Zemihret Yohannes: A Revolutionary Legacy in Eclipse
Zemihret Yohannes was regarded as one of the most formidable figures in the Eritrean armed struggle. According to long-time acquaintances, in his youth – before joining the liberation movement – he held a deep admiration for Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the founding president of Tanzania and a principal architect of African independence. This admiration took shape in the early 1970s, at a time when Nyerere’s progressive political vision had not yet achieved broad recognition.
Yet today, five decades later, Zemihret’s legacy lies buried beneath decades of institutional neglect following independence in 1991. His marginalisation has been neither incidental nor personal, but structural: he was systematically excluded for lacking EPLF fighter lineage, deliberately kept outside elite decision-making circles to curtail his political capital, and subjected to sustained scrutiny rooted in the regime’s enduring suspicion of autonomous power and fear of his past capacity for violence as a former urban guerrilla.
In his prime, Zemihret was his own master – roaming across Eritrea and Ethiopia, hunting down “enemies” with the daring of Fedayeen. Yet when independence arrived, the fire within him seemed to fade. The man who once defied authority and penetrated fortified dens in the name of justice became one who obeyed it without question: close to power, yet emptied of its substance.
Dan Connell, who devoted a page-long entry to our protagonist in his Historical Dictionary of Eritrea, notes that he came from a well-to-do Catholic family in Akele Guzai and was closely related to the unjustly imprisoned former EPLF leader and member of the so-called Group of 15 reformists, Haile ‘DruE’ Woldetensa’e.
As a young boy, according to my sources, Zemihret entered a Catholic seminary, setting out on the path to priesthood. That vocation, however, soon yielded to another calling – the armed struggle for the liberation of Eritrea.
Reflecting on Catholicism in this context reveals that Zemihret had already drifted decisively away from the moral and institutional commitments of his former Church at the very moment it came under attack – not for its doctrine, but for its unwavering defence of human rights, freedom, and the inherent dignity of the Eritrean people.
A regime founded on absolute control, obedience, servitude and enforced silence could not tolerate a Church that spoke publicly and helped shape the moral imagination of society. Its influence over conscience and ethical responsibility rendered it suspect in the eyes of the state. As reported by Radio Vaticana and noted by Daniela Kravetz, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, the regime sought to curtail the public role of religious communities by closing and confiscating Catholic-run hospitals, clinics, schools, and health centres.
When the state crossed these defining thresholds in 2019 and again in 2022, Zemihret – once a figure of stature and authority within the government – failed the test of moral witness. As doors were sealed and essential services withdrawn from a vulnerable population, silence became his final response and absence his enduring legacy.
His silence betrays a life ruled by fear – fear of speech, fear of action, fear of choosing what is right. Once, he was known as bold and unyielding: courageous, fiercely principled, a man who seemed to stand a step ahead of his time. Now he is spoken of as scarcely recognisable, a pale echo of whom he once was. Those who have seen him say his presence has thinned, his spirit worn down by years of quiet surrender, as he moves through the streets of Asmara with lowered eyes and a dragging step – a living testament to how revolutions so often devour their own architects. That truth weighs heavily on my heart.
Connell states that “Zemhret was educated at Haile Selassie I Secondary School in the late 1960s before enrolling at the University of Asmara (UoA), where he pursued his studies until 1974, when the institution was closed amid the political upheaval associated with the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie.”
I would also like to note, in passing, that Zemihret comes from a distinguished lineage: a father who once travelled to Italy to study theology and philosophy at a time when Eritrea still lived in darkness; a strong mother who led Mahber nsHA-bota (the Purgatory Association) in Asmara, composed of Catholic mothers; a brother gifted with musical talent; an elder brother who “died in the sky”; and Kidane, the only member of the family I met in person in the early 1970s.
Kidane, later martyred, was quiet and darkly introspective, yet a deeply fascinating young man.
According to Connell, Zemihret, during the second half of the 70s, became ELF’s fedayeen, a clandestine urban operative with many dangerous tasks. He rose swiftly within the urban security apparatus before being forced into flight in 1979. It was then he joined the forces in the field, working with the Front’s information department as tensions with the EPLF edged toward open war.
When that conflict finally erupted, the ELF splintered into rival factions. Zemihret aligned himself with the group known as Saghem, and in the mid-1980s he became one of those who helped lead it into dialogue with the EPLF, the rival faction, a process that culminated in unity at the latter’s 1987 congress.
After Eritrea’s independence, he returned to Asmara to a hero’s welcome and held a series of government posts. He played a key role in the Constitutional Commission from 1993 to 1996, a process that was ultimately abandoned by the president.
He later served as acting minister of information in the late 1990s, before being replaced by another official. Zemihret subsequently spent his days within the government’s information and documentation structures under the PFDJ, as he was gradually side-lined by Isaias Afwerki and left without any formal portfolio. Those who know him say he now goes to the office merely to pass the day.
Zemihret, now almost seventy, once occupied an outsized place in my thoughts for reasons I never fully understood. He was reputed to be ideologically steadfast, unshakeable in his convictions. With quiet confidence, he accepted the most demanding tasks the revolution required. In our youth – when innocence still blurred judgment – we called him a man among men.
That image has not endured. Today, Zemihret appears to me as ‘an ex-rebel without a cause’, moved less by purpose than by unresolved inner conflict.
A fellow freedom fighter once suggested that Zemihret could be resisting Isaias’s draconian administration through the quiet urgings of his conscience. I remember pausing at the thought, uneasy – not because it convinced me, but because it revealed how easily conscience can become a refuge when action grows too costly.
What fascinates me most is how a man once reckless in the face of danger can end up a docile servant of power – how a roaring lion, at last, learns to purr.
I became so deeply entangled in the act of telling his story that I eventually had to abandon weeks’ worth of notes, rewrite entire passages from scratch, and chastise myself for presuming to criticise someone once I revered as a valiant freedom fighter. And yet, I could not let him go. My thoughts kept circling, obsessive and inescapable, holding me captive and consuming many hours as I moved back and forth, never once finding firm ground.
I need to admit something. The forces pulling me toward the edge are countless – too many to name – and I no longer have the strength to keep up with their quiet, relentless pull, carried in figures like Zemihret and others. Some days, it feels as though the weight of these questions alone could unravel me. And still, each morning I wake with a small, stubborn resolve, returning to exactly where I stopped the night before, unable to leave them behind. What a strange destiny this is.
I find myself wondering why Zemihret turned away – why he chose evasion over meeting Isaias’s gaze, over speaking from that once-steady well of duty and moral clarity that seemed to anchor him. What stilled his voice, preventing even the lightest offering of truth? When did silence begin to feel safer than a word spoken in conscience? Why refuse to name the slow corrosion of Isaias’s rule, or to acknowledge – however carefully – how far the country has fallen, not only in the eyes of its fleeing youth and neglected citizenry, but before the watching world?
Was it caution, or fatigue, or the hushed arithmetic of survival? Was it fear, or a cold reckoning, that drew him toward accommodation and away from resistance? How does a spirit once fierce and unyielding learn the grammar of compliance? And at what cost – not only to the life of a nation, but to the private integrity one must carry, alone, long after the silence has thickened into habit?
These questions linger at the edge, where language falters and conscience has no shelter.
What about his Intellectual Dilemma?
Zemihret is a voracious reader and an intellectual by any standard. His books and speeches show that he has far more to contribute to public debate than he is currently allowed to offer. In many ways, he can be seen as an intellectual walking a tightrope – trying to think and speak freely under heavy constraints.
In Eritrea, intellectuals have long faced systematic repression because of their ability to shape public opinion and influence political life. Like all dictatorships the state views independent thinking as a threat. As a result, it has sought to weaken the independence of educated people and reshape them into a group that is politically obedient – one that aligns with, supports, and reinforces the ruling PFDJ system.
I believe that intellectuals like Zemihret are entrusted with a sacred duty: to unsettle power, to illuminate injustice, and to guard the fragile flame of truth. That is why it wounds so deeply to hear him publicly defend the regime – especially when I can sense, beneath his words, the hollowness of belief, the echo of rehearsed lines rather than convictions honestly held. More painful still is the spectacle of an intellectual bending his conscience to appease Isaias Afwerki, bartering integrity for survival, and allegiance for silence.
When intellectuals lend their voices to dictatorship – when they fashion propaganda, rationalise repression, or cloak brutality in the language of ideology – they do more than comply. They consecrate oppression. Their learning, their authority, their credibility are alchemised into instruments of harm. It is for this reason that their complicity bears a heavier moral weight: they do not merely serve power; they sanctify it, making injustice appear righteous. Our Zemihret stands as a case in point.
On the other hand, some argue that he employs rhetorical sophistication to deflect responsibility. Rather than applying his philosophical insight to the pursuit of objective truth or the cultivation of moral understanding, he instead aligns himself with the regime’s position, seeking approval from his peers primarily to secure his own survival.
To me, Zemihret is an intellectual who has devolved into a sophist. I see him as someone who engages in reasoning through misleading and intellectually dishonest arguments.
In Socrates’ time, sophists were known for teaching people how to win arguments – particularly in courtrooms and political arenas. What mattered to them was not the truth of an argument, but its persuasive power. Plato’s Apology vividly illustrates this concern.
Even when an argument is logically weak or morally flawed, a skilled sophist like Zemihret can still present it as convincing. That is precisely what makes him dangerous.
Many sophists held that truth is subjective, contingent upon perspective. The first time I encountered this “perspective” argument was directly from Isaias himself.
During the G-13 period, when our group engaged in a face-to-face dialogue with President Isaias Afwerki about the regime’s failures – and his personal responsibility for them – he defended his actions by asserting, “It’s all about perspective.”
Zemihret within the “Eritrean Eunuch Society”
Scholars from antiquity to the present have written extensively about eunuchs, often emphasizing their biological condition. In this discussion, however, eunuchs are not treated as stereotypes or reduced to their bodies. Rather, they are understood as social and political actors. Although I find eunuchism a challenging subject to engage with, I will nonetheless attempt to situate it within our discussion.
Historically, eunuchs played important roles in government, security, religion, and court life. Rulers relied on them because they were seen as loyal, controllable, and less likely to challenge existing power structures. This placed eunuchs in positions of real influence, but also made them vulnerable and dependent on the system that empowered them.
I argue that Eritrea has given birth to a modern echo of this ancient order. There is no blade, no bodily mutilation, yet the result is uncannily familiar. Through social pressure, ideological repetition, and the slow tightening grip of institutions, the system fashions eunuchs of the mind and will. They are not gathered solely around ‘the throne’; they inhabit the whole body of the state, flowing downward through every vein of public service. This may be Isaias’s truest political wealth. He has learned how to harvest obedience, how to grow servants and blind loyalists in every corner of governance – judges and diplomats, police and clerks, security men and intelligence keepers – an edifice upheld not by conviction, but by carefully trained surrender.
Within this landscape, Zemihret takes shape as a “eunuchised” presence, one among many orbiting the inner sanctum of Isaias’s rule – men stripped of social warmth yet clothed in political power, elevated yet tethered. His authority is not his own; it is borrowed breath, sustained only by obedience. The moment he ceases to serve, the ground beneath him dissolves.
For now, Zemihret may feel sheltered within Isaias’s gravitational pull. His existence has been reduced to a single instinct: to remain beyond the reach of his master’s fury – a whip that knows no clock, lashing alike in darkness and in the glare of day.
I am tired now. Like so many of us, I want to rest and gather strength for tomorrow, for I do not know what it will bring. Before I close the curtains, let me end with a small plea to Zemihret: return to your memories for an intimate consultation. Return to the days when the struggle had meaning – when discipline was forged to liberate a people, not to silence them; when sacrifice was made for Eritrea, not demanded of it. Those memories are the quiet thread that binds your past to your present, reminding you who you once were, how you came to be, and what still matters – to you, and to the expectant people of Eritrea.
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