In the wake of the tragic failure of Eritrea’s 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia, senior members of the Eritrean government began a campaign to bring about the democracy that the 30 year war of liberation had been fought for.

They formed the G-15: men and women who challenged President Isaias to give the Eritrean people the freedoms they had been promised. In dawn raids on 18 and 19 September 2001 the president’s notorious security forces rounded them up and jailed them. None have ever been taken before a court or convicted of any crime. They have rotted in prison ever since.

At the same time independent newspapers were closed and journalists arrested. The nightmare of repression which has hung over Eritrea ever since had begun.

Now, on the 20th anniversary of these terrible events, we recall those who have been in Eritrea’s jails ever since. Their families have been deprived of them; their friends have lost them. But they have never been forgotten. Nor has the flame of hope that they ignited – of a proud, free and democratic country.

We have profiles of these brave men and women – and will share them daily.

Haile Woldetinsae (aka Duru’e)

Haile Woldetinsae was active in Eritrean politics from a young age along with schoolmates: Musse Tesfamichael, Seyoum Oghbamichael (aka Harestay), Woldeyesus Amar and Isaias Afwerki (the current unelected President).  After Secondary School. Haile enrolled at the University of Addis Ababa to study Engineering.

In December 1966, Haile left Addis Ababa and joined the ELF along with Musse Tesfamichael (Musse and other “Menaka’e” supporters (the Bat) who were later executed by Isaias for demanding reforms from the EPLF leadership. The ELF leadership looked with suspicion on the new university recruits, which resulted in conflicts between them. In May-June of 1967, Haile and some of his comrades decided to leave the struggle and returned to Addis Ababa to continue their studies. In 1972, Haile graduated from Addis Ababa University. By this time, he had secretly re-established contact with his former schoolmates who had started a new front – the EPLF (they had split from the ELF in early 1970) and Haile joined the EPLF.

From 1972 until 1973, Haile served as a member of the “fighters’ group” that dealt with clandestine and political activities (cells) in Eritrean cities and towns largely around Asmara, Semenawi Bahri, Quazen and Beleza.  In mid-1973, Haile and his comrades were ambushed by Ethiopian soldiers and imprisoned until early 1975, when he was freed, along with thousands of other political prisoners, by the ELF.

In 1977, during the First congress of the EPLF, Haile was elected member of the Central Committee and Politburo of the EPLF and became Head of the Department of Political Awareness. In 1987 Haile was again elected to the Central Committee and Executive Committee and became Head of the Department of National Guidance. It was a role he held until independence in 1991.

After independence, Haile held various ministerial roles, including Foreign Minister and Finance Minister.   In 1998 the Ethio-Eritrean border war erupted and Haile played a major role in the negotiations to end hostilities. He was part of the delegation representing Eritrea in the Algiers Peace Agreement which officially ended the war in August 2001.  Haile was one of the main leaders of the G-15 that demanded accountability from the President when the border war ended.

On 18 of September, 2001, Haile, along with 11 of his G-15 comrades were detained by the Eritrean government and taken to the infamous Ira-Iro prison and they have not been seen or heard ever since.

“The only way to avoid a humanitarian calamity is for the West to lean harder on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed… Abiy, refused even to meet with USAID chief Samantha Power when she visited Addis Ababa last month. Just in case Joe Biden missed this demonstration of defiance, Abiy also snubbed the U.S. special envoy to the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, who flew to the Ethiopian capital the following week.”

Source: Bloomberg

Ethiopia’s Civil War Is a Disaster That’s Only Getting Worse

The only way to avoid a humanitarian calamity is for the West to lean harder on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

By

Bobby Ghosh

1 September 2021, 05:00 BST

Long confined to Tigray, the conflict in Ethiopia has recently spread to neighboring regions Afar and Amhara.Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and Africa.

As the world is transfixed by the tragedy playing out in Afghanistan, another humanitarian catastrophe is getting little scrutiny.

In Ethiopia, a conflict with roots in a dispute between the central government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and authorities of the northern Tigray region has spilled into neighboring provinces and metastasized into a full-blown civil war — one fueled as much by ethnic enmities as by political grievances. It’s time for the West to pay attention and get tougher on the government in Addis Ababa.

International rights groups are seeing an all-too-familiar pattern repeat itself in Ethiopia: There’s the weaponization of rape and hunger, the use of child soldiers, reports of ethnic cleansing and warnings of genocide. The death toll from the fighting is thought to be in the tens of thousands, and millions have been displaced.

Worse is to come: Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians face famine, according to United Nations agencies. The fighting is preventing food aid from reaching people in the greatest need. Abiy, a Nobel Peace laureate, has ignored appeals from the international community to halt the fighting. With the Tigray People’s Liberation Front having inflicted a series of defeats on government forces, the prime minister has called on civilians to join the army and militias, stoking fears of a wider conflagration.

Inevitably, the crisis has resurrected memories of Ethiopia’s previous experience with famine. In the 1980s, an estimated 1 million people died from starvation and malnutrition. Comparisons are also being drawn to Africa’s other cataclysmic ethnic conflicts, including the Rwandan genocide.

Ethiopia is Africa’s second-most populous nation and was, until the civil war broke out last fall, held up as a beacon for the rest of the continent: Its recent economic success was cited by investors and aid donors alike as an example for other developing countries.

That success is now imperiled as the conflict exacts a heavy toll on the economy. The risk premium on Ethiopia’s dollar debt has almost doubled this year. The ardor of investors has cooled with the government’s pleas for a debt restructuring. As Bloomberg News has pointed out, the premium demanded to hold Ethiopia’s 2024 Eurobonds instead of U.S. Treasuries has climbed to 987 basis points, the highest in Africa after Zambia, which is in default. The average spread for African dollar bonds is 541 basis points.

And yet neither economic nor humanitarian considerations carry much weight with Abiy. The prime minister seems to have taken an election triumph in June — his party won a large majority in parliament — as an endorsement of his no-compromise posture in the war against the Tigrayans.

But the conflict has grown more complicated since then. Insurgents from the Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, have formed an alliance with the Tigrayans against the government.

Who can stop Ethiopia from the coming catastrophe? The African Union is too beholden to the government, which provides its headquarters in Addis Ababa, to have much sway over Abiy, and it doesn’t inspire trust among the rebels. The UN’s pleas for a ceasefire have gone unheeded by both sides.

The Biden administration, on the other hand, has some leverage. Ethiopia is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest recipient of American foreign aid, amounting to about $1 billion last year. The European Union is another significant donor and trading partner. Some U.S. and EU assistance has been suspended or postponed, but this has not had any restraining effect on Abiy, who refused even to meet with USAID chief Samantha Power when she visited Addis Ababa last month.

Just in case Joe Biden missed this demonstration of defiance, Abiy also snubbed the U.S. special envoy to the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, who flew to the Ethiopian capital the following week.

With shuttle-diplomacy and mild financial restrictions having failed, Western governments will need to lean more heavily on the prime minister to pause the fighting and allow humanitarian supplies into the war zone. The Biden administration can lead the way by suspending all nonessential aid to Addis Ababa, as well as blocking assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Washington should also follow through on its threat to cancel duty-free access for Ethiopian exports to the U.S. market under the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

Having already announced some restrictions on visas for Ethiopian government and military officials involved in “perpetrating the conflict,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken should now impose harsher sanctions, including freezing any assets these officials hold in the U.S., and pressing the Europeans to do likewise.

Anticipating a ratcheting up of Western pressure, Abiy is seeking support elsewhere: He got some from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a visit to Ankara earlier this month. But the combined clout of the U.S. and Europe remains substantial, and it should now be deployed to save millions of Ethiopians from calamity.

In the wake of the tragic failure of Eritrea’s 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia, senior members of the Eritrean government began a campaign to bring about the democracy that the 30 year war of liberation had been fought for.

They formed the G-15: men and women who challenged President Isaias to give the Eritrean people the freedoms they had been promised. In dawn raids on 18 and 19 September 2001 the president’s notorious security forces rounded them up and jailed them. None have ever been taken before a court or convicted of any crime. They have rotted in prison ever since.

At the same time independent newspapers were closed and journalists arrested. The nightmare of repression which has hung over Eritrea ever since had begun.

Now, on the 20th anniversary of these terrible events, we recall those who have been in Eritrea’s jails ever since. Their families have been deprived of them; their friends have lost them. But they have never been forgotten. Nor has the flame of hope that they ignited – of a proud, free and democratic country.

We have profiles of these brave men and women – and will share them daily.

In 1976, Feron joined the EPLF. After receiving political and military training, he was assigned to the frontline where he was wounded and subsequently spent months in hospital. On recovery from his injuries, he was posted to work at the Research and Information Centre of Eritrea (RICE).

Feron was frank and spoke his mind. In 1978, he was imprisoned by the EPLF for “asking too many questions” about various malpractice committed in prisons and suppression of freedom of expression. He used to ask: “Until when are we supposed to keep our mouths shut?”. Feron “was always an open book,” says a friend who used to work with him at RICE. “If he finds something funny, he laughs from the heart,” says another friend. “He is always happy or tries to change anxiety into happiness. He speaks his mind openly”.

Feron found it hard to adopt to the social and political situation that prevailed after the independence of Eritrea and said: “The sacrifices of our heroes will be meaningless if the EPLF cannot change to a much more liberal system suitable for this nation”. He added: “if we cannot fix matters quickly, there is a high probability for the current joy and laughter to turn to tears and grief.” When disabled Eritrean veterans were shot and killed in Mai Habar for demanding better living conditions, Feron said “Unless the Eritrean people fight back and do something to change the system, they will soon be in a state of misery they cannot escape.”

When the border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia broke out in 1998, Feron hoped that President  Isaias Afeworki would be able to prevent escalation and avoid further damage, saying, “Now is the time for Isaias, as an individual and a country leader to sit down with his closest colleagues to solve this serious situation and be tested for their fitness and potential.  Isaias, who declared, ‘Let the Sun never shine!’ would allow the war to escalate and cause the death of thousands of young Eritreans and the destruction of the country.”

In 2001 and a few months after the end of the border war, Feron was imprisoned by members of the security services ‘for not keeping his mouth shut’ and criticising the government. He has not been seen or heard since.

In the wake of the tragic failure of Eritrea’s 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia, senior members of the Eritrean government began a campaign to bring about the democracy that the 30 year war of liberation had been fought for.

They formed the G-15: men and women who challenged President Isaias to give the Eritrean people the freedoms they had been promised. In dawn raids on 18 and 19 September 2001 the president’s notorious security forces rounded them up and jailed them. None have ever been taken before a court or convicted of any crime. They have rotted in prison ever since.

At the same time independent newspapers were closed and journalists arrested. The nightmare of repression which has hung over Eritrea ever since had begun.

Now, on the 20th anniversary of these terrible events, we recall those who have been in Eritrea’s jails ever since. Their families have been deprived of them; their friends have lost them. But they have never been forgotten. Nor has the flame of hope that they ignited – of a proud, free and democratic country.

We have profiles of these brave men and women – and will share them daily.

Germano Nati became a clandestine member of the ELF and was arrested by the Ethiopian security services and detained in Sembel Prison, Asmara. He was tortured; his finger and toe nails were pulled out with pincers, given electrical shocks to get him reveal ELF secrets. In 1975, he and some fellow inmates were freed from prison by a daring and heroic ELF operation.

Following his release from prison, Germano joined the EPLF and received military training and then assigned to the Department of Political Awareness – Research Branch, where he wrote articles in the Kunama language. Later he was assigned to the Department of Public Administration in Barka (now Gash Barka) and he worked hard to strengthen the participation of the Kunama people in the armed struggle, as well as helping to resolve conflicts between the Kunama and Nara ethnic groups on the one hand and the Kunama and Tigrinya on the other.

After independence in 1994, Germano was elected member of the PFDJ Central Committee and then a member of the Eritrean National Assembly. He was posted as Administrator of the Gash-Setit, Barka region. He, like most young people of his generation, had a vision that after Eritrea independence the country would be democratic, governed by a constitution and rule of law. They wanted to see the people freely and regularly elect their representatives, from local levels to the highest organs in government. He wanted them to enjoy press freedom, have the right to assembly, peaceful protest, organise and form political parties.

In September 2001, while working in Denkel province, he was arrested along with the G-15 for demanding change to create a democratic and constitutional administered Eritrea. They were taken to the infamous Ira-Iro prison and have not seen or heard since.

In an article published on Awate.com under the title ‘Release our fathers’, one of Germano’s children wrote ‘While many people chose to ignore the corruption and injustice they saw, you did not ignore it and spoke and opposed it openly. Wherever I go, I remember you, and you are always with me. I named my son after you.  I feel your spirit following me wherever I go. I know that you are human and will pass away as everyone will someday. You, and the other G-15 who signed the letter demanding President Isaias to convene a special meeting of the Eritrean National Assembly have been imprisoned and are wasting away in the solitary cells in the infamous Ira-Iro jail. I feel proud of you for I know that you will be proudly remembered forever. But I feel sorry for the loser, President Isaias Afwerki who ignored your just calls and demands. I know history will not remember nor forgive Isaias.’

Press Release: Eritrea Scholars and Professionals Gather to Devise a Roadmap for the Country’s Future

Washington – More than 150 Eritreans gathered on August 14, 2021 at the Catholic University in the Eritrean Scholars and Professionals Workshop to discuss the current situation in Eritrea and its impact on the Horn of Africa, as well as begin planning for the time after the regime of Isaias Afwerki has ended.  The event, organized by the Eritrean Research Institute for Policy and Strategy (ERIPS), was attended by more than 150 scholars and professionals in person, five dozen participating on Zoom live and an untold number otherwise online, including those from outside the United States.

150 Eritreans gathered on August 14, 2021 at the Catholic University in the Eritrean Scholars and Professionals Workshop to discuss the current situation in Eritrea and its impact on the Horn of Africa,

Numerous scholars made presentations or participated in the discussions, such as Prof. Bereket Habte Selassie, a retired professor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who is a leading scholar on African law and government; Professor Kidane Mengisteab, an African Studies professor at Pennsylvania State University who has conducted research on traditional institutions in African governance, Professor Araya Debessay, an active participant in the Eritrean affairs since 1974, Dr. Saba T. Kidane, a Ph.D. graduate of the George Mason University School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, who is a conflict resolution expert and  Mr. Nureddin Abdulkadir who has served his country as an activist and community leader since the early 1970s.

The experts laid out the disastrous situation facing Eritrea at this time which includes political instability, conflicts and state collapse with a failed economy, financial instability, poverty, poor infrastructure, high unemployment, mass migration, refugee crisis, forced conscription, indiscriminate imprisonment and mental health problems that include post-traumatic stress disorder. Participants also highlighted the challenges of transitioning to a democratic governance and the imperatives of reintegrating soldiers and refugees back into the Eritrean society.

The Isaias regime has prevented the establishment of genuine democracy in Eritrea and has stunted its growth among succeeding generations. Therefore, participants called for the education of Eritreans on proper democratic discourse to ensure a smooth and stable transition and to prevent the democratic process from being hijacked once a new government is installed. Participants recommended that a process must be devised early on to identify qualified individuals through elections in their local communities whose main priority is the welfare of Eritrean citizens. They also highlighted approaches for encouraging mass participation in transitioning the country to democracy.

To successfully change the regime in Eritrea, which has not only caused the myriad of problems facing Eritrea itself but also the entire Horn of Africa region, the workshop consensus was that efforts must include building trust and cohesiveness among Eritreans, human and institutional capacity building, and united effort of all Eritrean political and civil society organizations for the primary goal of bringing swift and sustainable change in Eritrea. To effectively implement such a singular goal, participants called for a united front or congress.

The strategic location of the country and a vast number of Eritrean professionals in diaspora will aid Eritrea’s potential for being a hub of investments in the region.  However, because of Eritrea’s ruined economy under the current government, participants recommended that the fall of the regime should be followed by an Economic Forum with business leaders, investors, economists, and experts from international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the African Development Bank, etc. This can be a starting platform to adopt a solid policy for economic recovery and reconstruction of the country.

To recover from the negative impact in the region caused by the Isaias regime’s instigation and involvement in conflicts with its neighbors, participants recommended the formation of an alliance and collaboration with regional stakeholders to ensure peace, security and stability.  Participants further believe there must be work done on effective diplomacy with the United States, the European Union and other entities in the international community to secure peace in Eritrea and the Horn of Africa.

Participants of the workshop discussed in detail four highly important and timely topics in a roundtable format and presented their recommendations. The topics focused on the challenges and opportunities Eritrea will face post-PFDJ; the roles and responsibilities of Eritrean intellectuals in contributing towards the effort for political change; the challenges of reconstruction and social-economic developments; the mandate of Eritrean intellectuals in building trust and harmony amongst the Eritreans; and the need for Eritrean intellectuals in contributing towards peace, security and stability in the Horn of Africa. Participants of the workshop were also updated by ERIPS member Dr. Astier Alemseged about the Isaias regime’s refusal to collaborate with the WHO and the COVAX program and its refusal to the Eritrean public the protection that could be gained by the freely available CIOVD-19 vaccines. Participants of the workshop noted the atrocious and irresponsible acts of the Isaias regime as this is yet another harm it is inflicting to Eritreans.

ERIPS plans to take a leading role in furthering the discussions begun during this event to successfully press for bringing socio-economic and political change and to create an Eritrea that allow its more than five million people to enjoy justice, experience prosperity and exist peacefully and harmoniously with its neighbors.

-End-