***image2:right***In truth, un-elected governments and the people they govern without consent or mandate are often at odds.   In the case of Eritrea, it can be said without fear of contradiction that the government is at war with the people.   In a police state like Eritrea, the only voices that report to the world that the government has declared war on the people are the independent press and the international advocates of human rights and universal principles of justice.  At some point, the PFDJ may follow their hero in Zimbabwe and actually deport journalists who have been witnessing and reporting what they�ve seen and heard.  For now, however, news regarding Eritrea is affecting the people and the government as follows:

 
Given the four types of news, the question that is often raised to Awate (and Gedab News) is this: why do you concentrate so much on Type Two and Type Three News to the exclusion of Type One and Type Four News?  

There are several reasons for this.  We don�t report Type One News (good for the government and the people) because there already is an over-abundance of news sources that will do that.  The PFDJ has a monopoly of a TV station, a radio station, newspapers in three languages and at least two websites that will announce the news repeatedly.  Another reason we don�t report the �good news� is that we have absolutely no faith in the government; it is so untrustworthy, that what is on the surface may appear �good news� would, upon closer inspection, turn out to be a catastrophe.  For example, many people (specially Diaspora Eritreans) consider building and paving of roads and other infrastructures, as �good news� for Eritrea.  We look at it the same way people look at the �engineering marvel� of the Asmara-Massawa road that was built by the Italians: the end result may be good for Eritrea but at what cost to Eritreans?  Should we celebrate slave labor and corrupt business practices because, in the end, the country is being developed?    Moreover, as we have seen in our recent history, a two year war can reverse the achievement of a seven year development and, given the PFDJ�s nasty habit of war-mongering with its neighbors and its own citizens, there is no assurance that all these infrastructure that are being built at considerable expense to the psychological welfare of our citizens, won�t be decimated in nothingness.  Without a sustainable peace (something PFDJ is incapable of), all our development efforts are for naught.

Moreover, in 2003, one can be either on the side of the Eritrean people or on the side of the minority power, PFDJ, that is lording over them, without their consent.   What the people are crying for is a relief from the PFDJ; what the people want is for the entire world to know the crimes of the PFDJ.  These are called the �Bad for the Government/Good For the People� exposes and news items. 

May 2003 was overflowing with Type Three News: Bad For The Government/ Good For The People.    To be certain, there is nothing good about the situation the Eritrean people:  fear, human rights violations, wasted youth, enslavement, religious persecution, hopelessness, and leadership failure that has been witnessed by friends distancing themselves. The only thing good is that despite all efforts by the government to hide the people�s situation from the world, western media outlets and humanitarian agencies have accurately reported the state of the State in 2003.    In the month of May alone, six respectable news agencies (the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the BBC, the IOL, IRIN, Mail & Guardian) and the premiere human rights advocacy group (Amnesty International) have exposed the PFDJ for the criminal entity that it is.    Summary of their report follows:  

The Type Three News 

(1) FEAR

� Beneath the veneer of civility, unhappiness is brewing in Asmara. Eritreans are a discreet, conservative people, so hints that something is wrong surface through curiosity and questions�.why do the coffee drinkers greet questions about politics with a polite smile and a saccharin response? The answer to the last question, at least, is easy: Everyone here knows that trouble awaits careless critics of the government.� �  Boston Globe, 5/4/03

The ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) is the only legal political party, a constitution is yet to be implemented, evangelical church groups are banned, the press is solely pro-government and free elections remain a thing of the future. "The Eritrean government rules by fear," says a researcher with an international human rights group. "The Eritrean government is not very eager about becoming a democracy," a Western diplomat in the capital Asmara told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "They talk the talk of democracy, but we don't see any indication it's happening." � IOL, May 16, 2003

Our correspondent [Jonah Fisher] says that with no private press, and a population too scared to speak their mind the freedom won 10 years ago has yet to extend fully to the Eritrean people. The country remains a one-party state, and democratic processes promised at the time of independence have largely failed to materialise.  � BBC, 5/23/03

(2) HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

A further 300 or more prisoners of conscience arrested since September 2001 include Eritrean diplomats, civil servants, businesspeople, journalists from the state media as well as the banned private press, army and security personnel including former EPLF fighters, two local employees of the US embassy, Eritreans forcibly returned from Malta in September 2002, and a recently visiting Eritrean with Swedish citizenship.

Amnesty International believes these prisoners were jailed on account of their non-violent opinions and criticisms of the government or, in some cases, their opposition to military conscription. None has been brought before a magistrate, although the Constitution and laws require this within 48 hours. None has been charged with any offence. Their detention is unlawful, but no lawyer or judge dares to challenge this. All are held incommunicado and in secret. The authorities have not even acknowledged most of the detentions, let alone given the reasons for them. This has inevitably given rise to fears of their families for their heath and safety. � AI, May 2003

(3) WASTED YOUTH & HOPELESSNESS

Even those not in service say they feel suffocated by the government. It is extremely difficult for an Eritrean younger than 40 -- and almost impossible for those under 25 -- to get an exit visa. ''I was happy to do my service,'' said the woman, who like so many people here spoke on condition of anonymity. ''But now it seems it will never end.'' � Boston Globe, 5/4/03

He and his roommates are teaching as part of Eritrea's obligatory National Service. It is supposed to last 18 months, but Ainam has been at it for two and a half years and sees no sign that he will be released soon. Hundreds of thousands of Eritrea's young people are similarly occupied.  "We have nothing to do to pass the time," Ainam says, gesturing around the simple room. "This is our life."  Few Eritreans dare to put their names to any more explicit criticism of the National Service, but privately many describe it as forced labour that wastes their young people's talents and energy. 

(4) RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

On a recent Sunday morning, a group of Pentecostals met to pray in a small house on a dingy back street. Before speaking, their prayer leader shooed out her cat and closed the door tight. The neighbors could be spying, she whispered. Since fall, this has become an illegal meeting. Pentecostal and evangelical churches have been closed; their prayer meetings have been outlawed. However the mainstream Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Muslim venues have been untouched. ''We love our country, but we do not love this government,'' the woman said quietly. � Boston Globe, 5/4/03

(5)  FAILED LEADERHIP

Eritrea is now turning into a thuggish little dictatorship. It is imprisoning evangelical Christians, it jails more journalists than any other country on the continent, and the regime that once empowered women now rapes them.

The private sector has been regulated mostly out of existence, and aid groups are given a cold shoulder. The leader who liberated his people a decade ago is now starving them. � New York Times,

President Isayas Afewerki, under fire for an increasingly autocratic rule, faces the difficult task of moving his country out of an apparent impasse. � IRIN,

May 22, 2003

A decade ago, many saw newly independent Eritrea as a beacon of Africa's democratic potential, but these days, political freedom, elections, and a free press are nowhere in sight in the Horn of Africa country. Indeed, the small nation on the western banks of the Red Sea, which has had Issaias Afeworki as its president since its inception in 1993, is subject to a blistering litany of condemnation. � Mail & Guardian,  May 22, 2003

(6) The REAL REASON THE PFDJ REFORMERS ARE IN JAIL

In reality, divisions within the leadership came to a head over how to stop Ethiopia, both militarily and diplomatically.  Differences became so great towards the end of the war, that the president feared his former comrades would remove him from power.  Instead his opponents opted to call for reform, not a coup. A year later they were detained, their fate still unknown.  � BBC, May 23, 2003

Questioned about all this in an interview he granted jointly to AFP and the BBC, President Issaias was somewhat evasive, reverting to an habitual tactic of blaming the slow progress of human rights on a security hangover from the border war his country fought with Ethiopia between 1998 and 2000. � Mail & Guardian, May 22, 2003 

(7) CRITICAL FRIENDS

(a) David Pool, author of �From Guerillas to Government� and a longtime observer of the EPLF/PFDJ

�Perceiving threats to national unity has frequently provided the justification for the maintenance of secretive and unaccountable political systems which in their turn generate division.� �The exclusionary character of post-independence politics provides a basis for the opposition to portray the system as essentially undemocratic,� says David Pool, who also warns that the achievements of liberation are beginning to fade among the younger generation. � quoted by IRIN, May 22, 2003

(b) Dan Connell, author of �Against All Odds� and a longtime oberserver of the EPLF/PFDJ

�What�s needed now is for the government to pardon the detainees, implement the constitution and get on with the democratisation process,� he [Dan Connell] told IRIN.

(8)  FRIEND, BUT FROM A DISTANCE

Despite $50,000/month in lobbying, PFDJ has failed to convince the US to abandon Djibouti and base its HOA counter-terrorism operations to Eritrea:

A statement from the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), received by IRIN on Thursday, said headquarters personnel and equipment were being moved ashore into facilities at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti.  "The movement of the CJTF-HOA headquarters ashore does not signal any change in focus for coalition counter-terrorism operations in the Horn of Africa, but rather represents a logical 'next step' in the progress of CJTF-HOA operations." � IRIN,  May 8, 2003  

Conclusions

The image of the PFDJ, as reported by the news agencies, is identical to the one we have been portraying for the last three years: it is a criminal entity that governs by fear.  Twelve years after independence, the Eritrean people are afraid to open their mouths for fear of being rounded up and made to disappear and held incommunicado in unknown places at the hands of their �government.�  There is no due process, no justice in Eritrea.  The youth (the Warsay) feel like they are trapped in a hopeless and futureless life engaged in forced labor.  Freedom of worship does not extend to adherents of certain faiths who are considered too few to matter and practice their religion in secret.  The �autocratic� and �thuggish� leadership of the PFDJ is not believed by anyone when it claims that the arrested are there for �national security� reasons.  Longtime friends of the EPLF�like David Pool and Dan Connell�think the PFDJ is heading the wrong direction.  And, despite all the heavy lobbying, another friend, the United States, is staying put in Djibouti for the �next step� in its fight against terrorism.

In short, the PFDJ�s image in 2003 is worse than it was in any prior year and, unless it takes (or is forced to take) immediate measures to respect the human rights of Eritreans, 2004 will be even worse than 2003 and its self-inflicted isolation from world opinion will increase.    There should be no let up from pro-justice Eritreans in their fight against the pro-oppression Eritreans until they are left completely isolated, alone, with a picture of their idol in the background.  Regardless of what the organized opposition parties do, regardless of how many times the PFDJ claims "chapter closed," the pro-justice Eritreans� struggle to reclaim Eritrea must never stop; it must never slow down.  We must never be dispirited. We must never give up or give in.  We must continuously lobby the media and the international institutions to expose the PFDJ; we must educate our natural allies and motivate our people. Despite all its brave talk, the PFDJ, unlike the EPLF, always crumbles when its back is against the wall.  We must push and push and push relentlessly until it is completely cornered.  Those with qualms about this approach and those who question its wisdom must remember that the PFDJ is NOT a government but an outlaw agency that is in power only because it has weapons.

We must choose our method of struggle and we must remain focused and vigilant and march on and on and on and on until Eritreans are liberated from the oppressive yoke of the PFDJ.

An Eritrea Without A Free People Is Still Not Free

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