Happy New Year 2022
to the besieged nation of Eritrea and its people.

by: Berhe Desta / Seattle, Washington, USA

Happy New Year 2022 to the besieged nation of Eritrea and its people.
by: Berhe Desta / Seattle, Washington, USA

May the New Year 2022 finally release the nation of Eritrea and Eritreans from the 30-year tight yoke of Isayas Afeworki, the deadliest dictator in recent history. Good bye the year 2021 and hello and cheers the year 2022.

The nation of Eritrea cheerfully gained its independence after an arduous and costly armed struggle of 30 years against Ethiopian army of occupation, in 1991. Right after the country became independent, an iron fisted, self-proclaimed president for life, Isayas Afeworki, with handful of collaborators, defiantly seized power, betraying the trust of and the promise to their martyred colleagues. In the last over 30 years since they seized the power, they have destroyed the country beyond repair socio-economically, politically and diplomatically. Even after the Eritrean people ratified their independence, through a referendum of 99.98% vote in 1993, the dictator terrorized the whole country by denying them all their democratic rights. He denied them the basic freedom of speech, free movement, free press, parliament and no national constitution. The country was left without any functioning governmental framework whatsoever, with no economic budget, public health, medical services, adequate educational programs and national defense system for the service of the country. Any Eritreans who showed any signs of opposition individually, in groups or at an organizational level, were either mercilessly killed or thrown to prison, without any chance of appearing before the court of law, to determine their guilt or innocence, because there is no judiciary system in the country.

In order to continually stay in power without any opposition, he cynically instituted an exploitative system of slavery for Eritrean students under the guise of Eritrean national military service program. The program started in 1994, but most of the recruits are still serving, and nobody knows when it will end. The program involves students’ ages of 16 years and older for a period of 18 months term, but in practical terms, it ended up being a nonending service program.

The highly deceptive and lawless dictator of the state of Eritrea does not provide any kind of government-funded public service programs for its citizens. Hence, the so-called national military service program should not be applicable to the unfortunate Eritrean students. One example of Isayas’s deceptive practices is that when the recruits who get any chance to be released from the nonending service program, which may be after 25 years of service, the leaving certificate that they are provided with, will deceptively show that he /she has served 18 months of military service, instead of the actual number of years of service.

Under the students’ military service program, the recruits are being used as slaves to provide free service for the army brass’s personal business interests, or for government-run businesses. For the females, it is a double jeopardy. They are being used as free labor and sex slaves. The unwanted sex exploitation, especially perpetrated by the army brass, some of whom are married, is highly disturbing and toxic, and such national disgrace and other very cruel crimes committed by the army echelon are tacitly tolerated by the heinous dictator, to the point that the general public has also taken them as business as usual. Some of the generals and colonels are also heavily involved in human trafficking and selling organs from displaced Eritrean youth. Since the country is ruled solely by the imbecile dictator’s intuitive decrees, it had become and still is a living hell for its people. A substantial percentage of the Eritrean people are living in extremely crowded and filthy prisons and underground silos, under extreme and indescribably horrible living conditions. On the basis of such totally unbearable environmental conditions, the general public, young and seasoned, are left with no alternatives but to continuously flee the country to wherever their feet led them. And many of them have been perishing in the Mediterranean Sea on their way to the Western countries, in search of political asylum, and others in the Sinai desert on their way to Israel. Eritrean professionals, entrepreneurs, business men and women who have been barred from providing their services to their people, have also been compelled to escape the country to other African countries and anywhere else, in order to sell their professional skills and experiences. That being a small fraction of the internal socio-economic and political manifestations of the Eritrean landscape, and also in regards to Eritrea’s foreign policy, especially in regards to its neighboring countries: As soon as the illegal Eritrean dictator proclaimed president for life, he openly started bad-mouthing and undermining African leaders collectively, and he even dared to verbally undermine the highly regarded, the late Nelson Mandela, first president of South Africa. In addition, Isayas didn’t take much time to initiate unnecessary wars against almost all of his neighboring East African countries, such as Djibuti, Somalia, Yemen, the Sudan and Ethiopia.

He has also been secretly sending Eritrean soldiers, as paid mercenaries, to many neighboring African countries that had sporadic wars against their neighbors, such as the Congo Republic, Rwanda, Burundi, South Yemen and Somalia. He may even, most probably, send thousands of his mercenary soldiers to Somalia, which is now about to conduct its, presidential elections. He had also been an ally and supporter of most of the regional political movements, such as Al Qaeda, Al Shebab and other similar movements that were viewed as anti-Western Capitalism and Israeli Zionism. When he was supporting them, it was not because he believed in their political ideologies and/or causes, but simply due to his being a disturbed psychopath, who continuously enjoys watching human blood being spilled, anywhere and everywhere.

Human life is the most sacred and precious value that we can own in this world, but to the cardinal of sin in Asmara, destroying human lives, in the thousands or even in the millions, is his pleasure and fantasy. That’s why he can’t live without instigating skirmishes and wars wherever he can. He never had any friends in his whole life, and once he quarrels with an individual, groups or certain national leaders, he holds deep grudges against them forever, and he stays sleepless until he vengefully gets rid of them. That being his nature, he was at one time, a close friend and an ally of the Tigrayan Peoples Front (TPLF), HEWAHAT, and when that friendship changed into adversity, he instigated a war against them in 1998 thru 2000, under the unfounded pretext of a border dispute. Since he didn’t win that war, he harbored a grudge against them, until he could find an opportunity for waging another war and get even with them. When Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, who, similarly, had a wild and impractical dream of becoming the 7th King of Ethiopia, and at this time in age, came to power, he concluded that he could learn all the necessary tricks to succeed on his impractical and hallucinated dream of becoming a king, only from Isayas Afeworki, who had managed to maintain power in Eritrea, for the last 30 years. And with that kind of conspiracy theory in mind, he invited Isayas to become his mentor on his war plan, and conveniently, his war plan coincided with that of Isayas’s, and accordingly, they deceptively started their dramatic campaign to militarily destroy HEWAHAT, about two years before they started the war in Tigray, on November 4, 2020.

In the conspiracy between Isayas and Abiy Ahmed to attack Tigray, Isayas was the main architect of every aspect of the war plan and execution. They projected that it will take them only two weeks to decisively decimate the Tigrayan army, which was a wrong calculation against an adversary with great military skills, and exceptional discipline of the HEWAHAT leadership and the very strong determination for survival in unison, by the war hardened and faithful Tigrayan people.

Isayas did not join the Eritrean war of independence in 1965, in a genuine way, as many of us naively thought, but only as an American CIA agent and Ethiopian government’s stooge, with the intent to disrupt and divide the Eritrean Liberation Front, from within. When the Eritrean people were aggressively engaged against the Ethiopian army of occupation and enjoying early military successes on the ground, Isayas, as the arch enemy of Eritreans, was secretly and skillfully liquidating the cream of the crop of the Eritrean cadres and war strategists, from behind the scenes. Isayas had never worked as a military fighter, nor did he ever fire a single bullet against the Ethiopian army during the Eritrean war of independence. Therefore, Isayas has no military skills or experience to share with the Ethiopian army to empower them militarily defeat HEWAHAT. The only things that Isayas is good at are: Skillfully blackmailing innocent people, misleading, dividing and polarizing people against each other, creating Hollywood type of dramas, mass killings, creating dramatic terrors and lawlessness. Isayas has no clear stand on anything unless he believes it will empower his premier objective of staying, as the supreme leader, for his whole life.

Isayas and Abiy Ahmed have the same goals and aspirations. Both of them are adamantly committed to becoming supreme leaders for life, at any cost. In addition, they both have the following similar traits: Both of them are bigots with extreme cruelty in mind; both of them are lawless and faithless, who defiantly adhere to their intuitive plans, irrespective of whether or not facts on the ground, logic, common sense, and world opinions support them. And above all, they are both pathological liars, with zero credibility.

As the president of Eritrea, Isayas has been a close friend and confidante of the Middle Eastern Arab Monarchs, and so was he with the state of Somalia. But those countries have been historical enemies of Ethiopia. Ironically, those countries have been allowed by Isayas to directly meddle in the internal affairs of Ethiopia, which is a charade. That being the background information, Isayas has deceptively misguided Abiy Ahmed to militarily involve also Turki, China, Russia, Israel and Eritrea, in order to collaboratively attack Tigray, the Northern province of Ethiopia, militarily, and hasten its demise. While Somalia and Eritrea sent their military forces, the rest of the conspiring countries sent all kinds of drones, airplanes and other logistics. This amounts to Abiy Ahmed naively committing treason against his own country, by giving higher priority to his personal power ego, over the national interests. Logic and commonsense tell us that those countries, as historical adversaries of Ethiopia, can most probably, have their own hidden agendas, to be implemented later, during Ethiopia’s socio-economically and militarily weakest moments.

Such unfortunate chaos arising from Ethiopia’s self-inflicting internal wars, offered great opportunity for the adventurous Eritrean dictator to invade the Tigray province of about seven million people, by sending many army battalions supported by heavy armors, from three different border fronts. He also coordinated his troops’ efforts with that of the Ethiopian defense forces, namely, the Amhara, Afar and Oromo militia forces in coordination with about 5000 Somali troops. And all these internal and external invaders were supported by many deadly drones from Turkey, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, and Israel. In addition to all such well-coordinated military carnage, the Tigrayan people have also suffered from intentional deprivation of food supplies, medicine, medical services and other huma vital needs. On many occasions, Abiy’s and Isayas’s forces have been intentionally blocking the delivery of emergency supplies and other essential commodities to Tigray, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people, which is an outright crime against humanity.

The state of Eritrea doesn’t have any internet services, independent newspapers, and other media outlets. Plus, people cannot even congregate in any number more than three people, there is no sustaining water suppl or electric services, by design. The scope and nature of the crimes that Isayas Afeworki has inflicted upon the Eritrean people since the early 1970th can speak volumes, but due to the limited size and scope of this piece, cannot be adequately enumerated.

As an extension of all the crimes against Humanity that the Eritrean security and military forces have committed against the undeserving Eritrean people for over 30 years, with impunity, the same perpetrators are now repeating the same indescribable crimes against the Tigrayan people for over a year, now. They have indiscriminately, tortured and killed many innocent Tigrayan civilians, which include men, women, children, and the elderly. They indiscriminately destroyed almost everything that the people could use for immediate survival. They also destroyed buildings, factories, crops, food items, schools, churches, mosques and all kinds of other treasures belonging to civilians, as well. They indiscriminately, raped young girls, women, and mothers, with extreme brutality. Those horror stories are totally mindboggling to the vast majority of Eritreans.

The irony of all this is that Isayas’s and Abiy’s gross crimes committed in Tigray and the Southern parts of Ethiopia, do not materially or politically benefit Ethiopia, nor to the majority of the Amhara ethnic group that Isayas pretends are his allies. The majority of the innocent Ethiopian people are being misinformed, deceived and brainwashed by only a few, drumbeating, right wing zealots among the Amhara ethnic group, who are obsessively blinded by their extreme hate and bigotry that, they had harbored, against the Tigrayan and Eritrean people. If we objectively look back in retrospect, to research, why the internal Ethiopian war was initiated in the first place, and who the true perpetrators were, it is quite possible that the conclusion will come out to be totally different from the most of the Ethiopian national media outlets have been trumpeting. Irrespective of all of that, though, the wide spread military crimes, have cost hundreds of thousands, if not in the millions of human lives through bullets fired and intentional deprivation of food, medication and medical services, and other vital human necessities for those of dire needs. While tens of millions of civilians and families have been displaced from various places, due to the effects of the war, there are also true indications of ethnic cleansing committed by both, Isayas and Abiy Ahmed, against the undeserving Tigrayan people.

But, Isayas’s meddling and interfering in Ethiopia’s internal affairs is not limited to the province of Tigray only. Isayas had also been, and still is, secretly sending his army battalions to the Southern provinces of Ethiopia, and particularly to the Oromo province, in order to fight the Oromo Liberation Front forces. The Eritrean military forces, most of whom are very young soldiers who have very little military training and experience are thrown to the battle ground without even knowing where they were going.

Isayas and Abiy Ahmed have defiantly caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian and Eritrean lives, and the displacement of millions of families and innocent civilians, and by intentionally blocking the delivery of all kinds of necessary food items that were direly needed for immediate human consumption by the needy. Above all, according to independent reputable Western media outlets, vividly clear ethnic cleansing has been repeatedly committed inside the province of Tigray, by the Eritrean and Ethiopian military forces, which is an outright act of crimes against humanity. But, despite all of that, the whole world, has surprisingly, been idly watching from the sidelines. May be violation of international laws in Africa may not mean very much to those who could make the difference, unless the victims of circumstance are whites. It is quite a shame that the whole world could not stop this horrible carnage, leading to regional human extinction.

Nevertheless, there have been voices of reason and human decency from some Western countries, headed by president Biden of America’s collaborative recommendations for Abiy to follow the right path of cessation of hostilities and opt for negotiated settlement for peace, by all Ethiopian ethnic groups, including the HEWAHAT, instead of pursuing his present course of hawkish war mongering rhetoric. This is a bold and morally imperative proposal that should be globally hailed, except that it is lacking decisive action, which is the only language that both, Abiy and Isayas can understand. However, the major lingering problem in the unfortunate East African region as a whole, is the defiant meddling by Isayas Afeworki, and the presence of his troops and criminal security agents, anywhere and everywhere, are becoming an impediment to regional peace.

However, what is more alarming is that despite of the fast spread of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, that even the most economically powerful countries of the world couldn’t control, the president of Eritrea, by defying science and by abdicating his legal and moral responsibilities, has refused to accept COVID-19 vaccination in Eritrea, which is the only country in the whole world not vaccinating.

His unilateral refusal to comply with the united world efforts is focusing to combat the most deadly pandemic, in unison, should amount to he, himself, becoming an immediate threat to world health safety. While taking such unusual stand, in aberration, Isayas, is on the contrary, without paying any attention to the public health safety of the Eritrean people, is charging every incoming passenger at the Eritrean airport $100.00 dollars for pandemic testing, and those who tested positive are quarantined for about 10 days, by charging them substantial dollars on a daily basis. This is one way of generating millions of dollars for him annually. Abiy and Isayas have also been secretly, shuttling thousands of unvaccinated Ethiopian and Eritrean army soldiers, back and forth between Ethiopia and Eritrea, using night commercial flights, for more than a year, without paying any attention to the pandemic vaccination imperatives. Such illegal actions pose a serious threat to human lives, and at the same time, violating international aviation rules. Such lawless actions warrant immediate remedial actions. After this deadly COVID-19 pandemic started in Wuhan, China, in November, 2019, it didn’t take very much time to spread to the whole world. It is known fact that after President Biden got elected and responsibly and swiftly implemented the much needed vaccinations, the death toll in America from the pandemic dwindled considerably from the highest in the whole world mark to a level that earned him considerable admiration by the majority of his constituents. The positive effects of the vaccination has been scientifically proven, and the need for vaccination should be a must in Eritrea, as well. The state of Eritrea, though, has surprisingly about 365 highly crowded prisons and underground silos, in which, according to some of released prisoners, about 20 to 25 prisoners are being housed in 10 by 12 foot rooms, under extremely harsh conditions. During the night time (sleeping), there is zero distance between each other. And in most cases, there is hardly any shower, except in some areas, they get an occasional bucket of cold water in about 15 days. There is no enough food or medical services in those extremely filthy cells. According to scientific reports on the nature and behavior of the Corona Virus and all the environmental conditions in the Eritrean prison system are perfectly conducive for fueling the spread of COVID-19 virus.

Some of the many tragic aspects of the state of Eritrea is that everything is gutted with high secrecy and without any independent media outlets. The iron-fisted dictator is in full control of all Eritreans not only inside Eritrea, but also in the Diaspora. He has unleashed his paid spies and assassins in Eritrea and Ethiopia, and also in many other places, in the Diaspora. He has also illegally enforced his mandate of charging every Eritrean inside the country and in the Diaspora to pay a 2% Tax, and he gets millions of dollars in foreign exchange from it annually. The Eritrean people are completely terrorized by this evil dictator, and most of them are living in a sort of psychosis. If it were not for fearing for their own lives and that of their family members, and for some selfish economic interests, virtually, no one would support Isayas. He is now running out of his mantra of dramatizing newer tricks of continuous deceptions and falsifications. Isayas has never had any friends in his whole life, since his childhood. He is now being haunted by a sense of isolation. And due to all the crimes against humanity that he has been committing for all those years, he now has nowhere to go, and no place to hide.

The lingering unity problems in the global opposition camps, is now changing fast, in part because, the concept of the Yiakl Mass Movement, which starts at every city level, and conducted by voluntary representative Task Force members, the movement is termed, as “the movement of the people, by the people and for the people.” This Task Force Movement is now getting immense traction, and the majority of its members are the young generation of men and women. And this demography is more dependable and receptive to qualitative changes. One lesson we can all learn from world democracies is that governments with the mass grassroots support of their people have much better chance of future political stability.

Conclusion

The insane war in Ethiopia is unfortunately spiraling out of control, and it has to be stopped, by all means possible, before it endangers the lives of billions of human lives world-wide. This war is a single man’s war, exclusively designed and executed by Isayas Afeworki of Eritrea. Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, is only a titular head in this most deadly war of extinction. Isayas, has single-handedly ruled the state of Eritrea with brute force for over 30 years. During all those years of his rule, all his actions were conducted with very high secrecy, terror, and systematic human annihilation. He has been ruling the country by his own caprice, without national constitution, no parliament or courts of justice. Every part of his rule is highly unconventional, that he, himself, is called the COVID-1991. Hence, one wonders whether this man is even human. The fact that he was able to survive in power for all those over 30 years, and with impunity, probably supports his belief that he is invincible.

At this time, however, his actions are not only endangering the lives of his constituents and that of Africans, but also the lives of the people of the rest of the world, which will have far reaching implications and ramifications. Lastly, the power makers and shakers of the world must get fired up, and unequivocally remove Isayas from his power out of concern of the lives of the billions of humans the world over. Upon which, Isayas and Abiy should be brought before the international court of law to stand trial for all the crimes against humanity, that both of them have defiantly committed, which will indirectly mean freeing Eritreans from the total control of the most brutal dictator of the century, which, in effect, will truly become a Happy New Year, 2022 wish for Eritrea and Eritreans.

Berhe Desta / USA

ERISAT: ቃለ መሕትት ምስ ኣቶ በርሀ ደስታ ኣብ ህዝባዊ ማዕበል

See also recent articles by Mr Berhe Desta
ካልኦት ብ'ኣቶ በርሀ ደስታ ዝተጻሕፉ ጽሑፋት ኣብ ታሕቲ ተወከሱ:-

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