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The Eritrea of “Adey Hana”!
I was born and raised in the city of Asmara. Asmara in those days was a bustling multicultural and multi-faith city. My friends, class mates, neighbors and soccer team players came from different backgrounds. Included among them were Yemenis (Hadarem), Italians, hybrid Italians (Hanfes), Amharas, Greeks, Indians (commonly known as Baynan) as well as Muslims,…
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Goatskin and Hides Rot in Eritrean Streets
The once thriving skin and hides business has declined so much that rotting skins in the streets have become a source of foul smell and trash in the streets of highly populated Eritrean towns, but mainly in the capital city of Asmara. Recently, skins lost their value so much that they are often trashed due…
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The Allyship Model of Anti-Marginalization Struggle
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Goethe Dawit Mesfin’s recent article “All about self-liberation” has generated and stimulated discussion among the greatest notable minds of awate forum. The article and the debaters’ input provoked me to write this piece to enhance Dawit’s thesis of “self-liberation”, by framing it…
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Ahl Al-Kahaf: The Sleepers of Ephesus
Let me begin by wishing success and fruitful discussions for the organizers and attendants of the Sheffield Meeting, planed for tomorrow, Saturday, July 22, at 2pm. The two honorable men in the picture are Shiekh Mohammed Juma Abu Rashid, and Abba Shenoda Haile. The “Eritrean Justice Camp” knows both men who are visible in demonstrations…
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All about Self-Liberation
I have a friend who served as a British soldier during WWII whose stories I find quite fascinating. In fact, I have made it a habit to meet him every other day during my coffee breaks at the British Library in London. Listening to the stories of his youth, when he was deployed to…
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Massawa’s Cultural Heritage: Through the Prism of PFDJ
This investigative report was published on June 23, 2003. Two days ago, Asmara, Eritrea’s capital city was designated a “World Heritage site” for its buildings that were built by Mussolini’s Italian Fascist colonizers less than a century ago, and are affectionately promoted as “Art Deco”. Nothing indigenous about it. The 2003 Gedab investigative report focused on Massawa…
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With Qatar Gone, Eritrea Stalls To Avoid African Peacekeepers
Shortly after Eritrea and Djibouti sided with the Saudi Alliance against Qatar, the latter sent formal letters to both Djibouti and Eritrea, as well as to Mr. António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, informing them of its decision to withdraw its troops from their common border. Qatar had over 450 armed personnel guarding the buffer zone…
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Qatar: Al Jazeera in the Middle
Though the diplomatic crisis in the Arabian Gulf seemed to be moving fast, it was headed to a predetermined destination: a standstill. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were set to punish Qatar, a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council that was born in 1976 and that is now crippled by old age before it…
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Eritrean Graffiti – A Tale of Life Under Tyranny
This article by Ahmed Raji “Events Monitor’ was originally published on Awate.com on September 6, 2003.. I look in the mirror and see a bunch of gray hair emerging – uninvited. A few months later it takes the form of a full-scale invasion. I am rather taken aback, for, even though I knew it would…
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A Stalemate Breaks Down in The Arabian Gulf
Generally, when there is a national conflict, the people follow. Their salvation can only come from wise friends—but only if the antagonists are willing to listen, and only if their friends are not inflaming their passions. Sadly, the confrontation in the Arabian Gulf is happening in the worst time when a friend both sides would…
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A Thorny Path: the Life of Woldeab Woldemariam, Eritrea’s Campaigning Visionary
There were very few actively engaged citizens who withstood the test of time and lived through Eritrea’s past struggles. One of them was an elder by the name of Woldeab Woldemariam who passed away on 15 May, 1995. This is his story. In 1997, when Mrs Hillary Clinton began her nine-hour visit of Eritrea, the…
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Eritrea Might Sever Diplomatic Ties with Qatar
In a press release issued by the Ministry of information yesterday, the Eritrean government supported the cutting of diplomatic ties by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain with the State of Qatar. In what seemed a concerted decision, last week the four countries severed their diplomatic ties with Qatar in unison. Their…
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Isaias’ Never Ending Border Drama
Since the decision on the delimitation of the Border was delivered by The Eritrean Ethiopian Border Commission on 13 April 2002, Isaias Afwerki has been using the non-demarcation of the border as a pretext to tighten his grip on power. His anxious the resolution of the border conflict would leave him no excuse to continue…
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Archives: Reasons To Doubt Reliability of ICG’s Report
Today’s archive material is a Gedab News report from November 8, 2007. Since then, at least once every year, an imminent military confrontation between Eritrea and Ethiopia was expected based of reports and rumors. And since the last war stopped [in 2000], the two countries are still going through a no-war-no-peace situation, while the Eritreans…
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We Must Be Able to Look Like The Tigre
“We must be able to look like the Tigre…” Solomon Berhe, chief of the PFDJ chapter in Dallas, Texas. Since May 24, 1991 when Eritrea became independent, the anniversary became more and more polarizing with each passing year. While the supporters of the Eritrean ruling party framed the day as an occasion for propagandic celebrations, and attributing…
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Ethnic Federalism in Eritrea Is a Recipe for Disaster
Ethnic Federalism in Eritrea is a recipe for disaster. It is a call for putting Tigrinya nationality under one banner, united and powerful. It is a step closer towards what the Agazian movement is calling for, eventually, the creation of Tigrinya/Tigrayans dominated state with its extended borders. It is asking for replacing the current Tigrinyan…
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Eritrea’s Flawed Beginning in 1991: How It Contributed to What it is Today
(This paper was presented a year ago at a conference in Geneva entitled: “Eritrea at Silver Jubilee: Stocktaking on the Nation-Building Experience of a ‘Newly’ Independent African Country.” The writer now wished to share it with interested readers for further debate as to why Eritrea is in bad shape today and what is should do…
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Woldeab Woldemariam, a Visionary Eritrean Patriot, Biography
Now I know why a monument has been erected for Alexander Pushkin, the renowned Russian poet, in the heart of Asmara, while the country’s first independence campaigner, one who co-fathered Eritrea alongside Ibrahim Sultan and other nationalists of the 1940s, is brushed aside. Although my primary objective is to evoke a picture of Eritrea via the…
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Eritrean Businesses: Between Loyalists and Others
In recent months, the Eritrean government has been carrying out a heightened surveillance on the Eritrean commercial sector, and reports of spies working for the security departments is focused on merchants and traders suspected of transacting in cash, in violation of the government directive that requires them to deal in checks and not in cash. Since…
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Sudanese Destinies of Haile Selassie–the Story of A. Tayfur and his book
Introduction by the translator:This article is a detailed story of a book which, in its time, influenced the Eritrean National Movement in a deep negative way and caused schisms which kept developing, morphing and clustering until today. It details the story and the circumstances that led to the appearance of the book and the reactions…
