Tag: eritrea

  • PEN Eritrea Names 2020 Freedom of Expression Award Winner

    PEN Eritrea Names 2020 Freedom of Expression Award Winner

    (Sept. 18, 2020): Awate.com’s founding editor, novelist, and activist, Saleh “Gadi” Johar has been named PEN Eritrea’s annual Freedom of Expression Award winner, a recognition that awards $1,000.00 and a trophy. The award ceremony was hosted virtually on Friday, September 18,  2020. On behalf of the award committee, Dr. Daniel R. Mekonnen noted that the prize

    Read more

  • Kenya: Eritreans and a US$3.4 Million Burlap Swindle

    Kenya: Eritreans and a US$3.4 Million Burlap Swindle

    How many Jute plants does it take to make US$3.4 million worth Jute bags? The Kenyan Fraudsters didn’t have to worry about that; they just swindled the amount by pulling jute fibers over the eyes of some Eritrean victims. Eritreans are not new to Kenya; a few call the country home since a long time.

    Read more

  • The Moody Government Closed Italian Schools

    The Moody Government Closed Italian Schools

    After months old wrangling with the school administration, the Eritrean government finally closed the Italian schools in Eritrea. The school bell, “Sadly remains silent for the first time in 103 years in the Italian school of Asmara” as an Italian writer put it. But the fate of the Italian school was sealed once the authorities

    Read more

  • The Debate Over Arabic Language in Eritrea!

    The Debate Over Arabic Language in Eritrea!

    Orally told stories relate a conversation that took place in the first parliament in Eritrea in the 1950s. During a heated parliamentary debate on the official languages of Eritrea, a member of parliament from the Independence Block stood up to speak in favour of adopting Arabic as the second official language of Eritrea. As he

    Read more

  • Happy Double Awate Day

    Happy Double Awate Day

    (This is a close English translation of the Tigrinya content of Negarit #100 video on YouTube channel) Happy September 1 for all of you. Our culture teaches us that one who is not grateful to fellow human beings is unable to be grateful to God. As we all know, Hamid Idris Awate is not only a martyr.

    Read more

  • UAE-Eritrea: Strained Relationship

    UAE-Eritrea: Strained Relationship

    Last June,  a small ship arrived from the UAE carrying relief aid for Eritreans in Dankalia. However, the Assab port authorities denied the ship entry to the port and it couldn’t berth at the Assab docks. Its captain decided to stay offshore where the ship threw its anchor and waited for few days until the UAE

    Read more

  • He Graduated

    He Graduated

    The following is a transcription of my YouTube Channel, “Negarit 97: ሰብኣይ ተመሪቁ – the man graduated – وتخرج الرجل“. Some parts are not properly structured. Saleh Johar When people reminisce about their neighborhood, they remember their good neighbors together with their families or relatives; they remember the neighbors they grew up calling aunties and uncles

    Read more

  • Mesfin Hagos: Before the Egg Hatches

    Mesfin Hagos: Before the Egg Hatches

    This is part 2 of 3 series under the title of “Can Mesfin Hagos Lead Under a Banner of “One Country, One Destiny”? The third part will follow soon. Eritrea and its people have been on a trajectory of existential threat for two decades from the very revolutionaries who brought the nation its independence. The golden egg

    Read more

  • Major Dawit Invites Me to Dr. Abiy’s Addition Class

    Major Dawit Invites Me to Dr. Abiy’s Addition Class

    This article first appeared on Jul 16, 2018. It was republished in December, 2019 with the hope it will evoke a reflection. It finally did: Major Dawit Woldegiorghis has changed his position. He has become so critical of Dr. Abiy’s performance he is branding Ethiopia “a terrorist state”. I do not claim to see the future, but  I

    Read more

  • The Reasonable Dream

    The Reasonable Dream

    ዓቅምኹም ሕለሙ ክትዕወቱ  – فن الحلم الممكن My Harassing Client : I will introduce you to one of my regular clients. Last time he was looking for an assassin and promised to send $1000 through western Union to anyone who could kill me. Here is his threat in Negarit 72. So callous. I took the

    Read more

  • Can Mesfin Hagos Lead Under a Banner of “One Country, One Destiny”?

    Can Mesfin Hagos Lead Under a Banner of “One Country, One Destiny”?

    It has become a cliché to say the Internet has changed many facets of our lives, and the claim of such a truism, however, can hardly be called an overstatement. Of general interest for this article rests in the social and political activism that continues to evolve as it creates a seemingly conducive environment for

    Read more

  • Jawar, Flipos, Isaias, Our Sources

    Jawar, Flipos, Isaias, Our Sources

    Jawar Mohammed :I have a friend whose views about Jawar so many times I concluded he lacks clarity– I ruled him out as a reference on Jawar, the activist turned a political leader. First, his adversaries branded him a terrorist, but after he returned from exile to Ethiopia, he became a wise politician. But shortly

    Read more

  • Book Review: Eritrea-Inception and Consolidation of Dictatorship

    Book Review: Eritrea-Inception and Consolidation of Dictatorship

    Published 2020, Uppsala Sweden. Text in Tigrinya. ISBN: 978-91-519-5571-1 Pp. 365 plus list of references.  Reviewed by Tekeste Negash Emeritus Professor July 24, 2020 This book, Rezene Tesfazion,( RT) explains in the introduction, is about life in exile. It explores the political reason (underground political activities in Asmara before 1974) as the main reason for

    Read more

  • The TPLF and the Eritrean Opposition

    The TPLF and the Eritrean Opposition

    The ENCDC is the only entity that has a workable formula for an opposition umbrella. A boxing match with Getachew Redda, keep your distance. lost and found… I found long lost audio recordings including the interview I conducted with the late Meles Zenawi in 2012. In my last episode I briefly mentioned Getachew Redda and

    Read more

  • PM Abiy What Does An Agent of Peace Mean To You?

    We Eritreans condemn the Ethiopian Prime Minster Abiy’s recent statement where he made an outrageous claim that “the government of Eritrea is a power of peace, and not only Ethiopia, but this fact is acknowledged by the whole world.” He continued further and made a false statement that, “wherever you go in the world, there

    Read more

  • Dam On The River Nile

    Dam On The River Nile

    The Horn of Africa region saw two weeks of hectic travels. And Eritrean officials travelled the most. If the leaders were enrolled in a travel-miles program they would have accumulated so many travel credit. On June 25, Isaias visited Sudan and met Abdelfattah AlBurhan, the Chairman of the Transitional Military Council. And on July 6,

    Read more

  • An Open Letter to My Friend

    An Open Letter to My Friend

    This story revolves around the early memories of my upbringing that shaped my identity.  In all conscience, it is neither a riveting story nor based on exaggerated psychological self-assessment of my past; it is just a modest soul-searching endeavour accompanied by some indulgence in retrospection. Why do I find it important to write about this

    Read more

  • The Eritrean Misery Cycle And The Way Out

    The Eritrean Misery Cycle And The Way Out

    Since 2018, when the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) regime removed its face mask and its leaders revealed their true intentions and hidden agenda to undermine Eritrean sovereignty. Eritreans have consistently pursued efforts to protect their national sovereignty and attempted to block the destructive project adopted by the PFDJ regime because the entire

    Read more

  • Parkinson’s Law – ሕጊ  ፓርኪንሶን –  قانون پاركينسن

    Parkinson’s Law – ሕጊ ፓርኪንሶን – قانون پاركينسن

    As a child, I busied myself with my uncle’s books. Ustaz Johar Abdulrahim was a teacher and he taught in Keren, Nackfa and later at Ferovia, in Asmara. He had a bunch of books in a shelf that I ended up owning, and I went through all of them though I had no clue what

    Read more

  • Pandemic and Government Induced Oppression in Dankalia

    Pandemic and Government Induced Oppression in Dankalia

    The home of Eritrean Afar people, in the southern tip of Eritrea bordering the Red sea, Djibouti and Ethiopia, is going through calamities where the basic food has become scarce. The region is historically known as Dankalia though almost two-decades ago it was renamed the Southern Red Sea region by the ruling party of Eritrea.

    Read more