In my original article, I argued that the G-15’s 2001 protest likely owed more to timing and self-interest than to principled conviction. In my last piece, I addressed Semere’s broader misreading of that argument and his claim that questioning motive is a “universal solvent.” Here, I want to turn to the specific historical claims he raised in his rebuttal.
But before turning to the specific claims, I want to address Filmon’s valid question in the comments about why we need to discuss this issue at all. Why must we determine whether the G-15 were democrats or opportunists? 2 reasons:
First, we must understand and account for the past accurately if we are to draw the right lessons and avoid repeating the same mistakes. As we shall see later, one pitfall we might have fallen into is allowing former collaborators of the dictatorship to lead us into another transitional government.
Second, justice and historical accuracy demand that neither senior office nor later atonement can absolve a person of their earlier role in building, defending or administering a brutal dictatorship. The G-15’s individual records must therefore be examined through serious truth-seeking, investigation and accountability instead of their possible culpability being erased in advance or their legacies recast as democratic heroes.
The desire to overlook past wrongs sometimes emanates from a noble impulse of sympathy. Saleh G’s appeal to sentiment is a case in point. He put it plainly: “I find it exceptionally painful to deal with this tragedy decades after it was committed.” As I said several times before, I take such pain seriously and empathize with the family. What happened to the G-15 in detention was a genuine miscarriage of justice, and nothing in this piece argues otherwise.
But there is a quiet slippage in that framing I want to critique gently. The G-15’s suffering as prisoners does not erase their record as officials just as no one’s suffering, however real, erases what came before it. The same people who are now, rightly, mourned as victims of the regime were also for a decade before their arrest its instruments. Moreover, there is no expiration date for crimes against humanity. And it is worth asking who benefits most from that particular kind of forgetting. Certainly not the many Eritreans who suffered under the very system these officials helped run. Rather, those who benefit from forgetting include the dictatorial system itself and perhaps the G-15’s own legacies. We must also remember that the right to forgive the abuses of the 1990s rests with those who were victimized by them not with the rest of us.
Our inquiry, thus, is not just a purely academic exercise but also an attempt to heed the imperative of justice. Please bear in mind, however, that in what follows, I may revisit several core points addressed in earlier articles to ensure clarity and completeness. This is necessary because the same misconceptions and objections keep resurfacing while the central arguments are sometimes ignored, misunderstood or misrepresented. With that understanding, let us together look at the historical claims raised in response to my earlier pieces.
On the G-13
Semere said I “conveniently” ignored the G-13. Nothing could be further from the truth. Far from ignoring the G-13, I once debated one of its members right here on Awate at the very inception of the movement. I also publicly warned its members not to meet the president in person. They did not heed my warning but fortunately, they returned safely. A year later, the G-15 publicly appealed to the president in their open letter. Eleven signatories were arrested shortly afterward and their attempt, unfortunately, ended in tragedy.
Semere also pointed out that the G-15 and G-13 both emerged from the EPLF camp. Of course, they did! That is hardly a revelation. The relevant point is timing: the G-13 emerged publicly only after the devastating border war had ended in October 2000. The internal dissent Semere cites as evidence of a pre-existing democratic movement was therefore itself a product of the war-induced crisis.
It must be remembered, however, that neither the G-13 nor G-15 represented the beginning of Eritrean opposition more broadly. As I put it in 2010: “opposition to the regime did not commence in 2001 with the G-15 nor with the Berlin Manifesto of October 2000. The latter marks the start date of opposition from within EPLF/PFDJ internal polity, not the inception of general resistance against EPLF/PFDJ.”
Semere’s other point rests on a claim I never made. He mistakenly asserts that I accused the G-15 of writing the 1993 declaration. I did no such thing. The document was issued by the Eritrean government in which several G-15 members served as senior officials. They were complicit in a broader sense by virtue of their offices not because they personally authored that specific text.
On Mesfin Hagos and Petros Solomon
It is frankly embarrassing to have to address this point because the reality is so glaringly obvious. Let me ask: Is there a single person reading this who believes that the “resignation” of these two veterans was to protest a lack of democracy in Eritrea or for a principled stand against governmental overreach and human rights abuses? Given what followed, isn’t it evident that this was a demotion rather than a resignation? I think even Semere would concede or should concede this point.
As we know, Hagos stepped down as Defense Minister in 1995 and became Regional Administrator of the Southern Region. Practically speaking, this was a reassignment within government not a departure from it. Likewise, Solomon was moved from Foreign Minister to Minister of Marine Resources in 1997, again a reassignment, not a real resignation.
It is therefore reasonable to deduce that the two were sidelined by the dictator. This becomes clear when we consider that they remained loyal to him and continued to serve for years afterward. Ordinarily, men and women who resign in protest over principle do not remain in government service for another four to six years under the very system they are said to have broken with. This refutes the strained attempt to cast their reassignment as an action to promote democracy or freedom.
Also note that Petros Solomon’s interview with Dan Connell in which he expressed support for political plurality over one-party rule doesn’t tell us much either since it was recorded in early 2001 in the months after the war.
On the protest letter itself
Semere quotes the letters at length to prove their democratic intentions. Of course, he is free to do so but when did I ever quibble over the content? I dispute only what they are purported to demonstrate.
Indeed, when I first read their letter, I was so hopeful that I publicly applauded their move on June 25, 2001, weeks after their letter to PFDJ members, as “a good beginning” but urged them to “solemnly proceed to the next step and start a dialog with other opposition groups while expanding your appeal to the public at large.” And lo and behold, two months later, they did exactly that but alas, only after the president had rebuffed them and called them traitors. I am not saying I was the cause. No. Of course not. As I have stressed all along, it was their marginalization, the war, the shattered myth of the Eritrean army’s invincibility and the dictator’s severe attack on their reputation that most likely did it.
On fear and related appeals
Fear is without doubt one of the greatest obstacles in the struggle against dictatorship. The public’s fear of immediate brutal reprisals from the regime is of course understandable as they lack the means to resist but the G-15 were not ordinary Eritreans living quietly under a dictatorship they had no part in building. They were its senior officials who comfortably basked in a privileged, symbiotic relationship with the regime. They were his admirers who were favored by him in return.
Writing about ordinary citizens under a dictatorship and using a shopkeeper as an example, Václav Havel once observed that people who passively comply by displaying a slogan they do not believe, “confirm the system” and “fulfil the system.” If that is true of a shopkeeper with no power at all, imagine how much truer it is for ministers and generals who served faithfully for a decade! The G-15 were not merely complying. They were benefiting.
The symbiotic relationship we alluded to above endured as long as Isaias preserved the myth of an invincible Eritrean army. This myth was clearly on display when Isaias himself boasted that Eritrea would not withdraw from Badme even if the sun ceased to rise. Weeks later, Ethiopia’s counteroffensive, aptly named “Operation Sunset,” proved him wrong and the regime spent the following months minimizing and denying what had actually happened.
That changed when he led them into a humiliating military defeat. The myth collapsed and so did their faith in their leader. Even then, they did not rebel. Instead, they humbly begged him to resume scheduled meetings and restore ordinary institutional procedure. To their dismay, he rebuffed them and called them sellouts, the very word they themselves had long used against every other opponent of the regime. That, fellow compatriots, and not the pursuit of democracy is what finally pushed them to broaden their appeal beyond the party.
On Impact Versus Intention
Was Semere’s real point, as Filmon surmised, that their protest mattered on its own terms regardless of what was actually in the G-15’s hearts? This is a fair point I think and I said as much in my last piece when I wrote that “whatever we think of their motives, their protest had the welcome effect of dramatically increasing the number of former regime supporters who turned into opponents.” I made a similar point even earlier, in October 2000, when I characterized this very phenomenon of insiders speaking out as “totally unprecedented behavior within the political culture of EPLF/PFDJ” and called the moment a “favorable political ambience” for democracy workers. So it seems we agree on this, Filmon. Yes, it has some positive aspect but again that still does not turn them into democratic icons, which was the point I was trying to make all along.
Nonetheless, as we discuss this, it is important to remember that none of us can conclusively prove or disprove anything here. Online writing or commentary is, after all, opinion writing not a tribunal where we can indict or vindicate anyone with concrete evidence. Pretending otherwise does a disservice to readers. Our exchange must therefore be disciplined enough to recognize this limitation. All we can do is apply a well-recognized principle in epistemology known as inference to the best explanation.
On the Comparative Examples
Semere’s most seemingly compelling point is his citation of Spain, South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, and Eastern Europe as cases where insiders led the transition to democracy. However, not a single one of these 5 examples resembles the G-15 case in the major factors outlined in this series.
Spain’s transition had nothing to do with a war defeat, Franco won his civil war and ruled unchallenged for 36 more years. Democratization began only after his natural death. South Korea’s transition was forced by mass, bottom-up protest not insider initiative. Mexico’s transition took 30 years of gradual electoral erosion. Eastern Europe’s revolutions were driven by economic collapse and Gorbachev’s reforms.
Taiwan is the one case that did involve a war defeat but that defeat produced 38 more years of martial law with the “unfinished war” used explicitly to justify continued authoritarian rule. Democratization came only in 1987 after decades of grassroots activism. If anything, Taiwan illustrates the reverse: a military defeat leveraged to legitimize decades of dictatorship echoing the exact pattern of Eritrea’s “transitional” government.
On Why the G-15 Cannot Arbitrate
In this piece and my earlier ones, I have laid out my case for questioning the G-15 and their democratic credentials but suppose I was totally wrong about all of it. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that they indeed experienced an epiphany in 2001 and that this sudden inspiration was entirely unrelated to the war or their marginalization. Would that entitle them to become the rightful arbiters of Eritrea’s democratic transition? Absolutely not! Why? Because they are the defendants not the judges.
Some might argue that they had no real choice but to comply with the dictator or face severe punishment and that we should therefore not hold them accountable for a decade of service under a dictator. Such a plea is common but it is routinely rejected by international legal systems.
Take Rwanda, for instance. I am not suggesting Eritrea’s abuses are comparable in scale to Rwanda’s genocide. No. But the underlying legal principle is not about degrees of transgression but about degrees of responsibility. Rwanda’s former Prime Minister, installed by a military committee that held the real power, argued he had acted under duress. That argument was rejected.
Argentina is another case in point. Its military rulers made a similar plea after the country’s “Dirty War,” insisting they had acted in due obedience to orders. The court rejected that too ruling that anyone who held command or decision-making power could not hide behind the orders of those above them. If a claim of installed subordination or legal deference could not shield those men from responsibility, the G-15, who served willingly for a decade and were rewarded for it have far less standing to claim otherwise.
We must also not gloss over what the G-15’s demands never included. Neither their May letter to PFDJ members nor their August letter to the Eritrean people ever raised the question of accountability or trials for the abuses committed throughout the 1990s. On the contrary, both documents proceed on the premise that Isaias himself should lead the transition they were requesting. Note also that they did not seek to prosecute the dictator or his accomplices possibly because it included several or all of the G-15 members themselves.
In short, a group that spent a decade enabling a regime’s crimes is not fit to arrogate to itself the role of judging that regime’s transition simply because it finally professed democracy. The G-15 were and remain the defendants, alive or dead. Eritrea does not owe its future to the self-serving testimony of the accused. It owes an honest accounting first and foremost to the victims whose plight is too often invisible to the privileged. The latter may want to forget the years of abuses they inflicted on the former but the abused rarely forget and that is exactly why a full accounting will be a pressing necessity.
None of this means the survivors, in exile or, if any remain, in prison, should be denied their day in court. They certainly should have one. Let them answer for what they did and let whatever they suffered, imprisonment, loss, or the wreckage of their own lives, be weighed honestly as a mitigating factor but none of that should ever be a basis for an automatic acquittal.
