The purpose of Dr. Tekie Fissehatsion’s latest article, “Demarcation Watch: Is this it?” dated Feb. 26, 2006 remains unclear. In my opinion, the discussion in the article lacks broad analysis of the current border stalemate. Instead, the article appears a futile attempt at breathing life into a complicated border deadlock – and by extension to raise ‘hope’ for a regime stuck in quagmire. If the article is meant to give the regime, or its supporters, a light at the end of the tunnel, then it is highly illusionary.
As much as the resolution of the border issue is critical, there is absolutely no justification to hold a whole country hostage to hidden PIA agenda or personal grudge match. Min. Haile Woldetensae’s words in August 2000 are as compelling today and even tomorrow as they were almost FIVE YEARS ago. There is absolutely no reason why Eritreans should accept murderous punishment by an outlawed government over a border issue that is beyond the control of the PFDJ regime or the Eritrean people. PIA can roll his dice with Eritrean people’s lives, but he has run out of options and lacks flexible thinking needed to resolve the border issue – period. This is an inherent problem of unaccountable leaders.
Dr. Tekie’s analysis has few flaws,
1. Dr. Tekie attempts to differentiate between Security Council and ‘Witnesses’,
“It is a good sign that the Security Council did not join the Witnesses in asking the EEBC to consider the appointment of a “neutral facilitator.”
Dr. Tekie may consider Russia and China [esp.], and possibly some of the non-permanent members, as the moderating members of the Security Council not represented in the meeting of the ‘Witnesses’ – hence Dr. Tekie’s differentiation of the two. But the issue of the border implementation appears to be driven by the ‘Witnesses’ rather than the other two ‘veto’ members of the Security Council. A prime example of the ‘Witnesses’ sole influence over the border issue is Resolution 1640 which is wholly unfair to Eritrea because it threatens sanction on Eritrea. Where were China and Russia? As such there is no differentiation between the interests of the ‘Witnesses’ and interest of ‘Security Council’ – they are one and the same.
2. Dr. Tekie appears to place some degree of faith on Mr. John Bolton,
“We are not there yet, but it looks, if one goes by the statement of the President of the Security Council, and not by the muddled message of the Witnesses, as if the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea may finally get demarcated.”
Again, Dr. Tekie appears to have failed to make a broader analysis of American politics. During a recent interview with VOA, Ms. Jendayi Fraser, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, alluded to American policy that shifts the responsibility of implementation to the warring parties. Yet we have Mr. John Bolton who appears to advocate for finalizing the border decision based on the EEBC decision. This smells like good-cop/bad-cop approach to solving a deadlock. It is unimaginable and highly unlikely that both of these individuals who work for the same State Department can read from different books. It is naïve to think that the various US government departments and their officials don’t all sail in the same direction. If we peel off the conflicting public messages, underneath is a certain American policy, regardless of whether we agree with it or not.
As (probably) a self-imposed world police, America’s interest may not necessarily coincide fully with Ethiopia nor Eritrea. If such thing as justice had existed in the world forum, what America should have done is obvious. Unfortunately we conduct our lives in this world as it is, not as it should be. As such Eritrea’s leaders and government should pursue domestic and international policies that reflect current realities. Naturally, PIA, PFDJ henchmen, and supporters in Diaspora can take inflexible position towards resolving the border issue as they live ‘sta bene’, but those who are paying the price are the vast majority of Eritreans – and by extension the future of Eritrea.
Unlike Dr. Tekie, PIA is fully aware of this good-cop/bad-cop politics. Despite American latest initiative to resolve border issue, including Mr. John Bolton’s encouraging approach to resolving the border issue, PIA refused to meet Ms. Jendayi Fraser [thus canceling her trip to Eritrea]. PIA is fully aware, and has been lamenting about it for months now, that regardless of what the ‘Witnesses’ or ‘Security Council’ or State Department say, American policy towards the border issue is intractably tied not only to the domestic politics of the two warring parties, but also extends to the regional politics. Among the various issues are that America doesn’t want the ‘somaliazation’ of Ethiopia – nor we, as Eritreans, would want that. ‘Higdefawiyan’ may advocate for destabilizing the whole Woyane regime to resolve the border issue. But we don’t – and we need not be apologists about it. This is where we miss the wisdom of the G-11 and thousands of other prisoners of conscious. The latest Eritrean rejection of the Security Council proposal [Reuters Feb 28, 2006] is PIA’s full recognition of the fact that the border won’t be demarcated anytime soon.
Final thought is that Dr. Tekie’s article is replete with hints of American hidden motives for certain of its actions. Ain’t it beautiful to live in a country where you can express your reservations or speculate without the fear of any kind of reprisal? We have never heard Dr. Tekie hint or allude to the utter absence of the rule-of-law in Eritrea.
II. Two-Term Presidency
Our bitter experiences of the last eight years have reinforced our beliefs in limiting presidency to two-terms only. Especially at a time of national challenge, the incumbent president has the tendency to run out of new ideas to resolve lingering challenges. Incumbent presidents have difficulty, as any humans would, to admit mistakes and thus would rather continue to compound mistakes to cover their earlier mistakes. Instead of addressing the core issues, the incumbent president is shackled into addressing side-issues and even using repressive measures to silence opposition. Incumbent presidents may even be trapped in their own paranoia of leaving a bad legacy or other fears. Especially at times of great challenge, second-term presidents attempt to change the constitution to extend to third term, and hope that they can exit honorably by then.
By limiting the presidency to two-terms, incoming [new] presidents are free to shift policy in new direction and thus possibility resolving the core issues. Nations can only find new solutions to old problems when new blood is able to take over from the old. The transfer of responsibility from the old to the young, or at least from one group to a totally different group, applies not only to presidency but also for organizations and businesses. A leader gets [up to] eight years to resolve a problem, and if that leader fails he/she must move on and allow some other person to resolve it. Only mature nations are capable of doing this. No one person has the ultimate wisdom to become infallible.
III. Latest Giffa
The latest round of ‘giffa’ may have two purposes,
1. There appears to be a growing internal resistance against the government. These ‘giffas’ are designed to ensure that any underground movements are unable to organize themselves to a point where they will threaten the existence of a falling regime.
2. At the same time, PIA is engaging in a veiled threat against the US that it is prepared to launch war against US’s ally [Ethiopia] if the demarcation doesn’t proceed immediately. ‘Might is Right’ – an old Mao philosophy.
To make a passing remark, although a desperate regime is capable of doing anything, PFDJ can’t launch a war – pure and simple. What would the military objective be? If it is to capture the Badme area, PIA will face international embargo and thus weakening Eritrea in a relatively short-time and thus exposing us to Ethiopia’s counter-offensive. If PIA is to launch an invasion of Ethiopia, most likely parts of Tigray, PIA can’t occupy any area [even within few kilometers of the Eritrean border] for more than few days. Within two weeks of launching his war, we will be back to an even more complicated situation – militarily, diplomatically, economically, socially, and legally. It surely will be PFDJ’s quick downfall.
IV. Armed Clashes
Although speculating on events that we don’t have sufficient information on may not be appropriate, Mr. Hussein Khalifa’s explanation of the clash around Gulij and Barentu area raises a number of questions.
It is safe to say that many of us advocate for ‘peaceful resistance’. This doesn’t mean that we hand over ‘Valentine Day’ roses to our tormentors. We are against any means of change that jeopardizes the lives of innocent people, including the suffering Warsai-Yekealo. At least, Mr. Khalifa was conscious enough to present the clash more as [self-]defense rather than as actively seeking to fight the innocent Warsai Yekealo. But what Mr. Khalifa may have conveniently overlooked is that if ELF military wing put themselves in a position where a clash is highly likely, it is no longer defensive but tantamount to a deliberate effort to engage in a clash. Although there is always a tendency to understate one’s own casualties and overstate the enemies’ casualties, if Mr. Khalifa’s estimate of casualties on both sides is somewhat accurate, then such lopsided casualty can only be a result a deliberate ambush. This means that ELF military wing deliberately sought to shed the blood of innocent Eritreans.
Another confounding statement by Mr. Khalifa pertaining to an explosion resulting in casualty around Barentu a couple of weeks ago is “that the that the region [Gash Barka?]has many armed groups including Ethiopian and Sudanese rebel forces as well as EDF members who have deserted their units.” What does this mean? What are Ethiopian and Sudanese rebel forces doing fighting the Eritrean government? If these are ‘rebel forces’ then they must be ‘rebelling’ against their governments, not against the Eritrean one. Or, is Mr. Khalifa suggesting that he and his allies are receiving a helping hand? We hope that this is only a slip of the tongue, which appears to occur in uncomfortably high frequency among our ‘opposition leaders’.
What confounds some of us is how narrowly we engage our thinking process. For example, in accepting armed conflict to bring down the PFDJ regime, EDA could have narrowed down the definition of the use of ‘force’ to mean the destruction of PFDJ economic interests and the elimination of top army officers only without jeopardizing the lives of civilian lives nor Warsai-Yekealo. Its rules-of-engagement would have been designed to avoid engaging Warsai-Yekealo. No Eritrean should be proud of shedding the blood of innocent Eritreans, including Warsai-Yekealo. Should it happen, say, due to collateral damage, at the very least, don’t tell us! It serves us no purpose. I have already covered this topic in depth in my article ‘Delusional’ and thus there is no need to repeat the dangers and futility of pursuing ‘armed struggle’.
V. EDA’s Charter
From time-to-time, certain critics rail against EDP and RC for joining an alliance that advocates, they tell us, for ‘Sharia/religious’ based government. Nowhere in the Charter does EDA advocate for such a government.
Of course, what some of these critics are engaging in is called ‘purposely muddling’ issues. Their implicit argument is that although EDA’s Charter doesn’t advocate for ‘Sharia’ government, because some of EDA’s members advocate for such it is implied that EDA is working for the interest of these ‘religious’ groups. Based on the same incorrect logic they argue that including ‘ethnic’ based groups is tantamount to breaking up the country.
These critics’ arguments are over-simplistic – and very dangerous. Naturally, we would all have been happy if religious and ethnic issues were relegated to the backburner and instead to concentrate on other issues. But to deal with these kind of issues, we must study human nature and history. Unfortunately, we, Eritreans, can’t escape from our observations of thousands years of consistent human nature.
First, these same critics correctly point out that the vast majority of Eritreans won’t accept unfair treatment of fellow Eritreans, i.e. religious/ethnic based government. If these critics truly place their faith on the Eritrean people, there is no reason to sound the alarm at this point in time when our efforts should be focused on removing the PFDJ regime, and equally discussing the organizational challenges we face within the opposition camp. More than the banner politics, it is critical that we discuss and pressure our opposition politicians on the issues of transparency, accountability, and laying the foundations for transforming our fragile opposition into effective political institutions. The ultimate aim is to ensure that power can be quickly devolved to the people as quickly as possible in post-PFDJ Eritrea.
Second, for ethnically and religiously diverse country like Eritrea, it is critical that we have tolerant attitude towards people who want to express their views regardless how wild or fringe it may appear to some of us. Naturally, these views can’t infringe on other peoples’ rights to do the same, and must not espouse any violent means to address their issues. If we don’t allow people to express their diverse [and peaceful] views, then we will only entrench ill-will among people and thus driving wedge among the various groups. It is self-defeating! Those who attempt to forge unity by muzzling others only end up creating another dictatorship. Our faith should be in the general population’s maturity. Moreover, allowing open discussion dispels suspicion. We should always seek creative solutions. The danger is when government leaders become paranoid about the unity of their country, and then take upon themselves the task of forging unity through force. The days of ethnic cleansing is over. Moreover, in the world of instant communication, people can’t be kept in the dark. We have to strive to find solutions within the type of society we want to create – based on the rule-of-law and respect for individual’s freedom to express their views. We have to believe in positively engaging those who have totally opposing views from us. That is how we create tolerant society!
Third, there is a wrong assumption that EDA will takeover government in post-PFDJ Eritrea. Realistically, there is little possibility of this happening. The transitional government will largely be composed of Eritreans from within Eritrea. Members of EDA, either as an alliance or as individual parties, will collectively make up the minority. It is unthinkable that the vast majority Eritreans would be told to take backseat to Diaspora politicians. Having said that, being minority members of a transitional government doesn’t mean being relegated into oblivion. Let alone organizations, even individuals can make the difference. But EDA can’t make a difference if all it can offer is yet another perspective, views, or opinions to various issues. Instead, EDA could have transformed itself into a systematic and effective organization that would have ‘added-value’ and played critical role in the transitional government. Unfortunately to-date, EDA has squandered away the opportunity of transitioning itself into a foundation for future political institution. In our fervor for various issues, we have totally forgotten the critical factors in transitioning to a democratic nation – the ability to formulate the rules-of-the game by which all the members must adhere to resolve issues. The rules-of-the-game are based on formulating codes-of-conduct, conflict-of-interest guidelines, dispute resolution mechanisms, and various directives and regulations that ensures that the public’s interest is not compromised by self-serving members of the political establishment for whatever reason. To reiterate, EDA’s Charter is no more than what one expects during any chat at any Eritrean social functions. The Charter can’t be something EDA can present as its credentials to takeover the next government. In addition, we have yet to witness EDA transforming itself into an effective and systematic organization.
Berhan Hagos
03.03.2006
