Category: Editorial
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A Call To The Moderates of The Horn Of Africa (Archived)
This editorial first appeared on Oct 22, 2003, and again on Sep 10, 2014. We are bringing it up today to remind the pretentious perpetual hawks who are covered with dove feathers, about our view 16 years ago, and today, about peaceful coexistence. We think the topic is more relevant to our current situation and
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The Circular Ethiopian-Eritrean Border Saga
Ethiopia has come a long way. In the last fifty years, it traveled the longest distance from where it started compared to many African and Middle Eastern countries. The Epic journey took it out from the darkest abyss of a feudal system lorded over by Emperor Haile Selassie, through a bloody Dergue Marxist revolution that
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Pirates Of The PFDJ
In 1976, when the Derg announced the change of King Haile Selassie’s birr in Ethiopia, the general public was reluctant to surrender the currency to the bank. People perceived the birr as a currency “guaranteed with gold” though by then the world had long dropped the system of defining the value of currency with gold.
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Lampedusa and the Eritrean Journey for Dignity
After much criticism, the YPFDJ, the youth satellite of Eritrea’s ruling party, PFDJ, visited Lampedusa, a south Italian island whose shores were visited by victims of a shipwreck: 154 barely alive, and 359 dead Eritreans. YPFDJ’s statement begins with this: “The Y-PFDJ team has been in Lampedusa for almost 24 hours and the facts and
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Eritrea: Hazardous to Eritreans
Yes, it is almost entirely the Eritrean regime’s fault. If you have no family in Eritrea, no connection to Eritrea, and all you had to rely for information about Eritrea was Google News–which aggregates Eritrean state media’s always happy news next to the almost always negative news about the country from independent media–you would have
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Eritrean National Congress: 50 Years In The Making, Finally Here
The Eritrean National Congress, which was mandated by the Eritrean National Conference for Democratic Change (ENCDC) last year, is expected to convene on November 21 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The 53-member commission, which was elected by the Conference, is expected to organize the congress of 553 Eritreans representing the civil society (60%) and political parties
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The United Kingdom Should Prove Isaias Afwerki Right
There is a saying in the Eritrean highlands when one observes that the effort exerted is vastly disproportionate to the puny outcome: “nezi ktg’Eta trhtSa?”—all of your sweating is for this? We had the exact same reaction after we read the Eritrean Ministry of Foreign Affairs June 7th Press Release regarding the British nationals who
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This Land Is Your Land, And So Are The Minerals
“This is like walking into Kalgoorlie before it was discovered … it’s a relatively stable country with an authoritarian government … No, we don’t expect an uprising.” That was Tim Goyder, CEO of Australian mining company Chalice Gold Mine. The “stable country with an authoritarian government” he is talking about is Eritrea. And the Kalgoorlie
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What Eritrea Can Teach South Sudan
On the eve of the actualization of its long-dreamed statehood, South Sudan is showing worrying signs of hazards ahead. Each of the three driving forces in itself is a challenge, but combined they pose a threat so potent that it will require wisdom and some good fortune to avoid this calamity. And much of it
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Eritrea Every Year: “We Will Get’em Next Year”
In five months, Eritrea will be celebrating 20 years of freedom from foreign rule. Unfortunately, that is all we will be celebrating because, certainly, we won’t be celebrating freedom. For the last 19 years, the Eritrean tyrant has addressed the nation by expressing false progress for the year that just ended and making empty promises about
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PFDJ’s Eritrea: Klashnikov Diplomacy
Eritrea, under the despotic rule of the People’s Front for Democracy & Justice (PFDJ), has rushed to war and strolled to peace, and it has always accepted peace under terms much worse—after a lot of blood, toil, tears, and expenses—than the initial peace deals. The regime has had direct wars with Yemen (1995), Ethiopia (1998-2000),
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A Moral Mandate To Liberate
At long last, the coming together of Eritreans to discuss ways and means of bringing about democratic change in Eritrea, a dream that had been conceptualized for over a decade, is finally here. Dubbed the National Conference for Democratic Change (NCDC), the convention started on July 30 and will resume for several days in the
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Reclaiming Eritrea After 19 Years Of Tyranny
19 years ago today (May 24th), Eritrean freedom fighters liberated Eritrea from Ethiopian occupation. The Eritrean people, who had been waging a struggle for liberation since 1961, when the Ethiopian government of Haile Selassie was in its last stages of flouting the Eritrea-Ethiopia Federation of 1952, breathed a sigh of relief. After all, for 40
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Eritrean Sanction: A Self-Inflicted Wound
When it comes to the UNSC’s decision to impose targeted sanctions on the Eritrean regime, there are two narratives being presented. One, advanced by the supporters and apologists for the regime, is that the Eritrean government is being targeted because it threatens the world order with its “good example”: a domestic policy of self-reliance and a
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Eritrea Slouching Towards Another Confrontation
All UN resolutions are non-binding, except when they are not. The Isaias regime has spent 17 years of miscalculation trying to figure out which is which, and there is fresh evidence that the issue is still beyond its grasp. On June 10 -11, 2008, Eritrea and Djibouti engaged in a skirmish at their common border.
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UNSC Sanctions: Targeted And Well Deserved
The United Nations is an imperfect institution with imprecise tools. It celebrates the dignity of man and the universality of rights; yet it says that five superpower countries—US, Russian Federation, UK, France and China—have rights that supercede those of the rest of the world. It is a club where friendship or animosity to a superpower
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Yes To Targeted Sanctions
Shortly after September 11, 2001, every tyrant in the world wanted to cash-in on the justified rage of the United States and tried to align himself with the United States and to classify his political opponents as “terrorists.” At the forefront of this campaign was the Eritrean regime and its foot-soldiers who lobbied hard to
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EU’s NGOs & Their Viceroys
On October 29th, Gedab News reported about the November 9-10 conference on aligning EU and US policies towards Eritrea. We entitled the piece “Engagement and Exclusion: US, EU & Eritrea.” The piece was almost entirely about the EU and US and almost in passing mentioned the Eritreans who will be attending. Some thought that the “engagement and exclusion”
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Practice Diversity, Don’t Preach It
Do the Eritrean regime’s policies impact all Eritrean segments equally or are they, depending on the policy, impacting one segment more disproportionately than others? If this is the case, is it intentionally so? And, whether it is so or not, is it prudent politics to discuss it or it is just a distraction that will
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Eritrea: The Network Of Prisons
This is a list containing prisons in Eritrea where the government keeps prisoners of conscience. It is certainly not an exhaustive list of all the prisons in the country where thousands are kept without formal charges and without visitation rights. Those who die in those prisons are unceremoniously buried by the prison wardens and the government rarely notifies