It was July 2, 2008 I and my friends were socializing at our rendezvous at Cricklewood pub in North West London.

One person broke the news that Mohammed Saleh Mohammed Hagos died of an accident on the Asmara Massawa road.  It was shocking; we just froze unable to say anything. It didn’t sink in me, I was in complete denial.

I couldn’t sleep that night because I couldn’t stop the bad thoughts and images crashing through my head.  Suddenly I started to re-live the past. I saw Mohammed in London when he first arrived at young age in 1976.  I saw him during his wedding day when families and friends came from different countries.  Mohammed and the bride Mensura were glamorous and joyful, we had a wonderful time.

After independence I saw him at Bologna Restaurant owned by late Genet Tesfai & family, another business woman who has been living in London once. Many in the Diaspora had shared dreams to make Eritrea prosperous, stable and peaceful and flowed back home to participate in its social and economic re-construction. I saw him on an unforgettable journey to the agro-commercial town of Tesenei in early 1999. We visited many commercial farms together. We were three Eritrean Employers Federation (EEF) executives, Mengisteab Teklezion, the chairman Mohammed and I. We had rented land cruiser with a driver. We had a lot of time to talk in privacy.

We were on a mission to address the business men and women to form employers association and be part of the newly formed Eritrean Employers Federation (EEF).

I finally could not take it anymore. I pushed my thoughts back and walked to the nearby park. It was 5.00 am, not the right time to go to parks.  I had hoped that by diverting my attention to Mother Nature, the trees, the grass etc. I will get consolation.  But it didn’t ease my pain.  Suddenly, as I watched the flowers tears started to run down my cheeks. I felt defeated, weak, helpless and lonely. I sobbed uncontrollably. To my relief the sobbing eased my sadness and I started thinking straight focussing on the rumours of the possibility of murder. I said to myself, “Oh god tells me it is accident not murder; don’t make this any harder for us than it already is.”  It seemed too bad to be true. What is it happening to us Eritreans, such senseless unlawful killing? Are we cursed?  The melancholy feeling will not leave me for a long times.

The man behind Mohammed Saleh Hagos:

Mohamed came to London and joined the Diaspora at the end of 1976. There were few Eritreans at that time. This group became very close friends ever since. Mohamed being a student joined Brunel University in London.  After graduation he started to buy run down houses, refurbish them and sell them. In a very short period of time he became rich and owned houses and hostels for rent. At the time of his marriage, he was living in a mansion like house with a swimming pool.  Soon he went international by expanding his business to Africa particularly in Nigeria. He even lived in Nigeria for a couple of years.

In the United Kingdom Mohammed was a model business man, a role model for Africans and an icon for Eritreans who are at the bottom of the economic and social ladder.

 It is not money that drove Mohammed to go to Eritrea, invest and live there as a manger of the family soap factory, OMO.  It is rather his philanthropic and nationalist mind set, of the dream shared by many Eritreans. An achievement to cherish forever, a dream to build a  school in the place of his junior high school days, Mendefera, Seraye. He died with his dreams unfulfilled.  Otherwise, Mohammed was well off in the United Kingdom and had built his family on a solid economic ground.  

It is out side social life, when we started to work together, as elected executive member of the newly formed Eritrean Employers Federation (EEF) that I came to know the other side of Mohammed.  EEF was the first freely elected civil society organisation, free from Government interference. The executive committee, the Board is fairly representative of all the business sectors in Eritrea. There was one from the PFDJ conglomerates, one woman representing the interest of women entrepreneurs, Mohammed representing manufacturing industries and myself as an employee of the Commercial Bank of Eritrea, representing the financial sector. The chairman was Mengisteab Teklezion- the manager of the Eritrean Truck Drivers Association, representing the transport sector. Mengisteab was an independent minded and dynamic person; he has a power of listening and learning from international businesses men like Mohammed. There were three other board members from other sectors, one had migrated from the USA, I don’t remember his name but he was involved in construction sector. The combination and the harmony between all of us were extremely good. We realized and discussed about it that we were shouldering a heavy responsibility and we thought we should live up to it and were meeting every week, which is quite unprecedented in a business board rooms.

 Mohammed had a vision, a role to play, in making Eritrea prosperous through promoting the private sector.  He believed that the private sector is the engine of economic growth in any country. Even the Government was telling the World Bank and investors that Eritrea is promoting a private sector led economy. Of course it didn’t mean it because its actions would tell a different story.

Within a short period the EEF had done a lot to promote the interest of the private sector.

After the 1998 Ethio-Eritrean war a lot of businesses, mostly commercial agriculture in the lowlands and in the South were crippled. Those who had loans saw the bank interest rising high. The EEF made a well attended conference to highlight the losses and come up with a rescue strategy.  In the Conference it got hold of the survey conducted by the Asmara University Students and there was detailed account of losses. There were some who gave testimony of their losses; I remember the one whose modern hotel in Barentu was turned into rubble.  The Commercial Bank of Eritrea agreed to freeze the repayment of loans and interests, instead to give them a start-up fresh loan. The Eritrean business people found a new voice in EEF. It was profoundly significant at that time. It raised their moral and hope. The staffs of the World Bank in Asmara were excited of what we were doing and they started consulting with us in their drive to help the private sector businesses. Their office was behind EEF office. EEF has an office in the high rise building of Eritrean-German friendship building. From that moment in time   the EEF had established good relationship with the World Bank and we have been assured that the World Bank would specify the amount of money earmarked to be loaned to the private sector businesses. At that time the Government was negotiating a big loan with the World Bank and have agreed to an amount that nears half a billion US dollars. The World Bank office in Asmara was so happy about it agreement of a loan with the Government that they launched a reception at Continental Hotel.  The loan did not materialize because of the Government U turn as a result of September 18, 2001 move of incarcerating the reforms and journalists etc. And later on abandoning well studied demobilization programme which was replaced by W&Y project.

The EEF conference came out with the best strategy to rescue the private sector from demise.  It was not possible to implement, though, because the heart and mind of the Government was not to rescue the private sector. In fact the private sector was repeatedly being blamed for making life expensive in Eritrea by the government media.

The second profoundly significant initiative was to minimize the damage to the economy particularly the private sector by losing employees to Sawa Military training centre. Many key workers were asked to go to Sawa for a long time. As a consequence all the private business suffered a lot. Many members of the federation (the private sector) brought these facts to the executive committee. EEF came with a grand workable nation wide economic strategy, to keep the labour force in their place of work and maintain their income without affecting the capability of the defence forces. That is to identify the key workers without whom the business would have no life, key technicians, industrial experts, managers, etc. and limit their stay in SAWA for the specifies training period of 6 months. We sold this idea to the then Minister of Trade and Industry, the late Ali Said Abdella. At first he was very good and enthusiast.  But he later avoided us; he may not have got the approval to carry out the plan.

We tried to make them understand the role of EEF is to advice the Government on matters of economy. The EEF is crucial in the health of the Eritrean economy; it can work in partnership with the Ministry of Trade and Industry. It has a role to advice the Government to come up with policies friendly to businesses and to create jobs for the population. EEF is there to represents the interests and the voice of the employers. The Government had no ear for that and so the initiative failed. Instead we observed that engineers, computers experts and other professions were taken away from their jobs to go to national service and end up working for PFDJ construction and other companies boosting the PFGJ economic and social control of Eritrea, while private businesses  collapse.  Looked at it in retrospective it looks as if it is deliberate to destroy the private sector with it the middle class. This was disgraceful to say the least.  The independence of EEF came to an end when its fearless and dynamic chairman Mengisteab was arrested and banished. No one knows weather he is alive or dead

Had the Government was keen to look after the needs of the population it should have let the EEF be part of shaping and determining policies to undertake genuine and workable national development? They could have avoided the most draconian policy, the Warsai and Yekealo development campaign which are geared to develop the rural by starving the modern sector the cities where most of the industries are of its labour force.  Economic transformation of agrarian society can not succeed outside the context of integrated national economy by which farmers in the rural areas get help in the form of agriculture experts like extension workers, providing loans, fertilizers, training that opens the road to  mechanisation of the farms. Partial or total mechanization of agriculture would release extra labour to work in the modern sector of industry manufacturing, trade and in social and civil services.  Taking labour from the modern sector to the rural areas is to go back to backwardness and agrarian society. W& Y has emptied the town of the most productive labour force, the youth. It may be ill conceived and may not be deliberate but the end result is that the W&Y project is exposing the whole population to poverty.  The family is an economic unit as well and if the most productive member of the family the youth and any one below 40 is taken away it would undermine the institution of the family, it can not survive without economic power. We are witnessing that the labour is appropriated to work on governments farms; construction etc. and so the people are at the mercy of Government for food, indeed Government shops are mushrooming in Eritrea. The purchase of wheat one of the stable food is controlled. This is nothing but social engineering.  All social engineering like the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia of emptying the towns of the people to work on farms in the rural areas ended in disaster. W&Y is no different. The Government has to abandon this project before it is too late.  It is crystal clear that behind the huge influx of refugees, ever to Ethiopia, lies nothing but a disappointed yearning for fulfilment. Keeping people in W&Y is preventing the people not only from feeding the family but also from realizing their inherent human potential. They can not exploit their potential to study for a profession, to work the work they choose, to be creative and happy. This situation has a negative impact even in exile because the youth wasted many years doing manual work and they lagged behind in skills and education.  Mother Nature confronts the humans with a specific task at certain times that have to be absolved precisely then. Certain stages of development can only be realized to an optimal degree when carried out at specific phases of life. When the youth goes to Sawa at the age of 18 and stayed 6, 8 years and those who go to exile may take them 2 to 3 years to reach to the Promised Land. 8 years in W&Y project render them to sacrifice 4 years they would have attended colleges, or 4 years to accumulate work experience and work few years to save some money to prepare to form their own family. With many years of losses, it is very difficult for them to catch up with life. This is the reason why the “house of life” always stands on a shaky foundation for some people (this time the Eritrean youth), simply because certain experiences were not gained or skills not developed when they were at the right age for them. Most PFDJ-driven Eritrean refugees in UK don’t want to pursue education they prefer to take low paid jobs and get on with life. They think the time for schooling has eluded them, gone for ever. Under such circumstances such choices are rational.

The EEF intention was to sell the idea that there is no need to take workers and professionals off work to provide free labour at the expenses of their families’ survival. The Government can give them military training on Sundays and Saturdays, assign them in Territorial Army and role-call them if war is about to break out.  This way Eritrea could maintain the health of its economy and the survival of the institution of the family. Huge influx of refugees and awful brain drain could have been avoided. The irony is that 7 years had passed and there is no war. The supporters of PFDJ are guilty not putting a pressure to the Government to change this draconian policy. It is not even a question about change of Government; it is rather a question of putting an integrated Eritrean national economy that could transform and advance the economic and social life of the entire people.

In spite of all such odds Mohamed was able to maintain good relationship with the authorities. He was friendly, social and gave advice and support in matters of the Eritrean economy, even, to the extent of giving interview on TV-ERE.

Taking all this into consideration I don’t think the Eritrean Government has a hand in his death. It may be rogue elements within the Government. Time will tell. But the big but is that the absence of the rule of law, human rights and freedom of expression prevailing in Eritrea to day would create a fertile ground for gangsterism to take root in the God fearing and docile societyp of Eritrea.  Those who do that could only be men in uniform as we have seen the drama of the death of Fikre Andemariam in prison, the assassination attempt of Colonel Simon Gebredengel, the death of Samson in the shoot out and the ultimate news blackout there after.

What are the lessons?

Mohammed represented hope for the private sector. He had an incredible capacity to deal with people even with difficult people. He had a warm, radiant personality. Good natured, friendly, good sense of humour. He was full of life, an outgoing person who frequently socializes until late at night.  He was humane and of peoples’ person who used to support the family of his workers when they were sent to the army for a long time. He was paying salaries when the company closed at times for lack of foreign currency to buy raw materials.  But above all he was a family man who loves his children, his parents, siblings and all the extended family.

But the bottom line is that the economy of one country can not advance without the law of free trade that guarantees the right of employers, local or foreign investors, and when employees   are able to freely market their labour power.  In Eritrean all these are in short supply. Institutions that promote the growth of the economy do not exist. Therefore it is futile to expect economic advancement other than poverty in Eritrea. It is a typical example of man made poverty in Africa.

As a consequence many experienced business men and women moved their offices to Dubai and focus on other parts of Africa, South Sudan, Angola, South Africa etc. May be he was naïve not to understand this logic and for that he paid with his life.

Yes we lost a gem, a dynamic person who is nibbed in the bud. He will be terribly missed by his family, particularly his young children, friends and all those justice loving people who attended his funeral in their thousands. That kind of funeral procession where thousands attended in spite of no mention in the government owned media symbolizes protest, a protest that the Eritrean people categorically oppose unlawful killings and all forms of injustices taking place in Eritrea of today. It is a message to mourn for Eritrea.

I extend my condolence to Mrs. Mensura the wife, the children his father and mother and the rest of the grieving family.

So long my dear friend: I have no doubt that Justice will eventually prevail
I and on behalf of the 1976 friends.