Afeworki's Desperate Need for Enemies

By Seyoum Tesfaye
Atlanta, Georgia.
Asmarino.com
August 17, 2006

One could have never understood Stalin's Russia without studying Stalin's diabolical obsession for power and the inherent complexity that anchored and sustained his pervasive paranoia.

Gulag was the external manifestation of Stalin's internal hell.

The periodic purge and betrayal of old comrades was driven by Stalin's deeply rooted insecurity and his insatiable need for enemies. He manufactured enemies left and right to justify his overdeveloped insecurity and ingrained desire for absolute power. Those who dared to oppose Stalin's cruelty and refused to play by his sadistic rules paid the maximum price.


Stalin became a one man political party, theoretician, legislator, Supreme Court, commander-in -chief and President. Through terror, fear and absolute control of power he became the state and the law. For almost a generation Stalin was Russia. Millions perished and millions left Russia to avoid his draconian rule.

Russia was dead!
Long live Stalin.

He perfected the template for tyranny and bequeathed it to future tyrants. Even now his ghost hovers as a potent mentor to up- and -coming tyrants. Stalin should be smiling in his grave since he has managed to resurrect part of himself in the person of President Isaias Afeworki. A good student never disappoints his primary teacher. Stalin has no reason to be disappointed for his disciple has managed to turn the entire Eritrea into the African Gulag in the shortest possible time. But the ground work was done long time ago.

EPLF came under the total control of Isaias Afeworki way before the Eritrean national flag was hoisted. Upon independence the liberation front became the State of Eritrea. The transformation of EPLF to PFDJ was another deliberate strategic move in order to facilitate the marginalization of former senior comrades and the general population. The confrontation and skirmish with
Sudanese and Yemen was used to further consolidate his control of all aspects of the state machinery. The war with Ethiopia was employed as a deliberate excuse to destroy all nascent institutions (Eritrean National Assembly and Free Press), subvert the implementation of the Constitution and destroy and exile all those who had the historic credential and the necessary experience to contain him.

He has managed to spread misery across the four corners of Eritrea. He has defiled all indigenous institutions. He has dehumanized free thinking Eritreans. He has battered Eritrea's collective psyche. He has rendered its youth hopeless. He has deformed, beyond recognition, its mosaic culture. He has assaulted its religions. He has shattered its economy. He has poisoned
its politics. He has made Eritreans stand on bread lines. He has given them rationed Electric. He has made arrogance a political currency. He has elevated rudeness to a way of life.

Inflicting his punishment yet to another generation, with his command economy he has made sure there is no milk for infants and no advanced education for the youth. Militarized slave labor, a penny pinching State controlled economy, a vast prison infrastructure and a well developed
braggadocio has become the defining signature of Isaias Afeworki's regime.

He has achieved his objective: As it stands now the State of Eritrea is Isaias and Isaias is the State of Eritrea. He is the linchpin of the authoritarian system. He is the glue as well as the flesh and soul of the tyranny. All other political actors owe their position and job assignment to
his discretion. They breathe because he permits their lungs to work. Hear the murmur of the people, the grumbling of the youth, the gossip of his inner circle and be assured that the end is near. Intellectually, politically, diplomatically and socially Isiaias Afeworki stands exposed and
condemned. What we are reading now is the first lines in the epilogue of a meticulously orchestrated political and organizational manipulation rushing to its ultimate destiny: unavoidable demise. Once again the Eritrean people will resoundingly affirm the historically vindicated epitaph: this predator tyrant will perish just like its ideological predecessors and mentors did.

Presently his inability to create the necessary international political alliance and diplomatic leverage to finalize the border demarcation is being used as universal excuse to justify the expansion of his draconian rule. He is looking for another crisis to meddle in order to deflect the growing domestic resistance. He is frantically trying to make himself a power broker
by meddling in other nation's internal affair.

He has discovered helpless Somalia and rediscovered imperial USA. He is now the amalgamated persona: an uncompromising revolutionary anti-imperialist and a professor- at- large freely dispensing advice on how to save the world form US control. He feels oppressed people of the world needs his political prescription and disjointed pontification. One stellar mind thinking and
speaking for Eritrea and oppressed people of the world! Welcome to the world of ever-expanding illusion.

He is the Flag and the law of the land. Why should Eritrea need other gifted men and women when it has an omniscient president? Why do we need a Constitution? A parliament? An independent court? Why do we need a university when we have a very learned leader at the helm? What the hell do Eritreans have to complain about?

Eritreans may not recognize the brilliancy of their authoritarian leader, but the oppressed world is starving for it. This nation of four million poor people is too small for the gargantuan brilliancy of a battle tasted perennial warrior who thrives more in war than in peace time. In his paradigm great men are created out of chaos and disorder. Peace makes a nation too lazy and too comfortable. War is a necessary evil for forging a nation's character. If in the process mothers have to cry and fathers are worried sick that is an unavoidable sacrifice. Besides it is nothing that a well crafted slogan cannot fix or a rally remedy!

The need for perpetual crisis underscores the nature of the tyrant's inner world. Peace and tranquility are too confining. Giving credit to others is conceding weakness. Controlling everything is minimizing other's dangerous initiative. Freezing government functionaries with out proper explanation is maintaining the psychological upper hand. Apologizing is committing political suicide. Like children Eritreans must be tutored and monitored. Questioning is doubting. Doubting the ability of the supreme leader is committing treason. Incommunicado by itself is communication. Impetuous action is better than reasoned words. The best way to be loyal to Eritrea is to obey the will of the president. Then only then you might be safe for a while.

We Eritreans just do not know how lucky we are! Why do we need religious or spiritual leaders? Why do we needs free press, constitution, rules of law, election, civil discourse and parliamentary debate and consensus building? Why should we need institution? What is wrong in putting our future in the hands of a clairvoyant leader who sees the future in black and white without any need for a middle ground?

Behold Eritreans!
Count your blessings!
Submit and be grateful.

Illusions of grandeur – the central sickness of all tyrants has found a definitive address in Asmara. We-the people- are paying enormous cost for it. If he had it his way we should be getting ready for more suffering. He is not done with us yet.

With Qadhafi exhausted, Mugabe drowning in hyperinflation and Castro approaching his final days the mantel to continue the anti-imperialist struggle has been publicly usurped by the Eritrean tyrant. The calculation is simple and direct: nature hates vacuum and why should not our tyrant have a go at it. Noting ventured nothing gained.

Welcome to the post Castro anti-US hegemony struggle under Commandant' Isaias Afeworki. The anti- imperialist rhetoric is just that rhetoric intended to deflect attention form the deepening economic, social and political crisis in the domestic front. The consistent meddling in the affairs of the neighboring nations is another dimension of the plan to keep the Eritrean people focused on legitimate and bogus external issues.

The brand of tyranny exercised by Isiais Afeworki goes way beyond the usual dictatorship. Its kinship is more in line with the former communist Albania and the present day North Korea: total subjugation of the people-no margin for error. History keeps affirming that unless the irrational and self -serving rhetoric and actions of miniscule tyrants is confronted head on, their ego grows bigger and correspondingly the collective damage they impose on the nation and people intensifies in magnitude and intensity. Appeasing tyrants is the worst mistake individuals and nations can make.

Struggling for democracy includes tearing down the attempt by a deceitful tyrant to build a lasting metaphysical statue in the minds of the people. It demands having the audacity and strength of conviction to openly defy the tyrant and his ideology before it becomes fashionable. Exposing and tearing down the false image is a prerequisite for bringing down the tyrant and dismantling their inhumane political system.

The exalted Supreme Leader- has decided to overtly revert to his favorite ideology: he is now a born again anti- imperialist and anti-capitalist. He knew well that it was not fashionable to be communist after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was a pragmatic concession tailor made for the time
temporary retreat until he consolidated his political power. Now he has revived his anti- imperialist credential and anti- exploitation rhetoric for opportunistic reasons and for diversion. Utilitarian to the fault. What happened to the Renaissance persona? It wilted away as a casualty of the bungled up Bademe War/diplomatic debacle when the West started to see the true nature of the tyrant and the White House became off limit.

What we are witnessing is a charade born out of a desperate need for attention. But this overtly narcissistic behavior has opened a wide window for the whole world to see the kind of madness the people of Eritrea are subjected to on a daily basis. The international diplomatic circle has
slowly come to grip with this well ingrained behavior as a matter of daily experience. Many foreigners who honorably explained and defended Eritrea's legitimate interest during the struggle for independence have been repeatedly subjected to the tyrant's condescending lecture. What Eritreans and friends of Eritrea silently endured through out the struggle for national independence has now become a devastating national epidemic with regional and global consequence.

Having failed miserably to get on the good side of the USA through expensive lobbying effort, assuming the vanguard role to destroy the fundamentalist regime in Sudan with the approval of the USA; after joining, uninvited, the "Coalition of the Willing", the esteemed "leader" has finally decided Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen were average enemies not fit for his exceptional skill. A Johnny-come –lately Pan Africanist has now decided to lead an anti-imperialist crusade on behalf of the African people against the USA and its regional representatives.

Welcome to the recycled anti-imperialist in desperate need of enemies. What happened to the sardonic remark: "We cannot be more Catholic than the Pope?" Or the uncharacteristic attempt at humility: "Our shoes should match the size of our feet". Did Stalin make a midnight call from the beyond to bequeath the mantel of anti- imperialism and anti- capitalism to our Supreme
Leader? Or did we Eritreans run out of the appropriate shoe size? Did our feet grow grotesquely all of a sudden? Our leader's need for front page recognition by tussling with bigger enemies assumed urgency. Tyrants must compete for headlines too.

Reading Shabait's diatribe you cannot help but discern the underlining psychological deficiency and political bankruptcy at center of this kind of senseless braggadocio. The grand posturing is nothing but a hallow fluff. The fundamental essence of the huffing and puffing is about Isaias'
inability to change the rule of the game. Under his command Eritrea's primary and legitimate external agenda of finalizing the border demarcation has stalled. This is nothing but an extension of the irreversible diplomatic disaster that has been harvested by the president of Eritrea since the 1998 Ethio-Eritrea War. The unpredictable bipolar tendency of the tyrant's to suddenly shift form a short term sensibility to a debilitating tantrum has profoundly damaged Eritrea's strategic interests. Eritrea's foreign policy has become the extension of the president's mercurial personality.

The entire maneuvering and punitive move against the UN peace forces in the 25 miles zone has not changed the reality on the ground. Instead of clear thinking and re-strategizing on how to marshal all positive internal and external elements to push for the finalization of the demarcation the president squanders whatever marginal goodwill he had left by resorting to unproductive irrational posture: He opens a full frontal attack on the US' foreign policy and national interest in the region. This in no way and shape will advance Sate of Eritrea's legitimate interest. There is always a possibility that a marginal few simpletons may loud this berserk behavior as a heroic act. But rational Eritreans will take it as a vivid warning of how desperate our national existence has become.

The average Eritrean may at times confuse borderline arrogance for assertiveness but rarely does he or she exhibit this kind of pathological obsession for absolute power and negative attention the kind that is being broadcasted by the central characters of the ruling regime. On the contrary most Eritreans do not wear authority comfortably. In exile as well as in their colonized national soil they were known for devotion to family, justice, work, integrity and their God. Colonization, poverty and war never managed to break their fundamental character. What is being exhibited by the power hungry tyrant is a total aberration. It lacks grace and equanimity. In
no way or shape does this kind of demagoguery represent the core values of the Eritrean people or the strategic interests of the State of Eritrea.

The absurdity being posted at a frantic pace in Shabait could have many transcribers but it has only one author. None of his subordinates have the latitude to write such a grotesque editorial/ opinion/ commentary against the USA. The David and Goliath drama is not about modest Eritrea. It is about a tyrant who was unfortunately born into a small nation. Four million people are not enough constituents for a brazen tyrant with super ego. The tyrant is now speaking on behalf of oppressed Ethiopians, Somalians, Sudanese, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Southeast Asia, the Arabian Gulf and Iraq. Good help us tomorrow this might not be enough he may decide to speak for Mao's China, Stalin's Soviet Union and tiny Albania.

Tyrants have nostalgia like everyone else but it is not a nostalgia reserved for a Sunday afternoon cappuccino tete a tete but for absolute power. Tyrants lament the disappearance of the days when the people accepted whatever they dished out without question or challenge. The more the people stand up the more the tyrant tries to deflect the coming wrath of the people. One way of doing this is expanding the list of enemies, pointing finger and exaggerating the level of danger without a corresponding self- examination or accountability. The endless shouting about TPLF, CIA, Somalia, Sudan, but not a single word about justice, rule of law and the Constitution is part and parcel of the game plan. Keep the people's attention focused on other nation's problems while you are destroying their nation's foundation.

One can understand, rightfully so, if the tyrant continues to demand that the USA assume an impartial role in the enforcement of the border demarcation. At the minimum, even to accomplish this, first of all, he should have put the most capable Eritrean diplomat in Washington DC. By
making loyalty to him the acid test, Eritrea was underrepresented in Washington DC at a crucial time in its national challenge. The residual cadres hovering around Washington DC could not find their way out of a shopping bag leave alone negotiate through the US federal system and manage the nuances of high wire diplomacy. But that is not the concern of our esteemed leader. What matters is the posturing: the gladiator Isaias standing up to modern Rome i.e. USA. The drama and the hyperbole is everything and the result is an embassy's movement contained inside a 25 miles radius within metro Washington DC. A brilliant achievement!

Slogans spouting emotional followers can become good local informants and miniature ATM machines but they could not convince the New York Time or Washington Post to editorially support Eritrea's legitimate demands. That takes exceptional ability and a well developed human relation skills. In present day Eritrea skill is not a viable currency. It might even be a curse. Personal loyalty to the president is the sole ingredient to official appointment and symbolic vertical move. The price for the "upward movement" is total submission and abandonment of all sense of self- knowledge. Leave alone thinking out of the box thinking creatively inside the tyranny box is a trigger point for being frozen, being deposited in a container or summarily evicted from your government supplied house.

USA's historical partiality toward Ethiopia is a given. This is a starting point but not the end of diplomatic endeavors. It presents Eritreans with a unique challenge. It also opens an opportunity to strategically plan a diplomatic posture that will mobilize long time friends of Eritrea and the
Diaspora Eritrea to organize a campaign to present Eritrea's case in a well planned, structured and sustained way. This cannot be done when those obsessed with and addicted to micro management want Eritrea's best minds and friends of Eritrea to submit to their crude and backward tyrannical system and dehumanizing approach. More importantly the effort by the regime and its top cadres to surgically decouple the struggle for democracy form our
national agenda cannot convince, leave alone motivate, decent men and women to be manipulated to advance Isaias' desire to rule Eritrea for decades by multiplying external enemies and deferring democracy.

The tyrant thinks he can bully and pout his way to the heart of the American establishment and the American people. He feels he can lambaste US foreign policy and force the State Department to succumb to his wishes. He thinks he can resurrect America's checkered past in the pages of Shabite and shame the American establishment into appeasing him. But he is mistaken on all counts. It might give his Disinformation Department (03) a talking point to disseminate in Asmara bars and in some Diaspora enclaves where the remaining few cadres and naïve defenders of the tyrant can take refugee in their leader's audacity and senseless chest drumming. It is nothing but a feel good group therapy without any discernable positive result. Informed minds know that when the contrived hysteria is finished the harsh reality will still be there: We have no demarcated border and we have no freely elected government. Eritrean foreign policy, just like our domestic policy, has become a casualty of the authoritarian system under the most unenlightened African tyrant.

*Why is Isaias so unhinged and so out of control?*

Because it serves his primary purpose: Holding on to political power by whatever means.

Why should he change a skill that has served him well for a long time and helped him destroy better educated and mannered men and women? Why should he change now when he is in charge of a State, a national treasury and the destiny of four millions people? Stalinist ruthless political and organizational machinations, these two ingredients, are at the very core of the president's curricula vitae. We must give the devil his due: He has perfected his methods and managed to out flank better minds for decades. He has been true to his character. He has been consistent and predictable to a certain extent. He is not the problem.

It is the people around him that you have to pity. How can they, let alone accept even tolerate, this kind of absurdity? But then we must understand. A frog will learn to tolerate extreme temperature if the increment was done slowly and methodically. So do rational men and women. Hot is warm until it burns. But sooner or later as G-13 and G-15 discovered a tyrant's oven has
no preferential temperature for those with conscience and integrity. Be sure of one thing: sooner or later the Scorpio will bite. They will be burned too. Some fought for independence, rule of law, justice and democracy. Others maneuvered for power to control the state machinery. Those who fought for power are in charge of Eritrea now. To keep absolute political power they are willing to let Eritrea go to hell and become hell.

The false peace evangelist is now working overtime to bring peace to the people of Sudan, Somalia and even Ethiopia. He wants to gather the people of Sudan under one roof while he is meticulously working to depopulate the Eritrean youth by exiling them to overseas and collecting money from their pauper families for supposedly helping their adult children flee from Eritrea. He wants to ensure that Ethiopians are not denied the democracy they deserve while he is refusing to implement a legitimately ratified Constitution. What a travesty. What hypocrisy.

*All this for what? : To feed one man's insatiable appetite for power. *

The fact that the tyrants come out of our gene pool does not excuse the brutality. Tyranny cannot be justified because the tyrant has the same color, religion, ideological orientation or ethnic affiliation with any segment of the society. Justice is indivisible: either we all have it or no one has it. Injustice cannot be handled in a clinical manner and intellectualized by a way of objective analysis. First the heart must reject it and then the mind must refute it. No home, no family, no age group, no religion, no class, no region, no ethnic group is safe from this kind of tyranny. No one should feel their sectarian interest is being served by the clique in power. If some people feel their narrow interest is being served by the regime in power they are in for a rude awakening. Their loyalty is misplaced. They soon will realize that the tyrant has only a constituency of one. They will join the majority in the search for just solution. Bringing an end to this tyranny is a collective national task.

Those intellectuals who have chosen to dwell in silence when a handful of individuals deliberately destroy their beloved country have to come to terms with their conscience. Those who are building their retirement homes and bankrolling a bankrupt regime so that their future homes will stand tall while the people's livelihood is freefalling will have to prepare themselves for the day of reckoning. Their investment is not protected by law or a functioning constitution. The people whose land is being confiscated and sold for foreign exchange reserve have a long memory. Time, in the near future, will favor the true custodian of Eritrea's ancestral land than those
who have US dollar or those who have hijacked political power. Tyranny will not last but the people and their descendents will, for they are as organic as the land that gave birth to them.

Maybe even before fundamental changes sweeps Eritrea, the tyrant may abruptly decide to change the land game. Tyrant gives, tyrant takes-that is the rule of the game. You will be betrayed and abandoned by the tyrant. It is a matter of when not if. Take it as a given.

What good is rich intellect and future retirement house when our people are being dehumanized by a calculating tyrant?

What good is to pretend that everything is Ok when our country has turned into a miniature North Korea in the horn of Africa?

Must we wait until the tyrant's brutality visits every single one of us? Injustice to any Eritrean is injustice to every one of us.

This is the time to deeply feel our people's pain and suffering. It is time for righteous defiance and impassioned peaceful revolt. It is time for all of to stand up and loudly declare: "Hell no! Isaias Must Go!"

Disclaimer: this article conveys my opinion and only my personal opinion.