If, by refusing to hold a session, the intent is to avoid discomfort at being criticized, then there should still be a meeting as a means to educate those who are incapable of accepting or giving criticism. If the intent is to silence the dissenters, obviously one in power can do anything including muting dissent. But he still cant kill the ideas. So, in the end, it is a futile exercise. - Haile DeruE Weldensaie, June 20, 2001
Futile exercise it may be but its perpetrators insist on being proven wrong. The warning signs were always there. They started with the Jehovahs Witnesses, the Jeberti Activists, the disabled veterans and the organized opposition. They moved on to strip the University of Asmara of its academic freedom by firing all its independent-thinkers. They made a point of excluding people during the referendum and constitution-drafting processes. Eritreans applauded. Then they moved against the first ever EPLF rebellion after independence in Asmara and jailed many veterans. Then they moved on to arresting the Jihad sympathizers, and the remnants of the Fifth Columnists. Eritreans shrugged. Then they ignored the hundreds of thousands of refugees stranded in the Sudan and when their family members complained, they arrested them too. Eritreans remained unalarmed. They started a war they could not win and they lost the war in a manner that brought humiliation, hunger and displacement on Eritreans. Eritreans began to take note. Instead of learning a lesson from this catastrophic mistake, they campaigned to defame and finally arrest the messengers of correction. They didnt stop there. In a move reminiscent of the Derg, they went to arrest everyone who had sympathized with the Reformers. Since September 18th, the G-1 (Group of One), the Cult of Isaias that pretends to be our government, has launched a new phase of terror. It has jailed more than a thousand soldiers; over 60 notable elders, dignitaries of the society and religious leaders. It has arrested dozens of students, teachers, writers, journalists and businessmen. The jailed represent all social forces, religious sects, professions, age groups, genders and all other segmentation of the society. No one is spared. It is, as Haile DeruE said, a futile exercise but consistent with all dictatorships gasping their last breath. Today, Eritreans need protection more than anytime before. Eritreans are being terrorized, jailed and humiliated by an enemy from within. The ruling system is an enemy of the people. The struggle against the dictatorship must be intensified. We should face the dictatorship head-on. Eritreans do not tolerate dictatorships; they root them out. We should not only dream of peace and democracy; we must make it a reality by getting rid of the hindrance, the unelected regime. The system that is humiliating and subjecting Eritreans can only be faced with the wrath of the people. All forces that see the G-1 as the enemy of the Eritrean people must, for the sake of the Eritrean people, discard their petty differences and come together to consolidate the effort to save Eritrea. Complacency and cowering is shameful. Struggling against the injustice is the honorable thing that needs to be done now. Enough. Enough. Enough. The European Union A government that lies routinely and gets away with it eventually stops asking itself, what if I am caught? Since May 2001, when the intra-PFDJ conflict surfaced, the G-1 group had been telling the ambassadors in Asmara that they would resolve the problem peacefully and that they would not, under any condition, arrest the 15 Reformers. The European ambassadors continuously sought assurances and continuously got them from the G-1: No we will not arrest them. They could have said, that is our internal problem; leave it to us but they persisted in saying No we wont arrest them. When they did arrest them, the Italian ambassador, who is also the EUs representative in Asmara was understandably upset since, for four months, he had been telling his bosses that the G-1 would not arrest their former colleagues. The independent government, which thanks to its idiotic policy has reduced Eritrea into another Ethiopia living on the handouts of Europe, now finds itself in a dire situation of trying to explain its idiotic decisions. The G-1 in Diaspora who get excited by raising 100,000 may not know it but the government does: Eritrea cannot do even the most basic governmental functions without the largesse and generosity of the EU. You Cant Save The G-1 Anymore All the anti-democracy and anti-reconciliation forces have only one motive: to save the G-1. Knowing that the wrath of the Eritrean people is building, they engage themselves in futile exercises to divert the attention of Eritreans. They talk about Weyane and the threat it poses to Eritrea. They talk about the displaced. They talk about the refugees being repatriated. But all of the above have one thing in common: they are problems which, to varying degrees were created by the G-1. The way the war with Ethiopia ended was due to the mismanagement of the G-1; the reason we have hundreds of thousands of displaced people is partly due to the incompetence of the G-1. The reason we are talking about refugees being repatriated in the year 2001, ten years after independence, is due to the arrogance of the G-1. That old excuse of we are too busy putting out fires simply doesnt hold water when the G-1 was responsible for the arson to begin with. By choosing force over dialogue, the G-1 refused all national serenades and chose to dig its grave. You cant save a semi-dead person. A beheaded chicken creates a lot of commotion under a big pan, Tishti. But that, too, is a futile exercise because once beheaded, it cannot be resuscitated. Similarly, a regime nearing its end creates all sorts of noise and commotion and the same people who are signing all sorts of petitions supporting it will be creating alibis for their mistakes soon. Professor Tekie and the non-existent commission
He might have his conclusions about the G1, especially after he was treated harshly by the G1 in his recent visit to Eritrea. The whole G1 media attacked him very harshly. On the contrary, the private media gave him ample space to explain his views. He should know better. The salvaging of the PFDJ should not come at the expense of the whole of Eritrea. There is a neglected Eritrea out there. It is sick and tired of riding on a bus and dumped everywhere the driver chooses. This Eritrea wants to be part of the team that plans the trip; hires the driver and negotiates and buys the Bus. This fundamental right of Eritreans is not found on the HRW records or in the Washington Post; it is in the heart of all peace-loving Eritreans. Surely Professor Tekie understands this. Professor Tekie failed to see the human rights violations that were happening in Eritrea prior to the high profile arrest that swept Eritrea recently. Our concern with Tekie and his ex-colleagues is not new. Some of those who air their criticism to Tekie do so because they know what he is capable of. He is a well-established scholar and one of the top intellectuals from our country. The bone of contention with him is that his concern doesnt encompass the whole of Eritrea. He seems to favor another small Eritrea within the big Eritrea that we all love. The last article he and his colleagues co-wrote is another futile exercise in the attempt to try to save the status quo. Tekie and his friends quoted the Washington Post to support their concern about the human right violations. We are sure that all members of the constitution commission, which is now history by the way, know that HRW and Amnesty International are the most credible references regarding human rights violation; the two agencies have been reporting on human right violations and the extra-judicial arrests in Eritrea since 1995. Yet, Tekie and his friends decided to quote few lines from the Washington Post. We have a problem with people, intellectuals at that, who read selective chapters from the Eritrean book of human rights violations. Some might ignore that book but there are thousands upon thousands of Eritreans who memorize it line by line. There are children who grew up without knowing the whereabouts of their fathers. There are spouses who do not know whether they are already widowed or not. Trying to present human rights violations in Eritrea as if it was a new mishap by the benevolent ruling system is not an honest view. This system has always boasted about its violations. But if one forgets selectively and remembers selectively, nothing can rectify that; it can only be rectified one DAY in a court when all these atrocities will be addressed and its perpetrators punished. The human rights of Eritreans were violated on all corners of our bleeding Eritrea and were not committed in a one-hundred square kilometers around Asmara. There maybe some people who think that what happens outside Asmara is irrelevant. As we repeatedly indicated, the G1 does not represent Eritrea. The Eritrean heartbeat is not limited to Asmara. In fact, Asmara is where the ailment is stationed. We want Eritrea in one parcel with no parts left out. The G1 is trying hard to recreate what Herui T. Bairu calls Haddish Adi Gtools of G-1: (1) Erasing Our Identity The G-1 made its followers believe in the shabby meltdown of Eritrea. They erased the historical names of Eritreas provinces and then told us that we should feel guilty because regional identity is equal to regionalism, which leads to division and disunity. What the people didnt know is that the G-1 keeps a carte blanche authority to saw seeds of disarray among Eritreans whenever it suits its purpose, which is to say always. Witness that at the first sign of danger to its power monopoly, the first thing it did was whisper Akele Guzai or Jihad to any dissent or dissenter. We think erasing the names of administrative zones doesnt go far enough. After all, the villages have retained their names. Cant they be a cause for disunity as well? Then we might as well change the names of the villages. The quickest substitute is their geographic co-ordinates that can be found in big atlases. Each hamlet and each village will have its own unique latitude and longitude number. Another alternative is an alphanumeric combination. For example, the village Himberti is very tigrigna and indicates that it has a highland Eritrean identity. This is obviously divisive. We should change its name to M1 for, Village One in Maekel Zone. Wesbensurikh is very Blin; so we should change it to A3 meaning Village Number 3 in Anseba Zone. Then we expand and change the name of Hmeret Kelboy to D4 meaning Village Number 4 in Debub. This is a good start, but it doesnt go far enough.
To create perfectly homogenized creatures, we should also change the names of the citizens because most names disclose peoples religion. Weldemariam is clearly a Christian name and Mohammed is an undoubtedly Moslem name. We think this is too divisive. Therefore, we should abolish that as well. Anyone who opposes this proposal is Wegenawi and a racist. Probably a misogynist too. We should call Weldemariam citizen C234 and Mohammed becomes C456. When the villagers meet, they would greet each other in G-1 created manner: Bashay C234, how are you?
I am fine, Ato C344. How is Adey S870?
Fine, fine, how is the weather in D4? Out in A3 it is not raining!
You dont say! Maybe our sins are too great. Then, we should pay taxes to renew our registration numbers. We must kill our historical, regional names of Hamassen, AkeleGuzai, Seraye, SenHit, Semhar, Denkalia, Sahel, Gash and Barka.
Speaking of Semhar. The name is so beautiful that many Eritreans, who are not even from the region, gave it as a name to their children. Dont you feel sorry for the people who called their children Semhar thinking they were being nationalists? With one stroke of the pen, the G-1 is telling us it is divisive to mention regional names. A classic example of a top down instruction to establish a fake misleading unity by dictatorship FIAT. (2) Promoting Fear & Loathing
In reality, the whole purpose of this adventure is to ensure that Eritreans have absolutely no loyalties to anyone and anythingincluding their traditions and their religionexcept to the government. This is consistent with all left-authoritarian regimes. (Right-authoritarian regimes go the opposite extreme.) This is why the G-1 continues to peddle the fiction that before the PFDJ arrived on the scene, Eritreans were divided and in the midst of endless strife and civil war. Our history shows that Eritreans had, by any standard including the civilized world standard, an incredibly harmonious relationship. But this fact doesnt help the G-1 so they continue to insist that our history is one of strife and civil war. Eritreans were united because they decided to live together a long time ago; they are not united because of some cheap Krazy-glue named PFDJ. The self-serving signals about the risk to the unity of Eritreans by the G1 and the constant references to Somalia is meant to destroy the self-confidence of Eritreans in their national unity. Somalia became Somalia because another tyrant felt that ethnic politics was in the best interest of his political career. If you take away peoples history, their reference point and their pride, you destroy their self-confidence. This is what Americans did to African slaves: change their names, change their traditions, change their clothing, and change their religion. That is what the G-1 is trying to do to Eritrea: to create helpless and hopeless citizens who are lost without its guidance. In truth, the little misunderstandings among Eritreans are all-political. More people died in Eritrea as a result of ideological civil wars (ELF vs EPLF; ELF vs Falul; EPLF vs MenKaE; EPLF vs Yemanawian) than in any so-called ethnic and religious strife. Our differences can be solved in a civilized and brotherly way once the G1 and its culture of intolerance and exclusivity is removed. All democratic and fair-minded Eritreans recognize the problems created by the Ethiopian occupation and perpetuated by the G-1. They also are confident that once, the human and civil rights of citizens are respected; Eritreas resources and opportunities are distributed in an equitable manner, then all inter Eritrean misunderstandings would be easy to solve. The G1 are the main risk to the unity of Eritreans. But the G-1 live by fear mongering: inciting hatred and fear and loathing of an ever-increasing enemy list.
Eritrea will exist united despite the busy maneuvering of the G1 to buy time to stay in the helm of power. Despite their hushed whispers of Akele Guzai Jihad whenever their power monopoly is challenged. Ten years after their rule, Eritreans are more polarizedmost obviously along religious linesthan at any time since the 1940s when an external force was stroking our fears. But Eritreans are civilized and law-abiding by history and tradition not because of PFDJ but despite PFDJ. The determination of Eritreans to create a viable, peaceful, prosperous and stable country is not the creation of PFDJ; it is there despite the PFDJ. It was born out and tested during the bitter struggle that the first wave of Eritrean Revolutionaries endured in the forties and fifties. It was they, not PFDJ, who successfully fought once and for all against the conspiracies of partitioning Eritrea into Ethiopia and Sudanese parts. Whereas, the G-1 wanted to create a co-federation with Ethiopia right after Eritreans, after massive sacrifices, liberated Eritrea from Ethiopia. It was Eritrean elders that quickly ended the few and far-in-between skirmishes that were instigated by foreign agents in the 40s and political extremists of the ELF and the EPLF in the 1970s. The G-1, who are threatened by any authority, even the traditional authority of the elders, has no shame to jail people in their 70s when it should have sought them out for advice and counsel. But all the G-1s efforts are futile. That spirit of determination, the quest for democracy and justice and decency predates the PFDJ and will outlive it. Imprisoning its champions does not kill their ideas; it just exposes the desperation of an unpopular government dancing on a one-legged stool. The spirit remains and will remain alive and kicking.
The Awate Team |
