A Founding Father Leaves The Stage

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Al-Nahda

By Saleh AA Younis
Dec 21, 2005, 20:51 PST

A common analogy of Isaias Afwerki is that he is the “George Washington of Eritrea.” They mean that just as the United States could not have come about without the leadership of General George Washington, Eritrea could not become a nation without Tegadalai Isaias Afwerki. Many quibble with this on technical grounds, pointing out to all the differences between Washington and Isaias. I am not one of them: give the man his due. My bitterness is of a different sort: where are Eritrea’s Madisons, Jeffersons, Adams, and Franklins? Can you imagine what direction the United States would have taken if Washington had arrested, killed, exiled or emasculated the entire “founding fathers” class?

Assemble, in your head, an Eritrean Baito (assembly). Mine would include virtually everybody who had a leadership position in the ELF or EPLF. Now, now, you say, you are taking the short-cut, we should first select the ones that are truly committed to democracy, the assembly is not a reward for service, it is where democrats practice democracy. Hey, that is in your assembly. In my assembly, the first one, the one of unity government before the constitution is drafted/ratified, it would have people who have demonstrated by deed what patriotism really means. To give up comfort, give up family, all for an impossible ideal, what better founding fathers/mothers can a nation hope to have to inspire its youth. They would set the tone of the nation.

You won’t find this in Michela Wrong’s book, but February 1975, for those old enough to remember, was yet another gigantic step in having the Eritrean revolution taken seriously by the world. That’s when the ELF conducted two raids in Asmara and Adiquala and freed hundreds of prisoners, including political prisoner and ELF activist Seyoum Ogbamichael. This was very impressive for children who used to sing:

ane inte zkhewin; Shambel nai tseserat
naSa mbelkuwom; nezom kulom usurat

The children grew and joined the Eritrean field en masse, each sacrifice a building block for Eritrea. Seyoum’s release was just in time for the ELF to begin the process of liberating lands, with King Haile Selase deposed and an uncertain Derg mired in Red Terror, Ogaden and shopping for an ideology in the Soviet Bloc. There were liberated lands to be administered and cadres to be oriented. Then came successive events that made Seyoum the voice of the ELF (at least in the radio): the unity talks with the EPLF, the burgeoning falul movement. To Seyoum and the ELF, this was a “principled” approach but to many of us, not intimately familiar with all the inner workings, the language appeared absolutists, take-it-or-leave-it.

Then came the push of the ELF and its splintering. Things were never as clear then as they appear to be in retrospect. Play any word association with an ELF veteran: say “Seyoum” and he will say “Weldedawit” and the reverse is also true. They were that close, childhood friends, then ELF combatants. But the splinter divided even them—with Weldedawit opting to stay with ELF, led by Abdella Idris, the “coup d’etat engineer” according to RC and “leader of the popular uprising”, according to ELF. Weldedawit was killed in Sudan, mysteriously of course, as many others who are now sharing the all-purpose title, “martyred.”

I met the late Seyoum Ogbamichael in San Jose, in the residence of a long-time ELF-RC activist in June 2001 for an interview. It had been a year since the war with Ethiopia ended and the G-15 had just issued their Open Letter. There was a strong sense of the possible—Eritrea had a private press, the December 2001 elections hadn’t been cancelled yet, and the Alliance was actually getting bigger and stronger. It was our short-lived spring.

The interview, now translated and published in English, was conducted in Tigrigna. Which brings us to the first strength of the man: language. The ease and the felicity with which he would marshall out the words, always the rights words, was magnetic. This is a talent he shares with two of his contemporaries—Isaias Afwerki and Herui Tedla Bairu. But unlike you know who, put-downs and insults were not mandatory component of his speech (although, as Falul learned, he had the arsenal if needed) and unlike you know who, he didn’t feel compelled to invent new words in each speech.

Affectionately, my friends and I use one of Seyoum’s contributions—“lekhe”—which, as far as anybody else was concerned was used only as a suffix to Alem, as in alem-lekhe, or “worldwide.” Seyoum used to apply the suffix to Hager as in “hager-lekhe,” nationwide, prompting us to copy him and say things like “Ketema-lekhe”, “geza-lekhe.”

The other strength was his optimism. You couldn’t read despair or discouragement in his face or body language. The world around him could be crumbling but he was a pillar of strength, his persona matching his size, broad-shouldered and clear-eyed.

He also had a sense of humor and a thick skin, a rarity for our political leaders. An Awate reportage on Seyoum’s visit to Oakland, California on March 3, 2002 included the following:

Appearance-wise, Harestai is an Asmarino, still clinging to his youth: his hair is still pitch-black and he still wears the funky Shaft-in-Africa sunglasses.

There are many thin-skinned opposition figures that would have been offended by this, but not Seyoum. That meeting demonstrated why Seyoum was a leader: consider how he handled invitations to question the Eritreanness of Isaias Afwerki on the basis of the ever boring geneology question (which he brushed off without comment), to downgrade the bonafides of the G-15 (which he gently rejected):

Things grow and evolve. You should see a movement like a river. At its point of origin, it carries with it mud, trees and, sometimes, it even overpowers human beings. But as it gets closer to its destination, things become cleaner, focused and less chaotic. I can assure you, they are evolving. We don’t reach out to them because we want them to lead us or teach us about democracy. We all know that they are byproducts of a different political culture. And we need that voice in our national congress and national reconciliation.

or the claim that the opposition must not have offices in countries with which “Eritrea is at war”:

As for the perception and understanding of our people, our information is that the relationship ebbs and flows but, over time, people are having a better understanding of our position. After all, if we were to pack and leave from every nation that the dictatorship has fought with, we would have no presence in Sudan, in Djibouti, in Yemen, in Ethiopia. Tomorrow morning, if agents of the dictatorship decide to commit an act of terror against the government of Europe, are we supposed to pack and leave too?

As for the PFDJ’s “foreign policy” and why it always results in a standoff (Djibouti, Sudan) or a skirmish (Yemen), or a war (Ethiopia), Seyoum had one of the more candid and lucid explanations that explained that it is a structural problem:

The PFDJ then went about establishing its Mafia economy, its cartel. Using this cartel, Eritrea, which has one of the fewest camels in our area, suddenly became an exporter of camels to nations like Libya; it suddenly was exporting Ethiopia’s sesame, cotton, sugar, pepper, coffee, etc. The cartel had a plan as to what to do about nations who wanted to assert themselves: let’s militarize Eritrea and if anyone dares complain, we can just say “Hooh!” Thus, Sawa. Djibouti stood firm and fought to protect its national interest. So did Yemen. So did Sudan. Sudan was trying to stop the Isaias regime from exploiting Sudanese merchants and hording on camels to be re-sold for hard currency; the “religious extremism” claim was wildly exaggerated. The regime went to an extent of predicting the downfall of the Sudanese regime. Then it was Ethiopia’s turn: the plan was to attack, bring the Ethiopians to the negotiation table, and let the cartel dictate the terms. The assumption was: nobody likes the minority government of the Ethiopian government. The Amhara hate them; the Oromos can’t stand them. It is this deep miscalculation that made Eritrea a bloodbath for two years.

That miscalculation is still evident now as PFDJ is putting its eggs in yet another Ethiopian basket. Or, consider his response to the question of military/peaceful struggle to bring about change:

We believe in political pluralism; we do not believe in military pluralism. Military pluralism is dangerous. Therefore, the organizations that are identified by their different programs, and whose vision of future Eritrea might differ, those forces who are within the Alliance [of Eritrean Opposition Forces], will embrace political pluralism on the basis that the choices of the different programs are to be decided by the Eritrean people and nobody else. We don’t believe in military pluralism and that is why we insist on the formation of a unified army that will be ruled by a national charter. That is our agenda. As far as the Alliance is concerned, this agenda is on the table, and we push for a process that starts from cooperation that will lead to unification.

He also had qualities that many admired as steady and principled which some found representative of that pecuiliar Eritrean trait of stubbornness. Sometimes, it appears that, to our detriment, we Eritreans make no distinction between law and legalism. No need to recite those now, but here is one from Seyoum that is charming enough to be mentioned:

By the way, I consider myself, legally, the President of the Eritrean Peasants Union simply because there was no congress that ended my mandate (zewredeni guba’e sle zeyelo).

We often make the mistake of substituting the man for his title. Sure, Seyoum was the chair of ELF-RC, but he was also a husband and a father. And a son. A couple of years ago, his father, Ato Ogbamichael—who has his own proud history in the Eritrean cause—died in Eritrea. Seyoum, of course, couldn’t visit to pay his respects—such is the “government” we have. I am sure that must have touched him because I remember him telling us, in honor of his father, that he would prefer that we call him not Seyoum “harestai”, not “Seyoum O/Michael” but “Seyoum Ogbamichael.”

Seyoum has passed on to meet with his father, with his friend Weldedawit, with the many cadres and combatants whose lives he touched and was touched by. After a brief rest, he will be organizing a petition to ask God not to forget Eritrea. Seyoum hasn't left us; he will just continue the struggle in a bigger field.

Merry X-mas, happy new year.

sal_younis@hotmail.com