Awate Fearless News, Opinion, Analysis On Eritrea And Beyond

My mother was in her late teens when she came to our village as a young bride. She has an incredible memory and recalls events with great details. Over the years, that has given me the opportunity to develop intimate portraits of all the giants and dwarfs who made our village life truly idyllic—where small…

Isaias Afwerki’s twenty- two years of misrule reaffirms the old adage that revolutions, quite often, are not caused by vision-inspired or ideology-intoxicated revolutionaries but by the sheer stupidity and brutality of governments. Eritrea’s PFDJ has climbed the Everest of stupidity and brutality and won the envy of North Korea and those that have, likewise, gone…

Isaias Afwerki: the petty dictator of a once-promising small African country Eritrea. Neither his past eminence nor his present vulgar mediocrity can be denied. In fact if there is a totem that aptly describes the bald-faced gangly dictator, his rabble of gung-ho generals and his slavishly servile subordinates, it is foolishness. Whether his intellectual atrophy…

This is part three of the interview I’ve been conducting with Dr. Bereket Habteselassie. Here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2. For convenience and ease of reading, I’ve broken the final part of the interview into two parts. Here is the first installment. Semere: I know you had a really busy schedule…

When I first met ato Kidane Alemayehu, I thought we were auditioning for a rendition of the movie, Odd Couple. He was an Ethiopian and an Amara with a propensity of repeating the all-too-familiar “sameness mantra” I’ve heard all my life; but one that was unequivocally rejected by my own father and over twenty immediate…

As the last glint of hope vanished, they whimpered, fully aware that death was closing on all of them. They have never been so sure of the inevitable. There was neither a sudden surge of fear rippling through them nor a riot of doubts crashing on them; they just were sure and clear of what…

“In my view, accepting even an imperfect constitution (imperfect both in terms of the process of its making and its content) and using it as a unifying or rallying point would be a wiser way, leaving to another day the task of improving or substituting it by another constitution.” Dr. Bereket. This concludes the part…

The idea of interviewing Dr. Bereket was triggered by the feedback I received from the many people who have kindly shared their opinions with me. One of my primary goals in writing is to promote a healthy discourse, serve the truth and the cause of justice and hopefully play a minor role in enhancing our…

If you didn’t speak then, please forever hold your peace. A priest officiating a wedding asks those gathered if there is any just cause why the marrying couple may not be joined together; and exhorts them to speak or forever hold their peace. If no one speaks, the priest then declares the couple husband and…