Eritrea: the Government vs. the People

It is time for the Eritrean leadership to stop blaming the US or Ethiopia or any other third party for the country’s political and economic hurdles. This stance is a sign of weakness of leadership. It only delays the social and democratic changes which the Eritrean people desperately need in order to begin to enjoy the benefits of their hard-won liberation almost two decades ago.

Eritrea will never be able to get out of its current dilemma if it allows its real or perceived enemies to determine its future. The best way for Eritrea to deal with its external enemies is by working hard to establish democratic institutions, by encouraging free market economy, introducing a constitutional system of government, ending the ban on press and academic freedoms, respecting the principles of human and democratic rights, and immediately releasing or bringing to trial the thousands of jailed religious and political opposition leaders.

This writer is old enough to remember another similar African situation during the Cold War, namely that of Somalia under President Siad Barre who also ruled on the basis of how well or how badly his country was treated by the US, the USSR or neighboring Ethiopia. Like Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki, the Somali leader also chose absolute dictatorship as a domestic policy. Expectedly, this method of administration led to the demise of Barre in 1991. It also caused the human and social catastrophe that continues to beset Somalia.

Eritrea is not unique in Africa with unique political wisdoms to deal with possible social upheavals. Unless it changes direction, the country may not survive the aftermath of what critics see as a possible, sudden collapse of Afewerki’s authoritarianism like that of Barre’s Somalia or Mobutu Sese Sekou’s Zaire (DR Congo) in which millions have died in Africa’s worst civil wars.

It is time for Eritrea to engage in a real social and political revolution instead of wasting precious time and energy blaming others for what is wrong. The solution to the country’s external problems is the introduction of fundamental change in domestic policy.

thank for yuor critria ,we are not stuggle fore which best way to rule our country ,we never allow to multicompaneis to stolen our treature ti is fore coming genertion , also yuo written about democracy and humen rights and jailed religious in eritrea ,what are saying about guantanamo i think it is good exsambol of westren velues.

IT IS SO SAD THAT AFTER THIRTY YEARS OF STRUGGLE, AND SEVENTEEN YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE; OUR BELOVED ERITREA AND FELLOW ERITREANS CANNOT EVEN CAST A VOTE. ITS TIME TO LEGITIMIZE OUR COUNTRY WITH THE REST OF THE DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD AND STOP THE BULL _____.

first thank you for the great oppurtunity to write my feeling ...u know im also i want peace in horn africa as im eritrean but its only one thing to solve this situation..as u ethiopian you have to depend up to you not up to US... we are always eritrean..viva Esseyas Afwerki long live EPLF ...selam for symbol of AFRICA....ONE LOVE

Exiled Anuak prepare to confront Ethiopia official

By MARTIGA LOHN, Associated Press WriterSat May 31, 11:08 AM ET

Being in the same Minneapolis hotel building is about as close as Peter Omot wants to get to Omot Obang Olom, the Ethiopian official he holds responsible for the massacre of more than 400 of his ethnic kin.

Peter Omot, a 35-year-old member of the Anuak ethnic minority, says he won't enter the room where Omot, the governor of the country's western Gambella region, will speak to the local community-in-exile on Saturday.

Gov. Omot was in charge of security when, according to human rights groups, Ethiopian troops attacked the local Anuak population in December 2003.

"He prepared the ground," Peter Omot, who lives in Savage, Minn., said Friday.

The regional governor's appearance at the community meeting has set off debate in the Anuak diaspora over whether it's appropriate even to be in the same room as Omot, who is Anuak himself.

The Anuak Justice Council in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has been pushing U.S. and Canadian authorities to arrest and try Omot for war crimes. He is expected to continue on to Canada next week. But advocates haven't been able to confirm whether he's traveling on a diplomatic visa that would grant him wide-ranging immunity.

"He should not be meeting the Anuak in a town hall meeting. He should be meeting the Anuak in chambers — you know, in a court of law," said Obang Metho, an advocate with the Anuak Justice Council in Saskatoon who is boycotting the meeting.

He added: "He has blood on his hands."

State Department spokesman Bill Strassberger confirmed that Omot received a visa, but said that because visa records are confidential, he could not discuss the visa application. He also declined to discuss whether Omot had a role in the 2003 killings.

A message left Saturday for officials at the Ethiopian embassy in Washington, D.C., was not immediately returned.

Human rights groups have detailed a campaign of killings, rape, torture and displacement against the Anuak by government soldiers and members of other ethnic groups. Wholesale attacks started on Dec. 13, 2003, in Gambella town in southwestern Ethiopia. Thousands fled, some to southern Sudan.

An estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Anuak live in Minnesota, in what is thought to be the largest concentration outside Africa, said Akway Cham, who heads the Minneapolis-based Anywaa Community Association in North America.

Obang, the advocate in Canada, said he expects Omot to try to get exiled Anuak to move back and help develop their region, and will say that the region has become safe and democratic.

Akway is at the center of the furor over Omot's visit because he's the facilitator of Saturday's forum. He planned to collect Omot and other Ethiopian officials at the airport Friday.

He acknowledged the stir the visit is creating but said he hopes people will come away with answers to their questions. He said the meeting will focus on the 2003 killings after a similar meeting in April with other government officials left many in the community dissatisfied.

"This guy is the governor, and he was there when the things happened, and people are expecting that he should be able to give some clear answers," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Fred Frommer contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

Dear Editor, Mr. Solomon, his TPLF & forgein masters, litteraly committing out right fraud & desperatly trying to mislead anyone who comes as close as to reading their half-baked "theories and articles", would like the world to believe, that 50 years of Ethiopian persistent suicidal military adventures against Eritrea, Somalia or it's own multi-ethnic "Ethiopian citizens" or the constant supply of American and Russian arms, the global conspiracy to force Eritrea to succumb and surrender it's independence to the American sponsored United Nations "federal" or boader resolutions, has nothing to do with half a century of Ethiopian bloodshed, genocide, massacre, halacuast, war, death, destruction, famine and instability, is nothing more than a smoke screen to cover up Ethiopian & it's forgein masters crimes against Eritrea, Somalia and many Ethiopian citizens.

Understabdably, for American & Russian arms merchants, African wars and internal ethnic or religious conflicts are very profitable investsmets & one-way proposistion to benefit the arms merchants, at the expense of millions of African lives. Always armed by the East & West, Ethiopia has been & still remains the endless stream of profitable market of American & Russian arms merchants and the killing field and Kankaroo court of Ethiopians.

Therefore, in the contest of American arms merchants, Ethiopian wars against Eritrea, Somalia & it's own Ethiopian citizens is the most succesful proposition of the ultimate agenda of American politicians.

Even though people like Mr. Solomon & his TPLF or American masters may want us to believe other wise, it obvious for any one with the least IQ, to see & recognize that American and Russian arm supplies & Ethiopian endless wars and famines, profited Americans and Russians, while deplteing Ethiopia of it's meagar resources and starving it's people to extinction. For ordinary people of common sense, the simple question of asking Mr. Solomon and his masters is to answer that "What has Ethiopia gained from American or Russian friendship, beside constant wars & endless famines?" Mr. Solomon idea of being blindingly succumbing to servitutde of American forgein policy, for meagar famine aid is not going to help Ethiopia overcome it's internal or forgein entagled misery. Mr. Solomon and his TPLF masters did not miss the point that if it was NOT for American agenda of delivering Eritrea in silver plate to Ethiopia in the name of fraudulant UN federal resolution 390A/V of 1952 and the consquent forced annextion of Eritrea in 1962, by US armed Ethiopian invading army with the blessing of the US politicians, Eritrea would have been as far away as independent state of Djibouti, whom Ethiopians like Mr. Solomon, dream about and still claim to be another Ethiopian real estate, but dare contemplate to wage a war against the French army stationed in Djbouti. Mr. Solomon, his American and TPLF masters or the US instrument of global intimidation, manipulation & total surrender, the United Nations, may have forced Eritreans to pay heavy sucrifices, but has NOT stopped Eritreans from liberating, defending and rebuilding Eritrea, which Eritrea proved against all odds, that in the end, people are masters of their own destiny, while Mr. Solomon is allowed to bark like tooth dogs.

Democracy can only be achieved by free elections. Seventeen years is plenty of time to squeeze an election. Power corrupts. How true.

Is that Woldu Solomon from Comboni

Yes, every political problem we have in Eritrea is because of the TPLF and indirectly, US. Had Ethiopia accepted the algeirs agreement, there would have been peace by now, relations restored, elections, and a lot of prosperity. But Isayas rightly said, elections cannot happen unless the 'war' between Ethiopia and us is over. And regarding the aids matter; actually, every country should follow Eritrea's way. Depending on foregin powers will ALWAYS make us dependents to them. US might want to have a base in Eritrea, as its a very excellent strategic area. And it will want A LOT in return. But we are determined to work by our own hands and feet, we will be united, and we'll face our problems together. As our motto goes, we bow to NO ONE. Long live Eritrea

You want to know why the Algiers agreement didnt go through. It's because none of the U.N. members take the Eritrean problem seriously. No country is going to put its neck on the table for a country that is not democratic, and acts like the bully of the neighborhood. Lets stop blaming everybody for our problems. Once we have democratic free elections which is the right thing to do other U.N. members will take us seriously. Do you realize that we are one earthquake, flood, or drought away from receiving foreign aid.

May the Lord have mercy on Ethiopia.

Dear Editor,

Ethiopia is cursed and betrayed by its own self-centered, self-serving and self-aggrandizing egotistical "political leaders", who has never been elected by Ethiopians to serve the Ethiopian people, therefore, could not have the best interest of the Ethiopian people in mind and could not represent the well being of the Ethiopians. But, human experience and history proves and points out that Ethiopia is not the exception to the rule, for common criminals and politicians all over the world have always lived off and built their destinies at the expense of turmoil of every society, sacrificing their own people for their private benefits and self-glorifying misguided ambitions. History proves, nearly all nations of the world have experienced what Ethiopia has been experiencing & living through for decades. The mass graves of ethnic, religious or political minorities in the back yard of every nation of the world speaks volumes of the self-serving politicians of every nation of the world, as Mao Tse Dung of China honestly pointed it out, "political power comes from the barrel of a gun" and not from the free will of the governed people.

Ethiopia, being victim to it's own home grown self-promoting, misguided irresponsible ambitions & self-serving "politicians", Ethiopia is just another classical example of human tragedy and will continue to be so, until Ethiopians realize, Ethiopia is sinking like over-loaded ship, in merciless oceans. In many cases, Ethiopians have failed to learn from human history & the recent practical examples of former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, that irresponsible misguided ambition is the straw that will break the Camel's back, in this case, Ethiopia. Ethiopian internal ethnic, tribal, religious, political and economic endless conflicts and adventurous foreign wars, in the service & for the benefit of it's foreign masters, has destroyed millions of Ethiopian lives. Enough already, but it does not seem so in Ethiopian case. Based on the English colonialists credo, "divide & conquer", for the last 17 years, since the victory of the ethnic-based "liberation fronts" from all corners of Ethiopia drove the last Stalin of Ethiopia all the way to Zimbabwe, Ethiopia has been reconfigured and restructured with ethnic formula and tribal "republics" and landscapes, in the name of "ethnic federalism", to the narrow benefit of the minority ethnic Tigray political mafias, just like South African apartheid. Thanks to self-centered bitter conflicts, political gamble and miscalculations of the "ethnic political parties", Ethiopians are NOT as cohesive as they have been for last century, therefore, prone to self-inflicted agony just like Rwanda and more man made and natural calamity.

Before ending up like deeply-embroiled Rwanda's ethnic-genocide, Ethiopians need to over come the present danger of ethnic division in the name of Ethiopian "ethnic federalism", for ethnic formula of the present regime might break Ethiopia to pieces of fiefdoms, just like former Yugoslavia.

Besides bringing more misery, human tragedy and shame to Africa, crying over spilled milk and barking like toothless dog for empty glory will not make Ethiopia, the great nation that Ethiopians hallucinate about.

Rising up to the occasion, standing together for ethnic, religious and political harmony, diversity, and plurality, co-existence, and mutual respect, common interest, among each other and among their neighbors is the only way out of Ethiopia's misery.

Anything less will eventually bleed & lead Ethiopia to eternal demise, that Ethiopian starving belly, empty pride, bankrupt glory and war-mongering could not overcome nor sustain to hold Ethiopia together intact.

May the Lord have mercy on Ethiopia, that it's internal or foreign masters could not provide.