Awate Fearless News, Opinion, Analysis On Eritrea And Beyond

A green, yellow and red headband/wrist band is the symbol of Rastafarians who worship the late feudal king, Haile Sellassie of Ethiopia, whose name (and title) before he was throned was Ras Tefferi. When King Minelik died in 1913, his grandson Lij Eyassu became the king, but Tefferi didn’t accept that. Three years later Tefferi…

The tragic boat accident of October 3, 2013, which claimed the lives of 366 young Eritreans off the coast of the Sicilian island of Lampedusa,has been coming for a long time. Warning signs, in the form of human skeleton, have been piling up in the Mediterranean Sea bed for years. Fed up with the prospect…

Summary presented by “Rodab” at Awate Forum: On the hot seat @ the UPR gathering. Nations from around the world are taking our regime to task. The following are some of the challenging questions (the complete list is at the UPR website): The Netherlands Can the government of Eritrea indicate how it will improve the…

Collected thoughts here and unfinished ideas there; quoted materials saved somewhere in the hard drive or somewhere in some thumb drives long abandoned. The mind furiously searches for those items whose time has come for developing into one readable note or perhaps into one piece worth contemplating for.  Ismail Omer Ali’s and Amnauel Hidrat’s recent…

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” — MLK I remember the face of one compassionate Italian mayor – full of sadness for people she didn’t know – clearly showing her deeper humanity. This was last October when the world mourned the Lampadusa tragedy where over 360 Eritreans…

[Editor's note: we received a clarification from Semere. Comments are now reactivated. We will explain the issue soon.] There’s no nice way to say this. The anti EPLF/PFDJ opposition that was led by the Ghedli generation for over three decades is laying on its deathbed waiting the inevitable. And there is nothing that could save…

We knew it was wrong…we just didn‘t know its name was slavery… “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” Abraham Lincoln, speech, Mar. 17, 1865 I‘ve been tamed to accept servitude and captivity systematically for quite a long time and I am sure…

A Prologue to Winter Blues And Another Year In Transition A friend called me up seeking for help looking for a bit of information But despite the focusing and the serious concentration Nowadays, however, without concealment or beautification My memory, ailing as it is was not helpful and flashing in recollection So as a booster…

Eritrea’s Succession Plan: Mentoring Emerging Leadership to Build Civil Society I was writing this article when the Lampedusa tragedy unfolded and I had to divert my attention and venting my frustration in my earlier article. Such tragic turn of events should jolt us out of slumber and complacency as many several writers stated it. The…

Often, I am accused of factoring out Ethiopia’s violence in my account of how the Eritrean revolution (ghedli) came to be. There are three types of “violence” the accusers have in mind: a)  that Haile Selassie unilaterally abrogated the federal arrangement, a systematic violence that targeted both the autonomy and democratic system of Eritrea entailed…