1) Isaias Afwerki in South Africa, as reported by Students who attended the meeting in Durban, on July 8, 2002:
On When the father of the student asking the question, who happens to be a Muslim, a jailed Eritrean, will be presented to a court of law:
When we feel like it. In a closed session of the Special Court. Do you know Guantanemo, in Cuba? That is where America is holding Taliban prisoners of war. Just like that. They are a national security risk.
On What The Government Is Willing To Do To Stop Brain Drain:
Globalization is Equalizer. If there is money, there is no problem. You can import people. In the past, we looked for and couldn’t find laborers and construction workers. We imported them from Sri Lanka, the Philippines and India. Yesterday, we were looking for five architects and we brought them from the Philippines. If we cannot find a professor, we go to India and import him. So, if one says “I want to go to America,” let him try it.
(2) Mustafa Nurhussein, the Governor of Gash Barka, while hosting a refugee repatriation ceremony, with Isaias Afwerki as guest of honor (as reported by Shaebia.org, in Tigrigna, on 4/4/2002)
Dear guests, praise be that you got to meet the leader of our 30 year Revolution, the heroic combatant, the deliverer of freedom and the current president, the heroic Isaias Afwerki. On your behalf and mine, please permit me to thank the beloved president who, now as ever, having said, on his own initiative, ‘it is a must that I meet with my people who were repatriated; I must spend a day with them and know of their condition’ interrupted his [important] national exertion and volunteered to commit his time and attention to you.
(3) Writing for the Kiddie Website and reporting on the demonstration organized by the opposition in Washington, DC, Sammy G. (one of our favorite Dehai alumni) had this to say about “Semayawit Lemlem”, Eritreans green olives on blue–sea flag that, according to one of his mentors, the murahiq fi’steen, is a UN flag:
Most Americans were infuriated to learn that a bunch of terrorists and traitors were protesting while carrying the American flag and another “strange blue flag” that looked like the one spotted at Tora Bora, Afghanistan. I’m not kidding.
(4) Responding to a reporter’s question that critics says Eritrea’s efforts against AIDS is “too little, too late”, Saleh Mekki, Eritrea’s Health Minster, had the following to say (as reported by Shaebia.org on April 5, 2002)
In the first five years after the liberation the government was fully engaged in the national reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts of the war-devastated infrastructures and communities. We initiated HAMSET Project in 1997, but it could not fully materialize due to the war declared on us by Ethiopia in 1998
(5) In a fascinating case study of how to overhaul the democratic credentials of the Eritrean Government, National Review Online, reported the following on June 10, 2002:
Eritrea is in the middle of local elections, having completed a round in southern regions in the past two weeks, and voting in the remaining areas in the north scheduled for this month. At the national level, the independent Electoral Commission is finalizing plans for a timeline on national Elections.
(6) If you wonder where you got the information that the Eritrean opposition is calling on denying aid to the Eritrean people, you can think people like Gezae Hagos, a Dehai contributor, who changed a afrol news heading of June 12, 2002 from:
“Eritrean Diaspora protests Dutch aid” to “Eritrean Opposition Protests Dutch Aid To The People Of Eritrea.” Never mind that the first paragraph of the news article reads: “Exiled Eritrean opposition parties and NGO's protest against the Netherlands' plans of increasing its economic support to the Eritrean regime.”
(7) The Japanese news outlet, Yomiuri Shimbun, files a report on July 5, 2002 casually demonstrating a blatant case of an Eritrean Diplomat, His "Excellency" Girma Asmerom, going overboard in courting favors from the United States and expressing his eagerness to reduce Eritrea to a vassal state. The interview exposes the PFDJ’s claim of “independence”, “self-reliance” as nothing but hot air when faced with the mighty American Dollar:
Eritrea could also serve a launching point for a future attack on Iraq,
Asmerom said. His argument is that the United States would not have to
conduct sorties from Saudi Arabia, a country whose population
overwhelmingly opposes the presence of U.S. forces in its country. "You
could do it easily from Eritrea and only have to ask for fly-over rights
from the Saudis," he stated.
(8) After the PFDJ-incited violence in London, the pro-government Dehai writers congratulated each other for a job well done:
Dr. Michael Fessehaye came out swinging with the following: Hello London, do you copy? We hear you. Atta Boy, that is the way to go Deki Ere. It is unthinkable the "traitors" will dance over our dead and living Heroes. London, you told them, do not wake up the 'sleeping lion". We hear you and we applaud you. An Adulis Tesfai wrote: I am proud of you and the other eritreans who refuse to attend this pro-weyni metting that was host in london. I am very happy that the meeting was disrupted by true eritreans. W. Habte harangued us with: This is a very good news of the week. We are proud of you guys. They can't underestimate the power of the mass any more. Enough is enough. Hana Kifle contributed: Finally, the secret group (G15/13) has one important task to do. Instead of destroying the image of Eritrea they will be required to fix the destroyed chairs of Islington Green School in London. Thanks to our brothers and sisters in UK, even chairs can fly over Londonnow :) Rahel regaled us with: The traitors got what they deserve. Congratulations, London. What a day! enough is enough we are seek and tired of their lies and betrayal. They declare war on Eritrea and slept with the enemy. Lets fight them with any means we can like we fight our enemies. Come on and wake up New Jersey you can see what happen in London.We would like to see the Heroism of London repeated in New Jersey.
(9) One of the above-mentioned Hana Kifle has now seen error of her ways and has publicly apologized for her attack on what she now calls “Reformists and advocates of democracy”, particularly “ Dr. Reesom, Dr. Araya Debesay, Tegadalay Mesfin Hagos, Dr. Bereket and Tegadaly Adhanom,” as reported by Eritrea1.org on August 27, 2002:
I hope some of you will remember me by the harsh, impolite and indecent comments I used to post in dehai over a year ago. I was not only arrogant but also extremely ignorant about the political situation in Eritrea. PLEASE ACCEPT MY APOLOGY. Perhaps this is not a surprise for most of you since more and more Eritreans are now realizing the cause you stood for. I would like to remind you that many of us were and still are victims of Issaias propaganda that try to widen the gap between the ordinary people. Your stand for democracy and civil rights in Eritrea put you on the right side of history and I say to you keep up the struggle and make the Eritrean dream alive!
(10) Dr. Tseggai Isaac, a senior writer at Dehai.org, wrote the following call for vigilante justice on April 15, 2002:
Regardless of what the outside world thinks or does, the people who are mobilized now against Eritrea, at such a critical time, should be hunted down with vigil. We must demand that those Eritreans who are managing anti-Eritrean web sites to discredit Eritrea and sow the seeds of discord should be black-listed. The Eritrean Government should realize that it is duty-bound to protect Eritrea's independence, and should take effective measures to administer swift punishment. Otherwise, these groups left to their own freewheeling assault on Eritrea, will continue causing grave damage to Eritrea. Yes, unless they are confronted swiftly and effectively, the damage they will continue to inflict will be monumental in the long run. The legendary Eritrean culture of unity and courage will be reduced to a petty culture of cowardice, and slavish submission to outsiders. That will be an Eritrean tragedy.
(11) In an article entitled “Target: Somalia”, the Awate Team wrote the following on December 22, 2001. This prompted Mensour Kerar’s “Baboor Ye Gebeyka.” The reaction of many of our readers was, “Say What?”
In Eritrea, the Jihad movement is practically dead. Was this due to the “resolve” of the PFDJ, as its propagandist claim? Not at all. As the leader of the G-1 once said (in a threat directed to Ethiopia), it is fairly easy to “create instability anywhere” and the Jihadists could sustain their hit-and-run assaults west of Tessenei indefinitely. The credit for the demise of Eritrea’s Jihad goes to the patient work of the traditional opposition, particularly the ELF-RC, which has attempted to influence and contain the militant and intolerant aspects of Eritrea’s opposition. (This website has called on the ELF-RC and the ELF to go a step further and disown and remove the Jihad movement from the Alliance.)
(12) Finally, to all of you who feel powerless and demoralized, here’s a testimony to the Power of the Individual, as reported by all progressive Eritrean websites:
Mussie Ephrem, a young Eritrean residing in Sweden filed a Habeas Corpus, a first of its kind by an Eritrea citizen against the government of Eritrea. The petition was filed by his lawyer to protest the arrest of the “PFDJ reformers.” The petition appeals to language in the unimplemented Eritrean Constitution as well as “the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights”, all of which Eritrea is a signatory to.
