After the mauling in Washington, DC, our friends in PFDJ land are experiencing a little bit of post-traumatic syndrome and they have become even more excessive in their writings.  The kiddie website whose idea of criticism is to place lipsticks on the pictures of people it disagrees with hosted two venomous articles by two PFDJ writers: Sophia Tesfamariam and Sammy G.   To read the entire articles, go to the kiddie website our old friend T.M. Negassi (he who claimed to receive 500 e-mails when writing in Asmarino now has to contend with two e-mails) calls home.  If you would like to avoid the gaudy mud-fest and would like an abridged version of the stink bombs, we provide you with the following: 

Sophia Tesfamariam:

The Queen of Tact and Civility lectures that we should not dismiss people and their opinions simply because we disagree with them:

�Even if a single lone person decided to oppose them that day, that person should be respected for his views, but these "democrats" tell us that he or she is not entitled to do so.�

Very impressive indeed.  But then, she uses the following adjectives to describe people she disagrees with:

�Defectors�, �defeatists�,  �enemies of the people of Eritrea�, �riff raffs� [sic], �supporters of rapists and terrorists�, �traitors�, �shameful lot�, �stooges�,   �enemy collaborators�,  �looser�[sic],  �where is the swatter when you need it�,  �FO.�

Thank you, Miss Manners.

Now, there has been some controversy on the turn-out from the pro-government rally.  Awate.com estimated it at 80; Shaebia.org said there were 1500.  To the accusation that the turn-out was low, here�s Miss Manners explaining:   

(1)       People have better things to do
 �A number of people I spoke to told me they did not want to "waste" their time for a group that had been buried and forgotten, they were saving their time away from work for better things, like vacationing with their children and taking a couple of days off for the upcoming Eritrean festival.�

We all know that only pro-government people have better things to do with their time.

(2)                 We Wanted to avoid the company of the other:

� The truth is, we were ashamed of them and for them. We were ashamed to call them Eritreans. None of us wanted to be seen on the same park with these traitors."

We wanted to avoid their company so much that we scheduled the demonstration the same day.

(3)                 Not Enough Time To Plan The Event:

�We only found out about their plans a week ago and with so many families in Eritrea for the summer and a funeral in DC, I'll say it was quite an accomplishment to get out the word and take off from work at such short notice."

(4)                 It was a work day:

�The fact that it was a Monday was even harder because most of us work and could not leave work and stay there all day.�

Of course, most of �them� don�t work.

(5)    Our supporters are in Eritrea:

"We also have many families that are still in Eirtrea on vacation"

Unlike them, who are probably not allowed to go to Eritrea.

(6)                 There was a funeral to attend to:

�� to top it all off we had a funeral in DC for a man who died suddenly while visiting his family in DC.�

HOWEVER�

But despite all that, over 1000 people turned out at the State Department and were there from 10AM-12: 30PM. These traitors deliberately stayed away and dragged their feet getting there.

They kept dragging their feet instead of showing up and confronting us so we can show them how much we despise and don�t want to be in their company.

SAMMY G.

Meanwhile, Judge Sammy G called the anti-GoE demonstrators �dead men walking.�  In the United States, the term �dead man walking� is used by prison wardens when referring to a walk of convict who is in death row.  The Prosecutor is thus telling us that, according to his sentencing, the demonstrators are all on death row.

Sammy G. doesn�t want to bother with the usual adjectives of �Weyane�, �Traitors�, �Jihads�, �Terrorists� so he opts for the original Chifra.  

Then, the man of Hafash:

(1)                 Makes fun of Eritreans� inability to master the English language:

�It was just a bunch of people chanting, incoherently I must add, at a park. The Chifra were chanting, almost barking, in inaudible and irritating English: �down with the dictator� and "Issaias must go."

(2)    Refers to an Eritrean dissident as a �death-row fugitive�:

"They also had one death-row fugitive named Semere Tazaz in their midst, possibly the only �youth� Dead Man Walking there. The Chifra likes to call him a �fine journalist.�

(3)                 Tells us how he is helping in breaking America�s immigration policy:

"Here�s the interesting part. We met some Pro-GoE folks who came to the Chifra demo �just to have their pictures taken with the [Chifra] for their asylum cases.� In fact, we helped them take pictures and they left soon after."

(4)                 Makes fun of people who are not as sharp-dressed as he is:

�Speaking of looks, the Chifra, in their uniforms and �tools�, definitely looked like a bunch of Lorton, VA prisoners who were out for a day of labor on the streets. They did not look good, I tell you. "Ertrawiyan de�a TsubuQat endina wedey", said one female youth in your group.�

(5)                 Takes pride in Eritreans heckling other Eritreans:

� Yet some 50 or so Pro-GoE Eritrean youths stayed around to taunt the Chifra. They were calling them: �Agame�, �Weyane�, �Haredti�, �sheqeTti�, �hademti�, �kedAat�, �al-Qaeda�, �Mujahadeen�, �trfraf�, �Jihad�, �Convicts�,�Terrorists�, �goHafat�, etc.

In other words, everything you would expected from a Diaspora-raised youth marinated in the PFDJ skunis culture of bigotry, chauvinism and arrogance.  This is sad, but not newsworthy.  But then comes this.  Referring to the pre-1991 Eritrean flag that thousands of ELF and EPLF tegadelti died for, the same flag that was waving in Eritrean tanks as the EPLF stormed liberated Massawa; the same flag that was flown in all the liberated lands of Eritrea until its replacement in 1993, Sammy G writes:

"Most Americans were infuriated to learn that a bunch of terrorists and traitors were protesting while carrying the American flag and another �strange blue flag� that looked like the one spotted at Tora Bora, Afghanistan. I�m not kidding." 

We know you are not kidding, Sammy G.  Which is what makes your writing specially sad, distasteful and vulgar.  We know some people, including some senile folks who should know better, have steered you wrong into thinking that the green-on-blue flag is a �federation flag�: but check with more sober-minded people and you will know it is a flag that was adopted by the ELF, EPLF, PLF and one that thousands of Eritreans died for.  If the Eritrean martyrs on whose behalf you have been engaging in your misguided campaign mean anything to you, do the right thing and apologize.   

Go to the community center; doctor all the videos there before you mock our war veterans and Eritrea�s history. You will find the flag right on top of the tanks that rolled to Massawa and to Asmara. Have decency and stop mocking our martyrs if you have any decency left. You are too young to have this much hate so we will assume you said things out of ignorance and not, as some of your older friends have done, out of spite.