Washington, DC — "No one expected this to happen," says Mehret Ghebreyesus, an Eritrean living in Washington, D.C., "at least those of us who fully supported the government didn't." In an article entitled "Time To Speak Up," posted on a new Eritrean web site open to critical voices, Mehret wrote: "Some of us chose to forgive and support the Government of Eritrea and PFDJ. The belief that they have the interest of the people of Eritrea at heart was today proven wrong."
A long-simmering dispute over the direction and shape of Eritrea's future boiled over Tuesday and Wednesday with the arrest of 11 senior members of the ruling Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) party. They are part of a 15-member reform group that first surfaced in public last May with a lengthy open letter to President Isaias Afewerki that described the Red Sea nation as being in a state of crisis.
The letter, signed by some of the most prominent figures in Eritrea's long struggle for independence from Ethiopia accused President Afewerki of "conducting himself in an illegal and unconstitutional manner." It called for a complete review of both the party and government.
The group is also believed to have been critical of Eritrea's two-year war with Ethiopia - "a senseless war," as one person close to the group called it.
Signatories like the former Minister of Marine Resources, Petros Solomon, former Trade and Industry Minister Haile Woldensae, and former Minister of Information, Beraki Gebreselassie, were forced to resign from government. Along with Afewerki, several members of the group, now generally known as the G-15, were founding members of the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front which waged the war for independence against Ethiopia.
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A statement posted on the official PFDJ web site Thursday charged that members of the G-15 met in New York on August 18 to plot the establishment of "secret cells ("wahios") inside and outside of the country, including within units of the Eritrean Defense Forces."
The party site also claimed that participants were told that "secret contacts had been established with regional countries," although these were not named. Three of these participants are being sought by the Eritrean authorities."
The arrests in Eritrea were quickly followed by the shutdown of all independent newspapers. The papers had been sharply and persistently critical of the government. "The private press has not been abolished," insisted the government in a statement Thursday, written in response to criticism from Reporters sans Frontieres. "While the private press is entitled to express any opinion and well-founded criticism of the government and government policies, there are clear provisions against personal defamation as well as unfounded and inflammatory news."
Protests are being planned, demanding dialogue between reformers and government leaders and calling for the release of a student union leader, Semere Kesete, jailed for criticising government management of the university.
