Two days ago we received an article from Terrence Mebrahtu.  Terrence, who claims to be “an Independent Consultant on: Conflict Resolution, Good Governance, Humanitarian Aid and Urban and Rural Development Issues” had his article, A Tyrant Tossing With Terrorism In Today’s Eritrea, published at several websites, including Awate.com.

Unfortunately, the article submitted by the author contains a clear act of plagiarism: taking someone's work and presenting it as one's own. Terrence Mebrahtu seems to have lifted entire paragraphs from In The Verb To Liberate, an article exclusive to awate.com, authored by a regular contributor, “Zekre Lebona,” and published on November 17, 2005.

Here’s the proof: The overstrikes are the parts that were in the original but altered and omitted by Terrence.  There is still sufficient language, presented without attribution, that indicates that it is plaigiarized from Zekre Lebona’s In The Verb To Liberate:

For  fear of ridicule, I will not stop myself from having my take on this subject. I was not a law student, nor a person well versed in philosophy. I know it is a hornet’s nest. Almost everybody, who had some history lesson had surely read this statement, "L’etat est mois" made by the French king Louis xvi. Nearly everyone associates it with tyranny. But In the late 1960s and 1970s,

For when revolutionary parties of the left type in the Twentieth century time and again issued a manifesto, and declared that they are out "to liberate" the masses, it appearsappeared not to have pricked the conscience of many. To the regret of millions, brutal acts were to follow.  after such deliberations.

A simple tally of the revolutionary movements, who took power, and particularly those who espoused the class struggle in the last centuryfrom the 1940s to the 1980s would be an eye opener. Many of them including the Eritrean Shaabia regime have turned into tyrannical governments, and their guerrilla leaders became dictators. Notwithstanding the constant quote made about the "foolish old man who removed the mountains," from the infamous Red book, Maoo and his disciple Issaias Afeworki, ended becoming the emperor emperors of China and Eritrea respectively. I argue that anytime a group states "it is out to liberate a people," the first act of violence is committed. The implication of this benign looking word of wisdom - �liberate� - is huge.enormous.

It is almost always horrendous.awful. The fate of the rural communities and livelihoods of many nations had been to endure a lot of misery, sandwiched between the constant watch and repression of their guerrilla liberators, and the various statestates of emergency laws of the status quo governments.

When a bearded commissar goes into a village, and announces his party’s intent that is "to liberate," the emasculation of the peasants and their institutions begins. Their old age customs are questioned, and their close knit communities get crumbling. The vanguard party’s immediate goal was in many instances to launch a social experiment. And ; and would not allow anything to stop it. The organization ends up becoming a control freak.

We consider the act of plagiarism a grave crime, and we are removing the article from Awate.  We don't understand how Mr. Terrence Mebrahtu can present himself as an expert in good governance if he won't even respect the rules of good writing.  We expect Terrence to explain his behavior and we call on all websites who published his piece to remove his article from their website.  From our standpoint, the act of plagiarism is even more serious since he lifted pages from our website to argue for a fascist solution to our internal problem, and to insult the pride of Eritreans. We apologize to our readers and pledge to be more vigilant. 

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