Open Letter to Issayas Afeworki

August 26, 2007

By Sebhuarim Tiage

I read your answers to the interview on the “Hanti Ethiopia” magazine. Although I know you aren’t smart leader, I didn’t expect you would go so low and deny facts to this level. Besides you lack clarity of thought. In your “hanti” interview regarding the situation in Ethiopia, what you said in one paragraph contradicts the next one. In the first place, who asked you to be the advocate of Ethiopian Unity? Didn’t you say you gave Ethiopia “a hundred years homework; that it will never unite again?” After all, we know you have been arming OLF, ONLF and other disgruntled groups to weaken, if possible dismember Ethiopia and how come you have changed your “principled stand” all of a sudden and became an advocate of “Hanti” Ethiopia!

Mr. Issayas, in your Eritrea, you are the only one who make decisions and no one dares to suggest even minor amendments to what you say. Your words are like those in the Holy Books. In Eritrea, there is absolute monopoly of power by one man; citizens have no rights whatsoever and they are doomed to perish even for benign comments. Instead of talking about Ethiopian election, why don’t you hold your own? You talk about the Ethiopian government that has allowed the formation of so many opposition parties and tolerated extremely fierce and competitive campaign often mingled with insults and prejudices reflected on the open to all debates. Can anyone speak against you in your country? Is there a court in Eritrea? Did you bring any one of those who were arrested in September 2001 to the court of law? We hear many of them have died in prison. These are the people who struggled side by side with you for 30 solid years and you have kept them in the darkest corners of new penitentiaries you built so that they won’t be able to see a ray of light. Where is Petros Solomon, Haile Wodetensaye and hundreds of political prisoners? How about thousands of Christians who suffer because they worship Jesus Christ instead of worshiping you? How about Helen Berhane, the Gospel singer? Wasn’t she paralyzed while she was held in one of the so called container prisons? How come you are so cruel to a young girl like her? Don’t you have a daughter? How come you abuse human rights to this level and get away with it? Now you are shedding crocodile tears to Hailu Shawel, Seye Abreha and others who would have no chance to be brought to court or set free if they were in Eritrea. Have you read Dr. Berhanu Nega’s book, written in prison and distributed all over Ethiopia? What would happen to him if he was in Eritrea? Today Dr. Berhanu is a freeman with all his rights to vote and be elected to public offices respected. Did Joshua get that same right? You let him not only suffer but also die in prison. Mr. Issayas, it seems you don’t understand things a common man could. Your analysis of facts and events in the Horn of Africa come from a confused mind and therefore doesn’t merit consideration. Let alone analyzing the horn, you couldn’t even properly manage the affairs of minuscule Eritrea.

Mr. Issayas, people used to tell me that you are a military strategist? However, the 1998-2000 war showed me that you are not even a brave solider let alone a military strategist. Since I don’t know about war, could you explain to me about your defeat in Bademe? Some of your soldiers who ran away from the battlefield to save their lives tell me that Ethiopians came in large numbers and defeated them. How should have Ethiopians come? Why didn’t you define the right formula and give them to fight you? Were you drunk when you said you wouldn’t leave Bademe even if the sun never rises again? How come a leader, especially “a military strategist” like you utter such a blanket statement when it is obvious that a little miscalculation by a commander could lead to defeat? How about the battle of Mereb? How did you lose or get lost after two years of preparation, especially hundreds of kms. of bunkers and long mined trenches one after another? Did Ethiopians come in large numbers again and that is how you explain your defeat? How about the occupation of Barentu and many other towns and rural villages of Eritrea? We know many Shabiya cadres and “generals” were packing their stuff to flee to the Sudan when Ethiopians were marching toward Asmara. How about you? Frankly speaking, the Americans you hate most saved your life.

Thus far you have been using ethnic cards (OLF, ONLF, UIC, Sidama, etc.) with the sole purpose of dismantling Ethiopia. I think finally you saw in them nothing useful. Now you are trying to use your last card, “Huntie Ethiopia.” Don’t you know that no body in Ethiopia trusts you or takes you seriously; that Ethiopians believe you have problems upstairs? Don’t make fun of yourself, just keep quite. We know your talk of Ethiopian unity now is just the last gasp of a dying dictator. Don’t worry about Ethiopia; it is being transformed and history is in the making. Don’t attempt to disturb our peace, our development, our millennium. If you do, you know what has happened to Dahir Aweys & Co. and you will join his camp somewhere in Ras Combonie.