In my previous posting a few weeks ago, I promised to add my input to Dr. Taddesse�s reconceptualization of a national conference as a mechanism to address the present crisis in Eritrea.  What follows is my installment to his invitation. 

     The current state of affairs in our country proverbially reminds us of the Eritrean saying: �An unfortunate bird becomes blind in Meskerem.�  In light of the huge potential the Eritrean struggle initially offered, Eritrea was not supposed to be in the present predicament, not because of some sort of particular destiny rooted in Eritrean exceptionalism, but because of the timing of its liberation.  Eritrean independence happened at the exact moment when the various experiments in dictatorship had come to an end and a new wave of seminal moments in democratic governance had just begun.  Early warnings from some opposition voices notwithstanding, most Eritreans and friends of Eritrea were self-assured that Eritrea was bound not to take the old road to dictatorship; but it did.  The nation�s crypto-marxists were unable to unlearn the few things they parroted from history.  In consequence, they blindly embarked on the old road to dictatorship, which their African predecessors had taken.  By tragic irony, the failed history of African states became Eritrea�s future as the chickens came home to roost. 

     The burning question confronting Eritrea and her people today is how can the nation retrace its journey to the original promised path of emancipation, freedom and progress.  Of course, there is no magic bullet; Eritreans of goodwill and sincere concern for their country and people need to reflect on what has happened, not in self-pity and in the exercise of fault-finding, but to find out where we erred as a society and to search for palpable answers to the challenges.  What Eritrea requires of her citizens today is for dedicated patriots and democrats to pick up the banner of freedom, intent on making a contribution to the national effort to put things right again.  Eritrea needs men and women who approach the issues of our country with the purest of hearts, with the clearest of minds and the loftiest of purposes to bring about the political emancipation of our people and the restoration of their human dignity.  Eritrea is in search of patriots who neither yearn for power nor seek recognition, whose preoccupation is with how to transform our collective anger, confusion and frustration at the perpetuation of the failed policies into positive energy for redemption and progress.  They must be nonpartisan in their outlook and yet strong believers in the redeeming power of change. 

     Today we are facing two seemingly insurmountable problems.  The first has to do with the urgency of removing the dictatorship from our country.  The second problem involves the management of the post-dictatorship situation.  It was the practical urgency of these two critical issues that prompted Dr. Taddesse to frame a national road map.  His conviction is that the first step to national redemption begins with the convocation of a national conference where internal and external Eritrean forces can come together to reason out their differences, identify their common interests and compare their visions for the country. 

     However, I think there are plenty of visionary bricks already made; the problem is how to put these visionary bricks together into a coherent program of action and practicable direction.  Phrases such as �national salvation�, �national reconciliation�, and �national conference� are increasingly becoming clich�s.  Such concepts are lofty in themselves, but they do not automatically suggest the mechanics for their realization.  It is here where the role of political technicians becomes ever more crucial, and Dr. Taddesse's clarion call did seem to point to the urgency of identifying a practicable plan of action.   

     If properly crafted, a national conference can be a method of struggle, an event and a process.  In the first instance, it can be used to rally people to the idea of dialogical communication as the optimal method of conflict resolution.  This can put the dictator and his henchmen in a box either to accept the methodology for peaceful transition or risk violent repercussions for their failure to accept their own peaceful removal from power. 

     As an event, a national conference provides an occasion to review the past, assess the present, and renew shared commitments to the creation of a progressive and democratic Eritrea.  As to its composition, though, a national conference becomes highly murky.  Ideally, a peaceful transition can have a better chance of success if the dictatorship embraces the idea and agrees to hold the conference in Asmara.  But we do not have a historical analogue to anticipate such a possibility.  The alternative is to synthesize Keleta Kidane�s conception of a �third force� with Seyoum Tesfai�s �negotiated revolution� proposition.  Somehow, a bridge has to be built to link the external opposition with the internal reform movement.  This is something that calls for extensive discussion and debate in order to concretize the concepts. 

     As a process, a national conference can set in motion a sequence of events that cumulatively nurture the transition to an orderly and democratic political system.  As such, the national conference should have a clearly defined agenda and specific tasks that must be accomplished.  As Dr. Taddesse refines his �road map� to specify the programmatic vision, I invite him to consider what I have listed below.   

1.      Determining the Composition of the Transitional Government.   Presumably, a post-dictatorship situation requires a care-taker government in order to put in place the mechanics of a permanent democratic governance.  Thus Dr. Taddesse�s proposal for the formation of a provisional care-taker government for a period of three years is very plausible.  The care-taker government may be assisted by a provisional national assembly, whose composition and powers shall be determined by the national conference on the basis of recommendations from a preparatory committee.  The provisional assembly, however, may serve for a period of two years until a permanent national assembly is duly elected in accordance with the present constitution and under a new electoral law allowing the permanent national assembly to sit at the beginning of the third year of the transitional period.  The permanent national assembly shall exercise the powers entrusted to it by the present constitution, including the power to amend any provision as provided by the constitution.   

2.      Implementation of the Present Constitution and Formation of a Constitutional Review Commission.  We all are fully aware of the current debate within and outside Eritrea over the �constitutionality� of the present Eritrean constitution.  The debate is healthy so long as it is not reduced to fetishism.  Constitutional lawyers always make the observation that, if you put one hundred lawyers in one hundred separate rooms each tasked to draft a constitution for a nation, you will get one hundred different constitutions.  The argument that the present Eritrean constitution is sponsored by the present dictatorship and therefore it must be discarded altogether is trivial.  What we inherit from the constitution-making exercise in Eritrea is the constitutional process and a commitment to the process itself.  After all, any constitution is as good as its practitioners.  No group of lawyers in Africa has ever produced a �prettier� constitutions in the past thirty-five years than the Nigerians did.  But, by now we all know that the reproduction of constitutions in Nigeria was not a sufficient condition for the installation of a democratic order.  So, without further ado, I would propose implementation of the present Eritrean constitution, accompanied by the formation of a constitutional review commission.  The review commission may comprise members of the previous constitutional commission, strengthened by the addition of new members to satisfy the demand for equal representation and to furnish fresh perspectives as well.  The constitutional review commission shall re-examine the present Eritrean constitution and the provisions contained therein in light of the recent experience and the issues raised by concerned citizens and groups.  The commission shall recommend to the permanent national assembly amendments to the constitution upon which the latter shall seize of the matter in accordance with the powers given to it by the constitution.  In light of the amended or revised constitution, then a national election for the presidency shall be held sometime during the last year of the transitional period. 

3.       Establishing Freedom of the Press.  One major source of dictatorship is the total monopoly control over information.  Dictatorships generally thrive on the emotional manipulation of the citizenry by deploying propaganda batteries.  So, in order to thwart the potential drift towards dictatorship, I propose that the national conference declare the complete privatization of the press; the government should be put out of business in the gathering and dissemination of information.  The Eritrean television and radio services should be organized on the model of the British Broadcasting Corporation or the French Press Agency, with full editorial freedom while retaining their public personality.  At this point in time, I don�t believe that privatizing the public airwaves is a good idea. 

4.      Creation of a National Civil Service Commission.   One of the serious impediments to national progress is the politicization of the recruitment, selection, training and placement of civil servants.  Loyalty rather than competence, and subservience rather than dispassionate analysis generally govern the composition and performance of the civil service.  To avoid such pitfalls, the national conference must establish a national civil service commission, whose task it will be to develop a national civil service sector on the basis of individual competence, experience and rationality, ascertained by such means as public examination or other equivalent methods.  The presence of such a commission with transparent criteria can preempt the proclivity towards nepotism, favoritism, and corruption; it can at least help to reduce the saliency of political patronage.  It will go a long way in achieving public accountability and efficient performance. 

5.      Creation of a National Employment Commission.  It is a public secret that our people today are under a dire economic situation.  It is easy to blame the current economic malaise on the war with Ethiopia and the drought; those things have certainly compounded the predicament.  However, the fault line of the problem lies in the regime�s economic prescription.  Eager to monopolize the major arteries of the economy, it scared away from the country even Eritreans with modest capital.  The economic policy that the Eritrean dictatorship has hitherto pursued had been tried in Stalinist Russia, North Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere with dismal record.  The focus on a handful of �white elephant� projects and building airports, using forced labor, will not do the job.  During the transitional period, a way must be found to economically empower the Eritrean people.  I thus propose that the national conference set up a national employment commission to help individuals and groups create their own employment.  Because water and energy are problematic in Eritrea and the creation of large-scale production facilities requires large amount of capital and time, the focus must be on small-scale, labor-intensive and value-added production schemes.  Developing the garment industry, for example, comes to mind.  The tens of thousands of Eritrean women as well as men can be organized into self-managing small production units to produce assortments of readymade garments with minimal capital.  The commission would raise capital for distribution to self-help business units, repayable within a reasonable time and minimal interest charges, just enough to cover the cost of borrowing.  Priority must be given to members of the Eritrean Defense Force and women.  The employment commission must also provide prospective members of business units with training in management and marketing.  The production units can out-source their raw materials in such countries as South Korea and Vietnam or the Philippines and then add value to the imported materials for sale at home and abroad.  The garment sector is just one example; there are many other areas that can be exploited creatively. 

6.      Establishing a National Truth Commission.  In the past fifty years, Eritrea�s history has taken many zigzagging roads; this history is not free of wounds, scars and even carnage.  More often than not, quite a large number of people engage in a tug-of-war when they face contemporary issues by pointing to old wounds and scars.  In consequence, the participants in the political process become self-destructive.  In the end, though, it is the nation that becomes the ultimate loser.  Indeed, burying the hatchet and overlooking one�s own wounds and scars in the interest of a common good in and of itself is a form of sacrifice.  If the Eritrean struggle for freedom, dignity and progress is to be put back on its trajectory, old wounds must heal, old scars must be covered.  Nation builders must start afresh, with a new spirit of solidarity, comradery, clear vision and determined purpose.  The Machiavellian artifices of dividing Eritreans between fighters and Burghers, between EPLF and ELF fighters, and between the Eritrean society and the Diaspora community must come to an end.  This, too, is a necessary component of the transitional process.  So, in order to facilitate the national healing process, I propose that the national conference establish a truth commission by drawing important lessons from the experiences of Chile and South Africa.  The nature, composition and scope of the truth commission will be a product of earnest deliberation. 

7.      Establishing an Office of the Ombudsman.  The surest way to empower ordinary citizens is by giving them the necessary tools by which they can hold elected officials accountable.  One of the methods to insure official accountability is to enable citizens to report abuses of power to a neutral entity without the fear of reprisal and without the knowledge of abusive officials.  This neutral body should be the office of the ombudsman, whose job it is to investigate reported official abuses and take appropriate measures.  Because the ombudsman�s sphere of competence resides outside both the executive and legislative branches of government, the office of the ombudsman can serve as an independent and relatively objective watchdog over elected office holders.  I thus recommend that the national conferees consider the plausibility of this idea.      

I hope that Dr. Tadesse finds these suggestions worthy of his time.  These offerings are not meant to exhaust the possibilities for taming the post-dictatorship situation, but rather to shed light on how the programmatic vision should be structured in order to make the transition orderly.