Tag: eritrea
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A Notch Up in Eritrea’s Struggle For Liberty and Justice
Circumstances surrounding a student-led public protest that took place in the Eritrean capital, Asmara on October 31, 2017, were lauded by many citizens as a historical event that marks the beginning of an end of one of the modern world’s ugliest tyrannies. Accounts of the protest were extensively reported by opposition websites and radio stations…
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Nevsun Loses Appeal to Dismiss Slave Labor Case
A British Columbia court dismissed Nevsun’s appeal to have the case filed against it to be rejected. Three Eritrean refugees who worked in Nevsun’s mine in Bisha, Eritrea, had filed the case in November 2014. Nevsun had argued over jurisdiction and appealed to have the human rights-related case be moved to Eritrean courts claiming that the…
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Did the Eritrean Regime Embrace Wahabism?
The State of Qatar, until recently one of the main financiers and patron of the Isaias Afwerki regime, is now its enemy, together with Iran and Turkey, the triad that the Eritrean regime alleges they promote the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. The shift began two years ago. In March 2015, a Saudi led coalition,…
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Unrest In Asmara, US State Department Issues Warning
An unusual rally against what the protesters consider the ruling party’s excesses has been raging since the early morning of Tuesday in Asmara. The rally’s epicenter is in the Akhria neighborhood in the northern section of the capital city Asmara. Today’s protests were ignited by the government’s heavy-handed actions when it attempted to confiscate a…
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Isaias Afwerki Channels Haile DeruE in Interview With Eri-TV
1. Every time President Isaias Afwerki has an interview with his captive media (Eri-TV), a very large segment of the population take the very sensible decision of ignoring it, leaving a few of us obsessive types to watch it and divine meaning from it. Then the few of us who watched it disagree on what…
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Eritrean Economy: Transportation Crisis And Turf War
A turf war has surfaced and it involves the Eritrean ministry of transportation and the economic arm of the ruling party. The squabble is expected to escalate further. Informants indicated that “a few other ministries are also awakening to the unfettered monopoly of the national economy by the ruling party.” The ruling People’s Front for…
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Eritrea: The Constitution
Here is a follow-up on “gual mengedi” – the constitution. I will stick to word limit and make it short. Maybe I should just have posted it as comment. Anyway, for some reason people seem interested in revisiting the subject. I tried to read as much of the discussion on the subject as possible. Things…
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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…