Asmara — Away from the limelight, as world attention is focused on Africa's major crises like Darfur, DR Congo and Robert Mugabe, Eritrea is a veritable prison.
An exile who recently visited home describes how terror rules the land of Maoist dictator Isaias Afewerki and his ruling party that has a high-minded name, the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice.
Anyone who questions the regime must be silenced by any means: detention without trial, torture or execution, the exile, who declines to be named, fearing his family will be targeted, writes in the March issue of New People, a magazine of the Comboni Missionaries.
"I have lived under several colonizers (the Italians, British and Ethiopians), but the most repressive and cruelest regime is the incumbent government," a respected elder told the writer. "And these are our sons and daughters for whom we waited for 30 years to bring us freedom! My son, is this freedom?"
The country, which became independent in 1991 after a bitter secessionist war with Ethiopia, is facing a serious food crisis orchestrated by the government to subjugate the people, the writer reports. There is no food in markets. People are expected to live on meager government rations.
"People can't sell the products of their fields, except to the government. Government agents search from house to house looking for extra food that the families may have in their stores."
All business and industrial activity is under state monopoly. International trade has been paralyzed. A fuel crisis has crippled the transport sector. People queue for hours to get a seat in a bus, while others sleep at stations to get a ticket.
Parliament has not convened since 2000. Because the nation's professionals and intellectuals have fled, are detained or ignored, public offices are run by barely literate officers whose job is to implement orders from the presidency.
Military training is compulsory for all. Upon completion, young people remain as reserve soldiers and are deployed to national service where they are paid a pittance.
"I was shaken to find out that my niece, who is doing national service at one of the biggest hotels in Asmara, is given USD 20 per month and the rest of her salary is taken by the government. If this is not slavery, what is it then?"
There are unconfirmed reports, according to the writer, that Afewerki is beginning to face some opposition from certain members of his cabinet and the military. But his stranglehold on the nation remains tight as ever.
Comments 1 to 5 of 9 Post a comment
Now the Catholic Church in Eritrea will be targeted by the authorities in that country because a Catholic news service authored this article. The government will punish persons that resemble those described in the story. Authorities do not have to exactly identify who is the source of the information because the government's objective is to terrorize, intimidate, isolate and brutalize all citizens. It is absolute dictatorship by coward, unpatriotic, corrupt and inept individuals. I solute the authors of the report
Typical Ethiopian (woyane) propaganda.
First of all, the article does not bear the author's name. None ! why is that they could fabricate an entire four paragraphs of story yet they couldn't even fabricate an author's name to make their propaganda story believable ?
It is such ignorance that inhibits the genocidal regime in Ethiopia -- a regime with one foot in its grave and the other on a banana peel. What could one expect from the most despised people in Africa -- the woyanes -- whose vague 4th grade so-called "writers" following behind their 6th grade leaders ! (No pun intended Mr Beraki/AKA/Berhane Tekeste)
It was only few weeks ago that a patriarch of the Ethiopian orthodox church, a person put in the position for politically motivates reasons and also by virtue of being from Tigray, in which he had publicly waged a 'holy war' on all Ethiopian Muslims in the country threatening to deport them all to Arab countries. To the shock and horror of all Ethiopians, Christians and Muslims alike, the audio part of the speech was broadcast over the internet and many other media outlets. Once again, a dying regime on its last days left with only one card -- a religious card -- is playing a very dangerous game. If you think the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing in Rwanda was bad, what is in store for the regime in the coming days will make the horrific genocide of Rwanda look like a child play in comparison.
Given the predictable nature of the genocidal regime in Ethiopia, it blame anything it finds deplorable in itself on Eritrea as a way of deflecting attention from the evil massive scale genocidal and ethnic cleansing campaigns it is carrying out throughout Ethiopia. Judging by the current events unfolding in Ethiopia under the brutal repressive TPLF regime, it is inevitable the fragmentation of Ethiopia has just begun. The seating regime's long term goal is to steal as much resources and monies from Ethiopians and use it to develop its Tigray region and to ultimately secede and form it's own independent "republic of tigray' as it was clearly defined on its 1976 TPLF manifesto. Unfortunately for the TPLF regime, Eritrea is the only thing standing between it's dream and the status quo. The regime is stuck. Since the regime had failed to defeat Eritrea during the 1998-2000 war, it is now reduced to a cyber space propaganda war in hope to find some crack in the otherwise united and harmonious Eritreans, with an aim to divide Eritreans across religious lines....as it's clearly implied on the article above.
There is a religious strife going on in Ethiopia that was incited by the seating genocidal regime. Let us all pray for the poor Ethiopians who are victims of the brutal repressive regime ruling the country by a barrel of a gun.
Pray for Ethiopia.
Thank you.
Just plain old propaganda lies,no author's name.Isaias Afewerki is a hero not a tyrant,he's trying his best to make Eritrea a better place to live in,but it takes time,and so all these false propaganda articles on the net is just bringing false hope,the Eritrean people will continue to support President Isaias no matter what it takes,the Eritrean people have been threw tougher situations,they can get threw these situations!
What is unfortunate is this man was put in power by the current Ethiopian leadership whom he turned around and put through a horrible war. He is a war monger this man. He is a terror sponsor. He is presently a supporter of those who would like to see other nations in the Horn destablized. Somalia is a prime example. Having said that, Eritrea was never a colony of Ethiopia but a province. This same crezed man, Isayas a dectator, led a secessionist movement that was enabled by the Ethiopian military leader Mengistu, another dectator out of which emerged two crezed dictators, the other being Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. Get my drift? One dectator follows the other.
Isayas of course had to convince Eritreans that they are colonized by Ethiopia in order for his schem to work and Mengistu helped him by carrying out mass killings in all provinces, including Eritrea.The rest is history.
I am an Ethiopian who grew up with people from the Eritrean province who never believed they were nothing but Etiopian. The power struggle between the two current leaders has created two dictators in place of one. A sad but true fact of Africa where the self elected leaders consider the nations to be their real estate where they plunder, rape and kill as they please. Tell me which African leader is any better than Bashir?
They are all common criminals.
Eri, if what you say is the case, why are there Eritreans refugies in Ethiopia? Why is there a need for such a big army for such a liitle province if Isayass is not a warmonger? A dectator?
See All Comments