Our New Normal Unfolds: The Haunted Hunter

Just when I get used to our new normal… someone goes and changes the whole thing with one little blow to the tower of cobbled reality and it comes crashing on all of us… ok this time it wasn’t a little girlie blow from our resistance movement that brought our reality crashing down, it was a hefty UN monitoring report (over 400 pages long)… about four cups of strong tea a glass of wine and a cup of some herbal yuck (to take off the toxins… allegedly.. though the stuff tasted more like toxin than the caffeine and… if I say alcohol I will get in trouble so note I didn’t say that…!!) … well anyway after all that… I started to wonder if were imagining the whole thing… I was nostalgic for the days when we lobbied grey suited officials and they told us what we were describing about of PFDJ antics was far too farfetched for them to consider it anything other than the exaggeration of disgruntled anti government loonies… (what about the stability on the streets of Asmara, how about all them PFDJ supporters on the streets of Geneva?) back then I felt I belonged to a radical group of people who were out to teach the world a thing or two about the organisation that I had come to know and hate with every ounce of my being- PFDJ! As of the end of last month I feel I have become

So what do I think of the UN Monitoring group report…? I think, I think what every Eritrean worth their salt thought… we knew this all along… we were just frustrated that no one was prepared to listen to us! We tolerated they grey sheds thinking it will get better… and now we all feel like the mother of the boy who was sentenced to death for murder simply because she didn’t admonish him for stealing eggs when he was stealing just eggs…but how treat PFDJ from now on will not reflect on PFDJ but on us and us alone… now we know what PFDJ is like… what they get up to and exactly how they do it!

Trolling through the Monitoring Group Report, I was reminded of all the EU lobbying initiatives trying to convince folk that they were right that there could be no development without human rights and a regime that doesn’t respect its own people’s right to security and stability would never be able to bring peace or stability to the Horn of plenty misery… the only way to engage PFDJ is by cornering it first. I was reminded of the times when we tried to explain considering IA as an ally for project ‘Stabilise the Horn’ was like consulting an arsonist on where the next fire is going to be so that we can prevent it… I was reminded of the time when we went round talking about PFDJ events in Europe being nothing but the opposite of what is on the tin… they were about creating tension and mistrust between Eritrean refugees and host communities… as a cover for keeping the Eritrean diaspora under PFDJ thumbs all the time raising cash for PFDJ coffers; with every church, mosque, community centre, even large family gatherings and any get together serving the PFDJ grand plan of controlling everything that moves and breaths and happens to have Eritrean blood in their vein… and from there it seems every being in the Horn of Africa…now that all this is contained in an official report of the UN complete with the names of the people that are all too familiar to us all, I feel it has taken the shine off of my radicalism… Now everyone knows! Hence the new reality… no longer would YPFDJ be able to play cute a cuddly with its happy shinny… milk fed disporans dancing around a harmless softly spoken elderly gentleman with an ill fitted t-shirt and tell us that all they did was share a few folklores and a ballet lesson (I mean gwaila lesson!)… no longer will the PFDJ be able to brandish pictures of Eritrean children and collect money allegedly meant for children of martyrs (what I don’t understand is… assuming that the liberation war ended in 1991 our last martyr of that era would have died 20 years ago and hence a new born child he/she left would be 20… why would a twenty year old be dependent on charity having lived in free Eritrea all their lives? the young martyrs from the border conflict were mostly single young men…)… PFDJ will have to register their ‘charitable’ activity properly and account for every penny collected and report it back to the public in accordance... and no the picture of people who are assumed to have benefited from this isn’t adequate reporting in any shape or form… and No they will not be able to tell me that since I do not contribute to their fake charities I am not entitled to ask for accountability… this is public funds they are collecting and I am a member of the public and the charity law (at least here in the UK) requires them to be accountable to every single one of us… so we are all watching… and this here is our new reality….

Ahh 2% tax…. No it is land duty… maybe it is just voluntary contribution for development projects…actually it might be consular services charges…(well non of this is being collected here in London at the moment… apparently… but the minuet they start we will all hear about it…). If you want to pay it do these simple checks. When you want to go and pay your 2% whatever; you have a few choices really…. All you have to do is work out what it is you are paying: if you own land in Eritrea work out if you are indeed owed any taxes due in that respect and make sure you are not being doubly taxed… if you don’t own land then ask what it is you are paying tax for? If it is consular services charge… ask how much the different services are supposed to cost and see if you have used any of them and then work out whether what you have used is worth 2% of your annual income…most consular services should be free anyway…here is a list of regular services and judge for yourself if your local Eritrean Embassy is providing any of these services (don’t mind my sardonic comments in brackets… bad habit from years of activism when not many knew what PFDJ is really really like…)  

In emergencies:

• Assistance in evacuation planning of citizens abroad in cases of political turmoil, natural or man made disasters (whoever relies on PFDJ for this is a goon! I wouldn’t relay on PFDJ rescuing a stranded cat let alone a whole human being abroad!!)
• In the event of an emergency, communicate on behalf of citizens abroad with family and/or friends  (well according to the UN report and in our experience PFDJ only ever contact families on behalf of citizens abroad to either collect 50K nkf penalty or $5,000 trafficking fee! )
• Provide non-financial assistance for repatriation and urgently needed medical or professional attention; (people have chosen suicide than repatriation to Eritrea under PFDJ so I am sure PFDJ have never had the occasion to provide this type of service!)
• Liaise with the local authorities to search for missing persons and/or determine the whereabouts of citizens abroad; (the trouble is chances are the missing people are hiding from PFDJ too in the first place…or indeed being held hostages by PFDJ orchestrated trafficking rings!)  
• Provide support services and advice in cases of hostage taking, kidnapping or abduction. (this will only work if they didn’t work with the hostage takers to start off with… maybe we should put this to test the next time we hear a harrowing report of a young person held hostage in the Sinai let’s all go to the embassy offices and ask for support services and advice from the likes of Wedi Gerahtu…!)

In detention:
Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963), which is the accepted standard for all member countries, persons who have been arrested outside their own country must have access to their consular representative (ermmmmm…. Apparently the GOE didn’t realise this until fairly recently courtesy of the FCO on the back of the security firm saga… but now that they do… maybe we can approach them to take action on behalf of all those who get detained outside their country…on a serious note please don’t do this at home… it will definitely make it worse for the detainees!!)  

Legal and notary:

• Facilitate the serving of legal summons on defendants abroad; (I bet PFDJ will be too willing to do this… but only if they could write the summons that is being served… I fear yours truly would be atop that list… for being too lippy… they will have to find the right legal term first though… freedom of speech is not illegal yet… awwwwww their bad!)
• Convey requests for extradition, regulatory letters and evidence on commission between states. (shshshhs don’t tell them this one please! I could see Wedi Gerahtu asking his brand new secretary … is that vacancy filled yet??? To produce a wholesale extradition request for every non 2% paying British-Eritrean…. And non Eritrean Brits who have invited him to all those meetings without coffee and especially to the annoying BBC, Amnesty and human Rights Watch folk who keep writing the truth that his MOI chooses not to serve… the beloved MOI that has no truth to serve but garbled press statements and hashed, rehashed, re-rehashed news of microdams about to be built…)  
• Authenticate public documents for use between states. (they will need to become authentic before they authenticate anything… !)
• Provide non-financial assistance to victims of crime. (most of the crime faced by Eritreans is perpetrated by the government of Eritrea… )
• Provide advice, guidance and support to the custodial parent/guardian, in cases of abduction of children to foreign countries. Where there is evidence that the health and safety of the child is in jeopardy the matter is treated as an emergency. (children don’t pay 2% so are of no interest to PFDJ…)
• Provide a list of local lawyers and/or detail of local Law Commissions (law… lawyers??? And local at that! Please….. be real!!)

Other services:

• Assist to replace lost, stolen, damaged or expired passports abroad
• Notify next of kin in the event of death or life threatening illness or injury of a citizen abroad.
• Provide non-financial assistance and advice regarding the disposal of mortal remains of citizens who died abroad; (PFDJ ask for proof of payments from the dearly departed!)
• Request the local authorities to investigate suspicious deaths of and crimes against citizens;

If you do not require any of the above services and still paying (or considering paying) your 2% doodah then maybe you are contributing to a charitable cause… development and the likes (how do you say development with your tongue in your check?)… to do this the said charity will have to register in accordance to the law of the land and then conduct activities in line with all charitable causes being very clear about the objectives of the charity, the amount of funds collected and how these funds were used…incidentally if the EU, Qatar, Wendim Ghadafi (as Mengistu used to call him) were also paying for them micro dams… and our poor brothers and sisters were slaving for them, how much do the darn things cost in the real world?  

Everything else falls into the category of taxation and it is this element whose legality is being scrutinised as we speak… mind you most of the funds collected thus far had ended up (according the UN report) not in building the said micro dams but in burning regional bridges of peace and harmony…

I do not own any scrap of land in Eritrea… I belong to the land of Eritrea… I do not want any consular services from PFDJ my mortal remains belong to the earth…and I will always belong to Eritrea alive or dead… I don’t believe PFDJ have what it takes to effect true development in Eritrea so I will not contribute a penny to their microdaming us into silence initiatives…. And I most certainly will not pay protection money to a bunch of hoodlum hooligans who orchestrate the hostaging of children and women to extort money from distraught families… but this I will do…I will watch every move and tell the world what PFDJ is up to… what I have learned last week is if they don’t hear us at first they will eventually be faced with the reality…the tables have gradually turned and as the inimitable Goldie Hawn said in ‘Protocol’:  ‘ I am watching you like a hawk’!  PFDJ’s past has come to haunt them and that is the new Eritrean reality… for now!

Selam Kidane
 
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