Eight years is a long time for me. It is considerably longer for Dawit. In those eight years that they took away from my brother, I have got so many new friends. I got myself a wonderful and caring girlfriend, with whom I am happily living now. And now, to top it all, I have got a lovely daughter. And what is more, these last eight years I have been moving and speaking freely – something that I don’t take for granted any more. And yet, I can equally say they have been the most painful years of my life; that is because I could not be with my beloved older brother. It pains me so much not having him by my side. If I am this much in pain, imagine what my brother Dawit must be feeling; this must be a complete nightmare for him.
In one of the articles that Dawit wrote in 2001, he asked, “Why does the PFDJ prefer silence?” Now I am asking the PFDJ not to be silent, and imploring it to give us a sign of hope.
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Our ghedli organization has a fascination all of its own for many including those who oppose the regime. The believers’ simple and superficial comparison of the EPLF with the practice and behavior of other rebel organizations, that are still wrecking havoc has led them into a wrong conclusion. Unlike their cousin rebel outfits in the continent, the EPLF and the ELF had departments that on the surface appear created to protect the weak and disadvantaged demographic groups. A trick they acquired from other left oriented organizations. These departments are nothing but colorful beads, shiny trinkets, and cowries not unlike the practice of the old European explorers cum merchants who used them to swindle the natives of Africa and Asia. Our ghedli operators became so good at it that left oriented individuals and parliamentarians from the West never forgot to stop at these places in the Sahel. Their deceptive cloaks were very effective, and the litany of their deceit bottomless.
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They could be anyone, some may belong to any religious or ethnic denominations; they may be from this or that region in Eritrea; they may be human right activists; they may or may not be attached to any political or civic society groups. What is important is that they are individuals with noble intentions and each represents his or herself. They represent no body and they don’t have too. They are obeying to what their own conscience commands them to do. Their conscience is not to keep quiet when the people of Eritrea are subjected to extreme repression but to act in a constructive way.
At this moment in time the issue is not about personalities, the issue is who speaks loud and become the voice of the voiceless. Recently Professor Kitjel Tronvoll gave a seminar on the gross violation of Human Rights in Eritrea under the title of “The Lasting Struggle for freedom in Eritrea”. No one has asked him to do so and he doesn’t represent anybody except himself. But he championed the cause of the oppressed people of Eritrea who had known and loved them for a long time now.
However all actions require bold initiative, hard work, commitment and above all, negotiation skills and good understanding of international politics. The beauty of the Belgium Task-Force is that it has displayed such characteristics.
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PFDJ is a formidable opponent. This organization is experienced in focusing on those two words and has been doing its best, and has been spending much of its budget in making sure Eritreans do not get organized enough to form a unity that would threaten the party’s existence. PFDJ has spies and recruits in the Diaspora whose sole job is to disrupt any group that come together to form a United Eritrean groups. They are in churches and communities and they are active to ensure the agenda of each group is linked to the PFDJ’s principles. Their system, like all dictatorial systems, is based on lies and deception accentuated by bullying tactics. Anything that does not fall into their principle is attacked by name calling and by false labeling. And to accomplish its goal, PFDJ does not blink to deceive anybody any time. You can be the judge, how many times were you asked to cough-up some money in the past? Believe me we paid like there was no tomorrow. And we created a tomorrow that is ruled by tyrants. We paid them to make us victims. Sad but true. The country is “free”, but the people are not liberated. A dichotomy that is hard to explain to our children. Now, where is the money kept? PFDJ is keeping the money the same way they kept during the struggle. Bank accounts are open all over Europe and China in the name of individuals, not in the name of the Eritrean treasury. Not only have we become victims, but also we will have created a few wealthy people, once things don’t go their way.
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The Brussels Conference has stirred a lot of emotion and commotion. By doing so, it may serve as a powerful catalyst to jump start a process that may awaken the Eritrean people from a deep slumber. It is not an overstatement to assert that the Eritrean human spirit is at its record low in history. And the sad thing is that very few people saw that coming. For the most part the Eritrean people were carried away by the euphoria that national independence brings along with it. And the ruling junta faced little or no resistance as it kept on escalating its creeping and misguided polices and punishing the very people that received it with open arms in 1991. The experience that the Eritrean people are going through under the repressive rule of the junta were narrated by the Brussels Conference invitees with a passion and glaring elucidation that perhaps rocked their audience from their chairs. I say a job well done to the participants of the conference.
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