Open Letter to the Leadership of the Catholic Church of Eritrea

June 20, 2014

Ref: E14-06-202

Open Letter to the Leadership of the Catholic Church of Eritrea

You have offered the people of Eritrea a spiritual anchor and a moral compass in the middle of a deepening intractable national crisis. This kind of rare gift rejuvenates the spiritual core of the nation and assigns the unavoidable duty of self-introspection to all Eritrean stakeholders. Eritrea and its people are served well by your timely clarion call. We bow to your call.

The question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is an existential question that must be answered by resounding affirmation. Unfortunately 23 years of our national experience under the present national leadership has corrupted and deformed this cardinal value. Power at all cost has become the new currency and aphrodisiac. Your eloquent and profound letter has rekindled the need for each of us to re-assert our intrinsic humanity and to aspire, in spite of our human frailties and shortcomings, to be our brother’s keeper.

Telling truth to power, reminding people to stay truthful to their spiritual inner core and reaffirm their cultural values is the legitimate proclivity of your institutional responsibility. Your Pastoral Letter of 5/25/2014 is a manifestation and reaffirmation of this institutional right and responsibility.

We thank you for the noble effort, the dignity and sensitivity imbued in your letter. We look forward for future Pastoral Letters that will elevate and expand the national conversation into how we can come out of the present national nightmare. We hope you will give us the latitude to refer to a historic African Pastoral Letter that was written by SECAM (the Symposium of Episcopal Conference in Africa and Madagascar) on February 2013 states:

“Perhaps time has now come for Africa to strive to invent models of government that really respond to our needs and fit our contexts, inspired by the wisdom of African traditional governance systems and structures. African societies must start to engage themselves in this reflection, to develop a holistic vision that can well serves the transitions and consolidates the democratic experience. The starting point is a return to the original meaning of democracy, that is, a form of government with the people as the sovereign. It is for their own good that people entrust their power to rulers, to guarantee the respect of the general will and to manage the country's resources for the benefit of all. Taking into account this fundamental vision of democracy in the management of power and political space, will help lay the foundation for a real stability that is not dependent on the power of the gun but on a mutually agreed social pact.”

We have no doubt that you will not only concur with the spirit of this profound letter but also with the subject matter and the content of the very letter.

Excellences,

The wish of the people of Eritrea is to transition Eritrea out of this crisis and establish a democratic country where sovereignty resides with the people. The fundamental root cause of our national crisis is the usurpations of power by those who believe to the contrary. In our complicated struggle to elevate our country to a just and righteous nation, your principled advice, suggestion, recommendation and even strong demand to rectify our ways from those who wield power and those struggling to correct the aberration known as authoritarian government is indispensable. Our cardinal national task is to return sovereignty into its legitimate owners: the People of Eritrea.

We hope other Eritrean religion’s leadership will see the wisdom in your Pastoral Letter and find the inner strength, institutional solidarity and platform to enrich the national conversation by expressing their deeply held perspective as you have done in ways that befits their institutional doctrines and protocols.

Although we know what you have done is exercise your uncompromising duty, we will be remised if we fail to thank you for being present for your constituency and the people of Eritrea. These dark hours will pass and Eritrea will be transformed into the lighthouse it was meant to be. Her children, both at home and the Diaspora, will focus on the lighthouse and do their share in building a nation based on righteousness, justice, fairness, inclusiveness and most of all where every Eritrean will be valued, respected, protected by the rule of law, where democracy becomes a daily culture and citizens will be free to practice their chosen faith without interference by the government.

Once again thank you for your exemplary service to the nation and people of Eritrea.

With the utmost respect,

Seyoum Tesfaye