Five Years on: Tribute to a Pioneering Journalist
By Events Monitor - Sep 22, 2006, 15:24 PST
...it was this predisposition to engagement in public affairs and commitment to the welfare of the Eritrean people that led him, after years of exile, to return to Eritrea in the mid-90s and embrace the then nascent independent press. He joined the editorial board of Tsigenai and soon became its chief editor.
The Crow At Forto Baldissera
By Zekre Lebona - Mar 28, 2006, 00:45 PST
In the famous novel about Indonesia, The Year Of Living Dangerously, the protagonist said that the worst aspect of a dictatorship to citizens is their persistent exposure to its constant propaganda. This was during the Sukaron regime. A far worse fate, of course, awaited these same people when several hundred thousands of them were to be slaughtered after the coup. The character's observation reminds me of things I heard years before in Asmera.
In The Verb To Liberate
By Zekre Lebona - Nov 17, 2005, 15:04 PST
In the early days of the mieda, Isaias’ favorite terse phrase thrown to people he considers disloyal was "alekhul-leku tbl alekha." These words often amounted to a death sentence. His henchmen were also often heard repeating these to others. Woe to the person said this to him. Many were to perish later. When saying this, he is virtually questioning your physical existence.
A Nation of Perpetual Sacrificial Lambs
By Events Monitor, Asmara, Eritrea - Nov 5, 2005, 01:18 PST
That is why people like Ahferom Tewelde are burdened with the unenviable task of lecturing bored young audiences about the heroic exploits of life in Mieda. In the same vein come those most bizarre Independence-day shows and parades put up by Ibrahim Akla, Solomon Drar and their friends in ‘Bahlawi Gudayat’ – shows and parades full of dancing tortoises, bees and wasps, weeping lizards and hyenas, and embellished with North Korean antics.
Self-Reliance: Fraudulent Then, A Farce Now
By Zekre Lebona - Sep 5, 2005, 21:28 PST
In the case of the authors of the articles edited under the title, Emergent Eritrea, and published in the mid 1990s, it was opportunism. If the DIA’s “self reliance” claim in the post liberation era was a farce, the gedli era’s propaganda was also a fraudulent. Here are some memory-driven anecdotes to support it.... They called this a reciprocal relationship. I believe they were conned by the EPLF. Extortion was always there. The link between the current coercion practices and the gedli era is apparent. What the West calls “stealing” was, for us, “liberating” it.
Word For Word – III (Quotes from the Eritrean Scene)
By Events Monitor, Asmara - Jul 15, 2005, 15:01 PST
"Netom Halewa ‘mmo men yu kHlwom? (And who is going to watch over the watchdog?). As you can see, we have reached a stage where those entrusted with patrolling the border are, themselves, in need of patrolling." - One of Brig. General Tekhle Manjus’ assistants [name withheld] baffled by escalating numbers of border guards fleeing to Sudan. [A major part of the 1st Command Zone, under General Manjus, is ‘Halewa Dob’ – in charge of patrolling the Eritrea/Sudan border, with the main task of preventing Eritrean youngsters from crossing the border to Sudan].
Awate Book Review: Michela Wrong's "I Didn't Do It For You"
By Burhan Ali - May 13, 2005, 19:03 PST
The style of the book is an old and common style used by writers of the European Romantic movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth century: valid for speaking pompously, but vaguely, about things which one cannot objectify, define or quantify. It is a style of saying things almost poetically in the hope that the charm of the language may stand for truth or, in any case, may transfer feelings the author experiences but can’t intelligibly communicate.
The Stuff We Were Nurtured On
By Zekre Lebona - May 8, 2005, 15:53 PST
The bounty from the salt trade was not entirely forgotten. It surfaced again, after the fall of the Mobutu regime in the then Zaire. Rumors were rife in Asmera about the existence of a huge market for our salt surplus to unload. There are, it was said, mostly through the 09, millions of salt-starved Congolese. Not only that the story goes, our plastic shoes factories will also have to shod the millions of barefoot people from the same country.
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