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Let the Eritrean Masses Eat Pride and Dignity!

What I found strange about this 2007 article of Ghadi was that it was peppered with “pride” and its variants from start to finish – and all of this to spare the PFDJ from the wrath of the USA who was ready to slap it with sanctions! Throughout the article, the main theme was on how we should NOT let the USA do the job for us Eritreans; and that if we let this happen, it will be no less than our pride that will be at stake! It was Eritrean self-reliance at its nationalistic best. In one of his most outrageous moments, Ghadi said it would be shameful for all Eritreans if the US would apprehend Isaias like Noriega and imprison him in US soil! And at his most “patriotic” moment, he came out openly to say that if Eritrea is designated as State Sponsor of Terrorism, “the biggest risk is the damage it will do to Eritrean pride.” (emphasis mine)

If the current debate in Awate.com on the Youth Conference in Bisheftu sounds like a déjà vu moment, it is because all that you have to do is insert “Ethiopia” where the “USA” had been in 2007 to end up with the same script. It is as if the Awate Team has this pride-and-dignity script ready for emergency cases. ...

Documenting Utter Failure Versus Cataloging Perennial Excuse

... The last decade the political side of the failure has received more attention than the economic devastation under the regime. Hopefully the kind of documents released by BTI will force us to pay more attention to the economic disaster and its long range implication to the post –Isaias transition and rebuilding of Eritrea. The economic indicators presented by BTI shows (contrary to the celebrated empty Isaias’ rhetoric on Debt Free Eritrea) that Eritrea had the following massive External debt (in millions of dollars) – in 2007 -$859.4, 2008- $961.4, 2009-$1018.9, 2010-$1009.8. Eritrean GDP for 2010 (according to the report) is $2117.00 million dollar. The External Debt is about 50% of the GDP- So much for self-reliance and debt free economy.

In Eritrea, You Can Actually Adopt a Prisoner!

If you are in the habit of watching TV late into the night, you couldn’t have possibly missed many of the” fund-raising” schemes, where you are bombarded with images of poor children from Africa or South America, often with sad eyes and amputated limbs. The usual pleading goes as follows: “Adopt a child with just a dollar a day!” This is not adoption in its normal sense. All that is required of you to “adopt” a child is to send thirty dollars a month, and all the material needs of the child will be met (you are reassured). In a similar fashion, I am wondering, why the Isaias regime doesn’t run similar advertisements among diaspora Eritreans: “Adopt a prisoner with just a dollar a day!” [as it used to do with “drar teghadalay”] After all, by now, it has tens of thousands of prisoners languishing in the ever-proliferating prisons scattered all over Eritrea . It needs all the help it can get to arrest them, apprehend them, transport them, house them, feed them, interrogate them, watch over them, indoctrinate them, torture them and sometimes even finish them off. ...

ARE THEY TOTALLY BANKRUPTED?

As a regular reader of Eritrean websites, I was recently searching for interesting news about Eritrea as most Eritreans in the Diaspora do. During my search going from one website to another, I stumbled onto a disgusting article full of fabrication of someone I know and respect. The article posted on the websites of Dehay and Asena, did not include the name of the author nor any address. In this case the respected websites are fully responsible and accountable for this article.

[Picture: Meron Estifanos among a panel in a conference for Dawit Isaak]

Sanction Watch – The Ground Work for the Third Sanction

To us, Eritrean Diaspora activists, the mere cataloguing and recognition of the despicability of the regime and its evil deeds against its own people and the region of the Horn Africa is not enough.  An ounce of decisive and firm action as an evidence of demonstration of the UNSC resolution by the key nations in the Security Council will have more impact than massive data that reinforces what the Eritrean people have felt and known for a long time. ...

This monitoring report imposes upon us a heavy duty. While all political activities in Diaspora have their place and role in the struggle against the regime our key responsibility is to cripple the illegal activities of the Eritrean regime in Europe and America. We have the first hand documents it we use it correctly and wisely to help us make progress in actualizing this huge task.

[For the full UN Report, follow the link at the end of this article]

Eritrea's Brutal Trade In Weapons And People That Is Too Lucrative To Stamp Out

Like hundreds of thousands before him, Haile fled Eritrea for Sudan to avoid the interminable military service demanded by the regime. "Conditions were terrible. There was an outbreak of disease and many soldiers were dying. I just couldn't stand it," he said.

But after only two weeks in Shagarab refugee camp, Haile was lured by a Sudanese smuggling gang, known as Rashayda, with an offer of work. He was taken to Khartoum where he was sold to Mustafa and Mohaned, along with sacks of rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles.

Joe, 28, made the same perilous journey in 2011. He paid smugglers several thousand dollars to take him but like Haile, he was driven in a convoy of white Toyota pickup trucks to the border with Egypt, each packed with 20 Eritrean refugees sitting on top of white flour sacks filled with Kalashnikovs. They were destined for another Sinai smuggler, Abu Mohammad.

When the convoy approached the mountains along the Sudanese-Egyptian border, each of the Eritrean men was given a gun from the stash and told to shoot if they met Egyptian soldiers.  [Source: The Guardian]

Picture: Sinai Desert

Who is Meron Estefanos?

The state of Dhai.org mirrors the state of Eritrea perfectly… infact Eritrea enthusiasts should watch DMB carefully to give clues as to when PFDJ will literally run out of people to hold a pen and for it… We have seen its lesser partners succumb to simply posting videos, audios and posters… with no analysis of events as they unfold… here in London we measure the success of PFDJ events by how much wedi Gerahtu glows on dance floors or how dark and furious he looks… In Leeds sometime last year he looked so frighteningly dark I had to do triple take to find him. At last September’s ‘festival’ he looked so small and insignificant that I thought if the young demonstrators outside chanted their slogans any louder...

PERSEVERANCE, NOT PROPAGANDA

So, I think it is clear that this historic decision has been arrived at through the perseverance of Eritrean and other human rights organisations, and not, as the dictatorship would have you believe, by so-called USA propaganda for their own interests. The Special Rapporteur, and others who will now gain entry into the hidden world of Afewerki's dictatorship, with or without the Eritrean authorities’ cooperation, will provide proof that this is not the case.

Give Eritreans the asylum in Israel that Jews were denied in Europe

My birthplace is in the Eritrean capital Asmara, where the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and ex-Mossad leader Rafi Eitan were imprisoned by the British in 1946, near the suburb of Idaga-Arbi. We used to call the area ‘Inda-Encode’ in honor of the Encode kosher beef packing company that was located nearby. It was there that I saw for the first time in my life an orthodox Jew. I remember asking my mother:...

An Idiot’s Guide to Sawa 2012…

While you are at it, you can discharge your lawyer (save on retention fees) you won’t need one, if you are arrested for something whilst doing Sawa the PFDJ way… what you will need the most is a funeral director rather than a lawyer… for unless you decide to leg it out of Sawa at that point there is a very significant risk of you dying in the hands of a torturer… if you decide to leg it you will actually end up doing Sawa the Warsay way…

When you do Sawa the warsay way you will have many problems… but the main ones will be whether you will dye trying to get somewhere safe and prosperous or whether you will simply die of hopelessness! If you decide to simply die of hopelessness go to one of many refugee camps in Sudan or Ethiopia…

THE TOM AND JERRY GAME - PART TWO

Time is up!

I think that the lssayas’s regime is living on borrowed time and its fate will be determined within the next year or so. Externally, the tension we now have cannot continue indefinitely. Either lssayas will extend an olive branch or continue to use his Ethiopian protégés to provoke the Woyane. So things will boil over sooner rather than later, and the regime and the EDF will be destroyed in short order. While I will not cry for the regime if that happens, it is not my preference. I do not favour the Woyane directly removing the lssayas regime, and my lack of preference for this option does not stem from any philosophical reason, but arises from the conviction that it will be traumatic for our young nation and will imply unnecessarily heavy cost in human life. I would rather have the Woyane remove lssayas, than lssyas staying in power for another decade for the same reason. lssayas in power for another decade is going to be more traumatic and expensive than some short and bloody war with the Woyane.

Sanction Watch- US making a modest move in implmenting UNSC sanction on the Eritrean regime- A more aggressive approach needed

I have been monitoring the progress of US government’s legal process on how it will implement the UNSC Resolution 1907 and 2023 as well as other relevant resolutions. US has been slow in the domestication of the UNSC resolutions. Part of it the US progresses is structurally different from other countries. The responsibility is spread within specific departments. The Executive(president’s office), State Department, Treasury department , Homeland Security, Commerce department etc have their own responsibility.

One aspect of the sanction dealing with some of the critical actors within the Eritrean regime is quietly handled by refusing visa to visit the USA ( except attending the UN) to key characters of the Isaiais regime. This seems to have been consolidated as the irrational belligerency of the Eritrean regime has gone viral. The cold and marginal reception extended to Isaiais and his staff in his last visit to UN was part of the de-facto sanction.