The National Conference in Hindsight

Remember, the “National Conference for Democratic Change” held in Addis was done without the participation of the vast majority of Eritrean Diaspora and with no clear objective beforehand. It was an organized scheme that successfully alienated the national and progressive forces of Eritrea by handpicking participants of their choosing.

One of the political parties that pushed out of the conference was the Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP). EPDP is one of the leading nationalist and progressive forces in the opposition camp that came into existence following the merger of three political parties: the Eritrean People’s Movement (EPM), Eritrean Democratic Party (EDP), and the Eritrean People’s Party (EPP) in January of 2010. By all measures and standards, this party carries the core essence of Eritrea’s picture in terms of composition, diversity, and visions. Given the historical failure of achieving a true unity among Eritrean political organizations, the unity of the three political parties is also a landmark event in our history, providing a favorable condition towards reassuring a united and sovereign state of Eritrea.

Despite a very significant record of unity and working to further expand and cement such a unity across the various political forces and groups in Eritrea, EPDP is facing tough opposition from the opposition camp. The opposition is coming from members of the Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA) and their media allies to discredit and undermine EPDP’s unity as well as its national and democratic programs.

Although such an aggressive political campaign against Eritrean national forces (political parties or civil society organizations) has been simmering beneath the ground for many years, it became more public and apparent to EPDP and the public in general after EPDP withdrew from the national conference. Many people may not grasp the weight of this historic decision, but it will be remembered in Eritrea for generations to come. For me, the withdrawal of EPDP is not a political bickering; it is an epitome of national unity and sovereignty.

As many people would agree, the national conference was orchestrated to legitimize the ethnic and sectarian organizations, a strategy designed to bring Eritrea into unprecedented societal chaos and conflict and not a struggle to claim any sort of rights of Eritrean nationalities. Hence, the alienation and exclusion of EPDP and other forces from the national conference is directly connected, on one hand, to the national unity principle EPDP is championing, and, on the other hand, to the national and democratic programs it is promoting. This connection supports why the ethnic and religious groups strongly opposed the participation of EPDP and organizations that sympathize with EPDP’s national democratic program, vision and strategy in the National conference. Given this stand, the religious and ethnic groups formulated a strategy for success contingent upon the mobilization of their own supporters and sympathizers. And, with the exception of the few, majority of the so-called 330 representatives who attended the Addis Ababa conference do affiliate and identify themselves with the politics of EDA and/or with the ethnic and religious groups. Some of them were also on a mission to destroy EPDP and other civil society organizations whose views are considered hostile to the ethnic and religious political agenda; and then there were few who had no glimpse of the dark side of the conference.

They were there to give their votes to EDA. You could call them concerned nationals, but did not have the political sophistication and knowledge of inner-workings to understand the political game of EDA leaders. I hope they will have a story to tell. Why did things turned out the way they did?

The strategy of the Eritrean ethnic and religious groups alone is a weak version to affect EPDP and other national forces in Eritrea. A more serious and dangerous to EPDP and others is the involvement of Ethiopia whose strategy dependence upon sponsoring the ethnic and religious groups. For example, consider the role Ethiopia played in the national conference crisis. That is, Ethiopia rewrote the initial plan of the conference, making it a fighting ground between EDA and EPDP that intentionally and eventually pushed out EPDP from the process. However, in good faith, EPDP and other forces showed restraint and called for serious and non-cynical engagement towards the entire process of the national conference. Although Ethiopia supported the initial negotiations between EPDP and EDA, overtime it acted not as an independent broker but a supporter of EDA leaders to the extent of secretly advising EDA leaders not to compromise or bend to the legitimate demand of EPDP and other voices. When EPDP made its withdrawal public, Ethiopia is reported to have gone into a political frenzy, knowing that, its involvement in the internal affairs of Eritrea would not be welcomed by Eritrean people.

Yet, to understand the alienation of EPDP and other national forces from the national conference, one needs to ponder beyond the national conference, as the conference was simply a culmination of many years of work by the Ethiopian government. What is Ethiopian government trying to get out this? Ethiopian Government, under the TPLF leadership, has concluded long before the recent conference that its interest is best served by supporting Eritrean ethnic and religious groups. Hence, the conference was one aspect of the overall strategy that the Ethiopian government employed to legitimize the ethnic and religious groups in order achieve its political agenda. Whether Ethiopians will achieve their interest through this strategy is left to them; but for Eritreans it is clear that neither Ethiopian, nor Eritrean interest is achievable under the scheme of ethnic and religious politics. Ethiopians in general and their regime in particular very much know that Eritreans will not allow the balkanization of their country.

For many Eritreans, the issue is not whether ethnic and religious rights should be respected in post PFDJ Eritrea. The issue is whether Eritrea should be Somalia. And the ethnic and religious groups are deceptively employing the ethnic and religious politics to disintegrate the country. From collaborating with Ethiopia to undermine the unity of the country to campaigning to incite conflicts between various Eritrean ethnic groups, the ethnic and religious groups have become far from being the voice of any group in Eritrea.  

Yet, Ethiopian government is still hoping the success of its plan by targeting Eritrean national forces, namely EPDP, Cidrie, EGS, EMHDR (a South African Based civil society organization) and other voices. These forces are a big threat to the ethnic and religious policy arrangement that Ethiopia is working day and night to achieve.

Ethiopia is also opening another front to undermine the unity of EPDP in particular and other national forces in general that Ethiopia considers a threat to its political agenda. Ever since the National conference issue began to surface, Ethiopia has been working actively to weaken EPDP internally through some agents that appear to be members of EPDP. What I observed and learned from this is that Ethiopia is trying to take over EPDP through either ownership of the decision-making role or influence of the party’s overall activities. What Ethiopian government is doing is that working subtly to undermine the people’s party – EPDP, one of the strongest and staunch defenders of Eritrean unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Eritrea.

In keeping with its aggressive campaign against EPDP, Ethiopia has also managed to spur many Eritreans to do its dirty job by bashing the dedicated leaders of EPDP, including its chairman, who the majority of Eritreans believe they are doing fantastic job in managing the affairs of the opposition. Maybe Ethiopia needs to realize the indisputable fact that EPDP is a mainstream political party that directly or indirectly enjoys the support of Eritrean people and nothing they do can change this fact.

The bottom line is Ethiopia has shifted from recognizing a united state of Eritrea to nurturing ethnic and religious groups in attempt to see a weakened neighbor that Ethiopia would be able to push it left and right. The issue of ethnic and religious rights claim is simply a grandiose pretense Ethiopia is throwing to boost its goals. For the national democratic forces, it is important to stand firm on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea, with the aim of establishing a democratic government in Eritrea in which the all rights and freedoms of Eritrean people are constitutionally guaranteed and protected.