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20 Resistance posters in Asmara and nearly 40,000 robo-calls

(Asmara 31-12-12) Young Activists in Eritrea posted over 20 posters on the streets of Asmara on New Year ’s Eve. The Posters depicting a picture of Mr Idriss Ab-Arre, a disappeared disabled veteran of Eritrea’s struggle for independence, appealed to members of the public to help friends and families of Eritrea’s ‘dissapeared’ in locating their loved ones.

The initiative was a follow up to a campaign that was launched by Project ArbiHarnet (freedom Friday), in commemoration of September 18, 2001 when many politicians seeking political reform and journalists from Eritrea’s independent media disappeared overnight.

(I) Eritrea’s Drive for Modernity: In Search of Asmara

What is fascinating about the Congo sapeurs is the seriousness with which they take their dressing, so much so they have elevated it into a form of art, accompanied by an ideology (as they call it, “sapology”). As in any artist’s case, they are willing to starve for it – literally ...The seriousness with which they treat their life style has given it a quasi-religious status. In fact, the stark contrast between the fashionably dressed sapeurs and the shantytown squalor with debris strewn all over the place that often serves as background for their strutting display gives it a surreal, other-worldly atmosphere ... The point that I am driving at is this: when so much frivolousness is dressed up with so much seriousness, it can easily morph into being lethal given the right environment. True, the urban dandy of the Congo type is a harmless creature so far as he remains cooped up in his beloved city, preoccupied as he is in his pacifist escapism. But give the urban dandy a gun and an ideology that goes with it (“Protect your modernity!”), he undergoes such a metamorphosis that you would never recognize him for the harmless fellow that he has been strutting in the city streets in his tricolored suits. Such a metamorphosis took place among urban dandies of Asmara, who picked up the AK 47 to defend their "Asmara modernity".

Back in the Game

... But those who said AA must have seen the end of the regime to take such measure, consider this: Issias is more powerful recently than anytime during the last 12 years. Still more interesting is how the regime did not scratch its head over AA ‘defections’.  Contrary to conventional interpretation, it could rather well be that it is Issias who might have abandoned AA. With many opportunities Issias believes Meles’ death has created for him, he could very well think he doesn’t see any importance in keeping Ali around, perhaps, due to the liabilities he has coasted him in the past. ....

The whole point in his interview is knotted when he expressed his rebellion against the international community in a form of what he thought he framed as a logical challenge. He dared the Security Council with what measures it can hinder him from supporting the Ethiopian opposition which are waging armed struggle to topple the Addis Ababa government when it is with the same cooperation that this government came to power by removing the Derge regime in the first place. Now you know what to expect in 2013.

Elizabeth (Elsa) Chyrum: A woman of the year 2012

Mrs. Chyrum has been advocating and lobbying at the HRC for recognition of the severe human rights crisis in Eritrea since September 2008. She is passionate about justice for Eritrea, and has doggedly campaigned for the appalling human rights record of Eritrea to come to the fore of the international agenda. She has done this, and more, largely by funding herself and occasional contributions for travel and other expenses from well-wishers and sisterly organizations.

It was her passionate testimony at side events that touched the hearts and consciences of delegations from every geographical region and ensured that the suffering of the Eritrean people would no longer be treated as a footnote on the international to-do list.  ...

Knocking 2013 into shape...

The most hopeful I felt this year (to be honest) was when I thought IA was dead... I thought here finally was an opportunity for Eritreans to chart a way forward away from the strangle hold of a man whose actions, reactions and decisions have become totally irrational. The state of Eritrea is now a perfect reflection of the state of IA mental health.... whilst his resurfacing was a damper of sorts the nation’s reaction to his ‘death’ was a story that must have hit him and his supporters hard... especially as reflected against the death, of the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia, that he refused to even acknowledge in State Media (to date).

...but there were other really hopeful and optimistic moments too (thankfully)... the late afternoon/early evening (I was so jet lagged and events post didn’t help either)...I arrived in Washington DC for the EYSC conference in May was an amazing moment of solidarity that demonstrated to me the hours of work behind our laptop screens were actually producing something...

Setting the record straight on the Martyrs’ database

When Awate.com wanted to display the martyrs’ database they obtained from Eritrea on their Martyrs Album[1998-2003], they asked the help of Asmarino.com. Tes converted  some excel spreadsheets provided by Awate.com  into a Format that allowed the information provided to be displayed on Awate’s old home page under Martyrs’ Album .  And that was used only for that purpose, except for one case. With Awate.com’s consent the data was also used to broadcast the names of the Martyrs on Voice of Delina in 2005 during the week of June 18-30. (Awate’s Saleh Gadi participated by reading some of the names himself.)  Eritrean volunteers  from  around the world read the names. Asmarino, at great cost, bought extended air time for three days to broadcast the special program titled ‘ድምጽና ሓወልቲ ይኹኖም! ኣስማት ስውኣት 1998-2001’.

Tesfay Temnewo – Eritrea’s Man of the Year-2012

I venture to call our brother Tesfay Temnewo Eritrea’s Man of the Year for 2012. True to his humble upbringing he reminds us of what decency, integrity and cultured used to mean in our fatherland before irreverence and lumpenization ascended to the pinnacle of national power. He is not only a witness with courage but he is, in a way, a link to the richness of our past before tyrants and Marxism corrupted everything good about our culture. We are reinvigorated and reinforced to continue our defiance, rebellion, resistance and protest against the Isaias regime in the middle of some of our setbacks within the camp of the opposition because as long as there are witnesses like Tesfay Temnewo we are not vanquished. Let us give him the respect and love that he deserves so that he can be further energized.

The Fog Over the Red Sea

Tesfay remembers Abdu -- the man responsible for maintaining the thick fog of secrecy surrounding the country -- as a secretive and arbitrary individual who would promote, demote or fire his subordinates with little explanation. His mandate to enforce an absolute control of information seemed to inform his managerial style: "He was very much engaged or concerned with office politics," says Tesfay. "He ran the ministry as if it was his backyard...he controlled the office through everybody informing on one another." Tesfay said Abdu would reassign career journalists to clerical jobs for no apparent reason, including one of the country's most accomplished news photographers. His subordinates lived in fear of him. "He was an extremely cruel person. Sometimes you would think he would have some sadist tendencies or something like that."