Eritrea Celebrates — but Its President Is Somewhere Else
I. A Preface of Reluctance and Recognition For more than two decades, I avoided President Isaias Afwerki’s speeches.…
Semere T Habtemariam11 min read
Horn of Africa
Nothing here yet.
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The Hewett Treaty and the Road to Adwa
This is a two-part story about Gerald Portal’s delegation to King Yohannes IV, based on Portal’s own book…
Saleh "Gadi" Johar6 min read
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Reengaging Eritrea: A Path Beyond the Stalemate
Michael Rubin has written about Eritrea for many years, and in a region that often flickers in and…
Semere T Habtemariam8 min read
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Renewing Awate Without Losing Its Soul
Awate.com is back—with a cleaner, faster, and less intrusive experience after the removal of the excessive pop-ups and…
Saleh "Gadi" Johar6 min read
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Peekaboo: The Ethio–Eritrean Game
The current cycle of this familiar political game began in 2018, when Abiy Ahmed traveled to Asmara to…
Saleh "Gadi" Johar8 min read
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Protocol, Power, Policy, and the Urgent Need for Institutions
I. A Visit That Reveals More Than It Intended Eritreans have long relied on Awate’s Regional News link…
Semere T Habtemariam5 min read
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OUR NATIONAL UNITY: Why Eritrea’s Political Imagination Fails Reality
I. The Illusion We Keep Rehearsing In recent weeks, I have been reading a series of essays on…
Younis Omer10 min read
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Power Needs Compliance
Every power structure requires obedience to survive. Intelligent people question authority; obedient people preserve it.
Saleh "Gadi" Johar6 min read
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National Unity Cannot Be Rebuilt One Community at a Time
Eritreans everywhere recognize the same painful truth: our nation is in deep crisis. Political paralysis, social fragmentation, and…
Semere T Habtemariam4 min read
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The Eritrean Opposition Must Renounce Violence — Or Remain Irrelevant
The Eritrean opposition in the diaspora faces a credibility crisis so deep that it has become politically paralyzed…
Semere T Habtemariam6 min read
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From Martini to Isaias Afwerki
This is edited and contextualized as a reflective opinion essay inspired by the book “Through the Eyes of…
Saleh "Gadi" Johar7 min read
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Somaliland, Somalia, and the Ethics of Non‑Alignment
Recognition, Reality, and Responsibility in the Horn of Africa The recognition of Somaliland would mark a historic moment—akin…
Semere T Habtemariam11 min read
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Eritrea at Year’s End: Between Endurance and Exhaustion
As another year closes—the thirty‑fourth since independence—Eritrea stands as a nation defined by contradiction. It is a country…
Semere T Habtemariam8 min read
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Eritrea Does Not Need Isolation to Survive
For more than three decades, Eritrea’s foreign policy has been shaped by fear—fear of betrayal, fear of encirclement,…
Semere T Habtemariam4 min read
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Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival (7)
Giants and Lilliputians of the HOA: Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival Part Seven Introduction The central argument of…
Semere T Habtemariam7 min read
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Beware, he has 139 million loyalists!
Dear Eritreans, this is a warning—you are expected to shudder with fear. The Ethiopians are 139 million people;…
Awate Team7 min read
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A Reckoning with Rhetoric: Responding to FM Gedion Timothewos on Ethiopia–Eritrea Relations
Introduction Dr. Gedion Timothewos, Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister, delivered a carefully curated address at AAU Ras Mekonnen Hall on…
Semere T Habtemariam34 min read
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Power, Image, and Machiavellian Survival: Emperor Haile Selassie and President Isaias Afwerki
Two Towering Figures–Giants and Lilliputians (Part 1) Across the sorrowful and entangled histories of Ethiopia and Eritrea, two…
Semere T Habtemariam11 min read
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Blame It on Moses
A young student and her classmate graduated together; she became a geography teacher, while her bright classmate was…
Saleh "Gadi" Johar6 min read
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Refugees Speak Back: Unsettling Exile and Home
In 2007, the Red Sea Press published Sadia Hassanen’s Repatriation, Integration, or Resettlement? The Dilemmas of Migration among Eritrean…
Beyan Negash5 min read
