Tag: eritrea
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Eritrea’s 150th Anniversary!
My adopted nation, Canada, recently celebrated its 150th anniversary on July 01, 2017. The celebration was huge, passionate and colorful. Even though Canada wasn’t the place of my birth, I passionately celebrated this anniversary. Canada has offered me its citizenship, education, health care, opportunities and rights that were denied to me elsewhere. Most importantly, Canada,…
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The USA May Impose Visa Restriction on Eritrea
Since 1967, Eritreans have been escaping their country and ending up in different countries of the West where most are now naturalized citizens. In the Middle East however, where the laws do not allow naturalization, many have lived for decades and died as aliens. Still, many others were deported and handed over to the regimes…
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WOLDEAB WOLDEMARIAM: A Biography of a Visionary Eritrean Patriot, by Dawit Mesfin
Review by Bereket Habte Selassie He spent a major part of his adult life fighting for freedom and human dignity, in a passionate struggle on behalf of his people, the forgotten people of Eritrea. His struggle was frequently a lonely one under bitterly disappointing circumstances—under conditions of mortal danger to his life and amid continued…
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North Korea and Eritrea: Two Pariah States, Two UN Resolution Violations
The United Nations Security Council yesterday unanimously passed a resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea, the toughest the UNSC has ever imposed on any country. The sanction was prompted by North Korea’s continued intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) testing and violations of UN resolutions. The sanction aims at reducing North Korea revenue stream from exports and joint ventures in foreign…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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UAE Air Force Kills an Eritrean Fisherman and Wounds Six
Fighter planes belonging to the United Arab Emirates air force based in Assab, Eritrea, has killed Idris Redyo, and wounded six other fishermen.Only a trainee child in the boat escaped the UAE air force bullets. The fishermen’s boat was attacked in an area about eight kilometers off the fishing port of Eddi, close to the…
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Eritrea Suffering from Persistent Water Shortage
Residents of Asmara and other towns are still lining up in the streets alongside their famous blue water barrels. Once every week or ten-days, they wait for the water tankers with coupons in hand to get their rations that is distributed by the ruling party. Each home is considered a residence of one household only and…
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Sanctions on Eritrea: Will They Or Won’t They?
1. It’s sanctions season, and the question is “will they or won’t they?” Will the UN Security Council (UNSC) extend sanctions on the State of Eritrea or will they lift it? We will have more information in June when the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea (SEMG) publishes its report and we will know for…
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Seventeen Years in Prison without Charge
The person profiled* in this edition is Haj Mohammed Ali Mahmoud, a citizen from the town of Gelluy, commonly pronounced as Geluj, in the Gash Barka area. Haj Mohammed was arrested in the year 2000 in Asmara, and there is no trace of him since he disappeared seventeen years ago. However, his family and relatives…
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The Death of Mihret Eyob as an Illustration
The Eritrean tragedy is not obscure to anyone who follows current events; there is an international awareness about the thousands of prisoners of conscience in the country. And Eritreans know that the awareness about their plight is a result of a dedicated and resilient struggle by people of goodwill, and Eritrean activists who made sure…
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Ethiopian Ultimatum, Eritrean Incompetence
Since it held a congress in Hawassa in 2011, the Eritrean National Congress for Democratic Change (ENCDC) has been in bed fighting for its life, unable to move a single step towards its goal of democratic change in Eritrea. It is still bogged down in endless and crippling partisan maneuvers. Worse, its Ethiopian ally had…
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EASE Accuses The Eritrean Regime Of Displacing Afar People
In a statement issued yesterday March 20, 2017 in Ottawa, Canada, the Eritrean Afar State in Exile (EASE) accused the Eritrean government of implementing “systemic policies to displace the Afar Eritreans from resources rich and strategic coast on the red sea”. On March 14th, the Eritrean government television announced it will settle the victims of…