Background: This article was inspired by Khalil Talke’s articles at  Meftih. www.meftih.com. Khalil wrote two articles raising the stumbling blocks and stone walling that he faces day in and day out to do his job as a financial controller of the ECAO. And to that end he penned two articles, an expose of sorts in the June and July issues of this year.  Mefthi is a monthly newspaper published by Aaron Berhane in Toronto. 

Twilight in the Eritrean Canadian Association of Ontario (ECAO): Khalil Talke’s ominous call. 

Khalil’s ominous call for accountability and his poignant message are timely. The problems that he cites are prevalent in our communities across North America.  From Toronto to Seattle our Communities are divided, our churches fractured. The united and strong community that we so much cherish is still elusive, a mirage that vanishes as we get closer, temptingly teasing us from afar. We salivate to quench our thirst for unity; but our anguished yearning is again crashed as we approach the mirage of our own making. The outcome is so rewarding that, some dedicated Eritreas have spent a life time working devotedly to the cause to no avail. The decade-old flirtation to uniting our communities in Diaspora has regressed to the worst. Are you tired of this vicious cycle? Take heart. There is a solution. How about if these successive failures to unite and rally around the same Eritrean cause, of cultural renaissance in our homes away from home is an opportunity to totally relinquish this elusive dream, and willingly jump into the proverbial melting-pot. Instead of squandering our energies to the dream that has invariably turned into a nightmare, maybe it is time we channel our energies towards making our adapted countries better places for everyone. 

Maybe we should choose one identity and stick to it. We have rehearsed for decades to unite our churches and communities. Even our supposedly spiritual places have turned into PFDJ practicing ground, where they freely hone, refine and perfect their divisive skills. Maybe it is time for somber reflections and appraisals whether the dream is worthwhile. Maybe this dream of ours is just a dream. A vanity. Maybe it is time for concession speech that we have succumbed to the PFDJ thuggery. In all fronts it seems that the PFDJ had us by our balls, figuratively speaking that is. It has been said that failure is a stage rehearsal for one's ultimate success. But it seems that our failures, instead of learning experiences have become catalysts for more colossal failures. 

First we fail to appreciate that the kind of communities we have are innately anti-unity. The Tigrina centric and Christian-oriented community centers cannot unite all Eritreans to begin with. Take an example, the candle light vigil that we hold during the martyr’s day and the symbolic scattering of popcorn--both have no meaning to an Eritrean Moslem. Therefore, it is inherently futile to think of a united Eritrean community without first nurturing inclusive and secular community centers that accommodate all Eritrean. The Eritrean Moslem community has found its own unofficial community centers in coffee shops and restaurants that cater to their cultural void and have slowly dissociated themselves from the elusive united Eritrean community centers. They have mostly emancipated themselves from PFDJ’s grip. And in their religion they have found solace. They have followed the counsel of the Noble Koran: “The Land of God is vast just move.” Therefore they are happier, their marriages healthier and their children more in tune with their religion and culture. Either with pure serendipity or with a stroke of genius they have concluded that PFDJ’s grip is so lethargic. They have moved on. Maybe the failure to create viable and united Eritrean community centers is a harbinger, an opportunity undisguised to move on and totally integrate. 

If our goal is to live a happy fulfilled life, meaningfully contribute to our own community and the human kind, then what is the obsession with creating a strong Eritrean community in the Diaspora? The dream not only has squandered our energies and talents, but it has obscured our vision from seeing PFDJ’s destructive role within our community. This dream is malice. It has blinded visionaries, whose dogged obsession with the unity, culture and national security has made them feisty PFDJ supporters. Our compatriots in Eritrea shake their heads in disgust to see the clapping morons, who are oblivious to the suffering of their brethren.  

How will a child of an Eritrean mother and father born in Canada for example benefit from been steeped into the Eritrean culture? How will it help him be successful in this country? One can to some extent sympathize with a person born and raised in Eritrea to be PFDJ supporter, but it is beyond my comprehension to encounter Eritrean kids born here to be PFDJ supporters. There are plenty of them. Maybe we are doing a disservice to the nation by steeping our youngesters in the Eritrean Culture, which is some what friendly to repression and despots. 

We wallow in our own hubris of Eritrean greatness that has a limiting effect in our potential, rendering us to be subservient of a troubled nation and a tyrant. Our Achilles hills are the hubris we exude, the passion we express and the exuberance we command to emulate the failed nation called Eritrea.  We strive to recreate the Eritrean culture, I think for more egoistic reasons rather for the good of the masses. The ideals of justice and freedom are nobler than teaching our kids the Eritrean culture. They have their own culture, the Canadian culture, endowed to them by virtue of their birth. We do not need to produce more supporters of a despot. We have enough of them. 

The dream is taking us no where. We are neither here not there. Stuck in the distant past, reluctant to embrace the cultures of our host countries. Unrespected by our compatriot in Eritrea, who rightly look at us as enablers of their melancholy. We have colossally failed. And the culprit is this dream, which both inspired and anguished brother Khalil Talke to ink the two articles raising his ominous message on the twilight that is befalling the ECAO. 

Negussie Tewoldemdhin a man in a mission to divide the Eritrean Community in Toronto. 

When the EPLF and the Eritrean people were immersed in the independence honeymoon euphoria, Negussie vehemently critised the transitional government of Eritrea for its lack of diversity, the tell-tale signs of intolerance and mass media monopoly. He was ahead of his time. Negussie who derisively wrote in Dehai in 1996 dubbing Hiddat Ephrem and her ilk “the self crowned sole custodians of Eritrea” is now a full fledged member of the PFDJ Toronto, who tirelessly and insidiously toils to undermine all efforts to unite and strong community. As he formerly harbored very strong opposition opinions joining the PFDJ had to be preceded by a humiliatingly unceremonious exit from the community center he helped found. He was estranged from his brain child for a couple of years. After making sure both the damage to his self esteem and the “castration” were indelible, the PFDJ staged a come back. In what seemed to be an ironic twist of destiny he was crowned the king of the hill. It was all an act, a show meticulously architectured by non other than the PFDJ boss in Toronto. Now the ECAO is stagnant and dysfunctional. Negussie’s deliberate mission has triumphed.  

After 30 years of living in Canada, unlike his comrades Estifanos and Temesghen of the Toronto PFDJ, Negussie to his credit has a an excellent grasp of the Canadian system. Undaunted by the challenges he initially faced he created the ECAO to serve as a surrogate to the PFDJ. Faced with increasingly dwindling support, the PFDJ had to reinvent itself. For many the outcome was apparent and the reasoning behind an alternative redundant community center too obvious. Negussie, who oscillates between an MD who specializes in diabetics and an MBA in corporate accounting, depending in the moods of the season, lacks basic credibility and is known for taking credit of the labor of others. Long before the ECAO was created he worked with the Eritrean Canadian Community (ECC) to educate Eritreans in the perils of HIV. And to that end he chaired several informative seminars and consultations with the community. The end result was a documentary like educational video. More than 20 people worked to make this project a success. And make it a success they did. Then he traveled to Asmara and used his own family connection to broadcast it via the then nascent TV Eri. No credit or acknowledgement was given to the people who worked hard to make this project happen. It was his baby and he shined.  

Negussie along with his alter ego, Temesgen Haileab, the infamous former Derg member are the invisible hands that control, manipulate and loyally deliver the PFDJ mission to the letter. In the shadows there lurks Estifanos Negussie, the messenger of the dictator to spy and report Eritreans who harbor the slightest dissent against the current government of Eritrea.  It is therefore befitting at this time of the year to ask questions and to demand accountability of the ECAO. Does the ECAO serve, as it should, the Eritreans in Ontario or is the organization a latent tentacle of the PFDJ? We should unequivocally support the former and equally denounce the later. 

I believe that this year’s Toronto Festival was phenomenally successful event. Eritreans from different cities gathered, mingled, danced with fervor to the tunes of the ever talented Dawit Shilan in jubilation. But who is benefiting financially from these events? Insiders hint that money is secretly funneled to PFDJ coffers. The leadership and the incumbent president are duty bound to come clean and the public has the right to demand accountability of the finances they help raise, lest we finance a failed regime that betrayed us, and under which the whim of a one man is sufficient to imprison, torture and disappear citizens. 

The Eritrean Canadian Community (ECC) has over two-decade unfettered history of serving the needs of all Eritrean Canadians in Toronto. Despite the inherent weakness and its lack of vision and succession planning, it can be empowered and reformed. Instead Negussie was charged with creating the still-born ECAO to further fragment our communities, rendering them impotent to be a formidable challenge.

May the PFDJ rest, but NOT in peace.