A NASA Scientist gets stunned at Eritrea’s progress

Have I read it correctly? Asmarino.com recently posted a news item on the clash during a PFDJ festival in Oakland between Eritreans of opposing political persuasions . In the news item, the reporter has solicited opinions from people on each side. One of the people from the PFDJ side who was asked by the reporter and who spoke most tantalizingly of the progress being made by PFDJ’s Eritrea happens to be an Eritrean NASA scientist. I hope the reporter reported it correctly. I hope he did not mean “NARcissist”. If this countrywoman of ours is really a NASA scientist, first I must take this opportunity to express my deepest appreciation for her professional distinction as a scientist, and for that at the venerated institution of NASA. However, having accepted the veracity of the reported profession, I find our NASA scientist impressed by the road infrastructure, hospitals and schools in Eritrea. She also disclaims the fact that the current Eritrean president is a dictator (If ruling unelected for twenty years and keeping a whole nation hostage is not dictatorship, what is dictatorship then?).

I have always thought NASA has plenty to thrill not only its employees but the world at large. I have so far been under the impression that NASA has the finest personnel and technology that are the symbol of venturesome projects, ingenuity and inspiration to the world, particularly to young minds. But someone from the glorious NASA itself getting inspiration from PFDJ’s roads, hospitals and schools? This is so unheard-of and unbecoming of an organization steeped in a history of accomplishing exceptional feats.

But here we are, PFDJ’s venom of deception has stung even unlikely people in the scientific community and threatens to put NASA’s reputation in danger. In the crowd of blind PFDJ supporters, there have appeared the likes of Tsegereda Embaye, reported to be a NASA scientist. Such an incident reminds us that education alone cannot bestow on a person the gift of sensible mind; education alone cannot save a person from poor judgments. Education can best be used in tandem with analytical powers or it has to enhance these powers. Otherwise it falls in the wrong hands (at times as dreadful as if nuclear weapons were to fall in the hands of AlQaeda). That is where the age-old saying in our Tigrinya culture “Kab Mihros Aemiro” (Common sense is preferred to Education) comes into play.

Do you, Tsegereda Embaye, fall in the same category as Mrs. Sophia Tesfamariam who unabashedly said in 2005 on EriTV for all to see, “There is no education in America. Education is here in Eritrea where on my way from Sawa I have witnessed colleges having been opened here and there”? Sophia daring to compare America, the country with more than 6,600 universities and colleges, with Eritrea, a country whose rulers closed the only university and opened boot camp colleges which have proven academically to be nothing more than glorified high schools! Perhaps to Mrs. Sophia, even West Point is no match for Sawa.  

That was Sophia about colleges. Now we have Tsegereda about roads, hospitals and schools. Dear Tsegereda, when was the last time a road was inaugurated in Eritrea? What do you think has the fate of the roads already built been? Do you have any idea if they are functioning and if they have generated a return to the economy or if they continue to bleed the anemic economy?  How much of the rhetoric about infrastructure by the PFDJ amounts to reality? Well your education or else your experience at NASA must have prepared you to properly gauge these things.

The same can be asked about hospitals: When was the last hospital built in Eritrea putting aside for the time being who built it and with whose resources? Today what we see in Eritrea is that the number of the sick is fast outpacing the health infrastructure and the number of health professionals. This is so principally because of the economic hardship and stressful conditions in the country. Even if there were the best hospitals and professionals in the country, they wouldn’t resolve the health problems afflicting the population. It would be like pouring water into a leaky barrel. It is the economic situation and lack of security that have to be quickly fixed. But in today’s Eritrea the health infrastructure is fast crumbling, and health professionals, both experienced and junior, are leaving the country in numbers.

Back to Tsegereda’s statements: For me the most laughable of all is Tsegereda’s declaration, “Illiteracy is gone, almost.” Tsegereda, do you know the official illiteracy rate in Eritrea? And do you know what it was in 1991? The Dergue or the EPLF for that matter could boast more than the PFDJ as far as gains in eradicating illiteracy were concerned. In the Dergue’s era, UNESCO awarded Ethiopia for exemplary performance in reducing illiteracy. Many people during that period may well remember the certificates posted on their door posts testifying to the fact that that household was freed from illiteracy. But today let alone to ensure adult literacy, Eritrea remains to be a country where 50% of school-age children have not been enrolled in schools. 

Another point you raised in your brief statement was, I quote, “"Most of us are professionals. These people are nobody. They are nobody in Eritrea, they are nobody here." This you said in reference to the protesters standing in opposition to your festival. To direct your assertion back to you, who are you yourself here, in Eritrea, or in America as far as the interests of the Eritrean people are concerned? Were you talking in professional terms or in purely economic stratification (Aren’t you a PFDJ adherent schooled in the mantras of social justice and equality for all?)? If that is what you meant, you should have dealt with your issue on some other forum. In Eritrea you yourself may happen to be nobody but someone, despite your academic sophistication, bent on perpetuating PFDJ’s rule. If there is anybody who deserves a say before you on matters of national importance, it is first and foremost the people here in the country and second those who sympathize with the suffering masses, that is to say the likes of the people who came forward to oppose your Oakland festival. Are you, Tsegereda, trying to snatch us our voices?

Let me finally walk you through the latest fiascos of the regime you so maniacally support:

1. Wasn’t it the PFDJ and particularly the president who time and again ridiculed the UN as the instrument of the US?  But during South Sudan’s declaration of independence it was shown that the president went to South Sudan not so much to congratulate the newly independent people as to meet and invite to Eritrea the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon.
2. Wasn’t it the untamed tongue of the president, his foreign ministry and his official media organs who said that the four Britons arrested in December 2010 in Massawa were too flagrant criminals to even be allowed consular access?  Where are the Britons now? Haven’t they been given amnesty before they were even tried? Are you also proud of this performance of your regime? Why do you think is the PFDJ now making noises about the recent riots in the UK after it failed to use the case of the four Britons to Eritrea’s advantage? Its cowardice has been exposed.  
3. On PFDJ’s relationships with the AU: What was the PFDJ’s attitude to the AU? Wasn’t the AU called ‘a toothless organization,’ among other insults, by the PFDJ? How fast have the new teeth grown that PFDJ has dispatched its ambassador to the AU? Or have the PFDJ and you, its supporters, sunk into dementia?
4. What was PFDJ’s outlook on the IGAD?  It was said that the PFDJ boycotted IGAD on account of IGAD’s support of Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia in 2007. All of a sudden the strength of the IGAD has occurred to the PFDJ. The PFDJ is now in a scramble to gain membership into the IGAD. Why did the PFDJ write to the IGAD secretariat last month imploring to be granted membership when all these years it was calling IGAD all kinds of names?    
5. Isaias pleading at Musoveni’s doorsteps? Uganda, according to the established PFDJ propaganda, the country that has been on the wrong side of history for providing contingent to the UN peacekeeping force in Somalia, the country that is awash with foreign aid and corruption-ridden, how come and how fast has it become a force to reckon with? Isaias’ next pleading will be with either Ethiopia or the US. But these countries are too shrewd and disdainful of him to allow such an unscrupulous person enter their capitals.

Dear Tsegereda, are you also impressed by these latest diplomatic sprees from the PFDJ? How about PFDJ’s human rights record, free press record? Any reason for getting impressed and celebrating besides the purported roads, hospitals and schools?

A message for all of you who claim to be awestruck from a distance by PFDJ’s progress in Eritrea: Why don’t you come and live in Eritrea along with your families if as you say Eritrea is making strides of which even the US is envious? Time is running out for you; rush to keep space for yourselves in the gold rush.

{jcomments off}