three hundred Eritreans, women and children not spared, perished in the most agonizing of ways, each with their own little story of horrors. Stories which could give any human being the shivers just listen to let alone to experience first hand. 

But then again, so was and still is the fate of many of our folk back home and in the Diaspora – sheer horrors that never seem to end. So was and still is our story of the past twenty or so years – the story of enslavement, tortures, kidnappings, murders, rapes, organ trafficking and all kinds of macabre atrocities – the stuff that horror movies are made of. At times even too surreal to contemplate that such atrocities could ever be inflicted on humans in this day and age when even beasts let alone humans are accorded the rights which protect them against abuse and deprivation of the necessities of life.

This has been going on for far too long now – way too long and sadly enough without any respite, however short-lived that respite might have been. A day doesn’t pass by without us being inundated and overwhelmed with these horror stories.

But to our shame, yes our shame – we seem to have gotten used to abuse so much so that our tormentors are taking our inaction for granted now. They don’t even bother to test our resolve anymore; they don’t flinch or think twice in almost any atrocity they want to commit against us.

As the adage goes (though with a bit of a tweak here), “poke me once shame on you, poke me twice shame on me” we seem to have resigned to our fate as if we are under some kind of a spell. How else could we take all the abuse, the indignities and the utter disrespect hurled at us and all the horrific crimes committed against our people – how could we take it all and then expect for change to come?

How is it that we expect change to come anyways? Through getting bogged down in silly and endless abstract discourse? By chatting with delinquents?

Now this is not self-loathing by any stretch of the imagination; it is not defeatism, desperation or helplessness – not at all. It is rather a call, a candid call for action that it is indeed time for the end game. The battle lines were already drawn for quite sometime now – there are those of us who want change and then there are those who don’t. There is nothing else in between.   

And the first prerequisite for the final showdown is that we can’t be bothered with those who don’t want change – those chauvinist bigots of the n’hna nsu crowd which HGDEF conveniently uses as buffers.

Like I said before, these people can only be contained by defeating and destroying the system they worship and idolize – the system they draw their strength and inspiration from. Take away HGDEF and they will turn full circle to play by the rules. Let’s not even bother putting them in the equation at this point in time. The World is replete with the examples and stories of such crowds and how they are allotted their spaces to practice their prejudice but obey the law of the land and work within its limits at the same time.          

So if we want to effect change – immediate change which could bring an end to our collective misery, we need to concentrate on one thing and one thing only – destroying HGDEF. If this is adopted as a policy by the aggrieved and is given the urgency and the focus it deserves – there are many ways through which such a policy could be put to action. Here is a modest approach – one of many ways to skin the cat, so to speak: 

Let’s start with one thing most of us seem to agree on, if we ever agree on things that is – which is how miniscule this HGDEF establishment is. They number a couple of hundred at the most, give or take a few of thugs. Just a couple of hundred for crying out loud, of marauding bandits running havoc in a nation of five to six million people. A nation that paid dearly and sacrificed so much not only to be independent but also to be free.

Think about it again for a minute, all the grief, the carnage and the agonizing torment inflicted on our people and which has been going on for over twenty years and counting, is the work of only a couple of hundred of blood-suckers in our midst that we don’t seem to be able to shake off our lives. 

Well, something doesn’t jive here. Either the HGDEF establishment is indeed colossal and invincible as it claims to be, however laughable this may sound or we as its victims have miserably failed in recognizing its weakness. It can’t be both – it has to be either or.

And obviously it is the latter because HGDEF’s dubious façade and its myth of invincibility were long shattered to pieces, thanks to the stupid and devastating wars it had instigated by itself – wars it could never win. In fact, it is so weak that it can’t even stop its arch enemies from answering nature’s calls in its backyard right under its nose as we have seen it happen so often. There isn’t a damn thing it can do about it other than squawking about border demarcation ad nauseam.            

HGDEF’s weaknesses are many but three in particular stand out as its most vulnerable soft spots:

(1) As indicated above and as argued for many times in this column, HGDEF doesn’t have the numbers. Planning to destroy a bunch of bandits and skunnis need not be like preparing for operation Barbarossa. In other words, given its numbers, HGDEF can be done with in a very short period of time. And there is no shortage of men or material to do this by the way – all it needs is focus and a little re-organization as shown further down in this article.

(2) HGDEF doesn’t have an army. If it did, it would have never stopped its stupid war campaigns even if done just to stay relevant. Its propensity for aggression would have never been tamed as it has been for years now. If HGDEF had an army that it could rely on, it would have never spent what little it has in resources on watching 24/7 through a labyrinth of spy-enforcer network with shoot-to-kill orders, the hundreds of thousands of conscripts from abandoning and fleeing their posts. In short, HGDEF can not wage a war – any war. It is that weak.

(3) Notwithstanding the aforementioned, if there is one thing which could be cited as HGDEF’s weakest point – its Achilles Heels if you will, then it is this. HGDEF doesn’t have a power succession process in place. There is no hierarchy of power to speak of. It doesn’t have any state or public institutions which can function independently and without the daily stream of directives and decrees coming from the bloody dictator himself.

Do away with the dictator and the whole thing would come down crushing like a house of cards in no time. This is what a former U.S ambassador to Eritrea was referring to when he described the PFDJ regime as “only a bullet away from crumbling”.

The whole HGDEF phenomenon, however bloody it turns out to be, is a one time pet project of a sick and a disturbed thug who thinks he could shape a people’s destiny to his sick and bigoted whims. There is no continuity to it – it is more of a single-use disposable tool. The dictator himself confirmed this when said that he couldn’t imagine an Eritrea beyond his rule or something to that effect.

With a target so self-defined for god’s sake, how could anybody lose focus? Why would anybody keep shooting in the dark?  

What more could one ask for in an enemy that is barely alive – an enemy that neither has the threat of size nor the support and allegiance of the rank and file – an enemy which by its own admission has no survival plan – any plan that will help it survive a direct blow – What more could one ask for in an enemy? Saying not much is even an understatement. Identifying your enemy’s weaknesses helps you narrow down your target. With your target set, you just aim and destroy your enemy – period.

But the question still remains – Who will be in a better position to destroy HGDEF? Who will bell (preferably strangle) the proverbial cat, so to speak?

Three scenarios come to mind – there could be more. (1) A rebellion by the conscript army (2) Intervention by foreign forces and (3) An attack by the armed opposition groups. Let’s just briefly review the pros and cons of each scenario.

(1)   An armed rebellion by the conscript army could destroy HGDEF in a flicker. By sheer numbers alone, the conscripts could overwhelm HGDEF thugs in no time. Not only that, but as they hail from every corner of the country, the conscripts could also serve as a strong stabilizing factor in the immediate aftermath of HGDEF’s destruction.

This however didn’t escape HGDEF – not for a second. That is why it has invested heavily and uses whatever meagre resources it has left on a spy-and-enforcer network and a corrupt officer corps led by bloody warlords to keep close tabs on the conscript army.

For any armed rebellion to be successful planning is crucial and likewise, for any planning to be conducted, the flow of information is critical. How HGDEF embeds its informers within the ranks of the conscript army with the sole purpose of sniffing out any semblance of dissent makes it difficult if not impossible for any information to permeate without being detected.

That’s why with the exception of FORTO-2013 and the armed uprising in Eastern Akele Guzai which preceded it, we don’t see that many attempts by the conscript army to carry out full scale armed rebellions against the HGDEF establishment.

Except for a few flare-ups here and there where the conscripts mow down some corrupt officers in utter desperation and then sadly take their own lives, the only other recourse available for them is to flee their posts at extreme perils to their lives. This is all about the dissent they can show at this point unless of course they get hold of a SPARK – a spark which could set the motion in place to help them connect with each other to destroy HGDEF. Until that happens though, this scenario will just be a pending approach.

(2)   There are some among us who believe that a foreign armed intervention, say by Ethiopia or the West even if by proxy would destroy HGDEF and thus solve most if not all of our problems. This assertion is flawed on two grounds. First and foremost, it is a non-starter – because neither the Ethiopians nor the West would be willing to be drawn into an internal conflict of another country that doesn’t pose an immediate threat to them. They will be content with the lessons they taught HGDEF so far. 

This is particularly more so for the Ethiopians who have the PFDJ dictator cornered for the last 15 years in the exact same spot they wanted him – yes for 15 long years and the freak couldn’t even move an inch in their direction. They will ignore him as long as he behaves and as long as he dutifully observes the humiliating surrender terms they set for him the last time he tried his luck.

Secondly, even if a foreign armed intervention takes place by some fluke – the end result may not always be in congruence with the ultimate wishes of the Eritrean people. There is always a price tag attached to such interventions, nothing comes for free. And if history has ever taught us a thing or two over the decades past – then it is the heavy price we paid for what was ours in the first place due to foreign interventions which collectively conspired against us.

So in short, this scenario is a non-starter – sort of a pie-in-the sky dreamer. It is a dead approach.     

      (3)     That leaves us with only one scenario – that of the armed opposition groups.

But these ones in turn come with their own set of problems. The most misunderstood groups in the entire Eritrean political arena – these armed opposition groups have been hacking it for as long as HGDEF was on the scene. 

If an attacking army’s success rate is measured by how much ground it takes back from its enemy, then these armed opposition groups could be discounted as complete failures. But if the success rate is measured by how each group sticks to its war strategy – then even a lay person could notice that it is exactly what they are doing – sticking to their war strategy.

And their strategy calls for a protracted war of attrition, chipping on HGDEF bit by bit. This suggests two things: (1) that they are in for the long haul, and (2) they intend to be there when HGDEF finally succumbs to its wounds.

Unfortunately, the biggest flaw in this approach is that it does not take into account the urgency that is needed to mitigate the horrific daily carnage which the Eritrean people are being subjected to. At the going rate of savagery inflicted on the people and by the time HGDEF succumbs to such a strategy, there may not be a nation to be had.    

So if HGDEF is to be destroyed – and destroyed immediately that is, there is this loop that needs to be closed. It starts with the armed opposition groups. As we are all aware, these groups have often been ridiculed and scoffed as too weak and too few to be taken seriously.

But if one watches closely that doesn’t seem to bother them at all – because they know all too well that their ranks will inevitably swell to the brim when (and if) the conscript army breaks up. The idea being hanging on tight to their banners for now would  guarantee their presence in any future dialogue in which ALL Eritreans sit down to agree on a new national covenant.    

If I may digress a bit here, little did HGDEF know that when it emptied all the towns and villages of the country through its forced conscription policy that it was actually creating a double-edged sword which would cut short its despicable chauvinist agenda – but that is a subject for another day.

So attempting to bring the armed opposition groups together at this point in time to form a unified military force by having them abandon their raison d’être is definitely doomed to fail as it did over the years past. They may work together, co-operate or conduct joint operations – but abandon their banners, they will not. According to them, the nation’s wounds are just too deep to be dressed up at this point. They figure, trust is not something that can be preached, decreed or legislated. It emanates from and is reciprocated through deeds – honest deeds.

The only ray of hope here is that, despite their divergent views and outlooks, all these armed opposition groups converge on one core issue; they all want HGDEF destroyed immediately. This may sound like a catch-22 quagmire for some but in actuality it could be a good starting point in destroying HGDEF.

What these armed opposition groups could do is contribute some of their best fighters and intelligence personnel to help create an elite national task force unit (remember 1 single unit – not another organization) which would be mandated with the execution of one single task within a specified timeline. The unit’s task would be the immediate destruction of HGDEF in a top-down operation by bringing to justice or bringing justice to (all the same) the few than two hundred bandits who are responsible for the horrific misery which the Eritrean people have been subjected to over the past twenty or so years.

Such a task force unit would not be bogged down in unnecessary combats and firefights with the conscript army but rather would rely on stealth, speed and intelligence (readily available) to conduct its operations with deadly precision.

Many others like exiled ex-conscripts, veteran fighters, all other political and public organizations and the public in general could contribute with a wealth of information, intelligence, financial and moral support and even active participation if need, be to help with the  immediate creation of such a national task force unit.

As argued for many times before in this column – HGDEF’s destruction works best in a top-down operation. With clear-cut and well defined targets, the unit’s mission couldn’t be made easier. Also its dependence on logistics would be minimal as it would not be necessary for it to engage in full scale combats. Another plus, the ever controversial outside sources of financing would not be required in this case because for such a limited operation – Eritreans themselves could afford to foot the bill.    

With the creation of the national task force unit, the armed opposition groups would be able to keep their banners until such time there is a true national dialogue between all the stake-holders of the nation to enter into a new and equitable national covenant. That was their snail-pace strategy all along anyways, but this time around they wouldn’t need to fake it anymore. They wouldn’t also come under pressure from members of the public to have them enter into forced marriages that don’t always last.

As for the conscript army inside the country, the national task force unit would be a godsend as it would provide the SPARK that was missing all along. With enough HGDEF thugs decommissioned and their spy and enforcer network in tatters – the conscript army could break free from HGDEF’s grip and make its final move to finish the job. Not only that but it will also play a crucial role in stabilizing the country as stated before.

So without any further ado, let’s all take this as a call to contribute our level best in whatever way it is that we feel comfortable and able to make this initiative a reality. We can only work with what we have – and truth be told, we have enough men and material to effect immediate change. Not only that, but we also have the legal and moral high ground for this initiative. It falls within our inherent right to self-defence.

The outpouring of grief and rage at the calamities facing our people as was evident over the last couple of weeks and as we have seen it happen many times over the years are only natural reactions because after all we are only humans.

That said though, running high on emotions alone won’t do the job of emancipating our people from this horrifying bondage they find themselves in. It is time to take action.

Miscellany:

HGDEF’s Layered Buffers

The suck and blow crowd – those who want change tailored to their musings.

The fear-mongering crowd – those who preach that change will only lead to chaos and blood shed

The cult freaks – Those who say that there is no alternative (for the dictator) to be had.

A simple observation: You can talk to these crowds until you turn blue, you can never win them over. Alternatively, you can destroy HGDEF and you will see that they will be the first ones to sing Kumbaya.

Belated Eid Mubarak to you all. Kul’Am Wa-antum B’kheir.

Wa-Allah-ul-Muafiq
kurchai@hotmail.com

Eritrea is a country riddled with extra-judicial killing; disappearance; incommunicado detention; denial of fundamental human rights and indefinite military conscription which is tearing the very fabric of the society, according to Ms. Sheila B. Keetharuth, the UN Special Rapporteur to Eritrea.

Her report was made on Thursday to the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (Third Committee), of the UN’s 67th General Assembly.

“The current human rights picture [in Eritrea] is desperately bleak,” she elaborated, in a follow-up press conference.

The Special Rapporteur received her mandate from the UN’s Human Rights Council to monitor the deteriorating human rights situation in Eritrea on November 1 2012 and issued her first report on May 28, 2013.

The Special Rapporteur reported that 2,000 to 3,000 Eritreans are exiled monthly.  In 2012, according to the UNHCR, over 305,000 Eritreans fled their country, an astounding number for a country with a population of 5 million.

Part of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate is to listen to individual complaints of Eritrean victims and the website of UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights hosts a questionnaire in English, Tigrinya and Arabic.

Following her testimony to the UN, the Special Rapporteur was invited to an event hosted by human rights activists including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Concern Eritrea and Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

Personal testimonies were given by Meaza Petros (daughter of Petros Solomon and Aster Yohannes who have been detained incommunicado prison since 2001 and 2004 respectively); Mezgeb Mengistu, the mother of Aster Yohannes; Saleh Younis, the uncle of 16-year old Ciham Ali Abdu; and Sengal Woldetensaie, the brother of Haile Woldetensaie (Eritrea’s former Foreign Minister and Minister of Trade and Industries).

The Special Rapporteur was particularly moved by the testimony of Meaza Petros, 16, the youngest of Petros and Aster’s four children.

Maaza spoke of how she was a product of a love story–two fighters who met in the field and how the country they helped to liberate has orphaned her.  She said she has no recollection of her father: she was too young when he was arrested and she disclosed that her mother, who had left her in the care of her grandmother, Mezgeb Mengistu, was tricked to return to Eritrea and “raise her children” by Isaias Afwerki himself who then, upon her return, had his security officers escort her from the plane in the tarmac to detention.

Maaza continued on to narrate how she and her grandmother trekked to neighboring Sudan on foot and how her siblings, who attempted the Ethiopia route to exile were apprehended and conscripted and eventually reunited with her in the United States.

Through a translator, Ms. Mezgeb Mengistu thanked the audience for listening to their testimony and prayed to God to bring relief to their pain.

Saleh Younis briefly touched on the arrest of his father, 85, his brother, 38 and his niece, 16, as that of the average Eritrean family: this is the fourth arrest for his father–the longest time he served was for offering to mediate the dispute between a group that Maaza’s father belonged to (G-15) and that of the Office of the President–that his brother represents the typical case of conscription without end since he was enlisted in the National Service in 1995; and that of his niece represents the case of separate families and the price paid when someone says no to a tyrant.

The rest of Saleh Younis’s address focused on what must be done, which begins with one recognition: “There is no government in Eritrea.  Even to call it a “regime” implies a system, a structure and a hierarchy.  In actual fact, Eritrea is the State of Isaias Afwerki… the State is The Man, and The Man is the sum total of his mad contradictions.”   The international community, he said, must disengage with the Isaias Afwerki regime–it is futile to do so–and engage with alternatives to his rule.

Saleh Younis’s testimony was followed by that of Sengal Woldetensaie, the brother of Haile “Derue” Woldetensaie.

Sengal spoke of the arrest of his brother on September 18, 2001 and that everything that has followed since then is a violation of his human rights and that of his family members: arresting someone for calling to reform a system he is a part of is a violation of his human rights; detaining him incommunicado is a violation of his human rights;  denying him medical care (he suffers from diabetes) is a violation of his human rights; denying him the right to defend himself in a court of law is a violation of his human rights.

The presentation, which was co-chaired by Elizabeth Chyrum (Human Rights Concern Eritrea), was then opened to a Q & A session directed to the panelists and Sheila B. Keetharuth and the mechanism and forums for more Eritreans to provide their testimonies to the world.

Attending the meeting were Eritreans, friends of Eritrea, human rights activists, the German Mission and the UN Political Affairs Officer, Africa Division.

END
–//–

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[This is the entire text of the speech made by Saleh Younis, and addressed to attendants of an event organized by Eritrean and international human rights activists and was attended by Eritreans, friends of Eritrea, the Africa Desk of the UN, and the German Mission, and the Human Rights Rapporteur, Sheila Bedwantee Keetharuth, designated to Eritrea. (Her mandate is to monitor human rights violations and gather testimonies from Eritreans.) The session was held in New York on Thursday, October 24, 2013.]

Good afternoon.  My name is Saleh Younis, and I am an Eritrean citizen.  Today, I come to speak to you about an average Eritrean family, with an average Eritrean story: victims of the Isaias Afwerki regime.  It is the story of my family.  Please bear in mind that when I say that this is the story of an average Eritrean family, it means that the fate of others is far worse.

My father, my brother and my niece have been in prison since December 2012.  That is three generation of Eritreans.

My father, Abdu Ahmed Younis, was born in Keren, Eritrea in 1928. He is 85, and this is his fourth arrest in the last 12 years.  An 85-year-old man has many health issues and, in his case, the arrest came a month after he had open heart surgery in Jordan.Neither I, nor any of our family members, know why he is arrested. The longest term he served was in 2001 (for 3 plus years) when he, and other elders, offered to mediate the dispute between two sides of the ruling party. What he considered a duty of a citizen—and elder citizen—to exercise the traditional role of an elder—was interpreted by the Isaias Afwerki regime as taking sides in a matter that should not involve a citizen: having a say in how he is governed.This time, we do not know why he is arrested: he has not been charged with any crime, he hasn’t been brought to a court of law; he hasn’t been sentenced. The family has no visitation rights.

My brother, Hassen Abdu Ahmed, was born in Asmara in 1975. He is 38. His story is that of the average 38 year old Eritrean: exiled, returned with my father to Eritrea in 1992, and he has been with the National Service since 1995. That is 17 years of conscription in the army, followed by one year in jail. He, too, was arrested in December 2012.Again, we do not know why he is arrested: he has not been charged with any crime; he hasn’t been brought to a court of law; he hasn’t been sentenced.

Left to right: Weizero (Mrs.) Mezgeb Mengistu (mother of Aster Yohannes and mother-in-law of Petros Solomon); Saleh Younis; Adeola Fayehun (host of Sahara TV), Me’Aza Petros Solomon, and Zerai Petros Solomon

My niece, Ciham Ali Abdu, was born on April 3, 1997 in Los Angeles, California.She is 16 now.  She was arrested when she was 15, on December 8 (ironically, World Children’s Day) in Hashferay and then transferred to Adi Abeyto prison on December 25 (Christmas Day.) A Christmas present for her mom. Since March 12, she has been moved out of Adi Abeyto but no family member knows where she has been transferred.Again, since there is no explanation, we the family are left to draw conjectures: perhaps she is being held hostage to ensure that her father, Ali Abdu Ahmed, the former minister of information who abandoned the regime and sought political asylum in the West, is daily reminded that his daughter’s fate is in their hands.

When I say this is an average family, it means there are Eritrean families in even worse condition. Consider: Eritreans who were arrested in 1994 because they were Muslim fundamentalists. Their families have been suffering for nearly 20 years. Consider the case of Tewelde Beyn, an Eritrean from Keren, who disappeared together with the famous poet Echet Hina and other 15 innocent souls without trace in 1977, because they were not supportive of the EPLF. Now consider: his grandson, Yohannes M. Tewelde Beyn, who, like many people his age, was exiled out of his country: he is one of the Lampedusa victims of October 3rd. His aunt, Leteab Tewelde Beyn, failed to locate him with the survivors or the dead in Lampedusa.

Each of our stories here, our testimonies, can be readily dismissed–and the Eritrean regime is good at that. But can it dismiss the cumulative testimonies of thousands and thousands of Eritrean families?

It is normal, and the duty of governments, to imprison people considered threats to national security.The problem here is one of degrees: Eritrea’s is extreme by any measure.There are tens of thousands of Eritrean families who are in even worse shape: families who have lost their only children; families separated for decades; families who do not know the whereabouts of their loved ones for decades: no charges, no trial, no court, no right to self-defense, no right to hearing charges against you, no sentence, no family visitation. Families who have endured longer and more intense pain. You hear cries about injustice all over the world.The problem in Eritrea is not just lack of justice; it is lack of verdict. Lack of decency.It is rule by a mob, rule by gangsters.  

From where you sit, I am sure you are thinking: “what do you want us to do about it?This is all terrible, but the world is full of terrible news: what can we do?”The one thing you can do is understand the nature of the regime—truly understand it—because if you did, you would know all the well-intentioned “engagement” and “discussions on the margins of the conference” and “new initiative” that you individually or collectively dream up are all futile.All they do is legitimize an illegitimate government; extend it a lifeline and tacitly endorse its wanton human rights violations.You are trying to reform something that is beyond reform.

Many of you have been hoodwinked.You have looked at the “African dictator for dummies” manual and said there are no statues of Isaias Afwerki in Eritrea, so he must not be a dictator.He has not given himself outrageous titles like Field Marshall and doesn’t wear uniforms and sunglasses, so he must not be a dictator.He doesn’t dress up in $1,000 dollar brand suits so he must not be a dictator.He doesn’t have villas in Europe, so he must not be a dictator.But one can be a dictator and still live a Spartan life: a dictator’s obsession is power, and what he does once he has the power differs with each tyrant.

Let me be blunt: THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT IN ERITREA.Even to call it “a regime” implies a system, a structure and a hierarchy.In actual fact, Eritrea is the State of Isaias Afwerki.It is a tyrannical police “state”: there was a systematic subversion of state power by party, and an even more intense subversion of party power by an individual.So now, the State is The Man, and The Man is the sum total of his mad contradictions. This was done by creating parallel infrastructure: illicit and informal.Because members of this illicit and informal infrastructure are themselves rotated in and out of jail, their loyalty is to one man: the president.  

One simple example: Eritrea has a ministry of finance, defense, fisheries, energy, mining, transportation, trade and industry, agriculture.It has authorities: airlines, ports, shipping lines.If you were to ask the ministers and directors to speak about the policy of their ministries, they couldn’t say much. I have said before—in an interview with Expressen—that if you were to take all the ministers and water-board them, they would not be able to give you anything of substance of how the regime runs. Because all the power and authority that should reside in their ministries belongs to the “government garages” led by a colonel who is nowhere in the government structure.Those who work in the “government garages” call their institution Somaliland—just like Somaliland is autonomous of Somalia, the government garages are autonomous of the government structure.When you read the Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) report, which talks about how much time Isaias Afwerki spends in meetings with “government garages”, here’s the context: that is his real meeting with his real ministers, as opposed to the rubber stamp “Ministerial Cabinet” that is often televised, showing images but no voices.More recently, Isaias Afwerki has created a “people’s army” that has no reporting structure within the Eritrean Ministry of Defense or its Eritrean Defense Forces.

The rule of Isaias Afwerki is absolute.He controls the state media, the security apparatus, its army, its finance, its housing, its fuel supply, its land distribution, its potable water distribution. Let me give you an example: when Forto 2013 occurred (mutiny of Eritrean army in January 20, 2013), I was discussing it with someone who has better information than me and I was talking about reports that tanks moved from Tsorona (bordering Ethiopia) to Asmara and he stopped me cold and said, “Impossible! Fuel is personally rationed by Isaias Afwerki: that couldn’t have happened without his knowledge.”

Isaias Afwerki decides which singers should go on which tours, which pavement should be patched, what crop should the farmers sow this year, how far they should plough, which private hospital should be closed, which shop keeper should be licensed, what curriculum should be taught; who should be sentenced for years and who for life sentence…whose wife should be abused so that the husband will be humiliated: the ultimate insult in Eritrean culture. He is the one who declares war and peace; at the same time he is the one who decides what color should be painted a certain house.

A mad man is in charge of a country.A paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, and sadistic man with schizophrenic tendencies, including excessive grandiosity. How do you deal with a mad man? Study his behavior: there is a pattern.Step One: he pretends big earth-shaking events—like 360 citizens drowning in the Mediterranean—are not happening.Step Two: when he begins to feel the impact, his reaction is to ridicule it.Invent new words of insult and mockery. A lullaby for his devotees. Step Three:when he is really cornered and there is no way out, he has absolutely no shame in making 180-degree turn and to yield to it.He will accept things he was begged to accept: but only if he is pressured and cornered.

Change in Eritrea will come, and it will stick, when enough Eritreans inside and outside the country believe it’s necessary and timely and execute it.It is OUR responsibility.But the international community has its share of responsibility.If you keep this well-intentioned campaign of “engagement”—a door half ajar—you will keep getting the same things you have been getting for 12 long years.Remember, you are dealing with a man who accused the United States of being responsible for tens of thousands of his own citizens using smugglers and traffickers to leave their country. He is beyond reform: you can’t reform a mad man; you can only institutionalize him.All your well-intentioned campaigns of engagement and seeking reform have yielded you nothing, but you keep on persisting: it is your ego attempting the impossible. You need to reach a long over due decision: the same one that was reached about Saddam Hussein, Moammer Kaddaffi, and Bashar Assad: this man happens to be head of state but he is mentally unbalanced and we need to recognize and legitimize alternatives to his sadistic rule.

Thank you

Saleh Younis
Oct. 24, 2013

The Tigray People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM, known by its Tigrinya accornym De.M.H.T.) is one of half a dozen Ethiopian opposition groups stationed in Eritrea whose mission statement appears to have changed from bringing change to Ethiopia to fighting change in Eritrea by being President Isaias Afwerki’s last enforcement unit.

Over the weekend, TPDM was dispatched to Asmara to conduct routine roundup of Eritrean youth who have to be mobilized for military enlistment.  In previous dispatches, only TPDM members with passable Eritrean Tigrinya accents were recruited to conduct the roundup.  In this patricular mission, there appears to have been a breakdown and TPDM members with noticeable Tigrayan accents were roaming the Merkato neighborhood of Asmara and asking for “metawekia” and “mewasawesi“–Ethiopian words for “moving permit”– whose Eritrean version is “tessera” and “menkesakesi” respectively.

In the ensuing altercation among Asmara residents and TPDM, shots were fired near Hamasien Restaurant.

A TPDM soldier who was wounded by stone-throwing Eritreans was treated in Orota Hospital. When asked for his identification, he disclosed that he is an Ethiopian national and gave his address as Alla (near Dekemhare) and gave the name of his Eritrean handler.

Since the incident, the Isaias Afwerki regime has gone on full information-management campaign:

1. The area of the conflict was repeatedly visited by Brigadier General Teklai Kifle ( “Manjus”) and his deputy, Brigadier General Fitzum “wedi Memher.”   Both manage, among other things, the Ethiopian opposition based in Eritrea, and both are intensely loyal to President Isaias Afwerki.

2. Eritrean security officials locked down schools to inform them that those who conducted the round-up campaigns were Eritreans and the rumors that they are TPDM soldiers are not true;

3. In the neighborhood “zoba” (local administration) units, meetings were called with Asmara residents to tell them that those who conducted the roundup are actually members of Eritrea’s  “525″ commando unit.

Background

TPDM along with the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF) and Ginbot Sebat (May 7th movement) all have received a base and training in Eritrea for nearly a decade.

On December 2009 (resolution 1907),  and again in December 2011 (resolution 2023) the United Nations empowered a group (Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Group) to monitor and report on Eritrea’s destabilizing activities in the Horn, particularly in Somalia and Ethiopia, and specifically forbade Eritrea to host opposition groups of neighboring countries.

Since then, many of the Eritrea-based Ethiopian opposition groups have either gone underground or have been severely weakened by Ethiopian security officials.

The one exception to this has been TPDM, which is now rumored to be Africa’s largest guerrilla force.

The “guerrila” force is a misnomer because it has been 4 years since it attempted any military campaigns against Ethiopia and is now essentially an Eritrea-based Ethiopian group with an Eritrea-based mission:

1.  Its base used to be at Harena, in the Eritrea-Ethiopia-Sudan border (Southwest Eritrea), near Humera, Ethiopia.  It has been moved to Alla, near Dekemhare.  This happened after Ethiopia’s March and April 2012 forray into Eritrea, where it conducted two raids and destroyed the bases of TPDM.  Now, the organization moves around Dekemhare, Mai Aini and Asmera–far from its alleged military targets: Ethiopian soldiers.

The move is also due to the Monitoring Group’s expose: officially, the Eritrean regime’s position is that there is “no evidence” that it hosts Ethiopian opposition groups.  Unofficially, it wants to assure its followers that it has managed to train a large Ethiopian guerilla forces capable of delivering what it has promised its supporters (and the Ethiopian opposition) for 12 years: the removal of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), or “Weyane”, the core of Ethiopia’s ruling coalition, from power.

2. Almost all of the revenues generated from Bisha Mining were used to train, arm, equip, headquarter and maintain TPDM. There is stark difference between the living conditions of TPDM and that of Eritrea’s regular army, the Eritrean Defense Forces.  In meetings EDF officers had with Isaias Afwerki in Sawa last year, the Eritrean president repeatedly warned that EDF should not expect any change in its living conditions as revenues from Bisha Mining have already been appropriated.

3. As a fighting force, the Eritrean Defense Forces are practically non-existent.  EDF has been hallowed up by desertion by the thousands and what remains is a demoralized force and powerless officers focused more on self-enrichment than military cohesion.

4. The “people’s army” which was set up by Isaias Afwerki as an alternative to EDF is incapable of being his line of defense: they are the parents and grandparents of the youth they are ordered to “round up”–now considered a mortal threat–and they would not be capable of it: with little or no military training, they are not capable of doing anything more than protecting passive assets (banks, government buildings) and they are not part of any contingency plan to control crowds.

5. It appears that De.M.H.T. is Isaias Afwerki’s last line of defense, the same model that was used in Libya, Mali and Central African Republic: bringing foreign power with no hesitation of pulling the trigger against local citizenry.   However, the incident of last weekend appears to have been a miscalculation–the ground was not prepared to psychologically orient the people that “Tigrayans are our brothers”–and now, the security apparatus– Wedi Kassa, Simon Gebredengel, Tesfaldet Habteselasse, Manjus and Wedi Memher–is in full damage control mode.

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As a result of the fear that the PFDJ created, the Internet is full of Eritreans who communicate using nicknames. It is understandable why those who oppose the PFDJ prefer anonymity; the risks are too evident. But why would the supporters of the regime hide their identities and communicate “behind a maschera” as the priest said last week in Rome? Why would they be afraid of a regime they support? I believe they are ashamed of their positions.

Eritreans have two loyalties: either to the regime or to its victims, the Eritrean people. The Diaspora supporters of the regime think Eritreans are like cattle in a Texas ranch, carrying their owner’s brand. That is why when cornered, they summon their feeble excuse: “I am not a card-holding member of the PFDJ.” They conveniently forget that most of those who oppose the regime do not hold any sort of a card; you don’t need a card to distinguish right from wrong, particularly when the issues are stark clear, unambiguous. Citizens can only oppose the actions of the regime or nod in approval. Not carrying a PFDJ card doesn’t absolve one of being an accomplice in the victimization of Eritreans. If it flies like a bug and emits phosphorus light, it is not a duck; it is certainly a Hawi-Leyto—the firefly whose life cycle is two-months only.

For the last thirteen years, the regime and its supporters have used all techniques to fight awate.com; myself and my colleagues are continuously vilified. They do not like the fact that awate.com, in a stark contrast  to the regime they support, is liberal, diverse, all-inclusive and a free medium that puts to shame all the bigots, the hypocrites, and the weaklings.

Today, I will attempt to respond to a few “accusations” leveled against me by a man who claims he is  not a card-holding member of the PFDJ (aka conveniently-neutral), as if anyone cares what card people carry! A few days ago, this man threw at me a one-liner and I invited him to a serious debate. He immediately came up with a ton of allegations—talk about premeditated crime. His opening statement, which he ended by stating “Let me stop and see what your defenses are to the points I raised. Peace,” is appended  below. Note that he has already appointed himself a judge and is ready to pass a sentence!

In PFDJ-land, a tiny fraction of what he “accuses” me of is enough to send one to the gallows; I am glad I don’t live under their rule. This edition of Negarit basically uses his argument as a launching pad. For clarity, I  have inserted 19 numbers within parenthesis (yeah, he came up with that much);  for fear of spoiling the flow of reading for  my readers, I will not address them in chronological order. But first, here is an introductory story.

An Honor I Cannot Deny

In 1971, the Sudanese communists overthrew Jaafer Numeiri’s government. Babeker AlNur, and two other leaders of the coup, flew out from London on their way to Khartoum to assume power. When their airplane reached Libyan airspace, Gaddafi’s fighter planes forced it to land. Ghaddafi immediately handed the coup leaders over to Numeiri. At the same time, another plane that was flying from Baghdad to Khartoum, with support for the communists, mysteriously disappeared over the Red Sea. In a couple of days, Jaafer Numeiri crushed the communists and regained power; a bloodbath followed and all the leaders of the coup and other suspects were killed.  The largest communist party in Africa was eliminated. There were a few senior cadres of the Eritrean liberation era who were trained under (or were members of) the Sudanese Communist Party.

In the treason trials that followed, one of the leaders of the Sudanese coup pronounced his immortal last words: the accusation is an “honor I do not claim and an accusations I do not deny.”«هذا شرف لا ندعيه وتهمة لا ننكرها»

Likewise, any accusation by a PFDJ supporter, that I work to weaken the regime, is an honor I do not claim and an accusation I do not deny.

Interviewing Meles Zenawi

For some reason, my first interview with the late Ethiopian PM, Meles Zenawi, still irritates the PFDJ supporters five years after it happened. They repeatedly misconstrue the facts because (1) I didn’t travel to Ethiopia to interview Meles; I was invited by the Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA) for a meeting where the agenda was to resolve the differences between its two parts. While there, I found an opportunity and I interviewed Meles. It is as simple as that. If anyone can arrange for me an interview with the Eritrean tyrant, hopefully before he is done, I would do it even if I know all his answers would be, “It is a lie!”

In a usual I-don’t-care-for-facts manner, the person above states that  I (4) bought the idea that PIA is the ‘Dictator’ and Zenawi the ‘Democrat’. For the record, I never said or wrote anything like that. But since he brought the subject, I have the urge to help the card-holding and non-card-holding supporters of the regime: relatively speaking, any ruler (dead or alive) is better than the deranged PFDJ capo. My boy scout troop-leader, or the town clown, would have fared better than Isaias in running Eritrea.

Writers Write to Influence

The supporters of the regime miss that, mainly, (2) the goal of writers is to inform and influence. It is natural that different people read what is written differently; I have been writing for too long to miss that. There is nothing a writer can do to change a prejudiced reading of a content other than to ask the readers to honestly assemble their facts, reconcile their prejudice, and allow themselves a margin of self-doubt—they might have reached a wrong conclusion based on wrong assumptions and perceptions. Other than that, only the culprits who misrepresent facts can convince themselves; nobody else can convince them to change their preconceived and prejudiced conclusions.

As strange as it sounds, I am accused of (7) influencing so many Eritreans to destroy Eritrea! This is a classical example of how the PFDJ lot equate Eritrea with the regime. Here also, I will certainly not claim that honor, but I will not deny the accusation. If I have influenced “so-many Eritreans” to fight for their rights, and expose the corrupt regime, that is a great achievement to have on my bio. I am glad my name will not go in the list of those who betrayed their people in their time of need; my children will be proud I didn’t leave them a sullied name.

There is a strong reason why the PFDJ must go: (18) it doesn’t listen to consultations and doesn’t believe the people are capable of ruling themselves—and it’s is a savage clique. Now, when was the last time a tyrant listened to others? Isn’t the G15 saga enough evidence? But it’s difficult to explain the nature of tyrannies to someone who prays at the altar of Isaias. I used to suspect that many of the supporters of the regime do not have sympathy for their people; now I am certain they don’t.

The Border War

Some supporters of the regime try to argue that (2) the current sorry state of Eritrea and the indefinite conscription was caused by the border war that led to the militarization of Eritrea. Wrong: the reason for Eritrea’s current miserable situation is the totalitarian rule. (3) Forced conscription (the main reason for the exodus of the youth) started many years before the border war, which was a result of the forced conscription and the militarization of the nation. Not the opposite.

If a government forces everybody to carry cans of spray paint, everyone would look for a space and paint graffiti. If you force all the people, old and young, to carry arms, you create a situation where one lives only to fight. That is what happened to Eritrea; the PFDJ and its capo cannot imagine Eritrea outside the state of war; they created a regime of gangsters shooting aimlessly and setting the region on fire. It is because of this that (5) I firmly believe for Eritrea to progress, we need to weed out the PFDJ beast. Once that is accomplished, every corner of Eritrea requires bleaching to remove the stains of the regime’s Skunis culture and its corrupt system. I don’t think any sane person would expect me to apologize for that stand!

There are a few regime supporters who think they discovered a secret that (6) “Part of [what I do is a] project …to isolate the Government of Eritrea.” How many times do I have to state it? Whatever I do is with the intention of helping weed out the regime. I have declared that long before some of them set foot on Eritrea.

Two years ago (7) I went to Djibouti to observe the presidential elections—something that doesn’t exist in the PFDJ world. But the PFDJ operatives are still busy constructing whimsical narrations. We all have speculations, but we don’t treat our guess-work as sacred and divine truth. For example, I didn’t go to Djibouti to assess the ports as claimed, but as I do in all my travels, I observed the situation in Djibouti and compared it to that of Eritrea. I felt jealous. I felt sad. I almost cried knowing how the PFDJ and its capo have turned our bustling ports to ghost towns less lively compared to some tiny traditional fishing villages. That is a crime every caring Eritrean should be furious about.

One of the honors I do not claim is their belief that I went to Djibouti to lobby IGAD (8). Well, the PFDJ lots can believe they just had dinner with God, who is to prevent them from claiming that? But why are they showering me with honors I do not claim?

In case you don’t know, according to the PFDJ supporter’s narration, (9) I also initiated the sanctions against the PFDJ government! Another honor I do not claim—but I am not rejecting it. I seriously think they mistook me for Ban Ki Moon, the UN secretary general; I am not even Saleh Ki Moon and we do not look alike. This is why I feel the supporters of the regime do not understand the implications of the sanctions; they underestimate it thinking it was initiated by Saleh Johar and his colleagues at awate.com!  

For now, (11) I do not only support more sanctions against the PFDJ, I pray God to sanction the PFDJ and deny them oxygen so that they can suffocate and drop dead. I’m wondering if anyone in his right mind expects me to apologize for that!

Travels for a Cause

I  was in Australia on an invitation by free and patriotic Eritreans who care about their people; the PFDJ Wahios would not consider inviting me—and I do not like drinking binges that are presented as “national defense meetings.” While in Australia, I did what an activist is supposed to do and I (12) called for Australian investors not to deal with the tyrant, but to establish good relations with his victims for a better relations in future Eritrea. Hell, I even assured the Australian mining corporations they would get a lion’s share in the future if they show goodwill to the Eritrean people now by severing their relations with the tyrant.

That is also what I did in (13) Qatar in my spare time. But for those who weave whimsical stories, I was invited by UCLA’s Middle Eastern Studies Department on behalf of Qatar to attend a conference (it had nothing to do with Eritrea by the way). While in Qatar, I did what any activist would do. Hint? Try to weaken the regime. No kidding! Anyone needs apologies for that?

In a circular argument, the supporters of the regime claim that (14) our struggle to remove the government hurts the people! Their solution (since they pretend to love their people!) is very simple: stop fighting the PFDJ capo and his regime. That is the best prescription they can come up with! They gloss over their knowledge that removing the regime frees Eritreans—but it endangers their petty investments, the looted properties they bought, and the cheap touristic trips they conduct every summer.

Distorted Facts

Sane debaters tend to question any statement—unless they are beamed from heaven or carried by creatures with halos and wings. Personal statements (15) are not facts unless they are supported by evidence. Distorted facts do not stand an elementary scrutiny let alone a serious challenge!

In such a weak argument, according to the supporters of the regime, myself and my colleagues are (16) instigating the young to abandon their country! Why would we help the PFDJ? It is effectively doing that on its own; it doesn’t need help. In fact, the supporters of the regime are culprits because they are helping the regime by denying the suffering of the youth, and blaming the victims. Ironically, they have the temerity to accuse those who expose the sufferings that is forcing the youth to abandon their country.

The Legacy of the ELF and EPLF

To my knowledge, (19) the ELF ceased to exist in 1982; the EPLF was done in 1991. That era is long gone; now we have to deal with the tyranny that is blooming because of the support of the unprincipled.

True, there are a few individuals who are trying hard to resuscitate the old structures of the struggle era; to me that attempt is futile. Termites have been feeding on those structures for too long; only the good and bad memories are what we are left with.

Halib-Mentel, Ashera (10), and the other villages around Keren, are places I spent the best time of my life. Leaving personal sentiments aside, all Eritrean villages and their inhabitants are so dear to me; emotional blackmail—invoking Halib-Mentel and Ashera— doesn’t work on me; facts do.

The entire country is suffering because of the PFDJ tyranny, Halib-Mentel and Ashera included; once Eritreans rid themselves of the PFDJ parasite, they will be relieved.

Finally, my apologies to my friends who might be annoyed that I dedicated an article to reply to some lame arguments. But I have asked for a license to entertain myself with at least two such pieces every year—I still think it is a fair deal.

negarit at awate.com

Saleh “Gadi” Johar is author of “Miriam was Here” a book that explains the root causes of the Eritrean predicament and why the youth are fleeing their country risking their lives, facing all sorts of death, drowning in the sea or dying of thirst in the deserts and in the way facing rape, torture and organ harvesting

Here is the post at awate forum that triggered this edition:

“…I have followed [awate.com] for a long time almost since it started. It has been one of the sites I learn about Eritrea and current development about the country.

(1) I know you travelled to Ethiopia for the first time to visit Zenawi, and you interviewed him. (2) tried to influence you readers how he was sorry about deporting Eritreans from Ethiopia etc. and his justification why he did not want to leave occupied Eritrean territories. (3) Yet you know that this occupation is the reason why Eritrea is in bad situation it has found itself and the cause of the indefinite military service in the country. (4) You bought the idea that PIA is the ‘Dictator’ and Zenawi the ‘Democrat’ and, (5) the only way for Eritrea to progress is to change the Eritrean Government by any means. (6) Part of that project was to isolate GoE.

(7) Then you went to Djibouti, you claimed that you went there to see how conditions were comparing to Eritrean ports. Really? (8) I believe you went there to lobby IGAD for the Ethiopia’s plan to put UN sanctions on Eritrea. (9) The sanctions you initiated and supported is squeezing Eritrean economy, affecting ordinary citizens, people in villages (10) such as Halib-mentel and Ashera. You perfectly know the sanction will not affect PIA or its officials of the government PJDF. (11) But regardless of its consequence you support it. Why? (12) You were in Australia to lobby with the government to disinvest in Eritrea. (13) You were in Qatar for similar mission. Don’t you think all these efforts do not have any effect on ordinary people like Miriam? I doubt it. (14) Even though you are trying to replace the Eritrean government, you clearly know you are hurting the country and ordinary people. (15) You have a website dedicated to your project distorting facts some time (16) Instigating the young to abandon their country, knowing that they will face hardship when they leave their country. (17) You have influenced so many Eritreans dedicated to destroy Eritrea as a nation. (18) Imagine if all those who are writing articles aired to destroy Eritrea at your website could have used their talent and time to suggest ideas how the country solves its centuries old problems? (19) It seem to me you are stuck on the 1970s and 80s Eritrea, still fighting the ELF PLF battles. Let me stop and see what your defenses are to the points I raised. Peace!

Samrawit is an Arabic novel written by the Eritrean novelist Hajji Jabir who works as a journalist in Aljazeera Channel. The novel is in its third edition and it won the 2012 Al-Sharqa (Arab Emirates) Arab Creativity prize.

“Searching for Eritrea” is the subject matter of the novel. Apparently Hajji chose this subject over other subjects because “who is not is looking for Eritrea now?”  An Eritrea where human rights, freedom of speech and the rule of law are respected?

Hajji tells us the story from Omar’s point of view. The character of Omar is an Eritrean who lived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where his family immigrated when he was a child.  Growing up in Jeddah wasn’t easy for Omar; he was always reminded that he is foreigner, even though he spoke like a Saudi and worked as a journalist for the wellbeing of Saudi Arabia. But Omar knows who he is: he is an Eritrean. He dreams that one day Eritrea will be free and he would go and live there with respect and dignity.

Samrawit’s setting takes us back and forth between the present and past, between Eritrea and Saudi Arabia. The former setting is about “discovering”; and the latter is about “being discovered”. In Eritrea Omer discovered that the Eritrea he dreamt about doesn’t exist. In Saudi Arabia, he tried to live, think, talk and act like a Saudi but that didn’t help him to be accepted. His Saudi acquaintances didn’t accept him as one of their fellow citizens. There is no such as an Eritrean-Saudi; he’s just another foreigner.

Hajji’s primary audience are Eritreans and Saudis; he attempts to show how they think about each other. Written in formal Arabic, the dialogue between the characters in Samrawit also includes the Jeddah-Arabic dialect. The writing style of the novel is beautiful and is coherent. Hajji used original and clear words; the form of the sentences are forceful and fluid.

The author’s main ideas are well organized: what does Eritrea and Saudi Arabia have in common? The abuse of Eritrean citizens. In Saudi Arabia an Eritrean is a foreigner at the mercy of a Saudi sponsor and abused. In Eritrea he is a citizen at a mercy of the Eritrean government, and is abused. In Saudi Arabia Eritreans can’t send their children to school. They can’t work if they don’t have residence permit (Iqama) and can’t have residence permit if they don’t have work. For Eritreans, life in Saudi Arabia has become unbearable. In Eritrea children can’t complete their schooling; they are sent to a military camp, mainly SAWA. They can’t work and live freely; due to that, young Eritreans flee their country.  

Another important point Samrawit raises is the issue of official languages in Eritrea. The policy of the Eritrean government towards Arabic is obscure. On one hand, the government issues an Arabic language newspaper, on another hand, it makes it difficult for a wider public access. Omar can’t find Eritrea Al-Haditha newspaper in the heart of the capital city of Eritrea. He also discovers the content is treated differently on Haddas Ertra, and Eritrea Al-Haditha, respectively; Tigrinya and Arabic government owned newspapers. Issues are addressed in more detail in the former than the later.

In addition, in Jeddah where Arabic is the language of communication between Eritreans, the Eritrean government representatives impose Tigrinya as the language of a communication in their public meetings, although they know that the audience understands Arabic more than Tigrinya. That is followed by persons who translators what was  said in Tigrinya into Arabic; as a result time is wasted and the meetings become boring.

Samrawit carries soft criticism towards the government of Saudi Arabia and its unspoken policies. It also mentions the Saudi culture that affects Eritreans to a great extent.  Neither the Eritrean government nor the opposition has attempted to ameliorate the issue of Eritreans living in Saudi Arabia. Why can’t Eritreans working in Saudi Arabia not enrol their children in a Saudi school? Eritrean women abused by their Saudi sponsors?

Moreover the issue of drawing a line between Islam and Saudi culture was well addressed in Samrawit. Some Eritreans raised in Saudi Arabia can’t differentiate between the two. That has created problems among many Eritrean Muslims. I salute Hajji for addressing those issues in his first novel and I recommend Samrawit to those Eritrean Muslims who mix Saudi culture with Islam.

The theme of Samrawit is a search for identity. How can Omar, who is searching for his Eritrean identity say  “I am an Eritrean”, when, his criticism of human rights abuses and absence of freedom of speech and rule of law in Eritrea are seen negatively by the government and its supporters? These values are also part of his identity; the duality forces him to choose between those values and his identity; he is forced to leave Eritrea.

Omar loves Samrawit Abraham W/Mariam, but though she loves him as well, she can’t marry him because her parents don’t allow it. Marriage will distract her from caring for her ill Lebanese mother. As a result, his love is lost. Omar loves Eritrea, but hardly finds it. His love for democracy is rejected and he is told his kind of love will destruct others from building and protecting the nation.

Samrawit is an interesting novel. It is another asset to the Eritrean literature. The characters are very bold. For Omar, the good Samrawit is the good Eritrea. And the good Eritrean people are symbolized by the good Zewditu that he hardly finds her. Where are the good, brave and wise Eritreans? Are they, including Zewditu, in prison or living as refugees elsewhere? Why can’t we know the whereabouts of a missing Eritrean?

Hajji says, as a writer you have to give equal and balanced opinions of the opposing sides. Throughout the novel the pros and cons of the  Eritrean government are given equal space. Through Omer, Hajji searches for the truth and he reaches out to both sides and leaves the judgment to the reader. Omar challenges a person who opposes the government when that person based his argument against the government on untrue information.

But Hajji left us without answering the big question: how do we affect a political change in Eritrea?

The only answer to this question comes from Saeed who is a disabled veteran combatant who sees that fixing the front is the answer, not destroying it. Hajji didn’t address other alternatives such as peaceful resistance, revolution or a coup d’état.

Hajji has raised awareness about the conditions of Eritreans living in Saudi Arabia, drawing a line between Islam and Saudi culture, and being clear about the official languages in Eritrea.

Sudan has come with new policies to benefit of Eritrean refugees; Saudi Arabia should follow Sudan’s example or the UNHCR should accept political asylum seeking Eritreans in Saudi Arabia. But Hajji doesn’t present an alternative for Eritreans living in Saudi Arabia.

Currently there is no official document stating that Arabic and Tigrinya are the official language of Eritrea. Even the dormant Eritrean constitution doesn’t state that.  In addition Hajji doesn’t give us the opinion of the other characters in the novel, including Samrawit, to this important matter.  It was important to know their opinions because they represent diverse groups.

I would like to end this article where Samrawit ends:

Jeddah is passing ….it grew in me and its words come out from my body
The Al-Nazla neighbourhood is passing… for sure it has lost its old face
Massawa is passing  ….and it is on the verge of being buried alive
Zewditu is passing … and she is not coming back regardless of my mom’s prayers
Samrawit is passing ….a nation survived to end my homesickness for a while
It is regretful, even the nation has become like us…an emergency matter.

In the late afternoon of November 5, Brigadier General Tekle Kifle “Manjus” presided over a meeting to discuss, among other things, the fallout from the youth round-up that was conducted on the weekend of October 26th where, for the first time, it was disclosed that an Ethiopian opposition group based in Eritrea, the Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM/De.M.H.T), was engaged in altercation with civilians.

The meeting was attended by top security officers including Colonel Fitsum, Colonel Wedi Qeshi (Police Department); Colonel Wedi Isaq (Central Zone (Asmara) police); Colonel Wedi Afwerqi (Office of National Security); “Lenin” (National Security Office); Colonel Ghirmay (station unknown); and, Major Wedi Halima, battalion leader.

Here’s a summary of what was discussed as disclosed to our source:

•  Major General Philipos Weldeyohannes, who was supposed to attend the meeting, declined on the grounds that Tekle Manjus is his junior and cannot call him to such a meeting.  Tekle Manjus indicated that the meeting was being called under the directive of President Isaias Afwerki.
• President Isaias Afwerki, reported Manjus, wants a detailed report as to how the “sensitive case”  of TPDM was exposed to the public;

In the meeting, Colonel Wedi Afwerki explained that he didn’t have sufficient time to organize the youth round-up (giffa) given its unusual urgency and deadline.

He also noted that, for days before the operation, there was no electric power in Asmara and, therefore, radio batteries were not charged. This, he explained, resulted in lack of communication with the command center. Therefore, he explained, units were not able to ask for additional forces from the command center especially when a riot erupted near Hamasien Restaurant.

Speaking for the police, Colonel Wedi Qeshi and Colonel Wedi Isaq explained that they did not have advance information about the round-up; that they only heard about it when the owner of Bar Mesob Werqi called the police to report the riot.

For his part, Wedi Halima, in charge of the battalion that was involved in the roundup, indicated that although his commanders had given clear instructions to TPDM/De.M.H.T. to stay in the background and to have his battalion engage with Eritrean youth,  his agelglot (national service) disobeyed direct orders to round up youth, and that’s when the TPDM got involved actively.

The attendants of the meeting were stunned when Brigadier General Tekle Manjus informed them that President Isaias Afwerki said that he learned about the incident through informal channels.

Following the conclusion of the first agenda item, Tekle Manjus moved on to discuss other issues of concern, namely:

• How to control the civil disobedience that is growing, particularly in the Ministry of Health (especially with the doctors) and the Sports Commission;
• The importance of sending a strong warning to all secretarial staff, particularly those assigned to senior posts, to refrain from leaking confidential information to the public;
• That the ministries, particularly Education and Agriculture, should be reviewed carefully as they are disproportionately stacked by individuals from a narrow geographic region (a specific geographic region was mentioned.)

Throughout the meeting, “Lenin” (nom de guerre) listened but didn’t comment on anything; while Colonel Ghirmay took notes of the meeting.

awate.com
inform. INSPIRE. embolden. reconcile.

First of all, yes, when awate 7.0 is launched (1/1/14), we will have a blog for Haile the Great (and all our contributors) so that they can post their pieces directly and people don’t have to fish for content in the comments section.  This edition of Nahda started out as a response to his announcement–that the Eritrean regime is mobilizing members of the “People’s Army” for terracing campaigns to the outskirts of Asmara and, given the transportation challenges of the country,  many are going on foot to work 10-12 hour days for an entire week.  Upon reflection, it appears to me that the entire essence of Isaiasism–his sole ideology, his religion–is that forced labor is an indispensable ingredient for development and every resistance from Eritreans has been countered with an alternative forced labor campaign.   

1. The whole vision of PFDJ Isaias on how to leapfrog Eritrea from the third world to a developed country is based on one man’s vision: Mao Zedong. 

2. The whole basis of China’s leapfrog policy was based on one thing: FORCED LABOR.

3. Of course, the world is aware of how disastrously wrong one forced labor campaign modeled after China’s went– Cambodia’s pol pot and its decimation of a quarter of its own population.  A quarter.

4. The problem with Isaias’s vision is that the world has changed since Mao’s time: the UN has promulgated a series of conventions– that prohibit getting forced labor from children, political prisoners, and for economic exploitation (including rights for Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.)

5. Why doesn’t Isaias just ignore international law, you are asking. After all, he doesn’t seem to have much respect for rule of law.  Answer will be below, somewhere, when profiling the man.

6. Since the installation of Isaias Afwerki as president, there has been a campaign to solicit near-free labor from Eritreans.  These campaigns of terracing hills (by students), sending elderly Eritreans for “maetot” to the villages (busing women from Asmara to the countryside for annual harvests), having prisoners building luxury hotels (that YPFDJ: Young People’s Front for Democracy and Justice types would visit and admire and congratulate the prisoners for their patriotic zeal), have been going on since 1995. 

7. The 2001 University of Asmara students movement was a protest against cheap forced labor.  The argument was, essentially, this: you have received X funds, for our labor, for this particular project, from external funding; you are proposing to pay us Y; we demand that we get paid X or we are not going.  For such defiance, they were rounded up in buses and sent to the hell-hole in WiA, some to Nakura,  then asked to write apology letters for cheating the country out of the project (malaria consciousness, literacy) they should have engaged in for no money.  They were told that that they deserve long prison terms, it was only the farsightedness and kindness of their government that is sparing them that. They returned broken, to resume their studies, at a university that would soon close.

8. It is shortly after that that the “Warsay-Yekalo” initiative was launched.  This so-called “Marshall Plan for Eritrea” was supposed to get rid of the giant magnifying glass on forced labor because (a) it is violation of “national sovereignty” to intrude into how a country organizes its armed forces; (b) the world gives a lot of latitude on what countries do (internally) with their armed forces.  It appears all is allowed except having an aggressive posture.

9. The exodus of Eritrean youth is mostly a protest against cheap forced labor.

10.  Everything that has happened in Eritrea since the PFDJ/Isaias came to power is a fight between the PFDJ/Isaias imposing forced labor and the people fighting back or leaving the country. 

11. Even government officials are not spared from forced labor.  They don’t own their labor: they can’t resign, for example.  Consider: There should be no reason why a government official should “defect.”  A government official who disagrees with government policy should resign.  But when was the last time you heard that in Eritrea: a government official resigning?  They are promoted, demoted, frozen, thawed, promoted again.  The point being: they are the property of Isaias Afwerki.

12. Forced labor has its consequences including squeezing out the private sector: a PFDJ conglomerate using cheap forced labor can out-compete a businessperson trying to provide service or product using voluntary labor. The businessman goes to Uganda or Sudan, the laborer goes to Lampedusa.  Every institution is affected: Demand for cheap forced labor empties out religious institutions, compromises the quality of educational institutions, sports, tourism.  Even the institutions that are supposed to benefit from it–agriculture, mining, transportation, infrastructure-building, etc–do not because a forced laborer is not a productive laborer.

13. Speaking of mining, in its quarterly report, Nevsun management reports as a highlight (without any sense of irony), that, (a) for the quarter ended 9/30/13, it recorded 13.5 million hours at Bisha Mining (90% of the employees/contractors are Eritrean) and that its lost time injury frequency rate was 0 (nobody got injured or in an accident, a world record) and (b) it has commissioned a human rights panel to investigate allegations by human rights activists (including Amnesty International) that it is using essentially slave labor and that part of this investigative panel will be the Eritrean government, the party accused of violating human rights.  Lenin was right about capitalist fools.

14. If you look at the “People’s Army”, the militia that Isaias Afwerki assembled last year, it is not exactly an elite combat unit.  It is mostly barely-trained civilians carrying weapons and guarding nothing.  By guarding nothing, I mean there isn’t exactly a crime spree in Eritrea (the demographics aren’t there for crimes which are usually committed by young males) and there are no Fort Knox to guard.  So, given that the world doesn’t care what governments do with their militia, these folks must have been “enlisted” only so that they could be called for the occasional slave labor.  (That and to prevent the idle mind which is the workshop of the devil–plotting and such–which you won’t do if you are kept busy doing nothing.)

 15. Isaias Afwerki finds the whole idea of Britain (founded on forced labor of empire) and the US (founded on slave labor) lecturing him on forced labor annoying as hell, particularly when they have nothing critical to say about rich but abusive countries (Gulf Arab states.)  He is essentially a man who belongs to a different century and finds the “constraints” the modern world imposes on a good-old authoritarian simply offensive. And all the work-around he creates–Warsay/Yekalao, elderly ladies sweeping streets, old men fixing antique trains, elderly men terracing hills–are because he sees himself as a monarch whose intentions are good: to improve the “quality of life” of his people–50 years from now. (The Mao model of kill a million to save a billion.)

16. Eritrea is a signatory to several UN conventions on labor.  Why would Isaias Afwerki care about ILO, Child Labor Laws, etc? Now, this is where Isaias Afwerki’s personality defect is key.  I take you back to wikileaks and the analysis of a psychiatrist who has studied cult leaders: Isaias suffers from “a sense of entitlement” (refer to his interviews where he says: I have no contract with the people, nobody in this country owes anybody anything, etc), a “lack of empathy” (refer to his silence on Lampedusa), “envy of others” (refer to his griping that the US has subcontracted its Africa policy to four African “goblel” states–including archenemy Ethiopia) “or belief that others are envious of him” (refer to his claim: We are number one in Africa…Eritrea is scary to the world because its trailblazing a bad example of a good example, that is why they are plotting to empty the country of our youth…), “self-righteous indignation when others are believed to be breaking rules” (refer to his complaints on how UN/US ignoring EEBC, refer to his call for restructuring the UN and the world order.) Because the funds he receives from the “development partners” expressly demand compliance with conventions on labor, he feels he has to (“we are a civilized people.”)  But he finds this extremely annoying, a double standard from countries which do not respect labor laws and have high concentration of wealth among a tiny percentage of the population.  Thus, the rants on TV about “Washington administration”, “special interest groups”, the “occupy” movement, the Arab Spring: all of that was to overthrow the existing World Order.

17. Credit where credit is due: the person who was way ahead on this and coined “Wefri Barnet” (Slavery campaign) for Warsay-Yeka’alo is Ambassador Adhanom Gebremariam.  He wrote a 36-page series called “The Hybrid Philosophy of PFDJ”) in Tigrinya (it was posted at a website which no longer exists, so no link.) At the time, many of us (me included) thought that that was a bit hyperbolic.  But he was right. 

18. Thus, Isaiasism can be reduced to: “Development Through Cheap Forced Labor” and, in pursuit of that policy, he will enlist the young, when he can, and the old, when the young are not available.  The bet is that Eritreans–particularly the Diaspora Eritreans–will forgive everything if the China model works: from starvation to an economic giant.  But there is nothing tangible to show for this which is why there is the endless talk about Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and how Eritrea is on track–ahead!–of many of them.

19. Isaiasism relies on Eritreanism whose most defining quality is, as articulated (accurately, I think) by former US ambassador to Eritrea “to withstand suffering and deprivation with forbearance and toughness.”  Ironically, Isaias stays in power by flattering our ability to withstand suffering without complaint: here’s more suffering, I knew you could do it, bear it and grin.

20. This ability to withstand suffering with forbearance and toughness will, at some point–and every indication is that this “some point” is getting closer–will snap when people will use the same strength–ability to withstand suffering without complaint–to take a risk on the unknown.  To say that the regime is failing another MDG:  Minimum Decency Goals.

21. As a friend says, “tHuqen ala“.  The momentum is accelerating.

Isaias Afwerki: the petty dictator of a once-promising small African country Eritrea.

Neither his past eminence nor his present vulgar mediocrity can be denied. In fact if there is a totem that aptly describes the bald-faced gangly dictator, his rabble of gung-ho generals and his slavishly servile subordinates, it is foolishness. Whether his intellectual atrophy is due to his lack of mental health, or his smug sense of omniscience that has thwarted his ability to learn and evolve, he has consistently failed to adapt to new circumstances and behave according to the dictates of reason and established norms. His lack of good judgments and his insatiable pursuit of conflicts have led to a regional conflagration that has caused the loss of many lives and invaluable properties. With escalating political repressions and deteriorating economic conditions, made worse by a series of UN imposed sanctions and self-inflicted isolationism, instability looms large.

 Eritrea is on the precipice of disintegration; only stitch in time will save it. I welcome the launch of the new Satellite radio and congratulate those who have worked hard to make it happen. It is my sincere hope that it will herald a new era of activism and resistance where bad ideas will be defeated by better ideas. It is time that all media channels: audio, visual and print are used to reach out to the Eritrean people and mobilize them to end the life of tyranny and reclaim their freedom. Encouraging as the new developments might be, I’ve to caution that politics of exclusion—real or perceived—can no longer be tolerated and that any endeavor that does not always leave its door open to reconciliation should not be welcomed. Be that as it may be, our first target should always be the dictator who is solely responsible for the predicament Eritrea finds itself in. Somebody who is unfit to rule is at the helm of power and his removal should be Eritreans’ top priority.

When whim ties the knot with stubbornness the end result is invariably foolishness. The wedlock always paves the way for vice to rape virtue. If courage and integrity are the bastions of virtue then honor is its ultimate crown. Proud and honorable citizens are the first targets of any dictator. The project of erasing honor starts by pilfering when most people are not awake and then by fully eradicating it through a sweeping, overwhelming and systematic brutalization when all are watching. The regime like a raging winter torrent erodes all foundational values and replaces them with fear and brute force—the two pillars that sustain its rule.

The initial sallies of outrage in reaction to pilfering are easily subdued through a minimum use of force and an inordinate amount of sloganeering: patriotism, nation-building, maintaining unity and defending sovereignty and territorial integrity. The overwhelming and intense shock experienced in response to the sweeping measures is to desensitize the whole society where nothing is frowned upon. Wedinism—the bastardization of traditional, religious and family values—becomes the new normal. The low, base and philistine culture is purposefully promoted to prolong the life of the uncouth petty dictator. Of course, the moral confusion and depravity can only be sustained in a state of chaos and perpetual conflict. Towards this end, the dictator wages war against everyone and everything that is good and decent.

Eritrean society is relatively egalitarian and as long as public policies are implemented indiscriminately resistance is only of two kinds: either very high or very low. Due to arid and mountainous topography and sporadic rainfall, Eritreans have led for many centuries a Spartan life devoid of any luxuries and this has induced a stoic and fatalistic attitude and high tolerance for hardships on them. Since misery loves company; the regime strictly adheres to the equal mistreatment of Eritreans.  Fear and brute force is what the regime understands and survive-at-all-cost and this-shall-pass-too is what the people live by.  Honor and pride were the first to be exiled.

When depravity rules the first societal value to vanish is shame; the only taboo is not to have a taboo.  The regime serves the people a crude cup of nihilism that besots their rectitude. In the beginning of last month, more than 350 Eritrean youth perished in the Island of Lampadusa and instead of mourning their death, the regime was busy with its endless festivals. Swigging inordinate amount of liquor and dancing in parties is what passes for patriotism and love of “Hadash Ertra” for these people. Truly zemed Asha kefi’ewo alo! ዘመድዓሻከፊእዎኣሎ።

The practice of social banditry has reached new heights and if left unabated, it will permanently disfigure Eritrea. The moral bankruptcy is epitomized by those who conveniently abandon the regime and yet choose to remain neutral. They had the gall to tell us that they are neither against the regime nor pro the opposition. I can certainly understand, if not condone, their hesitation to joining the opposition organizations, but failing to take a clear stand against the fiendish regime is the upshot of moral confusion and degradation.

The opposition is ineffective; it has become the annoying cracked glass that we cannot use or completely break so as to start all over, but this is no reason enough to be neutral when faced with evil. Knowing the difference between good and bad is the basis of any decent society and what holds them together. Anything that reinforces human dignity and the fundamental worthiness of the individual is good and any that undermines it is bad. The first step any Eritrean who deserts the regime needs to do in reclaiming his/her dignity and personhood is to acknowledge its evil nature and condemn and denounce it as such. It will have a liberating, therapeutic and empowering effect.

I can understand despair, hopelessness and the unwillingness to commit to the struggle for change. The Eritrean people waged an epic struggle and clambered to the mountain of victory but only to swallow their own spittle—a bolus of frustration and disappointment. The governance of the country should have segued from a one-party transitional government to a multi-parties democracy.  It was a votive obligation on the transitional government in general and “the president” of the country in particular. Eritrea gained its independence because so many of its best men and women paid the ultimate price. Without the realization of democracy, peace and justice, Eritreans’ heroic struggle will go in history as a cautionary tale of people who paid so much for so little.

The tide is changing in favor of the opposition and the opposition can easily ride on the crest of the wave to victory. There are only two yardsticks of measuring the relevancy of the opposition: first, what it is doing to end the life of tyranny, and second, what it does to bridging differences, ameliorating the crippling and widespread mistrust, helping and defending helpless Eritrean refugees and promoting national unity. The two-pronged strategies should go hand-in-hand for they are an integral piece of each other. Both strategies are equally important, but ending tyranny is more urgent for it paves the way for a more substantive pursuit of national unity.

If we love and care for Eritrea, the first we need to do is remove the colossus embarrassment called Isaias Afwerki.

Semere T Habtemariam is the author of “Hearts Like Birds” and the forthcoming book on the History and Faith of the Orthodox Tewahdo Church of Eritrea and Ethiopia. He can be reached: weriz@yahoo.com

Eritrean refugees en route to Australia are stranded in Indonesia after their smugglers abandoned them when they learned Australian coast guard had intensified patrol of the seas.

The Eritreans, who originated from Ethiopia, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, are mostly youth escaping “National Service”, the mandatory military service which was originally designed as an 18-month service but has been extended for indefinite period of time.

Reached by telephone, the refugees said that some of them “carry several wounds” from the Eritrea-Ethiopia wars. Asked to account for all the Eritreans who were on the boat, they provide the following information:

At least five of the Eritrean refugees drowned in the Sea on their last leg of the trip attempting to sail to Australia;

18 Eritreans remain in remote places in Indonesia, 300 kilometers away from Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia;

Some, who ran out of money, have turned themselves in to authorities and are detained 1,700 kilometers away from Jakarta;

A woman (name not given) and her eleven year old child are now living in a camp 2000 kilometers from Jakarta after they were released from jail a week ago;

A certain Mehret Woldu (age, description not given), has disappeared.

Indonesia is a large country composed of 17,000 islands and a population of 238 million.

Australia is quarantining illegal migrants and refugees in a remote island.

Persons who want to assist the refugees in Indonesia can reach them at the following numbers:

62 857 1561 0341 or 62 878 8023 3023.

awate.com
INFORM. inspire. embolden. reconcile.

This is the story of Yohannes Tikabo and Yosief Ghebrehiwet.  More accurately, about their beliefs. Two Eritreans, with varying degrees of enthusiasm for their particular identity.

First things first:  I am and have been a fan of Yohannes Tikabo ever since Zemen.Actually, before Zemen: I go back to the days “Tarik alewo iti Gobo.”To the days of “semiru dahaya.” Here are, to quote our mad president, my “evidences”: Here and here.

Huge fan.  How huge? At a habesha coffe-drinking ceremony in 2008, an aunt challenged me to do the customary bread-breaking prayers and I recited “Qelaximkum Erfi ychebta…“lyrics from “Ab mntayu Hailu ms beluni” (his best song–by far.)

Yohannes Tikabo is the best lyricist Eritrea has produced.  Ever.  He is a poet extraordinaire and that alone, from an artistic standpoint, is worthy of admiration.”He took this song from this other guy and that guy…” well, that is part of Eritrea’s flawed musical tradition: Osman Abdurehim claims Alamin Abduletif took his song (ny Akal vitamin) which Alamin denies; Osman Abdurehim says (well he just told me that on Facebook this month) that all he got from Sami Berhane for borrowing his “Sigir bietna zela fiqri” was 600 Nakfa; and Haile Ghebru (Zerai Deres Band) says that Osman Abdulrehim took his song “Dekise nere teberabire”  and he hasn’t paid him a penny for it.  That is our Eritrea at a time when artists are not as appreciated as they should be.

Just when Wedi Tikabo was pigeonholed as a nationalist singer whose love affair was only with Eritrea, he came up with “Fewsi lbi” an album of love songs.Now, he doesn’t have a love story (an alleged love story) that inspired his dad’s song “kem kokhob ab semay teseqila”  (dad, allegedly, fell in love with an Ethiopian Airlines flight attendant…semay, sky, get it?)  But “Fewsi lbi”, his first album (the previous were all just singles) proved that the man can write love songs—but still grounded on tradition (Go’E Leminey)This inspired a campy Amharic version which got all the “can’t we just get along?” team all excited.  Mind you, they don’t care how we get along:  a few months ago, the possibility of Isaias  reconciling with Prime Minister Desalegn got’em all excited: “we used to hate Isaias but Ethiopia has to pursue its nationalist interest, but do come and visit often.”

Wedi Tikabo, to me, is an Eritrean avatar: proud of the Eritrean Ghedli, proud of his contribution to it, grateful to the combatants, appreciative of its highest values—( I am going to list them alphabetically for the benefit of the Ghedli defamers)—courage, creativity, defiance, determination, faith, honor, purposefulness, sacrifice, steadfastness, strength, and volunteerism.This is what Wedi Tikabo has been celebrating when he was, people forget, an employee of the Department of Defense, and this is what he will sing about now that he has demobilized himself: this, in fact, is what he has just sang about since he, in the parlance of DoD: Khoblilu.

The new song, Haddenetna, is classic Wedi Tikabo: powerful lyrics, but average melody. Ironically, with his visit to the US and better studios, the melody got just below average because somebody got too clever suggesting to him that he can use his own voice to create a chorus (like Abrar Osman did (he spent months on it) with bzyekazi)  and a producer who believes that every toy in the studio must be used suggested he use reverb and a harmonizer (He doesn’t need it: harmonizers are for people whose voice is iffy. Reverb is for nobody: it is one of those things Eritreans can’t seem to escape from.)

But Wedi Tikabo’s strength has been in the lyrics:  the world is an ocean: shall we swim like the fish or be eaten by the fish.In ab mntayu Hailu, he celebrated the fish for its unblinking eye (focus); now he celebrates the fish for its ability to adapt to the ocean’s waves (flexibility.)It is a new voice: focusing on what we in the opposition focus about: wasted years of the youth, absence of justice and reconciliation.He articulated the average Eritrean demand: peace (he means peace with honor: refer to the Ghedli values he cherishes) and justice. He has embraced his inner rebel: his core Eritreanism.

In his interview with assenna, Yohannes Tikabo said that  he has no interest in being a tool for the opposition anymore than he wanted to be a tool for the regime.He equated himself to a ball in the middle of the court.Yohannes Tikabo: you are not the ball; you are the player who is an aqebaqab, arrebeshto expert: free style, solo acrobatic football.  

Those of you who are disappointed that he left the PFDJ’s sinking ship: just do what we did when he was with the regime: learn to admire his skills while cancelling out in your head words you don’t agree with.Those of you who are disappointed that he didn’t denounce the regime forcefully…well, I always find wisdom in the common man.An Eritrean is listening to his fellow Eritreans ranting about how a former EPLF member has not forcefully renounced the EPLF.He tells them, “listen, I was a member of the ELF for 5 years, thirty years ago.It is still in my system.How do you expect somebody who was with the EPLF for decades to give up on it a week, a year, five years after he leaves it?” Amen, brother.

Wedi Tikabo is an artist, a rebel at heart, and it is a good bet that he has yet to produce his best work. I am not even going to wish him good luck because he is already blessed by the Almighty. I will just wait for the Eritrean National Anthem, our chant, which will be produced by him. Now, let him get his American menqesaqesi or is it mewesawesi?

King’s Men

Several weeks ago, Gedab News reported that the Tigray People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM or De.M.H.T. in its Tigrinya acronym) was involved in rounding up Eritreans in Asmara.This has outraged Yosief Ghebrehiwet.No, no, not that foreigners are rounding up Eritreans but the fact that foreigners are being identified as foreigners and it is, gasp, actually being reported. The awatistas say the darnedest things!So far  he has registered his outrage in several facebook postings, and two articles Kebessa Eritreans Suicide Mission From Sahel to Lampedusa  and a satire entitled Eritrea: The Mustach That Fell of the President’s Face. And given his fetish with serialization and self-quotations, it is likely we haven’t heard the end of it. Yay.

More on the satire later but, let’s focus on YG’s critique on the first article which is summarized in the heading: Kebessa Eritreans have been on a suicide mission since the launch of the armed struggle.As I have dealt with this argument many times before, it will be merely redundant to point out the obvious flaws in the argument (example: most of the battles of Ghedli were fought in the lowlands and lowlanders have been exiled for three generations and their return to their homeland repeatedly blocked by Isaias Afwerki); instead, I will focus on the only thing that is new in the article:

But it was the awate team that, with the deepening of the above-mentioned wedge in mind, has put the distinction cleverly this way:

“… In previous dispatches only TPDF members with passable Eritrean Tigrinya accent were recruited to conduct the roundup. In this particular mission, there appears to have been a breakdown and TPDM members with noticeable Tigrayan accents were roaming the Merkato neighborhood of Asmara and asking for “metawekia” and “mewesawesi” – Ethiopian words for moving permit – whose Eritrean version are “tessera” and “menkesakesi” respectively.”

These anesthesiologists are shrewd enough to realize that the Kebessa fools would always be driven to frenzy if the issue is identity, and they do that subtly by invoking the difference in dialect that exists between the Tigrignas. They seem to say to the Kebessa elite: “Haven’t you fought for decades to keep all those who say “menkesakesi” on this side of Mereb, and all those who say “mewesawesi” on the other side of Mereb? Nothing less than your Eritrean identity is at stake, as “mewasawesi” is being heard in the center of your Asmara; and, for that, at Merkato!” Of course, they only have to hint it for the fools to latch on to it, and forget their existential predicament.

And what was the “above mentioned wedge”?  Here it is:

BEGIN QUOTE: “The pan-Arabists have always believed that if their colonizing mission is ever to have a chance to be enacted in Eritrea, the wedge between the habeshas across the Mereb River, in general, and between the Tigrignas, in particular, must be kept alive. So anything that drives this wedge deeper is always welcome to them. They know that many of the Kebessa elite will be driven to frenzy if they are told “The Ethiopians are coming!” END QUOTE

The surreal thing about extremists is that because they are surrounded by extremists they actually think the normal people are the extremist ones. All you have to do is to read the postings of the most devoted YG fans to understand how some are just one appointment away from a visit to the psychiatrist: their problem is not with Arabists or Arabs or Islamists but Islam itself. I don’t have bunker busters, let’s see how far I go with plain, ordinary factual statements:

1. De.M.H.T. has been all the rage in Paltalks all year. This is the first time awate.com has mentioned the organization in its public pages;

2. De.M.H.T may very well have a legitimate grievance and legitimate case to wage an armed struggle.After all, as I have pointed out many times, Tigray has a larger population than Eritrea, but 22 years after the overthrow of the Derg, the TPLF controls 100% of the government in Tigray and sends 100% of the representatives to the Federal parliament. That is 22 years of one-party statehood with no political space for any opponent. We have Eritrean opposition groups in Ethiopia—some armed—who are doing that just because they lack political space at home; so we can’t pretend that we don’t understand why De.M.H.T (the armed group, not the cultural troupe) is in Eritrea.

3. The only reason De.M.H.T. was relevant (prior to the gffa incident) is that the Eritrean regime is expressly forbidden from hosting Ethiopian opposition groups and it is the job of the Somalia Eritrean Monitoring Group (SEMG) to report on it when it does.After years of showcasing Ethiopian opposition in Eri-TV, the Eritrean regime has stopped (after two SEMG reports) but they still exist in Eritrea and the gfffa story was a great expose of that. When your number one target is Isaias Afwerki, and you are given a torpedo to use it, you fire away;

4. Even the Eritrean regime understood the disaster in its hands and has been on damage control since the story broke out.Those of us in the opposition cannot afford to be squeamish when the regime is on the run, we must press on, as long as we are reporting the truth and as long as we are doing it responsibly. For somebody who has been on a self-congratulation mission that he and only he understands the urgency of change in Eritrea, his fixation with how De.M.H.T. was wronged is a puzzle.

5. There was nothing mischievous about the menqesaqesi/mewesawesi distinction: it is called reporting.As part of our due diligence, we asked: how do you know they are from De.M.H.T.? Were they wearing different uniforms from those used by EDF? No.So how do you know? By their accents and the confessions of an injured De.M.H.T. member.

6. We do not buy into the “Isaias is a Tigrayan” conspiracy.That’s not his motivation here: we believe that there is a low-key civil disobedience within the agelglot and Isaias, like all tyrants, looks for the people who will not be conflicted when executing an order. Recall that in 2001 when Isaias wanted to beat the mothers of the protesting University of Asmara students, he dispatched Eritreans from the lowlands—visible by appearance and language. 

7.  The “gffa” was the injury—an injury that has been going on for years, and something awate.com has reported on for years—something that every Eritrean opposition website has reported on so the sanctimony about, “look, I am the only one who is protesting the very idea of gffa notwithstanding who the agent is!” is self-serving and disingenuous. The novelty here was the agents of enforcement. The foreign agents were the insult.It was an insult on top of an injury—and the insult happens to catch the attention of SEMG.Total insensitivity to this insult means only two things (a) one does not see them as foreigners (never mind that minor detail about 1991 and 1993) and has actually gone on record (at Debrezeit) giving a speech asking Eritreans to “pressure” Ethiopia to do more with respect to regime change or (b) one has no understanding of the long list of virtues celebrated by Eritreans, on top of which would be honor and dignity.To such a person, these words are useless, empty words like a beggar choosing.

8. This has nothing to do with them being from Tigray or their accents; it has to do with the fact that they are foreigners.Not Eritreans.Isaias Afwerki takes particular joy in humiliating Eritreans: refer to Dafla’s interview on assenna.com: the General Manager of Eritrean Airlines was told that, henceforth, two of his commissioned travel agents from Pakistan would be in charge and he can either report to them or be a titular head. He was rightfully outraged: does that make him a hater of Pakistanis? Trying to place a wedge between Eritrea and Pakistan? Refer also to Isaias Afwerki telling students in South Africa that, for all he cares, they don’t have to return to Eritrea, they are disposable and he can get their replacement from India and the Philippines. The Eritrean students were outraged and insulted, rightfully so. When we reported that, were we trying to place a wedge between Eritrea, Philippines and Pakistan?

9. If the ones doing the roundup were from Sudan and they were using Arabic words to give orders, hell, yes, we would report it (as one more example of Isaias’s contempt for the people of Eritrea) and hell, yes, Yosief Gebrehiwet would have written a long article in opposition (Suggested title: Arabists in Eritrea: The Chickens Have Come Home To Roost, Part 1 of 10) and his rabid fans would have written scathing attacks on Arabs and Muslims.

10. The Kebesa/MetaHit thread is a dead-end.And here’s why.Almost all of the victims of Lampedusa were from Kebesa.True.Now, once you have embarked on that road, there is no coming back: somebody will dig deeper: almost all of the victims were from Akele Guzay.Dig more.Almost all were from Adi Keyh.Then what?Does the title of the article change to the suicide of Akele Guzay?The Homicide of Akele Guzay? Painting awate as a Jebha/Islamist is a dead-end. Here’s why: it is the most diverse Eritrean website. Period.

There is something going here; it is the same old something. I have never heard Tigrayans insulting Eritreans because they dared to be an independent State. Tigrayans, under the leadership of the TPLF, were the first Ethiopians to support Eritrea’s cause for independence and they made more compelling reasons for why it is a just cause that even some Eritreans made.They held to that principle min al bidaya li’nehaya.  They never wavered.

All the critics of Eritrea are those who lost the argument in 1991.They are the King’s Men. Like the King’s Men (loyalists) during America’s Revolutionary War (which, gasp, used conscripts and double gasp, used “revolutionary justice” on the loyalists) they were loyal to a foreign king: Haile Selasse I, whose rule they equate with Eritrea’s golden years (never mind those nuisances in Ona, etc BECAUSE SIMILAR CRIMES HAPPENED IN ETHIOPIA TOO.) America’s King’s Men thought their countrymen were rash, impulsive and disloyal. So did our king’s men: just a bunch of clueless bandits shooting their guns aimlessly. The American King’s Men were shocked that their countrymen were turning their back on Mother England and getting help from an assortment of misfits like the French, Dutch, Spanish and others who don’t even have the decency to speak English. Our King’s Men just can’t get over the fact that we turned our backs on them. Just like the American King’s Men, our King’s Men lost the argument. Well, America’s King’s Men fought for their cause when it mattered; ours just want to fantasize about an imaginary time machine. Now, when the country is down, they think they have gotten second wind.But they have not.It is only because of their echo chamber that they think they have.

The second piece of Yoseif Ghebrehiwet, the satire, was quite good.I give it a B+.The things that work is that it follows the formula of a good satire: take a point to its extreme logical end; pierce people you consider are pompous or sanctimonious;create convenient caricatures (awate.com = ELF, Arabists, Islamist, Habesha-haters).Why it is not an A: title (unless it is a reference to a literal piece I don’t know); its length (in the time it takes one to read a YG article, knnqesaqes wela knwesawes teHarimna) and, the biggest one: a satire must be focused on a big issue everybody is talking about.The mewesawesi menqesaqesi was a one-day story; it didn’t even make it to the follow-up Gedab News: it is huge only in the minds of those who think that the use of those words is more insulting to Habesha unity than the fact that foreigners are enforcers of Eritrean homicide.

Now, as a sign of goodwill, here’s my present to Yosief Gebrehiwet and all the King’s Men from Wedi Tikabo. It is a long one…but then YG is used to that. See, that’s one thing they both have in common: they are long story tellers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

saay
11.24.13

The roots and branches of Eritrean Diaspora seems to point to the mistrust that lingers stemming from their religious parallel lines – Christianism vs. Islamism – any other isms can amicably be ameliorated once this colossal issue is handled with sensitivity, care, and tenderness it so deserves. The other roots and branches that get in the way of making progress over the Diaspora’s socio-cultural & sociopolitical landscape has to do with this fact: we want to be political scientists, psychologists, philosophers, and the like, leaving no room for the professionals who may have something valuable to teach us. Saleh Gadi makes a clear delineation between dialogue & debate as he adds the disposition of some political actors who choose to go into the realms of “assault” instead of conversing – a point well taken. Therefore, allow me to start with the following, if I may speak for myself. Starting with disclosure of sorts is important here for those of us who are part-time activists and who disappear from the scene for seasons on end and expect to make a dent in the political landscape of Eritrea. I am painfully aware of this shortcoming, and it is for this reason I feel there is a gaping hole in my knowledge of Eritrean Diaspora’s political actors or their activities. I will defer the political activities to those who have been in the forefront of the struggle with relentless determination. Saleh Ghadi’s apt observation in this regard is a timely one:

“I also think the political parties should think of this; and if wish to have a sane political environment, those with skills and passion should be in political parties to be more effective–when are we going to develop political parties is such debates remains in the sphere of free-lancing? Add to that our lack of academic and intellectual institutions that should lead this kind of debate, it is scary. We are doing little to develop our politics, why don’t we have association instead of everyone going to politics in an unorganized way? When are we going to identify our individual skills and passion and work there in a specialized manner instead of all of us becoming jack of all trade? That is my worry Amanuel, though I understand the concern and the wish to prepare the ground future eventualities, I wish we would develop (or think about developing) institution. We can start by having specialized institutions, even in the Diaspora though it is not the ideal place.” (Saleh “Gadi” Johar, Nov. 23, 2013 at 11:57 am ).

I take this comment to heart. Saleh Gadi’s comment is spot on. There has to be other calling than political endeavors. Let us take stock and evaluate where our passions and our strength lie and based on that try to pursue those venues rather than stretching ourselves way too thin in areas we know very little about. At this junction, I have zero interest in political organizations of any stripe but I have, to some extent, some interest in the realms of Eritrean traditions, cultures, heritage, religious coexistence, and anything that addresses of humanitarian matters in this context. Something I have great passion for tends to be culture, literature, language, culture, and peripherally, religion. Today’s muse is on the last two.

The erroneous assumption a lot of people make tends to be in the way they see cultural traditions as this static phenomenon when in fact they are very much dynamic. Therefore, the challenge then rests in how strong is one’s culture relative to religion. In Eritrea’s case, the Eritrea that we have left behind, perhaps, years ago (I am speaking here from my perspective as someone who left home decades ago) has evolved a great deal – its language has evolved, its norms, its values, and the like have evolved while sizable number of Eritreans who are in Diaspora have also evolved to amalgamate the cultural tradition of their host societies. Now, of course, the kind of culture that has been created in exile, for example, in the Middle East tends to be influenced by the religion adhered in that region, which is, for the most part, Islam. In other words, religion trumps culture so much so that the children who grow up in these regions have strong religious leanings.

Way before Al-Qaeda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda) had come to occupy a space in our consciousness, there was Eritrean Jihadist movement in the early 90s, but Eritreans did not give it the light of day because people wanted to give peace and freedom a chance. What we ended up having in Al-Qaeda, of course, has turned out to be completely beyond our wildest imagination in its perverseness and its ability to mutate and adapt to any environment it finds itself in. To think that such a movement would not have influence on Eritrean Muslims is naïve at best. A great deal has changed since 1996 in Eritrea. AlQaeeda has now become the shadow enemy of many nation-states the world over that can really wreak havoc on the population, the recent Kenya’s mall attack is case in point. In light of the unpredictable predicament of Eritrea’s political landscape what we must do proactively to avert the fate of Somalia, Nigeria, Liberia, and many other nations that have been mired in this intractable religious based violence ought to be clear.  Al-Qaeda tends to thrive in places like Iraq and Syria, among many other countries, where there is a power vacuum. What must be done to protect Eritrea from such potential recipe of disaster is to preemptively and proactively make sure it does not occupy any space in the first place.

Some of us may still believe in the power of culture over religion, but the reality in our part of the world seems to suggest the reverse, where religion has time and again shown to trump tradition and culture. We can choose to bury our head in the sand into thinking that Eritrea’s circumstance is unique, but I am here to argue, it is not.  Where to Eritrea and Eritreans heretofore?  Belatedly reading about two brothers, born and raised in Britain and who were of Eritrean descent and who died while fighting in Syria’s civil war was mind numbing event to process much less to make sense out of madote.com). This news sent my memory reeling way back to 1996 when I wrote three short pieces in dehai under the title “JIHAD vs. Common Sense.” No worries, these are no longer than a page each. All it took was a simple Google and viola retrieved them all. Dehai was a virtual space and place where many of us used to think out loud, if you will, as we wrote our thoughts half constructed and dehayans basically responded with their impressions of each other’s’ ideas. So, the poor quality of the pieces notwithstanding, they do address the danger of political Islam taken to its extreme.  In 1996 nobody had the patience to read more than two pages on their computer screens–accessing the Internet through dial-up was a challenge in itself – we have come a long ways now in adapting to reading for hours on end as though we were leafing through the pages of a book.

This is not a thread-bare comparison between Al-Qaeda and Jihad and it is not a game of semantics, but a mere evolutionary process that political mutation must be met with equal force and magnitude, not through means of arms and cannon fodders, but through our collective wisdom vis-à-vis the rule of law that will render such shadowy terrorists who tend to mutate faster and quicker the weaker the bond that ties the two people together.

In Eritrea’s context the most effective way to fight such potential pitfall from taking place is not retroactively fighting it but proactively making it impossible, so impossible, in fact, by making Eritrea an ideal place where the rule of law reigns, where democratic system is applied, where Muslims and Christians alike live in harmonious coexistence at the helm of which must be an unequivocal separation of Church (Mosque) and State.

Now, how does one avoid such potential pitfall from occurring? Clearly, there will be some elements within Eritrean circles that would play into that perception to ignite a wedge within Eritrean proper. The best antidote to this is an inclusive governance system; unlike that of PFDJ whose domination in the governing body of Eritrean political landscape has been abysmal, to which I make a passing remark in one of the links below. About a decade or more later, Ahmed Raji’s article that was posted at Awate made it explicitly clear using evidence in how systematically PFDJ discouraged Eritrean Muslim from playing their role in the Eritrean nation building reminiscent to that of Haragot Abbay who used to discourage Muslim Eritreans  in Eritrea and suggesting that going to places like Saudi Arabia in search of employment being their best option. Now, I certainly do not want to give this perception disproportionate weight, but acknowledging its existence in the past is a good beginning.

That said, I think it is really high time that Eritreans not only be cognizant of this fact but also must make sure such perception from being incepted in the future, post-Isayas Eritrea that is. Let me make it unequivocally clear here that religion will have a role to play in public life in Eritrea but it cannot be one where it becomes the political governing body. Singling out the Orthodox Church in this as a religious institution that has stood to the tyrant on moral ground, at least since 2004 to a point of imprisonment of Abune Antonios, is an exemplary moral crusade all other religious institutions should emulate. Religion belongs in our homes and in our respective communities; it should also rise up to national scene when the need calls for it as the conscience of its society when it sees it going rampantly errant as has been the case with the current political menace in Eritrea. But political and governing matters must be delegated and relegated to the political system that has the capacity to separate itself from any religious dogmas and rule its people fairly and in equitable manner.

Herein follow the links. If you are so inclined you can read the responses and counter responses by delving deeper into the discussion thread.

JIHAD vs Common Sense Part I (http://www.ephrem.org/dehai_archive/1996/may/0738.html)
JIHAD vs Common Sense Part II (http://www.ephrem.org/dehai_archive/1996/may/0819.html)
JIHAD vs Common Sense Part III (http://www.ephrem.org/dehai_archive/1996/may/0821.html)

bnegashb@gmail.com
FB: Bayan Nagash

Isaias Afwerki’s twenty- two years of misrule reaffirms the old adage that revolutions, quite often, are not caused by vision-inspired or ideology-intoxicated revolutionaries but by the sheer stupidity and brutality of governments. Eritrea’s PFDJ has climbed the Everest of stupidity and brutality and won the envy of North Korea and those that have, likewise, gone rogue.

PFDJ’s well-deserved notoriety is the reason some of my friends and I had decided to not engage them; early on we found out that we were poorly armed against their ornery. Unfortunately, many good-intentioned Eritreans have their backs mottled by the blows of bastinados received from the rueful blowhards who like dogs have the habit of attacking in throngs—a shellacking for voicing dissent. The proverbial shebia halengi has instilled fear even among those Eritreans who call America home—the land of the-free-and-the-brave. Years of tawdry partisanship and indoctrination has seared them emotionally that they could not even sympathize with their own kith and kin that have fallen victim to the regime’s brutality. The tide is now changing against them. They are losing their chrysalis; fast retiring to their lair.

There is no doubt that the regime has dug its own grave and will certainly fall under its own weight, but not without a revolutionary shove or a nudge.  To be a revolution, nonetheless, one has to be led by people of ideas and action.  Widespread grievances and frustrations among the populace do not necessarily translate into revolutionary action; leaders are needed to mobilize and organize them. Articulating grievances and offering better alternatives is the domain of ideas while implementing the vision into reality is where action is needed.

The disparate groups in the “Opposition” must coalesce; unity is not a luxury that can be ignored but a necessary prerequisite that must be achieved if any public endeavor is to succeed. Producing more with less will be the ultimate test of our political prudence. How we build an effective coalition, rally behind a common goal, and marshal and effectively use our limited resources is an important portent of our future governance. This is where the oppositions’ grit and commonsense will be tested.

Factions, differences and conflicts are permanent fixtures of our lives and without them there would not be a need for politics. Solving problems to the satisfaction of the majority without infringing on the fundamental rights of the minority should be our principal aim. Toward this end, we should manage the unavoidable and avoid the unmanageable.  Prioritization and focus is what we need. The urgency of now should supersede any other considerations. What we do now determines our future. It will help to constantly remember that in the long run we are all dead (Keynes). Winning and being relevant now is crucially important.

Act and fight like a liberation front and think like an opposition.

The term “opposition” is very misleading; it has different meaning in democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian governments.  The political parties in liberal democracies like the US are organized on ideological basis to offer a choice on how the country should be governed. The parties have to vie for votes in fair and open elections. The governing party or a coalition of parties is the one in power and those that are out of power are the opposition parties. The primary goal of the opposition parties is to unseat the ruling party by becoming an alternative the public will support. Parties are presumed to be a good thing and the more competitive the electoral system the better the democracy. Parties in this system are adversarial opponents and not enemies; they are an integral part of a check and balance that safeguards liberty. There is no state in the Horn of Africa that can be designated as a liberal democratic state; Somaliland is the closest we have.

Authoritarian governments allow opposition parties to operate but their freedom to organize and mobilize their supporters is severely curtailed.  Authoritarian governments are oppressive and restrictive but not inherently evil and they can be reformed. Under this system, the opposition parties focus most of their activities on civil disobedience and sometimes outright revolt that involves instigating mass uprisings. As long as the ruling party is willing and ready to change, its dissolution is not a prerequisite for the opposition parties to play their rightful role. Political and diplomatic pressure and economic hardship could easily incentivize the ruling parties to open up and liberalize. Depending on the prevailing situations, opposition parties under authoritarian systems can operate as in liberal democracies or in totalitarian states or a hybrid of the two. Ethiopia and the Sudan are good examples.

In reality, the opposition parties will never unseat the party-in-power and when they hardly ever come to power they are at a great disadvantage since they had spent little time preparing themselves for governance.  This is the problem Egypt is facing. Fighting for change is a lot easier than actual governance. Maintaining a coalition of disparate and poorly organized groups, whose opposition to the ruling party was the only thing that kept them together, is very difficult. This is further exacerbated by the fact that authoritarian governments thrive by favoring one group at the expense of another. The trust deficit among the many social and political groups will dilute any chance the new and inexperienced government might have in transitioning the country into a democratic state.

In a totalitarian state like Eritrea, political parties are deemed evil and enemies of the state. There are no opposition parties in Eritrea and the only party is the ruling party. For parties to exist in Eritrea, the system has to be abolished. The struggle for change is a zero-sum game; either the regime has to go or the struggle for change has to be defeated. The current struggle for change is not much different from our previous liberation struggle; the enemy has to be defeated. Higdef is derg reincarnate.  We defeated the derg and we must do the same with higdef.

It is very important for the Eritrean opposition to act and fight as liberation front if it is to affect and expedite change. But since we are witnessing a clear and imminent demise of higdef, it is equally important to think as an opposition in a liberal democracy—the issue of governance is real. While rightfully focusing on political issues, the opposition must learn about economic and development issues for they will occupy the driver’s seat in post higdefite rule.

Let’s keep one eye in the present and the other in the future.

Port Sudan: 27 November 2013

In a ceremony dubbed as one of the most romantic weddings of the year, Eritrea’s Afewerki and Sudan’s Al-Bashir at last exchanged wedding vows in an outdoor ceremony at the gardens of Port Sudan trade center. The wedding was officiated by the highest spiritual guides in both countries, the couple themselves.

The on and off romantic relationship between the couple, particularly after Afwerki’s loss of his long-time partner, King Of Kings, Brother Leader, Colonel, Shaikh of…(title too long, please turn over to next page for full list) Muammar Gaddafi, has been widely speculated for some time now. Afwerki is said to have suffered immensely after the loss of Gaddafi, causing him to seek medical assistance in Qatar several times. Close associates of Afwerki, who wish to remain anonymous, or their heads will be chopped off, reported that the news of Afwerki’s near death last year was actually due to excessive drinking and drug usage which got worse after Gaddafi’s brutal death.

Asked about his thoughts, the Amir of Qatar, the match maker who actually convinced the couple to make their relationship formal, said “Afwerki was hesitant at the beginning, he was unable to let go of Gaddafi’s memory, but it was time to move on. Particularly after his continuously deteriorating health, he needed some romance in his life”

Afwerki decided to make the surprise proposal last Sunday, when he drove with his convoy unannounced to Port Sudan two nights ahead of the annual “Shopping Exhibition”. When Al-Bashir arrived at Port Sudan as scheduled the next day, unaware that Afeworki was already there, he was overwhelmingly surprised to be received by Afwerki at the city’s main bus terminal. Surrounded by admirers and facing Al-Bashir, Afwerki then pulled up his jelabya to reveal his knees, proceeded to show his flexibility by sitting down in a squatting position and commenced breathing through his knees. At that moment, in a choreographed manner, a modified version of Stings’ hit song “Every breath I take, I want it to be with you” blasted through the loud speakers and inhabitants of the city lined up with flowers. Al-Bashir emotionally raised his cane with excitement and the crowd started cheering and ululating.

Afwerki was said to have personally made all the preparations to impress Al-Bashir. The couple wore their trade mark classic costumes, designed by the famous Eritrean tailor and fashionista, Wedi Qedad Sire. The couple’s wedding couch was decorated and adorned with elegant golden frames, the aisles were showered with pop-corn and flower petals. The table was a borrowed vintage from Haile Selassie era, it was given as a present to the famous socialite known as Asmara Rose, who flew from USA at Afwerki’s request to host the evening and entertain the guests. The ring bearer was a young refugee advocate, iBad Girl, who carried a pearl and gold satin pillow with the Gaddafi’s Green Book on it.

Classic Sudanese songs such as “whop 3aleya ya yuma” and “ya Hlelu algemer ja” were played as the couple walked the isle, and later on danced to Afwerki’s favorite song, Abrar’s “Kemzi’ elkas nabra aykonen”, a song Afwerki usually sings when he is intoxicated.

The ceremony was attended by close family members, friends, dignitaries and business tycoons. Immediately following the ceremony, the couple was honored at a reception hosted by the CEO of HOT Pty Ltd, a company specialising in Human & Organ Trafficking. They have also used the opportunity to strengthen bilateral relations and agreed on future smuggling plans and expanding the organ trade.

The ceremony however came to an abrupt end due to a security breach, when an individual identified as Sabaah entered the venue holding an alarm clock which the security personnel mistook for a bomb.

The wedding was broadcast live in both countries national television. For more wedding pictures, please check hijis-yelenalkin.com

Reporting for shgurti.com, Ahmed A. Abdelrehim

aaabdelrehim@hotmail.com

Introduction

The dominance of Tigrinya speaking Christians and their in­volvement in the various sectors of community-based, orga­nizational activities representing Eritreans in Los Angeles, if not throughout the United States, make it appear as though Eritrea is a homogenous country composed predominantly of Tigrinya-speaking Christians (Woldemikael 1996; Hepner 2003). There are, however, minorities of Eritreans in the US who are Muslims and/or non-Tigrinya speakers. The largest concentration of Muslim Eritreans in the United States in the early to mid 1990s; numbering three hundred, was in Orange County, California. This article explores the formation of a group called Eritrean Student Relief Organization (ESRO), which emerged in 1992 to bridge a gulf that existed between Eritrean Muslims and Christians in this region of Southern California.

Comprised of Eritreans with diverse religious, ethnic, re­gional, and political ideologies, ESRO’s stated common purpose was to bring Eritreans of different religious and ethnic backgrounds together to engage in activities related to nation-building in their home of origin, Eritrea. Through an analysis of ESRO’s origins, functions, and demise in 1997, this article argues that the failure of this organization mirrors the failure of Eritreans in diaspora generally to define their relationship with one another and with institutions and organizations in Eritrea in ways that are meaningful for both of them. Using this case study, I aim to shed light on the factors that prevent Eritreans in diaspora from acting as agents in their own inter­ests and creating long-lasting autonomous diasporic transnational institutions that reflect their desires and inter­ests.

Review of Literature

The definitions of ^“diaspora” and ^“transnationalism” are highly contested (Werbner 2002; Kivisto 2003). Following Werbner (2002:251), I define diaspora as “communities of co-respon­sibility.” This definition recognizes not only the solidarity that specific diasporas feel across space and national boundaries, but also their existential connection with co-diasporas else-where or with their home country (Ibid). Transnationalism is commonly defined as “the process by which immigrants build social fields that link together their country of origin and their country of settlement” (Basch et al 1994:1). There have been a few ethnographic and historical studies addressing transnational processes among Eritreans in Sudan, Canada and the US, Italy, Germany and England (al-Ali, Koser, and Black 2001a, b; Bernal 2004; Compton 1998; Kibreab 1987a; 1991; 1996b, c, d; 2000a; McSpadden and Moussa 1993; Sorenson 1993; Woldemikael 1998, 2002; Hepner 2003, 2004). While most of them have focused on Eritreans in diaspora before independence and statehood, Hepner (2003, 2004) and al-Ali et al (2001a, b) have dealt directly with post-independence Eritreans.

In their comparative study of Bosnians and Eritreans in the Netherlands, Germany and England, al-.Ali, Black, and Koser (2001a) characterized the Eritrean state as successful in engaging the energies of the diaspora in contrast to that of Bosnia. They consider the Eritrean case an example of suc­cessful mobilization among an immigrant population, because Eritreans have maintained strong links with their families, friends, and the state of Eritrea. They also rather uncritically assert that the Eritrean state has taken steps to institutional­ize transnational activities, particularly during the 1998-2001 border conflict with Ethiopia (2001a: 584-585). They argue that the success of Eritrea’s efforts contrasts with the failures of other states to mobilize their diasporic populations, includ­ing immigrants from El Salvador, Columbia, Mexico and Haiti presently living in other countries (Basch et al 1994; Landolt et al 1999; Guarnizo et al 1999; Roberts et al 1999; Glick-Schiller and Fouron 1999). In spite of their positive assess­ment of Eritrean emerging transnationalism, al-Ali et al (2001 a, b) nonetheless caution that this represents “enforced transnationalism,” noting that in recent years the Eritrean diaspora has been resisting the state’s demands by increasingly refusing to follow state-initiated transnational programs and activities. ‘What these researchers fail to appreciate is how in­dividuals and organizations at the grassroots have attempted to create alternative ways of engaging in transnational activi­ties, but have been stifled by the Eritrean state and its organi­zational apparatus abroad. This organizational apparatus, origi­nally set up to mobilize Eritreans in exile during the national­ist war of independence, started in the form of student move­ments and later become mass organizations of the EPLF (Woldemikael 2002; Hepner 2004, see also this volume).

Tricia Redeker Hepner, based on her ethnographic study of Eritreans in Chicago, found that the Eritrean transnational social field was “an arena of power where the Eritrean state and its diasporic subjects struggled over meaning, belonging,and authority” (Hepner 2003: 278). She observed that Eritreans in diaspora were internally divided and their community ac­tivities were irregular and troubled. She attributed the difficul­ties to several internal and external factors. Internal factors included the small size of the community, its invisibility in the local immigrant landscape, weak connections to American in^­stitutions, and internal fragmentations over politics and iden­tity. External factors consisted mainly of problems caused by the transnational relationship between Eritreans in diaspora with the Eritrean state. Hepner observed that Eritrean diasporacommunities in the US have increasingly drawn on religion as a basis for building community and national identity, and ar­gued that religious identity and practices tend to mitigate against fractured political identities in diaspora (2003:269). Moreover, she noted that religion is “transnationally reconfiguring Eritrean nationalism according to complex en­gagements with American society and the exigencies of Eritreanexperience” (Ibid). She suggested that the “diaspora churchesrepresent part of Eritrean transnational civil society … whose incipient institutionalization helps insulate them from the state’s intervention by creating a more depoliticized, autono­mous space from the ruling regime’s hegemonic, deterritorialized power^“ (Hepner 269-270).

In contrast to the community in Chicago, which seemed tobe successful in making religion a basis for helping create com­munity and national identity, the Eritrean Student Relief Or­ganization (ESRO) in Orange County tried to create a bridgebetween Eritrean religious identities. Hepner’s study explored how religion provides a solution to the intervention of the state or “enforced transnationalism” and therefore becomes a safe place for interaction. The group I studied, however, saw itself as trying to transcend religion-based associations alto­gether. They saw religious identities as limiting their activities,especially in terms of making contributions to the newly emerg­ing state of Eritrea. In what follows, I discuss the Islam-Christian divide and how Eritreans in Orange County, California bridged that gap, by bringing the religiously-divided Eritrean community into one and establishing a secular organization which respected the two religions equally. It documents why and how this effort came about and describes its purposes and achievements up until the organization’s final demise in 1997.

The Case Study: Eritreans in Orange County and its Sur­roundings

Eritreans in Southern California live scattered throughout Or­ange County and in the suburbs surrounding the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. Muslims and Christians tend to live apart from each other and have their own family and friend-ship networks. Muslims know one another either through friendship and school networks formed in Eritrea and/or fromtheir travels in Sudan, Egypt or Saudi^-Arabia, where religion isa major mode for organizing social life, prior to immigration to the US. Traveling to predominantly Muslim countries in Af­rica and the Middle East increased Muslim Eritreans’ aware­ness that Islam is a powerful transnational presence in the world. Indeed, there have been some attempts to unify Muslim Eritreans into one group along religious lines, thus creating an Eritrean community based on religious identity. One such ef­fort has been the Islamic Jihad Movement, which sought to mobilize Eritreans in Eritrea and in exile in order to overthrow the existing government and establish a Muslim state. These efforts failed largely because Muslim Eritreans are themselves internally divided into various ethnic and linguistic groups. Moreover, like their Christian compatriots, differences in back-ground and experience shaped their personalities and expecta­tions of life in the US. Finally, most Eritrean Muslims are bothsecular and aware of the pluralism that predominates in Eritrea, which consists of nearly fifty percent Christians and fifty per-cent Muslims, and nine different ethnic groups.

The biography, migration history, and reasons for leaving Eritrea to resettle in the US were not altogether different for Muslim Eritreans in Orange County than they were for Chris­tians. All came to the US because of the thirty-year war be­tween Eritrean nationalists and the Ethiopian government, which ended in 1991. Most came as refugees following the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, which allowed large num­bers of Ethiopians and Eritreans to resettle in the US in the 1980s. A chain of migration developed as friends following other friends chose to stay in Orange County. Once they ar­rived in the US, however, Muslim Eritreans found themselves experiencing a reversal of social position. They found them-selves a minority within the exiled Eritrean minority; most felt alienated from the Christians who dominated the community and its leadership of the existing Eritrean organizations.

It should be noted that until the end of the independence war, various nationalist fronts were vying for power in Eritrea, and most Eritreans aligned with one or another that espoused their vision for independent Eritrea. While most Christians supported the dominant movement, the Eritrean People’s Lib­eration Front (EPLF), most Muslims supported the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) or its various factions. With the suc­cessful defeat of the Ethiopian army in Eritrea in 1991, the EPLF transformed itself from a nationalist movement to a provisional government of Eritrea in 1991, and finally into the permanent government of Eritrea in 1993. In 1994, the People’s Front for Justice and Democracy (PFDJ) was formed, which has since dominated the political landscape of Eritrea as the only recognized political party.

Researchers have pointed out that immigrants’ economic, political and social relations pressure them to create social fields that cross international boundaries. This tends to occur espe­cially when immigrants are confronted by social exclusion in both their countries of origin and destination, and also feel the need for family reproduction in the face of economic and political insecurity (Basch at el 1994). As Eritreans constructed their family lives in the US, they needed a community that transcended all pre-existing divisions. All Eritreans faced a common basis of alienation from the dominant white society: being foreign and black. As al-Ali, Black and Koser (2001a, b) found, however, there were divisions based on the political views of Eritrean in diaspora towards the government in Eritrea. In particular, many Muslim respondents perceived the Eritrean community structure in the United Kingdom to be dominated by Christians. This feeling of exclusion limited their desire to participate in community level activities, from charitable collections to cultural festivals (al-Ali et al 2001b:631). Similarly, many Eritrean Muslims in Orange County found themselves not only suffering from numerical minority status among the Christian majority in the US, but were also aware that the ELF, which had espoused their vision of national identity in Eritrea, had failed to achieve its goal. Although a few of the Muslims were sympathetic to the EPLF, most of the Muslims and some of the Christian participants of ESRO were not supporters of that front.

At the same time, as many Eritrean Muslims were exposed to Muslim societies in the Middle East and Africa, and partici­pated in Islam-focused activities in the US, secular Muslim Eritreans came to realize they had more in common with secu­lar Christian Eritreans who shared their national identity than they did with Muslims from other African and Arab countries. Therefore, Eritrean Muslims had to negotiate their relations with their Christians compatriots, who already maintained or­ganized and institutionalized relationships with the govern­ment in Eritrea. In addition, they also had to negotiate their relationship with the nation being crafted by that government. Because of their clear minority status, Muslims found them-selves at a loss in how to continue identifying with their new nation, Eritrea, and with the Christian-dominated organiza­tions that claimed the social fields and political spaces that were the only legitimate links between exiles and the nation state. Especially following the euphoria that accompanied Eritrean liberation from Ethiopia in May 1991, many Muslim Eritreans opted to connect and participate in the national re-construction and nation-building efforts by bridging the gap between Christians and Muslims. One such group committed to this goal was the Eritrean Student Relief Organization (ESRO) of Orange County.

The Story of ESRO

ESRO, based in Irvine, chose the name Eritrean Student Re-lief Organization because some of its members were students and former students of the University of California, Irvine. But its membership actually included both Eritrean students and working adults. Its status as a student organization pro­vided ESRO the space to meet once a month and access to some resources at the university. The initiative to start the organization began with Eritrean Muslim residents of Orange County, some in their late twenties who were still finishing their studies and some who were freshly graduated members of the work force. They invited others to join them who were sensitive to the pluralistic cultural origins of Eritreans and were willing to work together for a common cause. They sought to prove to both Muslim and Christian skeptics in Orange County that such common ground could be a fundamental basis of participation. ESRO’s founders sought to construct an or­ganization that accepted the cultural differences between the members as given and normal. As the founder and the first president of ESRO stated:

When we first started this organization (ESRO) wedidn’t know exactly where were heading. We didn’tnow what we wanted to do or how we could achieve it. But we all know that if we came to­gether, and exchanged our ideas, we would comeup with something. And we did. Each one of us committed to put as much time as we could to overcome our differences and respect each other so that we could help the need in Eritrea: people who had been in a thirty years battle for indepen­dence from Ethiopia. Since we organized ourselves we sent some materials like Ultra Sound, gloves, scissor and telephones. Right now we are trying toget some aid from big companies. We are also try­ing to find easy way of shipment. In addition, we are making effort to get cheap medical equipments. This is not it. We want to do more and we can accomplish more if we get as many people as pos­sible to get involved in this noble cause. Our num­bers and capacity are limited. We need some inputand active participation from people around us. Let us be one community and voice our opinions to­gether (Eritrocentric Newsletter 1993:2).

Aware that cultural differences could easily become politicized and fracture their efforts, the group focused on reconstruction and nation-building efforts and intentionally proclaimed its pur­pose as non-political. As the editor of ESRO’s newsletter stated, “We encourage non-political topics. We as Eritreans have long been engulfed by politics and I believe it is time for us to discuss other issues such as community matters, educa­tional and other cultural and social issues” (Eritrocentric News-letter, January 1993:1). The statement implied that the group wanted to move away from the divide based on Muslim and Christian identities that have characterized politics in Eritrea and function instead as an organization that united the two groups and made meaningful contributions to the nation. In its newsletter, ESRO described its formation in the following way:

Eritrean Student Relief Organization is an indepen­dent student organization aimed at bringing Eritreans together to participate in the reconstruction effortsin Eritrea. With this spirit in mind, steps were taken to convey the message to other Eritreans. After making person to person contacts, a seminar washeld on May 17^th, to explain the aims of ESRO. In addition two prominent scholars were invited to speak on their experiences in Eritrea. The speakers were Thomas Keneally, author of ^“Towards Asmara,^“ and Roy Patemen, author of ^“Eritrea: Even the Stones are Burning.^“ These two scholars,known for the support of the Eritrean cause, gaveeloquent speeches about the Eritrean struggle. Theyalso spoke on the necessity for a different kind ofstruggle in Eritrea today: peaceful economic recon­struction.

Even the name of ESRO’s newsletter, Eritrocentric, was delib­erately chosen to indicate that every member was committing themselves to give the nation, Eritrea, priority over their reli­gion, language, ideology and prior history of involvement in Eritrean political organizations.

The group met once a month in the cultural center at UCI from 1992 to 1997. The medium of communication of the meetings was Tigrinya, a language native to the majority of Christians, although most of them knew and spoke Tigre, the second major language in Eritrea. The group consisted of about twenty-five men and women in their late twenties and thirties and almost equal numbers of Muslims and Christians. The ma­jority of the Muslims spoke Tigre as their first language. Some members spoke in Arabic, but rarely. The participants seemed to accommodate speaking in three languages, English, Tigrinya and Tigre. The women from both Christian and Muslim ori­gins dressed in fashionable western style. One woman cov­ered her head to indicate her devotion to Islam, while another dressed in traditional Tigrinya style. The women were not in­hibited and participated equally with the men.

There was a genuine attempt to bridge the gap between Christians and Muslims, which included an emphasis on Eritrea’s shared popular urban culture and its social tolerance between Christians and Muslims. The group shifted focus from the cultural differences between Muslims and Christians by emphasizing the modern culture of equality between genders and individualistic self-expression. Members also avoided dis­cussing sensitive and divisive political issues, for many of them had been sympathetic to ELF. Other members were ardent supporters of EPLF and maintained close connections with organizations in Los Angeles that served as a supervisory body to PFDJ. Part of the failure of these EPLF-affiliated organi­zations as unifying bodies can be traced to the lack of con­certed efforts among the predominantly Christian leadership to bring local Muslim communities in Orange County into a pluralistic and multicultural organization. Instead, these lead­ers wanted everyone to participate as Eritrean nationalists who were organized under the hegemony of predominantly Chris­tian leaders. Moreover, ESRO members feared that the relief assistance they provided would go to government preferred or controlled organizations and activities rather than directly to the civilian population. ESRO wanted to be an independent, non-governmental agency that reached people directly.

The organization, however, met with a number of prob­lems. First, its members stayed small in number, not more than thirty people at most. Second, transportation problems and shortage of funds prevented ESRO from sending the materi­als it had gathered to Eritrea. It also lacked a way to access to civilian Eritreans without going through established organiza­tions such as the Eritrean Relief Agency or others linked to the government. For example ESRO had wanted to support a hospital in Keren, which had only one doctor. The members collected and were prepared to send enough beds and stretch­ers to furnish the entire hospital, but gave up because of the financial, transportation, and bureaucratic problems.

The local organizations and offices under the control of the government of Eritrea in Los Angeles were clearly aligned with the ruling party in Eritrea, the People’s Front for Democ­racy and Justice (PFDJ). They saw it as their duty to conduct surveillance and intimidation of ESRO members in order to undermine the initiatives taken by ESRO, an organization out-side of their control. They utilized several strategies to under-mine the purpose and intent of ESRO. One method was spreading rumors among Eritreans in diaspora that ESRO was an Islamic organization and wanted to use religion as a basis for undermining the secularist aims of the Eritrean state and divide the Eritrean diaspora along religious lines. Another method was to label ESRO as an organization in opposition to the government of Eritrea. ESRO members were accused of using the organization as a cover for other opposition move­ments, such as ELF, which has long contested PFDJ’s hege­mony on Eritrean politics.

A third problem was that the direct attempts of ESRO’s leaders to develop cooperative relations with both Eritrean government representatives in Washington DC and established Eritrean relief organizations, and yet maintain their indepen­dence, were frustrated. Instead, the leaders of ESRO were encouraged to work as local chapters of PFDJ, the ruling party in Eritrea. As Tricia Hepner (2003:278) found, “independent community organizations in Chicago existed in competitive tension with the two other secular institutions: the local chap­ters of the National Union of Eritrean Women (NUEW) and the Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice (formerly the EPLF), both of which remain firmly within the transnational orbit of the Eritrean government.” ESRO members were also discouraged from making any attempts to connect to grassroots organizations without the blessings of local chapters of PFDJ, meaning that ESRO would lose its autonomy, and hence, its credibility among Muslims as an independent organization. The leaders were similarly asked to abandon their focus on relief and shift to securing materials for establishing resources for multimedia services in Eritrea that could help the state to com­municate with its subjects using television and other means of mass communication. Finally, seminars sponsored by ESRO that addressed relief and health issues, such as HIV/AIDS in Eritrea, were seen as suspicious acts that undermined the de­velopment efforts by the government of Eritrea.

In short, by applying direct pressure on ESRO to work under the directives of PFDJ and using indirect sanctions like rumors about the motives and intentions of the organization, the agents of the Eritrean regime were able to effectively disempower ESRO. Slowly, ESRO weakened because of the pressures from the agents of the Eritrean government as well as its internal organizational weaknesses.

Similar to the Eritrean organizations Hepner studied in Chi­cago (2003; 2004), ESRO remained small and lacked active and consistent participation of members. Most of the respon­sibility fell on few members. With the departure of some of its key leaders to other parts of the US, the organization floun­dered into oblivion and formally ceased to exist in 1997.

On the positive side, ESRO opened new possibilities for friendship between Christians and Muslims by creating a safe place to build rapport and enduring trust among these differ­ent groups. It brought together independent-minded individu­als who wanted to work together to bridge the religious divide that has been endemic in Eritrean communities abroad. ESRO was an organization of secular Muslims and Christians who created solidarity among each other by focusing their energies on the construction of a diaspora organization that was linked to other secular Eritreans at home and abroad who shared their yearning for a forward-looking, modern Eritrean nation-state. Further, they wanted to be active participants in realizing that vision. To that effect, ESRO members wanted to know each other, thereby breaking the boundaries that kept Muslims and Christians separate from one another. For many secular Eritreans, maintaining divisions based on ideological and or­ganizational membership became unnecessary once the nation­alist aspiration of independence was achieved.

Creating a group like ESRO was not a mean achievement, considering the deep historical roots of distrust between Mus­lims and Christians in the Horn of Africa. In fact, one can make the argument that religious affiliation has been an orga­nizing principle of the social and political life in the Horn of Africa for centuries. That is, when a movement or regime wanted to organize and mobilize people to do something be­yond their local village politics and ethnic concerns, framing the two major religions as opposite and antagonistic provided a powerful motivation. As a result, the two major religious groups maintain deep fears of domination and persecution at one another’s hands, leading to distrust of the religious Other at the core of shared religious identity. Such divisions and dis­trust have been effective tools in the construction of self-proclaimed Christian states like Ethiopia, or Islamic states like Sudan. Caught between these two, Eritrea has also played a role in the drama of religion and state in the region. Part of Eritrea’s own internal struggles, and those within the ELF and EPLF nationalist movements, has involved the question of how to transcend divisions based on language and religion and focus on constructing an Eritrean nation that can both play a role in the international arena and represent the interests of all Eritreans.

 Eritreans in Orange County therefore wanted to establish a durable community of immigrants in the US. However, what constitutes a community is rarely clear. In this article, I define the concept of community as “aggregates of people who sharecommon activities and/or beliefs and who are bound together principally by relations of affect, loyalty, common values, and/ or personal concern (i.e., interest in the personalities and life events of one another)” (Brint 2001:8-9). Brint makes a ty­pology of communities based on the following considerations:

the context of interaction, wherein he distinguishes geographic and choice-based communities; the primary motivation for in­teraction, distinguishing activity-from belief-based motivations; and the rates of interaction, which are predicated on ecologi­cal and motivational factors. The various combinations and permutations of these variables yield eight community sub-types: communities of place; communes and collectivities; localized friendship networks; dispersed friendship networks; activity-based elective communities; belief-based elective com­munities; imagined communities; and virtual communities.

ESRO could be characterized as an activity-based elective community, which in its short life became a community of dispersed friendship networks. The continuance of exile even after Eritrea’s independence made its members realize the needto redefine their relationship to the host society and build bothsolidarity and linkages with others from their region. The chal­lenge for Eritreans in Orange County was to bridge the gap between different groups who had been fractured not only ac-cording to regional and political attachment, but most impor^­tantly, in terms of religion. By participating in ESRO, they felt they were contributing to a nation building project which less­ened their sense of alienation, exile, and impotence. They wanted to participate in national reconstruction and not re-main outsiders in this important moment in Eritrean history. They were proud of their achievement and came to trust one another.

 The Political and Social Context: The Emergence of a New Era

Nobody could anticipate the exuberance and good-will that Eritreans in diaspora displayed upon the 1991 successful de-feat of the Ethiopian regime by the Eritrean nationalist move­ment, represented by EPLF. Soon after, the question most Eritreans in diaspora asked was how to participate in the new state. The sudden collapse of the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia, and the emergence of the provisional government of Eritrea, changed the political landscape of Eritrea and the diaspora in profoundly new ways. Eritreans in diaspora were united by their desire to participate in nation-building, and gave EPLF a full mandate to form a government that would lead the nation. Even other liberation movements and con-tenders for power in Eritrea, like the Eritrean Liberation Front, enthusiastically declared their willingness to work towards the achievement of the nationalist agenda.

For its part, the new government adopted a position that allowed groups like ELF to join the nation-building process, not as organized groups but as individuals who could contrib­ute to the building of the new state. Although some sectors of ELF opposed such a policy and wanted to negotiate power-sharing with the new regime, there was strong desire among most Eritreans in diaspora to participate in this new era. They were hoping the government would formulate mechanisms to facilitate their participation. The good-will that was extended to the newly formed provisional government of Eritrea was not limited to Eritreans only. There were many international organizations and agencies, mostly non-governmental organi­zations (NGOs), that offered their services to Eritrea in what-ever ways possible to help build the new nation.

The first weakness of the new regime appeared in its orga­nizational incapacity to capitalize on the new support it was gaining and use it to energize and manage these initiatives. The problem might be related to the fact that EPLF was al-ways a military organization with a limited civilian compo­nent. After independence, the civilian sector gained greater power but lacked managerial means and skills to handle the complex demands that appeared in the form of offers to help and participate. The new government resorted to various means of delaying and blocking the initiatives from taking root and thriving. It covered its weakness by passing decrees and mak­ing political declarations whose main thrust was that every individual and organization must work under the umbrella of the new PFDJ party. These decrees did not work effectively with the energetic good-will and desire for reconciliation and unity among Eritreans and their supporters. Today, this has lead to the retreat of civilian participation in independent community organizations. The case of ESRO is one example. Whether intentionally or by default, the government’s policies slowly succeeded in killing the widespread enthusiasm.

Conclusion

Ten years ago, before the institutionalization of enforced transnationalism (al-Ali et al 2001) or the retreat to religion (Hepner 2003), there was exuberant hope among diasporic Eritreans that they could maintain their autonomy and still participate in the nation building and national reconstruction efforts in their home of origin. One organization that reflected this hope was ESRO. By the year 2003, however, as Hepner observed, “inter-denominational Christianity” remained the only depoliticized sphere of Eritrean collective social life. She noted that “religious settings provide a way for people to prac^­tice Eritrea identity beyond its tortured politicization and of­fer different organizing principles for the community” (Hepner2003:279). Even religion as a sanctuary from the demandingand exhausting politicized life of Eritreans in diaspora might be truly a temporary safe place until it too is penetrated by the government. This retreat to religious institutions is a sign of the failure of secular Eritrean nationalism to become a unify­ing force in the way PFDJ conceptualized it.

As Will Kymlicka (2001:176) writes, multiculturalism takes western liberal democratic values as given and assumes that the immigrants will accept them. In addition, multiculturalism is encouraged in the US, as long as the core values of liberal democratic societies are not threatened (Kivisto 2003). At same time, Soysal (1994) has argued that there has been an emergence of “postnational citizenship” based on immigrants becoming aware of universal human rights, and demanding their own rights, based on a universal code. Researchers, however, do not seem to address the fact that the American democratic tradition of allowing civic par­ticipation and respect for individual rights and civic action provides an open field for transnational individuals and agents of foreign governments to operate with a free rein and influ­ence transnational communities. For instance, local organiza­tions representing the government of Eritrea use transnationalsocial fields as an opportunity to mobilize and organize freely, and to control and discipline local, grassroots transnational initiatives and community activities like that of ESRO. The uneven fields of operation do not empower transnational Eritreans unless they agree with the politics of the Eritrean state. The regime in Eritrea has exploited the cultural norm of American middle class society that emphasizes civic partici­pation with impunity. Yet it does not tolerate the same kind ofaccess to civic participation in Eritrea, an area under its hege­monic control.

Recent literature on transnationalism stresses the role of nation-states in encouraging or hindering transnationalism (Guarnizo and Smith 1998; Smith R. 1998; Ong 1999). Aihwa Ong (1999) for instance stipulates that the nation-state “along with its juridical-legislative systems, bureaucratic apparatuses, economic entities, modes of governmentality, and war-mak­ing capacities – continues to define, discipline, control and regu­late all kinds of population, whether in movement or in resi­dence” (Ong 1999:15). Basch et al (1994) show that nation-states increasingly view their communities in exile as legiti­mate constituencies. Nation-states not only shape transnational spaces by setting their boundaries (which, in some cases, might be ^“transcended”) but they also provide channels for transnational activities (al-Ali and Koser 2002). This case study of ESRO in Orange County is an attempt to show that bridging the gap between secular Muslim and Christian Eritreans was possible, and that the effort failed to move for-ward not because of lack of initiative at the grassroots, but because the Eritrean state asserted hegemonic control over grassroots organizations in diaspora.

Most of the organizational linkages for Eritreans in the US are under the hegemony of the predominantly Tigrinya-speaking Christians who work as a bridge to the organizationsand institutions at the state level in Eritrea. It should be pointed out the failure to create meaningful connections between the exiled communities and grassroots communities in Eritrea wasnot limited to ESRO. There were many such initiatives among diverse, autonomous groups of exiled Eritreans following the success in the Eritrean nationalist struggle that floundered be-cause of organizational inflexibility and lack of capacity at the state level to transform these into enduring and institu­tionalized transnational communities.

Nevertheless, as Peggy Levitt (2001) has pointed out, rapid globalization in recent years has made it possible, either by choice or pressure, for immigrants to maintain strong ties to their countries of origin even when they are integrated into the countries that receive them. Except for one preliminary investigation, there has not been a systematic study of how Eritreans have been integrated into American society (Woldemikael 1998). In response to globalization, countries are distinguishing residence from national membership and extending their boundaries to those living outside them. They have created mechanisms to facilitate immigrant participation in the national development process over the long term and from afar (Levitt and de la Dehesa 2003). In the case of Eritrea, intensified globalization has enabled the new Eritrean state to enhance its power and maintain the upper hand in defining its relationship with Eritreans in diaspora. This power has en­abled the Eritrean state to undermine the grassroots efforts of ESRO, and as a result it has restricted ESRO from acting as an independent agent which reflects the interests of its members. Perhaps this case study sheds light on one of the major reasons why Eritreans in diaspora have been unable to create long-lasting, autonomous, diasporic transnational institutions that reflect their desires and interests.

woldemikael@cox.net

REFERENCES

Al-Ali, Nadje, Richard Black and Khalid Koser. 2001a. “The Limits of Transnationalism^‘: Bosnian and Eritrean Refugees in Europe as emerging Transnational Communities.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 24(4): 378-600.  . 2001b. “Refugees and Transnationalism: the Experience of Bosnians and Eritreans in Europe.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27: 615-634.

Al-Ali, Nadje and Khalid Koser. 2002. New Approaches to Migration? Transnational communities and the Transformation of Home. Lon-don: Routledge Press.

Basch, Linda, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton-Blanc. 1994. Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-states. London: Routledge Press. Bernal, Victoria. 2004. ^“Eritrea Goes Global: Reflections on Nationalism in Transnational Era.^“ Cultural Anthropology. 19 (1):3-25.

 Brint, Steven 2001. “Gemeinschaft Revisited: A Critique and Recon­struction of the? Community Concept^“ Sociological Theory 19: 3-23. 

Compton, Kaila Morris. 1998. “The Strength to Travel Together: Eritrean Experiences of Violence, Displacement, and Na­tionalism in a Global Network” Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University

Eritrean Student Relief Organization (ESRO). 1993. Eritrocentric Newsletter 1(1): 1-2.

Glick-Schiller and George Eugene Fouron. 2001. Georges Woke Up Laughing: Long-Distance Nationalism and the Search for Home. Durham: Duke University Press.

Guarnizo, Luis Eduardo, Arturo Sanchez and Elizabeth Roach. 1999. “Mistrust, Fragmented Solidarity and Transnational Migration: Columbians in New York City and Los Angeles.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (2): 367-396

Hepner, Tricia Redeker. 2003. “Religion, Nationalism, and Transnational Civil Society in the Eritrean Diaspora.” Identi­ties: Global Studies in Culture and Power 10:3:269-293. 2004. Eritrea and Exile: Trans/Nationalism in the Horn of Africa and the United States.  Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University.

Kibreab, Gaim. 1987. Refugees and Development in Africa: The Case of Eritrea. Trenton: The Red Sea Press.

Kivisto, Peter. 2003. “Social Spaces, Transnational Immigrant Com­munities, and the Politics of Incorporation.” Ethnicities. 3(1): 35-58.

Kymlicka, Will. 2001. Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Landolt, Patricia, Lillian Autler, and Sonia Baires. 1999. ^“From Hermano Lejano to Hermano Mayor: The Dialectics of Salvadorean Transnationalism.^“ Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (2):290-315.

Levitt, Peggy. 2001.Transnational Villagers. Los Angeles, CA: Univer­sity of California Press.

and de la Dehesa. 2003. ^“Transnational Migration and the Redefinition of the State: Variations and Explorations.^“ Eth­nic and Racial Studies 26(4): 587-611.

Matsuoka, Atsuko and John Sorenson. 2001. Ghosts and Shadows: Construction of Identity and Community in an African Diaspora. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

McSpadden, Lucia Ann and Helen Moussa. 1993. “I Have a Name: Gender Dynamics in Asylum and Resettlement of Ethio­pian and Eritrean Refugees in North America.” Journal of Refugee Studies 6(3): 203-225.

Moussa, Helene. 1993. Storm and Sanctuary: The Journey of Ethiopian and Women Refugees. Dunhas, Ontario: Artemis Enterprises.

Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logic of Transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Roberts, Bryan R. Reanne Frank and Fernando Lozano-Asencio. 1999.“Transitional Migrant Communities and Mexican Migration to the US.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 22(2): 236-66.

Smith, Peter Michael and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo. 1998. “Introduction^“. In Transnationalism from Below. New Brunswick: Trans-action Publishers.

Smith, Robert. 1998. ^“Reflection on Migration, the State and the Construction, Durability and Newness of Transnational Life.” In Ludger Pries, ed. Migration and Transnational Social Spaces. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishers.

Soysal, Yasemin. 1994. Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Werbner, Prina. 2002. Imagined Diasporas Among Manchester Muslims: The Public Performance of Pakistani Transnational Identity Politics. Santa Fe: New School of American Research and Oxford: James Currey Publishers.

Woldemikael, Tekle. M. 1998. “Ethiopian and Eritrean Refugees in the United States.^“ Eritrean Studies Review 2(2): 89-109. . 2002. “Diaspora, Transnational Movements, and Popular Participation: The Case of Eritrean Students in North America in the 1970s.^“ Unpublished paper presented at African Studies Associa­tion Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., December 5-8, 2002.

woldemikael@cox.net

Nelson Mandela was a Good Man. He chose to be Good and stuck with it. He lived Good. He practiced Good. He acted Good. He spoke Good. He listened Good. He mentored Good. He taught Good. He walked Good and talked Good. He even danced Good!

Mandela exemplified the presence of Good. He was a perfect testimony to the presence of Good. The Good Creator is very happy with the Good Mandela. The Good nature is cheerful with the Good Mandela.  The Good people of South Africa, Black and White and Brown and Moslems and Hindus and Christians and Animists  alike are happy and grateful to the Good Mandela. The Good people of Africa are thankful to the Good Mandela. The black race is proud and happy with the Good Mandela. Humanity as a whole is satisfied with the Good Mandela. The whole world and all ethnicities are celebrating the Good example of the Good life of the Good departed Mandela. The great religions of Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and Confucians are praying and praising the Good Deeds of the Good Mandela.

It is very gratifying to know, believe and realize the existence of and praising the presence of Good.

The Good Mandela taught us that it does not cost anything to be Good. Everyone is born with the seed of Good. It is just a matter of conscious choice to tend and grow the seed of Good or to destroy it. No extraordinary energy or effort is needed to be Good. No exceptional education or intellect is required to be Good.  No enormous wealth or economic advantage is essential to be Good. No blue blood lineage is mandatory to be Good. You can be anybody and choose and become Good.

The presence of Good is not alien to the Good people of this earth and in particular to the Good people of Eritrea. Actually we the Good people of Eritrea are endowed with it and it was generously and heroically exemplified by our Good martyrs and war disabled veterans. Our Good martyrs were Good men, Good women, Good children, Good adults, Good mothers, Good fathers, Good children, Good daughters and Good sons who chose the presence of Good and paid for it with their only and only one Good life so that their Good people would live in the presence of Good forever.

The absence of Good is also equally not alien to the Good people of this Earth and in particular to the Good people of Eritrea. Isaias Afewerki and the PFDJ have cowardly epitomized the absence of Good by declaring war against the presence of Good thus perpetuated horrendous and unheard of suffering, displacement and death to the undeserving Good people of Eritrea.

In the nineties, the newly freed prisoner Mandela [Madiba] and the victorious guerrilla fighter Isaias Afewerki [Nsu] were handed once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to choose their destiny and using similar venues [soccer stadiums] both chose starkly opposing choices and the rest is history. But history also requires some highlights.

While the Good Mandela chose Forgiveness, Harmony, Reconciliation, Unity, Justice, Fairness, Peace, Education and Democracy, Isaias the epitome of the absence of Good, chose Vindictiveness, Division, Chaos, Disequilibrium, Torture, Enslavement, Ignorance, Famine, Corruption, War, Terror, Barbarity, Imprisonment, Murder and Mayhem.

While the Good Mandela will be remembered as exceptionally Good statesman, Democrat, Lover of Humankind, Peace Maker and Reconciliatory, the quintessence of the absence of Good, Isaias Afewerki, is and will be remembered as a Hater, Despot, Vulture, war monger, Divider, Black Hole, Disturber, Slave master, Human trafficker and Murderer.

There are consequences to what we choose and that is why reward and punishment are concomitant to what we choose. We cannot run away from the consequences of our conscious choices.

There was no Good reason for Isaias to choose the Absence of Good. In Truth, there was No reason at all for Isaias to choose the absence of good.  But he chose it anyway. There was also No reason at all for PFDJ and its members to uphold the absence of Good. But they chose it anyway. And they are not going to avoid the consequences of their conscious choices.

For those of us who are befuddled by the behaviors of Isaias and PFDJ members like when they partied while the dead bodies of Eritreans [do not forget the dead baby with its umbilical cord still attached to the dead mother] was floating in the Mediterranean Sea, we should realize their act was and is Deliberate and is rooted in their conscious and deliberate choices. They chose to follow and ameliorate the absence of Good, so none of what they do shall be Good.

To oppose Isaias and PFDJ is to oppose the absence of Good. To oppose and fight against the absence of Good is the Core Principle and Belief in The Presence of Good. So by opposing Isaias and the PFDJ you have deliberately and consciously chosen to be Good.

Doing Good is Good. Thinking Good is Good.  Walking Good is Good. Talking Good is Good. Mentoring Good is Good. Teaching Good is Good. Living Good is Good. Dancing Good [is an added bonus]. And the rewards are Good. So keep up the Good Work!!

May the Good Creator rest the Good Soul of the Good Man- Mandela.

Often, I am accused of factoring out Ethiopia’s violence in my account of how the Eritrean revolution (ghedli) came to be. There are three types of “violence” the accusers have in mind:

a) that Haile Selassie unilaterally abrogated the federal arrangement, a systematic violence that targeted both the autonomy and democratic system of Eritrea entailed in that arrangement;

b)that the Ethiopian occupation was a colonial one, a pervasive violence with all or most of the colonial characteristics that colonizers in Africa displayed towards their colonial subjects;

c) and that the Ethiopian army committed numerous atrocities through the duration of the ghedli era – mass killings, imprisonments, burning of villages, destruction of property, etc – that drove many to join the revolution.

The second is blatantly false, for the stark dichotomy between the colonizer and the colonized that defined the rest of colonial Africa was entirely absent in Eritrea, and I have argued so before. The first and third did indeed take place, but don’t provide the necessary rationale for the revolution of independence. If there are any causes for the Eritrean revolution, justified or not, we have to seek them outside those parameters set by the violence factor as invoked by Eritrean nationalists.

I have always regarded (a) and (c) untenable arguments in the most obvious way that I have felt they didn’t require article-length responses until I saw a brilliant commentator by the penname of “Serray” using these very arguments to point out the failures of my omissions [1]. It is not that I didn’t address these issues before, but it was done either tangentially in some of my articles or in comments as responses to queries by readers in my blog. And when it comes to the first one, a greater part of my article, (II) The Circular Journey in Search of Asmara, [2] can also be construed as a supplemental argument to that. Now though, after Serray’s and others’ similar comments, I feel that it would require responding to (a) and (c) in article format to address the points marshaled in regard to the violence factor by those who feel that ghedli was a necessity borne out of these kinds of violence; and, hopefully, my stand on this matter will be made clear at the end.

In this posting, I will deal with (a) only: on the unilateral annulment of the federal arrangement by Haile Selassie as a cause for the Eritrean revolution. The following argument doesn’t try to strictly follow the strictures entailed in Serray’s analysis; I would rather adopt a general approach that responds to relevant hypothetical questions in regard to the subject matter to reach a larger audience. In the end, I will address his question in a more direct fashion.

[What has made me post this article (and its sequel) in awate.com are Slah Younis’ goodwill gesture, Serray’s reprimand and Beyan Negash’s prodding. With that spirit, let me say to everyone: Happy Holidays!]

You cannot give what you don’t have

The sheer farce of the federal arrangement is to be seen in the discordant nature of the arrangement itself: the UN handed Eritrea a democratic system (complete with a constitution, parliamentary procedure, free elections, free press, independent judiciary, autonomous governing body, etc), but ironically made an absolute monarch a warden of that constitution. Now I am not concerned about the fate the constitution, for it had been designed to be dead on arrival. What I am wondering is how the monarch was, per impossible, supposed to find a place for a democratic constitution in his imperial domain – the question is addressed to all those who share this fallacious premise that the task was indeed doable. It is like asking a guy with a small garage designed for a tiny car to find a parking place for a huge truck in that same garage. If these disproportionate demands were to be forced upon the garage owner and the Emperor, both the garage and imperial structures would have to be dismantled to accommodate the truck and the constitution respectively. If there is such thing as working in total bad faith, it would be the UN coming up with this farcical arrangement in the first place.

The farcical element in this deal can be teased out by asking this question: How was it possible for Imperial Ethiopia to let Eritrea have a federal system (and the democratic system that necessarily went with it) while it had none for itself? How was it possible for it to give what it didn’t possess? How was it possible for an absolute monarchy to accommodate an island of democratic enclave within its imperial domain? Anybody that entertained such an idea to begin with was either immensely naive or criminally irresponsible. While the former describes the state of mind of many Eritrean elite who have made that annulment their battle cry for half a century (especially the nationalist historians), the latter description fits well the UN. Even as the UN architects knew that the federal arrangement under such a condition was unsustainable, they failed to come up with any other formula because they were anxious to get rid of the Eritrean problem from their hands as soon as possible.

Most of the Eritrean nationalists, having already uncritically accepted the above mentioned untenable assumption – namely, that the UN mission was doable – have even tried to make a connection between the annulment of the federal arrangement and the “colonial nature” of the Haile Selassie reign over Eritrea. This comes from a completely wrong understanding of the nature of colonialism.

A colonial system is characterized by a striking duality between the colonizer and the colonized, with the former getting all the privileges and the latter all the deprivations. Under such a system, democratic deprivation can be categorized as a quintessentially paradigmatic colonial tool because of its systematic nature that touches everything in the life of the subject. For instance, while colonial powers like England and France were practicing full-blown democracy in their own countries, thus maximally privileging the subject in the metropolis, they were denying those very rights in their overseas colonies, thus maximally depriving the colonial subject. A clear cut example would be the case of Apartheid South Africa, where both the colonized and the colonizer shared the same space: while the minority whites were practicing full blown democracy within their own insulated community, they were denying the majority blacks such a democratic privilege. Given this, the reason why democratic deprivation (as it occurred with the annulment of the federal arrangement) doesn’t count as a colonial tool in Ethiopia’s case was simply because the monarchy was not denying Eritreans democratic rights that it was reserving for Ethiopians only. There was a more pragmatic reason for this that the Eritrean elite failed to see because it didn’t fit with the ghedli narrative they wanted to weave: the monarchy annulled the federal arrangement mainly because, if left unchallenged, it would eventually lead to its own demise, as others parts of Ethiopia would no doubt have sooner or later demanded for the same rights. This puts the colonial question that most Eritreans are enamored with on its head: while colonial nations like England and France didn’t want democracy to spread from the metropolis to the colonies, the Ethiopian monarch didn’t want democracy to spread from Eritrea (supposedly the colony) to Ethiopia (supposedly the metropolis) – you can see the absurdity of the nationalists’ claim when their ascribed colonial terms are discordantly superimposed on this diametrically opposite order to the colonial one.

Recognizing the federal arrangement problem for what it actually was – that it was a national one (Ethiopian) rather than one confined to Eritrea only – would have been the first step in finding a solution. Of course, typical of the Eritrean elite’s mentality, they didn’t even want to share their problem with the rest of Ethiopia; that would, unwittingly, equalize them with the rest of Ethiopia, and the “uniqueness” of Eritreans would be lost – the first traces of the colonial mentality to emerge to the surface.

The colonial mind at work

If the Eritrean elite were capable of looking at this problem as a national one (as encompassing the whole of Ethiopia), then the nature of the problem would have readily offered a way out of the debacle: the only way Eritrea could have attained democracy was by having a democratic Ethiopia. Similarly, the only way Eritrea could have had a federal arrangement is by having it implemented throughout Ethiopia. By the same token, it would be absurd to attempt the converse: to hold on to one’s enclave of autonomy and democracy in a domain ruled by absolute monarchy. The irony is that it takes a colonial mind to attempt such a quixotic act: for to think that the Ethiopians were incapable of democratizing themselves (as the “founding fathers” did) was to confine that democratic attribute to Eritreans only, the same way the colonial powers did in regard to themselves vis-à-vis their subjects in the colonies.

That colonial mentally of the “founding fathers” is unwittingly, but nevertheless succinctly, captured by Saleh Younis [3]:

 “…  The other half (Ibrhaim Sultan/Adulkadir Kebire at the UN and Woldeab Woldemariam in his writings) argued that  Ethiopia was more feudal, more primitive, less industrialized, less developed, and less democratic than Eritrea and it would slow down Eritrea’s progress.”

Notice, again, how deep the colonial nature of the above statement is, that being the genesis of what turned out to be the master argument of the Eritrean revolution.. The main argument provided by colonial powers why they were not allowing democracy in their overseas colonies was that Africans were incapable of handling democracy, that they were like children that needed constant guidance and supervision – or to put it in Saleh’s term, that they were “primitive” (a thoroughly colonial term of the first order). And the irony is that this happens to be the very same argument that these “founding fathers” marshaled to argue for independence from a supposedly colonial nation. The audacity is that they did it, among other places, on the UN podium! That tells us how much they had internalized the colonial assumptions of Italian occupation that they were not even aware of the contradictions their stand carried as a people demanding liberation in a language steeped with colonial vocabulary.

The Muslim League in particular was notorious in deploying the master argument. Even though it mainly used a different argument within its constituency or among the Arabs and Pakistani (namely, the Islamic identity of the nation) to argue for independence, it never failed to invoke the master argument whenever it wanted to convince those it considered outsiders, be it the West, the UN or Kebessa Eritreans. If one takes a cursory look at the Muslim League’s literature in that era, it is rather astounding to see how this argument was used ad nausea. Reference to Ethiopia as “backward”, “feudal”, “medieval”, “uneducated”, “uncivilized”, “ignorant”, “primitive”, “archaic”, “inferior”, etc was frequent not only in its newsletter, but also in its correspondence with UN authorities. Joseph XXX, despite his very sympathetic reading of the Muslim League, doesn’t fail to detect this phenomenon: [4]

“… Taking their [the Muslim League’s] rhetoric a step further before the commission representative again couched their goals as a movement to build a ‘modern’ Eritrean nation against rather return to the archaic system in Abyssinian tradition ‘it is certain that the Amharics are primitive. Their administration – which is based on ignoble dictatorship – is that of a very remote past, and can be compared to the Middle Ages.’ …”

Despite Italy’s grim educational legacy, the Muslim League kept on hammering that imagined superiority, “it is known and admitted by all reasonable men, that it is not right to place a Nation which enjoys a standard of education and equality under an inferior nation” [5] And when the argument was mixed with Islamism, as it often did, the Muslim League put it this way [6]:

“Now the Eritrean People has achieved a certain intellectual evolution by its contact with the civilized nations, and for that it has today a level of education superior to that of the Ethiopian people. To this should be added the equity and equality amongst the Moslems did not exist in Ethiopia where the traces of Middle Ages still exist today”

The Kebessa separatists were soon to buy into the master argument; but unlike the Muslim elite’s case, it was also used for internal consumption to convince one another, and remained to be a signature of the Kebessa-led liberation movement through the duration of ghedli. Once internalized, they were to remain captive to the sense of betterment they got from their colonial heritage long after the Muslim elite were to walk away from it to fully embrace the Islamic/Arab cause. Thus, the genesis of the bifurcation of the Eritrean cause that characterized mieda Eritrea is to be found in the Muslim League’s literature of the ’40s and ’50s, Janus-faced as it was to appeal to two audiences with little shared concern except that imagined superiority. 

From the above, it is clear what the modernist blinkers that prevented Eritreans from looking at the problem as a national one encompassing the whole of Ethiopia had been: a reaction to modernity brought about by colonialism that turned defensively religious, on one hand, and facilely “modern”, on the other hand. Had the Eritrean dissenters turned their issue into a national one, there is no doubt that they would have done what the Emperor feared most: they would have been able to spread the “Eritrean problem” to the whole nation. That is, the call for decentralization and democratization would have appealed to the rest of Ethiopia too; probably even more so than in Eritrea itself, where the oppression was mostly imagined (take, for instance, Southern Ethiopia and the land issue as a point of comparison). And they would have done that without the prohibitive cost it demanded of them to be where they are now, since the sacrifice would have been shared by the rest of Ethiopia.

The Eritrean elite who opted for separation didn’t take the “national route” because they were looking at the federal arrangement not for its liberating and reciprocal aspects but as a means that would keep them distanced from Ethiopia, even as they were not happy with the distance they eked out of such an arrangement; for them, Ethiopia was still too close for comfort. With the demise of the arrangement, they found a perfect pretext to get as far away as possible from that entity they believed to be too habesha (too Christian for the Muslim elite, and too backward for the Kebessa elite) to be associated with.

One needs to look at how the federal arrangement was looked at by the UN and by the two main adversary groups – the Union Party and the Muslim League – to grasp the extent of the lethal misconception of what it stood for by all parties involved.

The nondemocratic appeal of the federal arrangement

When the United Nations proposed federation with Ethiopia, it was not because any one of those movements that mushroomed in that era (Union Party, Muslim League, Pro-Italia, Liberal Progressive Party, etc) had proposed it; they didn’t even have a full grasp of the liberal and reciprocal possibilities that such an arrangement held to entertain it as a truly viable option. The UN came with the federal arrangement as a compromise solution to the demands of two large blocs: while the overwhelming majority of the Kebessa elite (the Union Party) wanted to have an unconditional union with Ethiopia, the overwhelming majority of the Muslim elite (the Muslim League) wanted total independence from Ethiopia. Both parties saw the problem as that of proximity: while the Unionists wanted to come as close to Ethiopia as possible, union being the most ideal outcome, the Muslim elite wanted to be as far away from Ethiopia as possible, separation being the best outcome. The UN saw this mentality for what it was, and offered a solution that took this “proximity problem” to its heart, while still meeting Ethiopia’s demand for access to the sea.

By coming up with the federal arrangement, the UN was meant to strike the middle. But the UN solution was no solution at all; it was a perverse Solomonic judgment: two children had to be sliced to create a new child called “federation” that no one wanted – not the UN, not Ethiopia, not the Unionists, not the Muslim League. How so?

The UN’s callous solution

When the UN came with its “solution”, none of the architects could have honestly believed that it would hold for long. The idea that somehow a federal system where Eritrea would have a vibrant democracy with an autonomous governing body would be left to work within an absolute monarchy would be a cruel joke played upon those with vested interest on this arrangement (if there were any), given that it was structured in such a way that it would be impossible to implement it on the ground. If the monarch cannot implement it without destroying his monarchy in the process, why on earth would anyone propose it in the first place?

To reiterate and elaborate on the crucial point: if Eritrea were to continue as a federal region of Ethiopia, complete with its democratic and autonomy privileges, then there is no doubt at all other regions of Ethiopia would sooner or later have demanded the same treatment. And in those regions that border Eritrea such as Tigray, Wollo and Begemider, the clamor for autonomy would have been the loudest.  Other places such as Gojjam, a region that had a semi-autonomous existence with its own king in the not-so-distant past, would have followed soon. The whole of South, with a lot of unattended and festering grievances, would have joined this clamor as soon as it was heard from the vocal North.

And this spread of discontent wouldn’t have taken the shape of regional loyalty only: one could easily imagine whatever gain garnered among the civic society in Asmara would also be demanded in Addis Ababa. For instance, Ethiopia couldn’t have allowed labor union in Eritrea without allowing the same thing in Ethiopia, for the latter would have no doubt demanded for the same rights. The same would have happened with the free press: if it had been allowed to continue for some time in the federated area, there would be no way such freedom could have been curtailed to Eritrea only. And more so with the language issue: if Eritrea were to retain Tigrigna and Arabic, not only would others demand the same rights regarding their indigenous languages (Tigreans, Oromos, Somali, etc), who is to prevent the Muslim elite in Ethiopia demanding Arabic as their national language (based on the same tenuous arguments that Eritrean Muslims do – think, for instance, about Harari Muslims)? The language predicament that the monarch faced could probably be better grasped by focusing on a language that has no respect for borders, the Tigrigna language: how would it be possible for the monarch to confine the Tigrigna language as an official one to Eritrea only while denying it to a much larger Tigrigna-speaking people just beyond the Mereb River? It wouldn’t have been long before the Tigreans demanded the same linguistic privilege.

It is easy to figure out from that above observations that keeping Eritrea autonomous and democratic would have opened a Pandora’s Box that would have eventually unraveled the monarchy. Given that, Haile Selassie’s move was not only understandable, but also inevitable. This is the conclusion that anyone with a modicum of political knowledge could have easily reached at the very moment the UN proposed it. Sure enough, the architects of this “compromise” were much more sophisticated than that, but they were looking for any reason to get rid of the “Eritrean problem” from the hands of the UN – one of the many colonial problems that the UN was juggling with at that time.

Given the above, for anyone to accuse Haile Selassie of unilaterally abrogating the federal system would be intellectual dishonesty; for, to assert that, one has to assume that there was a way the Emperor could have left the federal system in Eritrea intact and still prevailed as absolute monarch in the rest of Ethiopia. If so, what should have been the focus of scrutiny is not why Haile Selassie annulled the arrangement but why the UN in the first place came up with such an undoable compromise.

So the bottom line is this: the UN offered Eritrea the federal arrangement not because of the intrinsic values such an arrangement carried (how could that be if it was not doable), but because it would allow it to dispose Eritrea as quickly as it could; that is to say, faced with two irreconcilable demands, it used this supposedly intermediate solution as a tool of disposal.

How about the two adversaries – the Union Party and the Independence Block? What was their take on the federal arrangement? Did they see it for the intrinsic liberating and reciprocal values it carried?

The Unionists’ understanding of the federal arrangement

With the federal arrangement, although both adversary groups didn’t achieve what they aimed for, neither stopped from trying to reach its ideal distance. That is to say, neither the Unionists nor the Muslim League followers cherished the federal arrangement for its liberating aspects; instead, both saw it in terms of distance that had to be either overcome or maintained.

When the Unionists saw the federal arrangement in positive light, they took it as an intermediary step that would eventually culminate in union with Ethiopia; that is, as a welcome step in the right direction, in the sense that it saved them from the dreaded other option of total separation from Ethiopia, but nevertheless a step that had to be eventually overcome. And when they began to see it negatively (that is when it was already in place and seemed irrevocable), it was as an obstacle that was preventing them from coming closer to Ethiopia – and that is where the nuances of the annulment of the federal arrangement gets lost among the Eritrean elite.

If the Unionists had the vested interest in dismantling the federal arrangement, it doesn’t make sense to attribute all the blame to Haile Selassie only. But don’t tell that to the Eritrean elite, who want to discount, at best, or totally leave out, at worst, the role played by Eritreans (and the Eritrean parliament) in dissolving the arrangement. The Unionists, who made the largest party and the one in power at that time, were forcefully behind the drive for unification.  What is more, it is the Unionists that were more zealous than the Ethiopian government in bringing the federal arrangement to a quick end, sometimes at a pace that even the Ethiopian authorities were uncomfortable with (diplomatically, the Ethiopian authorities were astute enough not to aggravate the British or the UN on this matter until opportune time was found). Where the latter advised caution, the Eritreans were running ahead at full speed in this dismantling race. But that doesn’t mean that Haile Selassie wouldn’t have eventually abrogated the federal system; he necessarily would. But the claim that he unilaterally annulled the federal arrangement is bogus; he did it with full collaboration of the party that was in power then, and by extension, with overwhelming majority of Kebessa (and a minority of lowlanders) supporting the move. After all, even though by then it was a fait accompli, the formal vote for union in the Eritrean parliament was unanimous. [7]

With union, the Unionists reached their ideal distance; that is, no distance at all. Even though the honeymoon between Ethiopia and Kebessa was not to last long, at its time union was a goal that the Kebessa elite cherished most, with the distance between them and Ethiopia reaching its disappearing point.

The Muslim League’s understanding of the federal arrangement

The Muslim elite’s defense of the federal arrangement was not because of any democratic scruples; as in the case of their Christian counterparts, they saw the arrangement only in terms of distance. When they saw it in positive light, it was as the lesser evil of the two options: federalism or union/partition. If it was up to them, it was complete separation from Ethiopia as one entity that they wanted. So the only reason why they wanted to keep the federal arrangement was because they believed it to be the only buffer zone that would maintain the minimal safe distance from Ethiopia under the then prevailing circumstances. With that buffer zone in place, they meant to safeguard Islamic identity; the Muslim League’s self-appointed national assignment being how to hold Eritrea together through the grid of Islamic identity, with Islamic institutions and the Arabic language buttressing that grid. Union with Ethiopia or partition of the nation into two would go against the very structure of that grid, the former by eliminating it and the latter by breaking it. And when the buffer zone was gone, they wanted to put the biggest distance possible and hence their preference for the war of separatism.

The failure in understanding the true nature of the federal arrangement was even worse among the Muslim elite who, in their allergy to anything habesha, also failed to see the gains that would come as being part of a larger entity. In the federal arrangement, all they saw was that by maintaining it they would be able to cut their losses; they couldn’t see any dividend coming out from being part of that larger entity. Even the merchants (a profession that was dominated by Muslims, and especially the Jeberti, as a result of the Italian legacy) who profited the most out of this arrangement never saw this advantage for what it actually was (except for a few Massawa merchants, perhaps due to a somewhat cosmopolitan past). When later the Kebessa students joined their Muslim counterparts in the separatist movement, they carried this fallacious assumption – that it is only the case that Ethiopia needs Eritrea – through the duration of ghedli. The idea that Eritrea too needs Ethiopia was unbearable to them, that being the root of the self-reliance mantra that ghedli was to embrace. If so, one needs to look at a compromise of a different sort in the nature of the federal arrangement that the Eritrean elite failed to understand – its reciprocal aspect.

When a people enter a federal arrangement, they retain some of their autonomy while sacrificing the rest for a greater return in other aspects that are no less necessary: the larger the federal system, the more the resources, the bigger the market, the greater the prosperity, the better the security, etc. – whose deprivations in all cases mark the Eritrean state now. And the poorer and more insecure a nation gets, the less likelihood for democracy to take hold in the land – another apt description of the Eritrean state now. Even the very idea of federalism itself has a greater chance of success in a larger nation, where viable federal entities could be constructed. That the federal question that is now haunting Eritrea (as demanded by minorities) can only be made workable within a larger entity was lost on many of those same minorities that were vocal in their demand for independence. The Unionists never made this mistake in its totality as the separatists did; they felt that they needed Ethiopia as much as it needed them, although never fully grasping the reciprocal possibilities it entailed to the extent they should have. [8]

If one looked at the federal system as an obstacle to reach the farthest distance possible (as the Independence Bloc did), then we have a readily available answer why the separatists never wanted to make the Eritrean federal problem a national one: it would bring them closer to Ethiopia. For the Muslim League, whose idea of keeping the farthest distance from Ethiopia simultaneously meant reaching the closest distance to the Arab world, the idea of a federal system that encompasses all of Ethiopia would be tantamount to committing suicide. As for the hapless Kebessa elite who later joined this mission of covering the longest distance without having any clue as to which point they were coming closer to as they kept running away from their roots, they eventually had to invent that proximate point ex nihilo: ghedli itself! Having no clue where they have been heading to, they conflated the ghedli journey with the “Eritrea” that they wanted to reach. That is to say, neither the Muslim nor the Christian separatists saw the federal arrangement for the intrinsic liberal and reciprocal values it carried. The bottom line is that, when everything is put into consideration, the Eritrean elite separatists decided to aim for less at a prohibitive cost, while it could have been the other way round: they could have aimed for more with less sacrifice.

We have seen the farcical nature of the federal arrangement as reflected in each of the players involved in this farce: for the UN it was a means of disposal; for the Emperor, it was a means for eventual unification; for the Unionists too, it was a step stone towards unification; and for the Muslim League followers, it was a buffer zone to be maintained. None of them saw it for its intrinsic liberating value that it could have had for the individual; and, further, the reciprocal nature of the arrangement was totally lost on the separatists.

Lessons unlearned from the federal arrangement farce

The fact that Eritreans failed big time to grasp the farcical nature of the federal arrangement has further given birth to three farces down the road:

(a) The self-reliance farce

As pointed above, the nature of the federal arrangement problem provided a readily available solution. What the Emperor feared most was that the Eritrean problem could spread to the rest of Ethiopia; if he had believed there was a way of confining democracy and autonomy that the federal arrangement entailed to Eritrea only, he would probably have gone for it. This realization would have saved Eritrea from the torturous route it has taken, paying a prohibitive price along the way, to be in the unenviable position it finds itself now. If the Eritrean elite had fully grasped the nature of the problem, even the armed struggle (if it came to that) would have been expedited in a way that would have drastically cut the Eritrean losses – in body count, in demographic loss, in resources spent, in the time it took, in the progress curtailed, etc – and kept all the dividends that come from such a reciprocal federal arrangement.

If so, let’s entertain the seemingly impossible: if the struggle had taken a nationalist bent that included all Ethiopia, what form would it have taken? At no time it would have been picked up by at least three critical bodies to make it succeed in the shortest time possible. First, given the proximity and festering grievances, Tigray would have joined the revolution at the earliest time possible. In fact, if we are to talk in terms of neglect, Tigray was more neglected than Eritrea. Besides, the memory of the first Woyanie movement was still fresh among the Tigrean elite. Wollo, with its recalcitrant famine problem and the Raya-Yeju grievances, was next in line. You could easily imagine how the conflagration would go to other parts of Ethiopia – Begemider, Gojjam, the South, etc. Second, the student body in Ethiopia, in general, and in Addis Ababa, in particular, would have quickly connected to the cause. This is especially true of Addis Ababa students, who were already politicized and had a more cosmopolitan outlook than the provincial Asmarinos. And, third, the army would have been denied the main motive for fighting the Eritrean insurgents: cessation. Sabotage and defection, or even uprising, would have been the hallmarks that would have defined the army. Under this scenario, the Haile Selassie regime would have collapsed at no time. If so, the Eritrean elite by “owning” their revolution, or rather by refusing to share it, they gave the Emperor the best gift they could possibly give to extend his reign.

[I am not mentioning the above scenario because it is my preference. I am only bringing it up to show what could have been better for Eritrea even under the worst scenario if it had taken the national option. As for me, continuity, even under the slowest kind of reforms, outperforms the interruptions brought about by armed revolutions in our region. I honestly believe that, had it not been for ghedli, Eritrea would have continued to make progress it had already registered under Haile Selassie reign – that is, even after annexation. I would rather bet on the course of that evolutionary process rather than on the revolutionary road of the clueless ghedli generation.]

The ironic part is that the Eritrean elite came in the end to understand that unless the revolution goes trans-national, there was no way they could win the war. As Zekre Lebona reminds us in one of his latest articles, the war that defeated the Menghistu regime was not an intra-national alliance between Kebessa and Metahit, but a trans-national alliance between EPLF and EPRDF. [9] Pushed to its logical end, here is the discordant picture that we get: a people that have natural affinity to one another fought together (as they did throughout the centuries) to bring forth the reality of a colonial map that lacks the internal logic that such an alliance carried. That is to say, even though the Eritrean elite got it right when they sought the alliance, they failed to grasp its underlying logic in its totality. They missed the main point: if the war of independence would have been impossible without that trans-national alliance, then the nation-state itself would also be rendered untenable without the enduring presence of that alliance. With the lesson of the federal arrangement lost on them, they acted as if it was only Ethiopia that needed them. The border war happens to be the consequence of that lethal misunderstanding.

The ghedli generation is rather famous for inanely believing that it is Ethiopia that needed Eritrea, and not that both needed each other. The overemphasis on wedebatna, out of all other national “treasures”, to show the coherence of the demand for independence comes from having totally failed to grasp the reciprocal nature of the federal arrangement. All that the Eritreans could see from the logic of wedebatna was that Ethiopia would remain dependent on them. When this belief becomes a state of mind, one can easily detect its colonial nature. Despite the obviousness of it all, the colonial powers preached that the colonies depended on them. There is one critical difference though: while the colonial powers used force to enforce that “dependence”, Eritrea is unraveling in the very process of doing so. This is, indeed, the appropriate end when a colonial mentality follows the opposite direction to the colonial power order.

(b) The constitution farce

You would think that if Eritreans had learned the lessons of the farce of federal arrangement, they wouldn’t have repeated the same mistakes in regard to the current shelved-off constitution. Notice how the new Eritrean constitution starts with a similar farce. First, a brand new constitution is offered to the Eritrean masses, the same way the UN did, by muhuran Eritreans without any input from the public (unless you consider the monologs they conducted as dialogs). In this case, it was even worse because the drafters were doing the bidding of Shaebia, which demanded a non-implementable constitution tailor-made to make it look good in the eyes of the West. And, second, true to the old script of the ’50s, the President was made the warden of that constitution. The sad part of that farce is not that Isaias shelved it off (for it was meant to be shelved off), but that one of the main drafters, Dr Bereket Habteselasise, came to disingenuously say “aminayo” – the very same way the UN “trusted” the Emperor to protect the constitution. And the farce goes on when the opposition keep asking the tyrant to implement a constitution that was never meant to be implemented, when the issue happens to be the very survival of the nation, thereby humanizing a totalitarian system by their discordant demand – the same way the elite kept reminding Eritreans of the unilateral annulment of the federal arrangement as the cause for their revolution as if there was a way to implement it, thereby rendering the national option impossible to entertain for the average Eritrean. In both instances, it is clear to see that rallying around the constitution couldn’t be done without hiding or sidelining a deeper problem. So in realty, what are getting shelved off are not the constitutions (for, given the inevitability, that is the least interesting aspect of them), but the deeper possibilities hidden by such shelving off.

The Eritrean nationalists never tire from telling us that, given the dismantling of the federal arrangement, Eritreans were justified in conducting a 30 year war of independence. Well, let’s take them at their words, and see where it ought to take them in regard to their actions based on that belief. Now, if they are to be consistent with their belief, one would expect that they would react to the “unilateral annulment” of the Eritrean constitution by Isaias Afwerki the same way they did to a similar act by Haile Selassie. Now, given that Shaebia has failed to implement the constitution, first, do we now call Shaebia’s rule as that of colonialism, and, second, do we again conduct a war of cessation (think of those entities that believe self-determination up to cessation is the only way out of their predicament) or, better yet, a war of unification based on that? In support to the latter move, one could argue that since the war of cessation hasn’t brought all the intrinsic values that the federal arrangement carried, maybe the war of unification will do. Now, if you think the latter is absurd, so is the former. This alone would demonstrate how farcical the argument that wants to justify the revolution as being due to annexation is. I know how the nationalists would respond to this family resemblance: that in the case the Isaias regime, the solution is changing the regime. Well and good, but why wasn’t that solution applicable in the case of Ethiopia? There would be no answer to this except for someone to mutely point his/her finger at the colonial map – as the nationalists often do when all their arguments come to a dead end.

(c) The compromise farce

Striking the middle is not necessarily a compromise. If a woman wants to divorce her husband because of irreconcilable difference, a judge cannot come up with a workable compromise that strikes the middle in between her “irreconcilable difference” and her husband’s “reconcilable difference”. For instance, he cannot say, “Well, since the one wants to dissolve the marriage and the other wants to keep it, let’s settle for half-a-marriage.” That is how the UN came with the federal arrangement; a compromise that not only no one wanted, but as non-implementable as half-a-marriage.  After hearing the two parts of Eritrea, one wanting nothing to do with Ethiopia and the other believing that it was part of Ethiopia, it came with a compromise of half-an-Ethiopia that neither of them wanted.

The British came to know Eritreans within that short period of their rule more than Eritreans ever came to know about themselves. That is why the initial British solution was the only one that made sense (even as they had ulterior motive for proposing it): split Eritrea into two, one part going to Sudan and the other part going to Ethiopia. If that was done, we would have been spared from 50 years of insanity. The Muslim elite would have been happy joining their kin in Sudan; at least, until they began to feel the full weight of the Arab identity imposed on them from the North. The Kebessa elite would have remained put in their cities, if for nothing else but for lack of meshefeti; their protest would have been confined to students’ shebero in the streets of Asmara. This way the masses would have been spared from the madness created by the colonial aspirations of the Muslim and Christian elite alike. I know that such a split is not to be entertained now, for so much water has passed under the bridge since then to make things much more complicated than it was then; that is, now there is no other place to start but the default position – Eritrea as is. Yet, the failure of this lesson is to be seen in other similar aspects of the national problem, the most recalcitrant of which is that of “hadnetna”.

Hadnetna, as conceived by both the opposition and supporters of the regime, has always taken the image of that impossible compromise. It is obvious that no one feels “united” under the hade hizbi, hade libi mantra of Shaebia. So was it with the federal arrangement; neither of the two population groups felt united under it. Eritreans are fond of saying that ever since Eritrea was born, they have lived in peace and harmony, and that it is only enemies that divide them. In fact, things tend to be just the other way round. They confuse the kind of “unity” they attained under supervision – first under the Italians, then under the Ethiopians and now under Shaebia – for real unity. It is like attributing good behavior to children observed only under the supervision of their teacher. This is so because in those rare instances when there was no such supervision, the evidence belies the claim the Eritreans make: neither during the ghedli era nor now in diaspora (two cases where they were/are totally independent to display their unity without “alien” supervision) have Eritreans shown the slightest inclination to get united. Instead of asking themselves what this recalcitrant problem is, they keep hiding it under the rug of a non-existent “hadnetna”.

Moreover, what the belief in the non-existent hadnetna does is make the believers assign hefty tasks such as regime change and stability of the nation to such an internal variable only. They don’t realize that change, be it forceful or peaceful, cannot be entertained without the good will of Ethiopia. And much more so with the stability of the nation: again, after change, there is no way that the economic, security and political stability of the nation could be attained without a critical role played by Ethiopia. What this tells us is that even as an independent nation, Eritrea will not escape the reciprocal bondage that it existence demands. For those who keep harping on hadnetna, this is totally lost on them.

Confusing temporal order with conceptual order 

Let me now go back to Serray’s comment that inspired this article. In this entire article I have been responding only to one of the three accusations leveled against me when it comes to Ethiopian violence: the unilateral annulment of the federal arrangement by Haile Selassie. Here is how Serray puts it [10]:

“… In fact, Haile Selassie’s unilateral annexation is the REAL cause of the armed struggle and the real reason why those who started the struggle went seeking Arab help to launch the fight …”

And then he goes on to reprimand me for having not ceded this point and for having, instead, futilely trying to locate the cause in the “colonial mentality” of the ghedli generation, Christians and Muslims alike. He is saying that, when it comes to the Muslim elite, it is not the colonial Islamic/Arab cause that I attribute to them that caused the struggle, but that it was the annexation that drove them to seek help in Islamic/Arabic world. In short, he is accusing me of putting the cart before the horse. But he is also making a bigger point: that given this temporal order, the Islamic/Arab cause that I have been harping about never existed then, and doesn’t exist now.

Although Serray is right to point the annexation as a triggering point for the struggle, there are two logical flaws in his argument: first, he fails to see which aspect of federal arrangement was appealing to those who started the revolution and hence whose deprivation became their rallying cry; and, second, he confuses the temporal order of one (the revolution) following the other (annexation) for a conceptual order. Let me explain:

For the temporal order to work as a causal order, Serray has to argue as if the Muslim elite who rose up in arms did cherish the federal arrangement for the right reasons: for its liberal (democracy and autonomy) and reciprocal values. If that was the case, they would have attained it at a lesser cost and ended up with a better deal if they had not jealously confined the problem to Eritrea only. But if it is the distance they wanted to traverse from the habesha world that became their main motive, then the Islamic/Arab cause becomes as tangible as it could possibly get. If so, it follows that if there was a way of gaining that distance by losing their democratic rights, their autonomy and the reciprocal gains (all three entailed in the federal arrangement), they would have naturally gone for it – and, in fact, that is exactly what they have ended up doing, although so far without success in attaining their ideal distance.                                                                              

If so, the temporal order of Ethiopia’s annulment of the federal arrangement followed up with the Muslim elite seeking help in the Arab world shouldn’t be confused for a conceptual order. The triggering point should not be confused for the cause; even as in this case the triggering point happened to overlap with the cause in its structure, it doesn’t mean the cause was not there before the triggering point. That deep urge to traverse the longest distance from the habesha world, something that could be only attained in its totality by joining the Arab world, was there long before the Federal Arrangement itself: that was what the Muslim League had been all about. And if we look at the Egyptian role, we have to look at the pre-annexation era, before 1962, to see how pan-Arabism deeply influenced the Eritrean Muslim elite who were flocking to Cairo in the federation era. So contra to what Serray claims, the cause was there long before the annexation. In fact, Egypt began to be disengaged from the Eritrean cause after annexation, after which the Arab cause as it pertains to Eritrea was to be taken up by Syria and Iraq (and to a lesser extent, by Libya).

Serray makes the same mistake when it comes to the issue of Kebessa students: he confuses the Afagn terror in Asmara followed up by Asmara students fleeing to mieda in large numbers for a conceptual order. While this rationale fails to explain how a similar phenomenon took place in towns and cities across Eritrea that had experienced no Afagn terror, the conceptual one does. The conceptual explanation does that by locating the cause to the colonial mentality of the ghedli generation. I will try to address this issue in my installment on the violence of the Ethiopian army.

So far, I have only argued that the annulment of the federal arrangement, as articulated by Eritrean nationalists, couldn’t be the cause of the revolution. But Serray’s point goes beyond that: that the colonial mentality that I attribute to the Muslim elite as a cause for the revolution is purely in my imagination. In this article, I have refrained of saying much about that colonial mentality. Since already this article has run too long by awate.com’s standards, I will deal with that concern in another article.

Conclusion

We have seen above how the Eritrean nationalists have made annexation their revolutionary battle cry as if they have grasped what it was that they have lost with the annulment of the federal arrangement. Eritreans seem to be fond of attributing to themselves whatever that is grafted on them from outside so far as those grafters are considered superior, be it the colonial heritage from Italy, a brand new constitution from the UN or democratic institutions enabled and supervised by the British. That is, the “civilization” that the Muslim League was unabashedly attributing to Eritrea was only knee-deep, never to be witnessed again in mieda or liberated Eritrea. Let me leave the reader with an extensive quote from Tekeste Negash to underscore the farce of such an understanding [11]

“The democratic institutions, which the Ethiopian government was accused of dismantling were not institutions created by Eritreans themselves but were superimposed on the Eritrean society by the UN agencies. The freedom of political opinion which indeed prevailed in Eritrea, once again, came into existence and was made possible by the presence of the BMA [British Military Administration]. Without the decision of the BMA to engage the Eritreans in the future of their country, and without the presence and supervision of the BMA, there would not have been an open society during the 1947-52 period. To the extent that the structures of a civil society as we experience them in Western hemisphere are the culmination of processes which began several centuries ago, it would be preposterous to expect the ex-Italian colony to indulge in such exercise. It would be distortion of dangerous magnitude to argue that the Eritreans had in fact more advanced political institutions, as many of the propounders of Eritrean nationalism have done.”

Reference                

[1] On the comment section of Younis, Saleh; Yohaness Tukabo and the King’s Men; Nov 24, 2013, awate.com. The comment was posted on Nov 27, 2013.

[2] Ghebrehiwet, Yosief; (II) The Circular Journey in Search of Asmara, Oct 23, 2012; asmarino.com

[3] Younis, Saleh; De-Romanticizing Ghedli: Serving A Toxic Brew To The Young And The Disillusioned; June 24, 2009, awate.com.

[4] Venosa, Joseph L.; Paths toward the Nation: Islamic Identity, the Eritrean Muslim League and Nationalist Mobilization, 1941-61; 211 Dissertation, Ohio University; p.143. The quote within the quote atributed to the Muslim League had its reference: Four Power Commission, Appendix 169 “Summary of Views of Representatives Hearing at Agordat (Agordat District),” 2.

[5] Four Power Commission, Appendix 165, “To: the Hon. International Commission of Investigation,” 3. (as quoted by Venosa, Joseph L., p. 145).

[6] Ibid. (as quoted by Venosa, Joseph L., p.145).

[7] Negash, Tekeste; Eritrea and Ethiopia: The Federal Experience; 1997.

[8] Ghebrehiwet, Yosief; (II) The Circular Journey in Search of Asmara.

[9] Lebona, Zekre; Cutting It Both Ways across the Mereb River; Dec 03, 2013; asmarino.com.

[10] On the comment section of Younis, Saleh; Yohaness Tukabo and the King’s Men.

[11] Negash, Tekeste; Eritrea and Ethiopia: The Federal Experience; p.144.

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