WHERE ARE WE ON OUR JOURNEY TO DEMOCRACY?
Building Eritrea's Future Together!
Part 2

Dr. T. A. Taddesse
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government.
Thomas Jefferson

Eritrea in the Dark Ages
This piece is a follow-up to an article with an equivalent title, posted on September 7, 2004. In that article, I claimed that friends and spouses come in the following three flavors: negative, zero and positive. The negative friends and spouses bring out the worst in you, the positive friends and spouses bring out the best in you, and the "zero" friends and spouses do not influence you one way or the other.

By the same token, leaders also come in the same three flavors. Isaias has brought out the worst in Eritrea, politically, socially, spiritually, and economically, unprecedented in the history of Eritrea. I am willing to argue that the damages sustained by our people under Isaias is by far greater than the combined atrocities perpetrated against our people by all the foreign powers in the last century.

Isaias Afwerki, a man the world hopes to do without, is currently holding the nation of Eritrea in limbo. Almost everything in Eritrea is on hold. There is no gasoline in the country. There is no fuel to run the buses, the flour mills, and the utility industry such as electicity. People are traveling long distances using beasts of burden, horses, mules and donkeys. All neighboring countries have literally closed their borders, affirming that "their borders shall remain closed as long as Isaias remains in power. The rest of the world also knows that there is no government in Eritrea; what we have in Eritrea is a warlord clinging to power by his finger nails.

All dictators come with the same unsatiable greed for power. The dictatorship of the former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosovic, whose policies instigated wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bisnia, Kosovo, and unleashed the bloody fratricidal wars of ethnic cleansing that destroyed a once sophisticated multinational country of Yugoslavia is on trial and rotting in prison at the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague for crimes against humanity. Milosovic had a very unhappy childhood. In his tenure as president, crime by the state overwhelmed politics in Serbia.

You see, people have the capacity to be (do) good or evil. If everybody in Eritrea happened to be at their best, there would not be any need for government. Under such scenario, even total anarchy would work. It is a fact of life that man has a tendency for evil. Unfortunately, it is also mostly the evil ones that are always striving to grab power. It's these evil perpetrators of "control" and "abuse" of humanity that bedevil a nation like Eritrea to the point of hopelessness and despair. When a government is taken over by such evil characters, destruction of the nation is almost guaranteed unless and until the people join hands to drive out these raskals out of office as Thomas Jefferson suggested over 200 years ago.

There was a time in Ethiopia when a relatively few people (Amhara Neftegna) "owned" the majority of the southern and south western peoples (Oromo, Sidama, etc.), and treated them as their personal serfs. Dictator Mengistu Hailemariam changed all that. Strange as it may sound, the whole population of Eritrea has ended up being "private serfs" of the evil dictatorship of Isaias Afwerki, after waging 40 years of armed struggle to earn their well deserved freedom. Yes, serfdom has become the law of the land in Isaias' Eritrea. What a shame!

It is important to note that what Isaias did to Eritreans is the reverse of what Mengistu did for the Ethiopian underclass. Mengistu brought some relief to the historically oppressed peoples in Ethiopia, while Eritreans ended up being a lot worst off than when they started out with Isaias in 1991.

Yemane Ghebreab - Why the secrecy?
More than a week ago, Yemane Gebreab, head of Political Affairs of the PFDJ, opened a festival in Canada by making what amount to synical statements. He highlighted his presentation by stating that there is an alternative other than border demarcation. Upon hearing such a statement, one could surmise that the PFDJ and TPLF are talking behind the scenes. He continued by stating that the TPLF authorities who do not only harbor a hidden agenda, but also have basic problems (PFDJ doesn't have problems?), and as such will not accept the EEBC (Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission) verdict. Consequently, Mr. Yemane interjected, that all Eritreans need to be ready for any eventuality.

To begin with, secrecy has no value in the 21st century. Why squander precious time and resources managing worthless secrets? This is a century of fast exchange of information, particularly with your people. Those who manage exchange of information well, survive and even thrive, and those who slumber on the information lose out. If a government like the PFDJ is not better, faster and smarter in its give and take of information, it has no business leading a Eritrea. It is PFDJ's policy on secrecy that has totally bankrupted a whole nation. In the last century, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (the senator that was replaced by Senator Hillary Clinton), used to say, "The threat to our National Security is not from secrets revealed, it's from bad analysis." Almost all Eritreans know by now that bad analysis for the last 13 years has been the forte of the PFDJ.

So, what is Yemane talking about? Is he talking about initiating another war with Ethiopia, and wiping out our people in the process? Is he proposing creation of a confederation with Ethiopia again? Is Yemane talking about giving away Bademe and/or Asseb, by way of pandering to and appeasing Meles Zenawi? Is he talking about the dictator and his cronies running out of town after they bankrupt the national treasury? Where is the surprise?

We know politics is about clarity in communication. Strange as it may sound, the PFDJ leaders meticulously keep the Eritrean people in the dark, and even brag about it. Eritrea is definitely in the dark ages, thanks to Isaias and his cronies. Fortunately for our people, the lead PFDJ thugs emaciating Eritrea do not number more than thirteen. With good coordination, they can be surrounded and hounded at the right time. According to the news coming from Asmara, Isaias does not sleep in his house any more; he spends different nights at different houses.

Every Eritrean (including those who bought land from the PFDJ) knows that the government in Asmara has completely failed as a result of a failed leadership. Brute force and suppression, persecution, and terror have characterized the reign of the PFDJ. In so doing, this evil regime has defeated the very purpose and spirit of what our people sacrificed immensely for, and our martyrs gave their precious lives for. The purpose of the armed struggle was to achieve the emanicipation of each Eritrean through liberty, but what we ended up getting became a denial and betrayal of that very purpose. Our martyrs must be rolling in their graves! Isaias and his cronies should not be allowed to continue abusing the people with impunity. It's time to stop this mad man.

Tackling the Future - Bright Spots Here and There!

About a year ago, close to a dozen respectable Eritreans got together to conduct research (online) in order to understand why Eritrean political organizations were splitting at a time when we were knocking at the gates of the dictator. These committed compatriots reside in North America, Europe and Australia. The study was conducted entirely over the Internet. To bring participants to the same level of understanding, courses on Conflict Resolution, Diversity Management, Teamworking and Paradigm Shift were given.

The study involved the ELF-RC as a case study. We were given complete access to the ELF-RC books and to their membership. The study is now in its last stages of its completion. Versions in English, Arabic and Tigrigna will be made public shortly. After a thorough assessment of the ELF-RC documents, and an indepth survey study of their membership was made, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that the ELF-RC is a dynamic democracy as a political organization.

Recently, political and civic organizations in Sweden, coalition initiatives conducted in Germany and Washington, DC, by Bayto Dhnet and EIDM, respectively, have courageously confronted the challenges of forming effective coalitions and Eritrea's democratic future. They did so believing that the small nation of Eritrea could not afford being an arena of violence in perpetuity, and knowing that the same individuals who got the nation into a state of limbo cannot deliver it from evil. Bayto Dhnet and EIDM have posted their meeting statements on the Eritrean web sites in the last two weeks.

Such meetings are exemplary and should be supported by all peace-loving Eritreans everywhere. Leading by example, these small and large groups are coming together believing that teamwork is a powerful tool for creating and sustaining break-through results. Obviously, it has taken thus far to understand that the payoff with teams is by far greater than with that of groups; a team is more than the sum of its parts.

Our cyber freedom fighters have long realized that the greatest diversity challenge is the diversity of ideas. In other words, when it comes to new ideas, these compatriots have grasped the concept that diversity is real. They understand that some of us are Contributors, others are Collaborators, still others are Communicators, and the rest of us are Challengers. They are realistically convinced that every player in the struggle is essential to the realization of the Eritrean dream. They also realize that each one of us has to encourage our compatriots to express their God-given talent for the good of Eritrea. We want all Eritreans to be leaders in their own right. Look how being followers got us into a dictatorship!!

CONCLUDING REMARKS
This is the time to build bridges among political and civic organizations. At this stage of our struggle, we are going to need creative, tenacious and individuals with unshakable motivation. To propel the struggle forward, innovative compatriots must step forward and take responsibility. If we don't build viable coalitions among the various organizations, it would be tantamount to giving Isaias and his cronies more time that our people can't afford.

Some misguided individuals and organizations, who do not understand the purpose of a national conference, are unilaterally focusing on conducting a national conference now. The purpose of a national conference is to deliver the torch of power to the rightful owners of the government, the people. How can anybody deliver the torch of power to the people while the dictatorship is in control? Without forming formidable coalitions to remove the dictatorship, delivering the torch of power to the people now becomes a contradiction in terms. How can you deliver something you don't have?

Dekebat_Eritra.Com is not responsible for the contents of the above article. If you would like to respond for more civilized exchange of ideas, please send your comments to Dr. T. A. Taddesse