Prior to September 18, 2001 the young private newspapers in Eritrea Setit, Mekaleh and Kestedemena etc. provided information, education and freedom of expression to the Eritrean people creating alternative media, from the stifling Government paper “Hadas Eritrea” Those private news papers brought incredible moral uplifting as shown by the people queuing to buy them and are sold out most of the times. The demands sky rocketed. The people took it for granted that their dream for freedom of expression had taken off. They were celebrating their new found freedom of speech by leisurely reading the papers in the streets, tea houses, work places and discussing their contents. The PFDJ was very uncomfortable as it realized that this was incompatible with its hidden motive of monopolizing power through denying information in order to control the society and the economy. If freedom of expression is allowed then the people will be empowered to speak out in favour of enforcing the constitution, upholding the rule of law and observing human rights. By banning the private paper PFDJ effectively brought freedom of expression in Eritrea to an end. Disinformation to mislead the public and control opinions became the order of the day. The abnormal became normal. To lie became normal to speak the truth abnormal.

The situation in Eritrean is best reflected in a Justin Hill book titled “Ciao Asmara” A classic account of contemporary Africa. “Time Out” London’s leading weekly guide magazine on books, events, films, music etc has this to say in reviewing the book printed at the back cover. 

“Justin Hill’s insightful travelogue portrays a country for which the battle of liberation may have been won, but the struggle with freedom is just beginning. A compelling and very moving portrait of a community trying to find its way in an ever changing world……..excellent"  TIME OUT

Yes, the journey to words true freedom remains unfinished and temporarily arrested   by PFDJ‘s 18-9-2001 crack down on the free press. Understandably the crack down tilted the balance in favour of authoritarianism of the state and fearful resignation on the part of the society.  The much heralded and orchestrated constitution on which the liberation fighters and the population at large put their hopes on was shelved indefinitely.

However, as the saying goes repression breads resistance. Eritreans are rising up to the challenge. Some people do so by initiating websites to give voice to the voiceless.

Particularly Awate.com has earned the reputation of getting out reliable information from Eritrea. In the United Kingdom lawyers and judges refer to awate.com when considering appeals in courts for rejected Eritrean Asylum. The British Courts can not be accused of bias or politically motivated because they are independent of the Government and the judges are not “Weyane”. “Wayane” is just escape goat for all PFDJ economic and social failures.

Character assassination has become a tool, a refined instrument, in the hands of PFDJ to silence the pioneers of free flow of information.

One of the pioneers is Saleh Gadi and his team, Awate.com. The Awate team was the main target of vilification and character assassination right from the beginning. To day they are uncelebrated heroes. Tomorrow their name will go down in history as people who rose up to the challenge when everybody is cowed.  They are the pioneers who are sawing the seeds of freedom of expression disallowed in Eritrean and bravely persisting in their objective.

It is in line with this strategy that Sophia Tesfamariam has embarked on character Assassinating Saleh Gadi. The knowledgeable and eloquent writer and team member of Awate.com Saleh Younis has dealt with this issue extensively and I have nothing to add to it. What I find it difficult to grasp is how come Sophia entertain the rights and wrongs of gay issues while they are peacefully and legally living in America and contribute to the society’s social, economic and cultural growth? If Sophia is given the governorship of California (God forbid) she would exterminate half of its population.

Furthermore it is difficult to understand how she lives in America with peaceful conscience while she is a spokesperson of a system that criminalized religious minorities?

The Pentecostals and the Jehovah are not allowed to practice their faith in Eritrea? 

The practice has no place in the country she lives, America.   In America the struggle for social justice included the struggle to protect the rights of minorities.  The strong civil rights movement in the USA for which many people such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the Soledad Brothers were martyred represented movements for minority rights, for the Blacks. And they have achieved a lot. For the first time a black man BARACK OBAMA is a candidate for American Presidency. Sophia must be regretting this fact. She must posses the mentality of a writer mercenary to live comfortably in a world that does not share any of her values. She has displayed an incredible dishonesty for not living in Eritrean where her undemocratic and repressive values reign supreme.

It is not fair to blame only Sophia of a double standard. It is shared by PFDJ supporters in the Diaspora as well. She only symbolizes them all in the extreme.  Like her, the Diaspora PFDJ supporters are not willing to go and serve in Eritrea. More often than not they are the once who pay all the expenses to have their relatives or members of their family flee Eritrea and seek asylum abroad. They and their children make sure that the go there as tourists for brief period only. As long as their families are out and they are safe they are willing to keep a blind eye to the repression taking place in Eritrea.

During the long years of armed struggle Eritreans from the Middle East, USA, and Europe used to join the fronts in big numbers. They were committed to the struggle and. their commitment was bases on shared values of justice and freedom. One of them is the imprisoned member of G-15 the economist General Estefanos Sium who joined the EPLF from one of the prestigious US Universities. Estifanos Sium is a man of principle who as once the head of Eritrea’s Inland Revenue asked the PFDJ to pay taxes for their factories and business like any other private entrepreneurs, who found themselves at a competitive disadvantage.  It was a big issue in Asmara at the time because it had relevance to the health of the Eritrean economy particularly the private sector, which is in disarray in today’s Eritrea. Today the most experienced private business entrepreneurs are scattered in Dubai, South Africa, South Sudan etc. Their entrepreneurship skills are lost for Eritrea, I hope not forever. Estifanos was quickly removed from the post. Had his claim been headed and the PFDJ corrected its mistakes the disarray of private business to day could have been avoided.

What is more amazing is the Diaspora either deliberately or sheer ignorance have failed to see the connection between the high standard of their life in America, where they display freely their flashy cars, extravagant weddings and the women’s excessive gold ornaments. Do they know that because they have all the rights to exploit their potential for work, study and creativity?

By the same logic, the issue at stake in Eritrea is also about rights.  It is everybody’s fulfilment in this life, here and now.

• The right to freedom of expression
• The right to worship
• The right of the Eritrean youth to exploit their God given potential for happiness and creativity. 
• The right for higher education and to re-open the Asmara University and more.
• The right to make a family and sustain it by working for a salary not to work on a farm or construction sights unpaid indefinitely.

The conspiracy theory shouted by Sophia and her likes is only a diversion to derail the information train provided by Awate.com, Asmarino.com, and Asena.com etc. But today the diversion has no merit. The websites have effectively ended the information monopoly of PFDJ information medium.  Even supporters of PFDJ are depending more and more on the independent website when they want to know what is actually going on in Eritrea.