Tag: eritrea
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Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival (7)
Giants and Lilliputians of the HOA: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival Part Seven Introduction The central argument of this essay is simple: the Horn of Africa’s instability has never been caused by its diversity, but by leaders who repeatedly manipulate that diversity for political survival. Across Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Djibouti, rulers have taken
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Beware, he has 139 million loyalists!
Dear Eritreans, this is a warning—you are expected to shudder with fear. The Ethiopians are 139 million people; they can easily swallow you! If they come for your cattle, your women, or your men, let them take it all. If they want your seashores, spread a red carpet—or roll the sea itself for them to
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Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki – Part Six
Giants and Lilliputians: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki – Part Six 1 — Introduction The Two Propaganda Campaigns The Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) became the target of a sustained campaign of political defamation—first from Emperor Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia, and later, far more powerfully, from the Isaias-led People’s Liberation
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A Reckoning with Rhetoric: Responding to FM Gedion Timothewos on Ethiopia–Eritrea Relations
Introduction Dr. Gedion Timothewos, Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister, delivered a carefully curated address at AAU Ras Mekonnen Hall on November 13th, 2025, outlining Ethiopia’s policy toward the Horn of Africa, or more specifically, towards Eritrea. His tone was measured, his language diplomatic, and his framing deliberate crafted to cast Ethiopia as a stabilizing force amid regional
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Saleh, a Donkey, and Whiskey in Coffee Cups
Today’s episode concludes the mini-series spanning episodes 349 to 354. I will place them all in one playlist for easy reference. And as the adage goes, sebaay klte neow nejew kbl mote—a person must finish what he starts. There are many topics awaiting us, especially the constant poking from Abiy Ahmed and his flamboyant but empty
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Giants and Lilliputians: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival (Part V)
Giants and Lilliputians: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival Beyond Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias AfwerkiThe centralizing dogma of empire, religion and revolutions Eritrea and Ethiopia are lands where mosque and monastery, Qur’an and Psalter, have long breathed the same air. At their deepest currents, the histories of these nations are not tales of division,
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The Battle of Afdeyu
The previous night we met Petros Solomon and Ali Sayed Abdella, and I discovered the much hoped for dialogue for uniting the ELF and PLF was rejected. The ominous disclosure devastated me. And we returned to Weki. The next morning, we were having tea for breakfast when our breakfast was interrupted. We rushed toward the
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Meqerka, Dem Sebaay, Zagir
In 1967, Israel and the Arabs (basically Egypt) fought the Six-Day War; Israel overran Egyptian territories and took control of the Sinai Peninsula and effectively closed the Suez Canal. Haim Bar-Lev, the Israeli chief of staff, designed a 120 km long ditch and about 20 meters high dirt fortifications. Along the Bar Lev Line, Israel
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Gebreberhan Zere and Dowry Jewelry
The late Abdulkadir Ramadan and Tesfay Tekle were conducting TekhliT (dagmay srrE) around Himberti when Tesfay caught my little trick to be assigned to Kebesa. His sharp warning left no room for negotiation. Worse still, my stay in Kebessa was cut short by my dear friend, the late Gebreberhan Zere, who was kidnapped and presumably
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Giants and Lilliputians: Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki (Part 2)
Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival: The Body as a Mirror of Power To understand Isaias Afwerki’s psychology, one must first confront the contradiction written across his body. His appearance—spare, stiff, and strangely careless—betrayed none of the humility expected of a revolutionary. Nor did it reflect the ethos of the Tegadelti, whose plainness was once a
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Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival: Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki
Two Towering Figures–Giants and Lilliputians (Part 1) Across the sorrowful and entangled histories of Ethiopia and Eritrea, two figures loom with spectral intensity: Emperor Haile Selassie I and President Isaias Afwerki. Their shadows stretch across generations, ideologies, and geopolitical fault lines—each a master of power, each a paradox incarnate. At the outset of their reigns,
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Muslim and Catholic Fatimas
Most Eritreans do not know about the Eritrean Black St. Mary, but many have heard of Mariam Daari, the Black icon of St. Mary. I’m not sure whether it was carved from black stone or molded from some other material. The beautiful icon lives in a vast, hollowed baobab tree on the banks of the
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Netsereab Azazi’s Book—Ona and Besekdira
I have written and spoken about Ona—a turning point in my life and among my peers. I thought that experience was as intense as life could get. Reliving those events shakes a person to the core; it is a deeply traumatic experience. What I saw remains etched in my memory. When something stirs those recollections,
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The Faucet Festival
A satirical take on Isaias Afwerki’s mysterious faucet sculpture, comparing it to Pharaoh Khufu’s pyramid and the Syrian comedy “Faucet Festival” to highlight Eritrea’s forced labor and cult of leadership.
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Blame It on Moses
A young student and her classmate graduated together; she became a geography teacher, while her bright classmate was quickly absorbed into Abiy Ahmed’s party and appointed PR director of the Ethiopian Air Force. Today, he is hailed as an inspirational figure in that institution. By all accounts, he is doing a marvelous job. Recently, however,
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Ts’əmdi and Ts’imdo: Joined for Utility, Not Unity
In the semi-fertile soil of Tigrinya, the words ጽምዲ (Ts’əmdi) and ጽምዶ (Ts’imdo) bloom with layered meaning—practical, poetic, and political. Both conjure the image of two entities alloyed together, yet their applications diverge across the rhythms of life. ጽምዲ, as in ጽምዲ ብዕራይ, refers to two oxen yoked to plough a field—a necessity for poor
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Refugees Speak Back: Unsettling Exile and Home
In 2007, the Red Sea Press published Sadia Hassanen’s Repatriation, Integration, or Resettlement? The Dilemmas of Migration among Eritrean Refugees in Eastern Sudan. Based on her doctoral dissertation, the book quickly became one of the most important studies of Eritrean refugees in Kassala and surrounding camps. It asked a simple yet unsettling question: what or where
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Penicillin Overdose Killed the Camel
Dr. Abiy Ahmed keeps me thinking these days, though not in the way I wanted to. During the struggle era, when there were not enough qualified doctors, dressers and nurses became doctors by default. Their kit was modest: a few vials of penicillin for wounds and infections, chloroquine for malaria, and vitamin K and blood
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Downfall of an Emperor: Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
Book Review By Semere T Habtemariam Downfall of an Emperor: Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and the Derg’s Creeping Coup By Michael Ghebrenegus Haile (Shambel) Published by AWP | 2024 | 353 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 978-1569024966 First Impressions On a quiet Friday night, I reached for a book that had been waiting on my
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A Return of Sorts to Religion
In a much-publicized recent religious event at the Anda Mariam Tewahdo church, many of the top Eritrean officials were seen at the forefront, solemnly bowing and kissing the cross. In principle, such an occurrence shouldn’t be unusual in a country with a mix of Christians and Muslims. Adherents to faith, regardless of their social status,