On December 29, 2009, two days before the year ended, I received a call: Ustaz Mohammed Beshir passed away. He had carried the Torch, AdDia’a, for decades before the torch of his life died out...Ustaz Mohammed Beshir was buried in Asmara where he had a crowded farewell that fitted him properly. May God have mercy on his pious soul.

I am still disturbed by images of mothers holding the pictures of PIA in gold frames akin to the manner in which their counter parts from the sane Eritrea would hold the images of sacred saints…in our pathocratic Eritrea priests approve of delirium worship of a man who saw over the incarceration of their fellow clergy and shut sister churches…

The sanctions are neither "a blessing in disguise" nor a "shortcut to power." The sanctions should be used as an opportunity for the pro-regime Eritreans to do an assessment of where the nation is and to use their voice to tell the leader of their party, respectfully but with vehemence, that he is leading the country down to a dead-end.  That is not likely because once you have allowed somebody to do all the thinking for you, you can't think for yourself.

Dr. Bereket played his role until the independence of Eritrea and alongside millions of Eritreans, he celebrated the victory of liberation. When he was appointed to chair constitution-drafting commission, many people said that he was a good choice and that he was qualified and eligible for the task. He did his best: meetings, interviews, gathering proposals, listening to recommendations. At the end, he put the summary of his findings on the president’s table. However, the president said, ‘No official language,’ meaning no Arabic language and the constitution was frozen. The president threw away his mask and revealed the true face of a dictator.

What kind of a devilish mind would even entertain the probability that someone who was lined up to sacrifice his very soul to save the nation would turn into a cheap Land Grabber and a disgusting Exclusionist raping our dignity and destroying his own glory in the process for peanuts? Who has ever imagined that the legendary tegadalay would end into a thief, a thug and a tramp? Who has ever thought that the hero that led the offensive of hizbawi serawit (People’s Army) into Nadew in Afabet and Fenkil in Massawa would also lead the offensive of thieves and Land Grabbers into our ancestral land? None that I know of!

The idea of a “National Conference” has been discussed by Eritrean opposition groups since at least 2002, when the legislative arm of the EDA mandated its executive office to facilitate it. Lack of harmony, funds, and differences in vision bottlenecked the process and the idea was idle for the next six years.  In May 2008, the EDA Congress revitalized the issue and elected a seven-member preparatory committee to proceed with setting up the Conference.

It is a fact that Eritrean soldiers below the rank of NCO serving under the current regime are simple Askaris, but the officers might already be building robust trenches that the PFDJ couldn’t over run. The cheap game of violating national unity and utilizing the territorial integrity of Eritrea as scarecrow to chock the legitimate demands of non-Tigrigna Eritreans is over—they will not settle for half baked solutions; nothing would be postponed for tomorrow either. Our rights must be regained immediately, even if we do not belong to the ethnocentric regime, and its miscreant leader, who treats our children like orphans our dignified elders like beggars on their own land.

I just wonder why dictatorial regime is forcing people to demonstrate on the streets of Washington, Geneva, and San Francisco. Is it because demonstrations are allowed in these democratic countries or they really think these demonstrations by the supporters of the system can reverse the resolution of the Security Council? Why not the government organizes the same demonstration in Asmara, similar to the one they had during the 1998-200 senseless war?

While our eyes is still on the ball (the regime), we must also thrive to create a legitimate polity that could bring justice and peace to our people as a whole. For sure, unless we resolve the stumbling blocks that keep our eyes away from the ball, we can not exhibit a considerable resistance against the entrenched regime that drains the energy, resource, and ultimately the lives of our people. The choice and the solution are in our hand. I believe that we are not mere prisoners of our fate. Our action matters and can bend history in the direction of justice if we have the will. As the saying goes, don’t be afraid of the shadows, they just tell us that there is light somewhere nearby.

to top it all off Drs TsegaZeab (yes I know what the ‘s’ stands for...he told me!)  was telling me the reason why we should all oppose the sanction is because the only people allowed to import food and medicine into the country are PFDJ and if their assets are frozen then we are in danger... isn’t that like saying the reason we should put up with the play ground bully is because he has confiscated everyone’s footballs and only lets us play at his say so... if we agree to him being punished for his other misdemeanours then there is no more fotty at break time!... all I could do was go huh?

Here I would refer anyone looking for the naked truth in this aspect to the statistics published along with “THE ERITREAN COVENANT: Towards Sustainable Justice And Peace,” by Mejlis Ibrahim Mukhtar, published on awate.com in English and Arabic, which provides strong evidences regarding the total dominance of ethnic-Tigrigna on the power and resources, as well as proving the marginalization and exclusion to the other sects of the Eritrean people, then Mr. Semere, how is it possible to combine contradicting aspects,...

The next challenging question is what did we Eritreans as a society contribute to save the G15? Isn't it shameful to keep quiet while PFDJ is continuously arresting men and women, young and old, Sheikh and Keshi, sick and healthy? I don't remember anyone facing and resisting against the PFDJ to release G15 inside the nation except one that took place in Asmara Intercontinental Hotel around 2005. There was a conference of the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students which was attended by the youth and given to the participants to ask. One adventurous youth tormented the president with a risky question: Where did you put G15, why don't you present them to court?

If HGDEF is to be dusted off, it could only be done through those who are determined to fight its oppression, period. Not through sanctions (which, to a mafia regime that has perfected drug dealer-type cut-throat dealings, amounts to nothing but a minor setback), not through negotiations and certainly not through wishful thinking. Only through those who have been toiling day and night trying to dislodge it by force – all the while trying also to take the utmost care to circumvent unnecessary confrontations with the conscript army.