Adorned with a bell around its neck, Annafit led the cattle home at sunset after a day of grazing in the pastures of Qatsetai or Daarit - Annafit was Am Abdelkerim�s favorite cow. Bulai, the Whr, or the Zrab�e, was his most popular bull: people competed and paid in cash to invite Bulai home for a night! Cow owners would hire the services of Bulai to offer their cows a date and quarreled on who would have him for the night, �no your turn is tomorrow, I am taking him home today�. The other person would protest and shout, �no, I reserved and made the appointment first, I am taking him tonight�. Finally Am Abdelkerimn would smile and resolve the issue amicably; the lucky person would lead Bulai by a rope around the neck while another pushed him from behind. Bulai walked majestically proud domineering any animal around.

A huge black and white bull, Bulai was fed on expensive grains and premium fodder. until late in life,  I never knew why people were quarreling over him and why or where he was being taken. The answer is being echoed

From Boston To Riyadh

In the heydays of the tyrannical regime, the precursors to the �Hzbawi-Mekhetes� would gather in extensively decorated noisy halls that were overwhelmed by the stink of alcohol. Intoxicated and never-growing kids were throwing-up everywhere. Then someone, walking like Bulai, the Zerab�e, would walk to the podium and start a litany of sensational speech, and a choreographed emotional agitation begins: let�s help our government; a human Annafit, the common type that disrupts meetings but this one, would shout, �yes, nmngstna�! Then, innocent-looking accomplices of the regime would spring up from several corners and pledge �nay Hade Werhi demoz!�, �Shih dollar!� After theatrically pledging money, and putting psychological pressure on the people, the accomplices disappeared. This trick is perfected by the extortionist fundraisers. Once the crowd is emotionally whipped up (the alcohol does not hurt to reach that stage), the always thirsty bag of the PFDJ would be half-filled; hard-earned money parts.  Then it was time for a noisy party and �wegah tbel leiti�, a sort of a mental therapy meant to help those with troubled conscience and ease their anxiety. They know their contribution empowers the dictatorship that oppresses their people.

After a few months, Bulai�s hosts gained calves, their cattle multiplied. A result of an open competition for the services of Bulai - morally, legally and culturally clean transaction. The Mekhete lots that emboldened the dictatorship will soon discover their funds stashed somewhere.

The PFDJ-Zrab�e is not marketable anymore: a while ago, an Eritrean meeting in Boston refused to part with their money. They challenged a PFDJ messenger, a man who came to fill the PFDJ bag with green dollars. He told them, �help your country.�  They were smart this time, �no more extortion.� If they want to help their people, they know how to get their money directly to their families, friends and community without soliciting the services of the PFDJ. �Pay your money directly to your people� is the slogan that is echoing from Boston. And others followed. The PFDJ, whose interest is not the people but its lucrative brokerage service, passed a law making it illegal for any Eritrean in Eritrea to have hard currency�punishable by one year prison term and a fine of a million Nakfa.  

In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the PFDJ ambassador called residents there for a meeting and showed his empty bag: he wanted it filled with Saudi Ryals. As expected, the immigrant workers and refugees refused to part with their hard earned money for an old extortion.

As usual, says a friend, �the ambassador asked for donations and when the people refused to give any, he asked them to sign a paper confirming that they refused to donate�! Now you know how the PFDJ-Zrab�e is acting- if you don�t hand over your money, you have to sign a paper stating that! A threat and a blackmail, just like the mafia and kidnappers that ask for a ransom.  You know what has become of our Zerab�e, the well has dried up- it is about time. �Starve The Monster� has echoed for too long. But if new recruits to the ailing PFDJ want to have the Zerab�e, they can keep him forever and enjoy the services. An advice to them: look at the �Hizbawi Mekhete� � after renting Bulai for years, they don�t even have a single calf to show for it, do they enjoy the company of Bulai this much? Could this be what they call �political prostitution�? It ignites a flashback; as a kid, I witnessed a scene�

A Wretched Cry, �Yawoooy�

A cry of a wretched woman carried by the calm mid-night winds reaches the whole neighborhood- �yawooooy, yawoooy, yawoooy�. Something alarmingly bad must have happened. I asked, trying to understand what the problem was; my questions were not answered. I was ignored with a short reply: they are bad women. Then I was ordered: block your ears and go back to sleep. Puzzling!

A tired looking woman dressed in bright green dress stands by the door of a street-facing-room. A once bright curtain, now greasy and old, blocks the view to the inside- but one can make the single bed and a stool through the cracks of the curtain when the women sways to the tune of Telahun Gessese�s song- anchi qonjo gd�ylleshi. The woman�s teeth are covered with soot, she is cleaning her teeth with a piece of charcoal and is dressed in a wide fluffy parachute-like dress that barely reaches above her knees. It seems like she is wrapped in a blanket with many embroidered bright colorful flowers; she must have mistaken that for a fashionable dress. In the room next door, another woman is also standing at the doorsteps. They say she just arrived from Sudan after working there for years, they can tell from her pestering words, mannerism and glittering gold bracelets, Benajir. I didn�t know what she was doing in the Sudan - maybe waiting for the goldsmith to make her bracelets! Now she is burning incense and generously receiving visitors to her room!

On all the doorsteps, of the stinky street, cheap incense mixed with kerbe and sulfur is burning, letting out a huge smoke and an offending stench that can be detected from a mile away.

From inside the room, a radio is now blasting songs of Hirut Bekele. An Ethiopian soldier approaches the door and starts to talk to the woman. The two giggle a bit, laugh a bit and then enter to the damp, smoky room, the charcoal still on the teeth, and shut the door behind them. The radio is now louder and has buried the giggles of the two people inside. A few minutes later, the door opens and apparently, the man is trying to force his way out while the woman holds to his unbuttoned shirt and wouldn�t let go trying to prevent him from leaving. She looks stressed and pleads, �give me my money, give me my money.� A fierce, albeit unfair, wrestling ensues and the woman is over-powered; the soldier is determined to walk away ignoring her plea; she coils her body around his leg and yells helplessly for assistance. Help deosn't come immediately, which usually is the case, and she resorts to the usual: �yawoooy, yawoooy�- a pathetic cry that she pushes out from the bottom of her lungs.  An Eritrean 9-11 call for help. Soon, if the police didn�t arrive, some curious passersby gather; others ignore the whole drama and move on. A few men start to mediate: �not good, pay the woman her money� - they would sweet-talk the arrogant soldier. He defiantly refuses and whispers to the men�s ear while he covers his mouth with his hand; the curious onlookers miss the opportunity of reading his lips- he is apparently explaining his refusal to pay.

I don�t have an idea of the mid-night scenes because the town was under curfew- who rescued the situation during the nights? I wondered why the mean soldiers snatched money from the helpless woman! I didn�t understand anything.

Later in life I could see the whole picture: the sort of the deal, the reason (or reasons) for refusing to pay, the fact that those woman believed the stinking incense and Kerbe attracted men, and that the money was not literally snatched.

Soon after the conclusion of its meetings, the EDA set out on a public-meeting journey. They went to places where the people with the most stakes in uprooting the current regime are living. They met the people (remember the refugees?) who have been denied the right to return to their homes, hindered from returning courtesy of mischievous political mechanizations to totally disconnect them from their land. Refugees, still refugees for four-decades and refugees, fifteen years after the �independence of Eritrea�. The EDA met the old and the new refugees. However, since the refugees don�t have Internet access, they are not considered important by spoiled-spoilers of Diaspora. The self-centered don�t recognize them as �the public�, but as some elements who live in the fringes of the political discourse and don�t count. At any rate, the shouting subsided and the distracters are on the lookout for other excuses to cry about; and now they are cooking a new recipe, it will soon come out to the open.

Some in the opposition have created a self-serving exchange rate whereby 1 Diaspora European or North American is equal to 10 in the Middle East and 1,000 in Sudan and 10,000 inside Eritrea.  Using this formula, a meeting with ten people in Europe or North America is considered �meeting with the people� and reflective of the people�s wants and needs- a strange but not novel way of displaying ignorance and dishonesty. Not coincidentally,  these people are very loyal to their villages, like-minded people, birds of the same flock type. They don�t know (and don�t want to know) people whose ancestral homes are more than ten-kilometers away from where they hail. Very loyal indeed.

The �Public wants an answer� threatened one banner. �Eritreans are confused� told us another. It is a trend. A trend of a serious effort to destroy any common ground reached by the opposition. A fishy, smelly assault on the opposition by the easily identifiable elements who have been camouflaged for a while by the opposition fatigues. A lot of noise, incomprehensible noise� Incomprehensible now, but becomes clearer with time.   Luckily, it is not very difficult to tell those who criticize to reform, democratize and strengthen the opposition from those who criticize to destroy the opposition and preserve the status-quo.

Cheers For Mesfin Hagos

This might be considered a bit late- but hey, you can�t expect me to be faster than the EDA - excluding the speed of the EDA information office, the only speedy office so far.

Appearing in the radio show of his political party, Mesfin Hagos laid bare and contradicted the false claims and dashed the hopes of our self-appointed Cyber Border Patrol Minutemen, and coalition-destroyers.  In his last interview on the EDP Radio, Mesfin reflected an admirable character. He reiterated his commitment to the EDA by standing firm by the agreement that he had signed. He refused to unjustly accuse his allies as �tools of the enemy.� He underlined that he is struggling to dismantle dictatorship and to install a fair democratic system in its ashes and not to reform (as if that is possible) the regime.  Far from disassociating himself from the always-maligned �old guard�, he identified with them and defended their right to be in power so long as they continue to be elected.  He challenged the young to �struggle and earn leadership.�  And, despite the repeated insinuations of many, including a few EDP members, he said that he had seen no evidence of foreign intervention in the meeting that established the EDA.  

I understand the pressures that political leaders undergo. I understand the misleading and wrong information they are fed. I also know elements that hide behind the EDP skirt and badmouth the allies of the EDP thus making it look bad. An organization that champions the cause of the G15, who were unjustly accused of treason and jailed by the regime, is being made to appear, by the few, as if it is duplicating unfairness by accusing others of treason, though that is said in different ways and shamelessly insinuated. Such disruption clearly springs from close corners that lack judgment and a far corner that lacks integrity. I am glad Mesfin Hagos is not being held hostage to a destructive minority view and I think he should look far to a wider constituency, a constituency that respects him and wants him to occupy his right place across the whole sections of the opposition to the tyranny.

In his latest interview, Mesfin has aired the views of a bigger constituency. He has demolished the views of the destructive minority. I am very appreciative of his views and encourage him to continue to stride on that path.

The magnifying glass of those who have proved they don�t wish any good for the opposition has started to move- they are focusing on issues that unfortunately, members of the opposition themselves are spreading. This is the time, like any other time, that leadership is needed. Leadership is all about defusing crisis and solving problems, not about blindly becoming center-pieces in problems.  We have gone through disunity for too long, at least now the opposition is on the right path to solving that. We have suffered for too long from lack of able leadership; can we count on our leaders to be wise and solve simmering problems with utmost care? I am hoping.

So far, it is still hope.  Because as admirable as Mesfin Hagos�s interview was, he is not and he cannot be on the air, even his own broadcast, every week.  And in his absence, the Cyber Border Patrol was back, heavily loaded with its insinuations�not the sort you could say in a round table, only behind people�s back, when they are not there to defend themselves.  Shameful.

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To The Eritrean Defense Forces:

Under the table are the four legs, of the table. A legless �thing� is not a table. There are also balanced tables with three legs, or tables that are left with only three legs because one leg was broken; they are unbalanced tables. Three-legged tables, one by design and another by accident. Four sides to the table- and four corners, unless it is a roundtable. There are four chairs to a table, as should be; I have never seen four tables to a chair�or four chairs to a three-legged broken table. How about one chair and a one-legged table? Lonely? Yes. Even if the single-leg rests on a circular support that looks just like a human leg inflicted with Elephantiasis. Then, to confuse matters more, they make huge ten�legged tables, and many chairs. Why? Is it because squatting on the ground is not considered trendy? It was trendy when I was growing up. Any squatting convention was a success; most chair-table conventions were a failure, or led to one. I think it is time to look for a shade under a Sycamore tree, the glorious Daaro, and start conferences squatting on the ground. Burn the chairs and tables if you will. Right now!