My Tribute to Ms. Concepcion Empero

• It is preferable that the contacts you make should be held at night instead of daylight; for a minor error leads to failure of the main mission
• You will find Ms. Concepcion Empero in Eritrea posing as nun of the Catholic Church.
• Cameras that seemingly appear as earphone of mobile telephone that you would use in your workplace are made available
• The purpose of your mission is to incite and coordinate massive popular uprising against the Eritrean government similar to that witnessed in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria by December this year at the latest.

This tape will self destruct after publication on the Eritrean Ministry of Information’s website! Okay I made the last sentence up but the rest was all up on shabait.com on Friday (even I couldn’t make up something like this!! Note to self: apply to the school of creative writing at the MOI in Asmara!!)

Does anyone else worry about the sanity of people at the ministry of information?.... we got used to being served complete lies and hashed rehashed and re-re-hashed stories of microdams about to be built, inaugurated and celebrated for containing enough water to stave off hunger… we even put up with religious holidays being celebrated at a national level as orchestrated by the Ministry of Information (mainly for consumption by gullible diaspora goons!) … we have tolerated the ‘press statements’ that look like they were written by fourth grade drop outs! and now we are being asked to put up with the product of the overactive imagination of someone who is on something that probably has yet to be classified!!?

Who would believe that the bullet point notes about a certain nun and middle of night meetings and earphone like cameras that Eritrea’s ministry of information, dropped on the World Wide Web on Friday and promptly removed because it was too embarrassing even for them?

What they replaced it with isn’t that much better, but we are all holding our breath awaiting the damning evidence to bust Amnesty international and shut them up once and for all. Well just like we have been holding our breath waiting for the evidence for the indictment of the G11 (for the last ten years) and the evidence against the evangelical churches (for the last nine years) and so on and so forth…. I think it has become clear to all by now that every time the government of Eritrea says it has evidence it means there is none and every time it (or the president) asks for ‘evidences’ it means that it (he) is guilty as charged…

So Amnesty have been trying to get evidence of unrest inside Eritrea? Or they have been trying to encourage the Eritrean public to demand change in the country? Good on them! If the government of Eritrea allowed human rights organisations to operate in the country, if the government of Eritrea responded to calls to rectify its appalling human rights record, if the government of Eritrea didn’t shut all independent institutions in the country, if the government of Eritrea lived up to the expectation of the Eritrean people and if there was no discontent in the country, there would be absolutely no need to be scared of the shadows of a nun, taking pictures from an earphone in the middle of the night. And if there indeed was a nun roaming the streets of Asmara armed with an earphone camera all she would be able to get would have been a country at peace with itself….. however as the amhara say ‘fes yalebet… zilay aychlm’ as the government of Eritrea will fail every test of its ability to fulfill its obligation under human rights requirements rather than admit its failure it involves itself in mud slinging in the hope that fingers will point at Amnesty and not at the glaring evidence of human rights abuse in Eritrea… no chance!

Let me go back to a few of the reports that Amnesty have produced on Eritrea over the last few years and see if they indeed were, as the government of Eritrea is trying to insinuate, unfounded accusations of a shady organisation working under the guise of ‘human rights’.

The government prohibited independent journalism, opposition parties, unregistered religious organizations, and virtually all civil society activity. Up to 1,200 Eritrean asylum-seekers forcibly returned from Egypt and other countries were detained upon arrival in Eritrea. Separately, thousands of prisoners of conscience and political prisoners remained in detention after years in prison. Prison conditions were harsh. Perceived dissidents, deserters and those evading mandatory military conscription and other critics of the government and their families were punished and harassed. The government reacted dismissively to any criticism on human rights grounds.


Widespread human rights violations were routine. The government severely restricted freedom of expression and freedom of religion. No opposition parties, independent journalism or civil society organizations, or unregistered faith groups were allowed. The authorities used arbitrary arrests, detentions and torture to stifle opposition, holding thousands of political prisoners in dire conditions, many in secret detention. Military conscription was compulsory and deserters, draft evaders and their families were harassed, imprisoned and ill-treated. A “shoot to kill” policy against anyone attempting to flee across the border remained in place  .

Now if we are talking about the same Eritrea then none of the above comes as a surprise to anyone and least of all to the Ministry of Information and especially to the Minister who has friends and colleagues arrested. We Eritreans used to say that every Eritrean family was touched by the long war for independence, that is true, but now I think we should also say every Eritrean individual’s life (including those whose hands are raw from clapping the regime), has been blighted by the vicious dictatorship in Eritrea. A sick system that feeds on the very hand that fed it, to satisfy its greed! If there is a nun out there working to rid us off of this evilness I take my hat off… and I just know every self respecting Eritrean would too!

What the government of Eritrea (atleast its ministry of information) have inadvertently confirmed, though is that the discontent in Eritrea is such that all it would take to ignite it is a nun with a weird name, a camera in the guise of an earphone and a menqesaqesii- letter of introduction from Amnesty international! And the Ministry of information will do all it can to prevent the inferno…be it accidentally deliberately releasing an unfinished set of notes  for an upcoming comical editorial… making the public aware of a nun with a headphone that takes pictures and an army with Amnesty International’s logo on their forehead… the happy clappy PFDJites can rest in the assurance of everything being safe in the hands of our MOI.

But there is a serious question that must be asked here…. Why is there no revolt in Eritrea? My friends who were meeting in Addis seem to think it is to do with our definition of the regime… really? … have they tried pure unadulterated evil of the type seldom seen in the world?? I will come back to this in fuller detail once all my friends return back home and once I ascertain that I didn’t imagine that Amanuel Assena was holding on to PMMZ’s sleeves for dear life and that the normally outspoken Habtom Yohaness who prides himself on being straightforward at much cost, looked decidedly sheepish? And why SGJ who castigates conferences and seminars elsewhere (remember Nigdet London??) only had good wishes for this particular seminar….but that is a long story for another entry…and as I said let me first catch up with my friends including SGJ who I hear is visiting town soon (can’t wait… coffee and kitchen table awaiting!)

Before I go I would like to thank all our friends at Amnesty International and all the human rights organisations, for their relentless solidarity with victims of Eritrea’s many human rights abuses. And if you had used a nun and an earphone to expose what does go on in Eritrea you would only uncover more of what we already know…


Selam Kidane

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