Eritreans.  The Eritrean people.  When you hear those words, what is the mental image? Now close eyes and no cheating.  What do you see?  A farmer?  A herder? A mother? How old are they?  Where do they live? Boy, are you all wrong, says my source.   The CIA. 

Let me back up. 

If you can get over the shock of shelling $18 for a magazine, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) is worth your time.  In the current issue, for example, they have the answer to the question why our border is not demarcated.  Well, not exactly, but they make a distinction between two kinds of negotiations: what they call �deal-minded negotiations� and �implementation-minded negotiations.�   You guess which one the unimplemented Algiers Agreement turned out to be� but that is not the subject of this article.

I mention HBR because the smarty-pants editors of Harvard Business Review say that their articles answer two questions: (1) So what? (why is this important?) and Now What? (Now that I have this information, what am I supposed to do with it?) Once I get over my rambling, it is my intention to answer both questions in this essay.

Ok, back to the image of the Eritrean people.  Two things triggered this question of what should the mental image of �the Eritrean people� be.   One is EDP�s Voice of Liberty radio broadcast and its regular program featuring a soft-spoken female announcer addressing a monologue to Mama Eritrea.  The other was a correspondence from an Eritrean youth writing from Asmara, pouring out his outrage on the Massacre of Adi Abeito.  Here�s an excerpt:

The youth in Eritrea is fed up. And one day will definitely revolt. What it needs is organization. And to every one of us dismay, the opposition never seem to pay attention to the people inside Eritrea and the youth in particular. And this is the same mistake that PFDJ has been commiting ever since its grip to power in new Eritrea.

Here are two different images: the hushed tones of a radio announcer which invariably paints an image of Eritrea as a frail, patient �ade� who has to endure the sins of her wayward children thus evoking�.pity.  And the outraged message of the Asmara youth who evokes�.anger. A youth who lost a brother in yet another crime scene, yet another insanity and serial lying by the PFDJ, this one called Adi Abeyto.  Which Eritrea is more accurate?  And which Eritrea is  calling for action?  

It is even more urgent than we think.

My Source: The CIA

On the subject heading, yes I admit, it is fun messing with the mind of the PFDJistas (�Did you hear, Younis admitted he is a CIA agent.�  Later, �I saw Younis at the Langley Headquarters.�  Later, �Younis showed me the check he gets from CIA.� ) But when I say my source at the CIA what I mean is the 2004 World Factbook on Eritrea which is published by the CIA. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/er.html

We don�t have to guess the image of Eritrea; it is all there in black and white, in the section that deals with the age of our population: 

So What?

Consider the ramifications of this: To 45% of Eritreans, the EPLF, Derg, colonialism are mere concepts, as distant as Tripoli or Zemen Engliz is to many of us.   The only rule they know is that of PFDJ.    Almost 60% of Eritreans, were not even born when the ELF last ruled any part of Eritrea. (source: nationmaster.com; refer to cumulative # for age group 0-24.)  Now, which �Eritrean people� are the political parties addressing when they reminisce about their past glories?  Are they aware that the median age in Eritrea is 17.5?

The PFDJ has had limited success in trying to morph the glory of Eritrean People�s Liberation Front (EPLF) into People�s Front for Democracy & Justice (PFDJ.)  The obvious trick is to use only the initials that both share: PF, for People�s Front.  Hzbawi Gnbar. The Tigirina initials of the front�Higdef�are never used�except as a word of scorn by the opposition.   There are other tricks, which are trickier-- to recreate the environment that won acclaim for EPLF: war, siege, isolation, discipline.  This coerced notalgia is targeted to the 29% of the older population, the group that wants to relive a past (a past that included a TPLF as a junior partner, and a novice.)  The crueler the PFDJ gets the more they applaud it, because they confuse meanness for discipline.   These are the people that can go to Eritrea on a visit, watch young kids pave roads in the desert for no pay, and applaud the government for the development it is bringing.             

As for the youth, the PFDJ has a perfect prescription for them: absolute control.  They are not a promise, but a threat.  From the tender age of 16, until the age of 40, life is pre-planned: militarized high school, military dorms, maetot, national service, wefri warsay ye-kaalo, technical colleges and then, if you survive, employment with the government or a government-owned �private� enterprise.  Everything that can provide an alternative reality�travel outside Eritrea, association with larger groups, religion, Internet�are all frowned upon. 

The PFDJ is governed by that old adage that �old age and treachery will defeat youth and beauty every time.�  The assumption is that youth�s greatest strength�energy�is also its greatest weakness�impatience.  The theory is this: if we can just press hard long enough, and sustain this war-like environment for a while, the youth will give up the cause.  If we can sustain a permanent war footing, the youth will become their parents: a few will run away but most will become older, dispirited and demoralized adults (the Cuban model.)  Alternatively, if we can somehow get out of the war footing, we will develop and prosper the nation so fast that the youth will be occupied in the pursuit of wealth (the Chinese model.)   

Now What?

There are more than dozen Eritrean opposition groups trying to formulate an effective approach to confront and defeat the PFDJ.   I will highlight the approach of two organizations, both of whom are offshoots of the EPLF. 

EDP�s Core Beliefs: The EPLF/PFDJ has much to be proud of and it should be reformed but not dissolved.  The Eritrean people want change, but only if it is peaceful.   The Ethiopian government does not have the best interest of Eritreans and so it must be assumed as long as it does not agree to implement the Algiers Agreement. 

EDP�s Conclusions: Dialogue with PFDJ must not be ruled out.  Even now, going to war with Ethiopia is justified to restore Eritrean sovereignty.  

EDP�s Cautionary Message: Watch out, Mama Eritrea, we have enemies in our midst who are too soft on Weyane and will end up being its tool and sell you out. 

EDP�s Pace:  With all deliberate speed.  

EDP�s Agents of Change:  Disaffected Yeka�alo: 

EPM�s Core Beliefs:  The Eritrean people want the PFDJ completely uprooted.  The Eritrean people want change and violence cannot be ruled out.  The Ethiopian government has no quarrel with Eritreans, its problem is with PFDJ; Ethiopia�s implementation of the Algiers Agreement is not a pre-condition to establishing relationship with it.    Dialogue with PFDJ can only occur if PFDJ meets a number of conditions and since it won�t, there is no sense even raising it.  

EPM�s Cautionary Message: Watch out, Mama Eritrea, there are people who are just as autocratic and secretive as Isaias and give them an army and they will be just as bad. 

EPM�s Pace:  Are we there yet?  

EPM�s Agents of Change: Disaffected Warsay.

Multiply this by the number of organizations and you will see that the differences are not always �personality conflicts� but actual diversion of ideas.  The issues of dialogue vs no dialogue; peace vs armed are not just esoteric moral questions, but defining positions of the organizations.  But even differences that look so vast can be bridged, so long as the opposition leaders make an effort�even if it appears to be an impossibly frustrating effort�to reach out to one another and respectfully discussing them.  The alternative is to be a reactive position, where change comes about while we discuss what we will do after the change.  Remember Eritrea, and its new image: it is not the agrarian nation of saintly farmers and herders now; it is a youthful nation full of urbanized, militarized and increasingly frustrated children.

Postscript

A week before the American election, I gave you my prediction of who will win and by what margin.  I had told you what I�d do if my prediction were wrong but I never did tell you what I�d do if I was right, until now. I�ll tell you my favorite part of the campaign because it had a double irony.  The vice president, Dick Cheney, was in Hawaii where he accused John Kerry of being a slave to polls.  Irony # 1: Cheney was in Hawaii, a Democratic state that Republican presidential candidates never visit, because the polls told him the Bush-Cheney team had a chance of taking Hawaii.  Irony # 2: Cheney was accusing Kerry of being a slave to polls because polls had told Cheney people don�t like politicians who rely on polls.   Isn�t democracy great?  And I am not being ironic.

PPS: Canada, New Zealand and Australia have indicated that they are not going to allow Americans to emigrate just because their guy lost the election.

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