From the forum:

WHERE is Wedi GeRAHTU: “I need this man NOW! where is this Riesi Akat wedi gerahtu?”

Comment: The phrase might have entertained some people but I think this is charcter assanitaion and I doubt the validity of this information very much so. Isn’t Wedegerahtu’s head more ovalic than circular like Akat? I only saw him in pictures and it looks like a kidney to me though pictures can be deceiving. A dude told me that he thinks his head was designed for testata rather than politics and that the president miscaulculated: I have no comment on this: I, however, know that the problem is not his head but rather the material inside it.

Belay nega: “Brother Fetsum,hi “SELF RELIANCE or SELF DESTRUCTION”“እሕሕምባልሲ ዘይተሓንቀ ይኽእላ””

Comment: Ninebsu baelu Zihaneke ke? You do not choke yourself in the total absence of a chocker. We gave this man 100% green light to do whatever he liked and we saw what he did to himself without any provocation because he is an idiot. No one put the rope around his neck but himself and no one will pay the price for that at the end of the day except himself and his slaves.

Back to MOGOGO: The legacy of Mr. Afwerki continues to be more visible in Asmara than ever in the past. Combishtato, once considered the best BOULEVARD in the continent has become dirty and noisy because of the generators that replaced electricity in our country. The boulevard’s flavor has changed from radiating the fragrance of biscotti, fruits and gelatti to radiating that of gasoline, lamba and tiki. Tens of desperate young women today infest the mostly dark boulevard for prostitution (unheard of in the past). Eritrean families are back to mogogo after 22 years of independence. HIV is widespread as a result.

As I mentioned in my last articles, electricity is available in all countries of the world because that is the most basic infrastructure any government can do and cannot rule without: Invest on power plants, train people to run it and you are done. Temperature and weather do not affect power plants like they affect agriculture for any government to have an excuse on, for failing to deliver electricity.

Brief history of electricity in Eritrea: The Italian colonizers installed electricity in our country and there were power plants everywhere efficiently running different types of businesses, factories, industries and mechanized farms. The Britons then left them intact during the federal union with Ethiopia and the Ethiopians maintained them for years making Eritrean cities/towns the most lighted cities in Ethiopia. Eritrean industries were efficient enough (during the Hailesselassie era) to stand the best suppliers of Diary items (Denadai), fabric materials (Baratollo, LIALF), beer, soft drinks, wine, liquor, etc (Mellotti, Fennilli) and Cement to the extent out products went as deep south as Kenya covering all Ethiopia’s needs (on daily basis) without any interruption. Most Ethiopian restaurants, bars and hotels used our products abundantly and without any problem while most modern Ethiopian buildings were made of our materials and cement which also were massively produced in Eritrea. Our electrical power capacity used to take care of all this and our cities and towns as well without interruption. Apparently, electricity was available in most Ethiopian cities including ours until this point in time.

During the struggle: Eritreans were good in supplying electricity anywhere in the liberated lands of our country. The EPLF was capable of supplying electricity in Afabet and few other strategic towns as soon as it liberated them. Massawa has had enough power and beyond after its liberation back in the late eighties. So did Tessenei, Agordat, Barentu and all Kebessian towns (Segeneiti, Adikeih and Senafe) under the EPLF control before the liberation of the whole country with Keren, Decamhare and Asmara still under the control of the DERG.

Electricity under this regime: We had better electrical services that we inherited from colonialism everywhere in Eritrea during independence: the reason life was at least going relatively better in terms of electricity. Ethiopians left the Massawa power plant and all others as intact as they could have been even at that level of antagonism with us. Today, however, the outrageously destructive regime cannot deliver electricity in the capital city one can only imagine how our people elsewhere in the country are living.

The question: How can this regime fail to supply electricity at the efficiency level of the struggle 22 years after independence? Can this be accidental or an intentional act to hurt the people? Who is responsible for the despicable power outrage in the country? How can the businessmen in the country that depend on electricity pay taxes without working (restaurants, hotels, factories, bakeries, etc)?

Speculation: Among few other things, one thing is obvious in this dilemma: that the regime does not want Eritreans to access the INTERNET for information: it therefore, denies them electricity at the expense of life and the economy. Asmara, for example was mostly dark for many days after the death of more than 330 Eritreans in the sea to deny the people information from international sources and to avoid any reaction that may cause a problem to the regime. Darkness is being used against Eritreans like poverty and ignorance as state policy to crash their confidence, access to information and their right to gathering. The rest of the story is mysterious and I let it go with Wedi Tikabo’s phrasing “Nimintai kemzi weriduna tezinegruna eqo hadeneger iyu neiru”. The saying by the way comprises a conspiracy theory in the background.

Hagerawi:  “Unity for the Eritreans should mean keep ur parties but let us stop insulting each other and find a way to have a kind of ACTION COMMITTEE so that we can take necessary action together. Not the OLD ELF and EPLF was of saying ” SEMRET” The sickness of the so called Eritreans party leaders (the cause is long years of war and bastardized politics) is to be a boss. Let them be in their clan, or party, but let us force them to work together… anyway it is just a simple idea).

Comment: The EPLF and ELF style of SIMRET produced civil war in Eritrea because it was not real. War solved the problem between the two fronts at the end of the day and therefore I agree that their style of SIMRET is destructive for us. The remnants of that mentality have been the cause of our fragmentation at this point in the go as we see it from the impotent opposition leaders in Addis. Forcing them to unite under pressure is possible to do but the fragmented youth organizations cannot do it as they stand confused today because they are not united. You need to be united first to put pressure on the forces to unite!

Kalighe: “Unity is an essential prerequisite to uproot a bloody grown tyranny. Simply said, they are there, doing it in front of our eyes, dismantling our country piece by piece, because we have been unable to gather enough forces to remove them. The longer they are at work the more we are divided. Can’t we stop that? The traditional way of unity is not giving results. There are too many people who are worried about the future of their group, their party, their community etc. so they are quick to put on the table [or under the table] so many issues that can be decided upon in the aftermath of the regime removal. It’s strange to hear people talking about this group or that group trying to grab power, really!!. It’s impossible for any group, no matter how big, to monopolize power and benefit from it: it’s the very reason for which Higdef is losing. So why so much panic and mistrust? There isn’t any way a particular group can repeat Higdef’s failed experience and bring the country to normality.
That is why we need to weed out this suspicion from our political culture. We need to realize that everyone counts. Every voice is important and should be listened to. Everyone should feel that Eritrea is big enough to accommodate all of us. It has enough resources to support tens of millions. We need to put behind every issue that can weaken us [at list for the time being], and assure to ourselves that every grievance will get enough attention when the right time comes.”

Comment: We Eritreans could not get a better opportunity than the recent disaster in the sea to change the government, yet it did not wake up the opportunist and selfish members of our opposition forces to this effect. They could not even address the tragedy in unison God knows what they do in Addiss! They are as good destructive and anti-Eritrean as the regime in Asmara has been, at least practically if not emotionally. The opposition groups’ understanding of freedom is still the old fashioned style adapted from the struggle for independence. They love to suppress and monopolize information and keeping it secret like the president (master of censorship) in Eritrea and they do not listen to others like him. They have no talent to excite the people and they bore you to death with silence and stagnation just like their old boss in Asmara.

Folks, one Tunisian life changed the Middle East (Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria) and more than 3000 of them (total) and the recent (>330 lives) could not shake the opposition groups at the wake of unprecedented international uproar on the source of the problem (the Eritrean regime) and continuous voice from distinguished politicians (Connel and Kofi Anan). I would have been ashamed of myself if I were one of them but they keep on going without any feeling to the surprise of the human race. What are they?

The regime denied our victims a decent burial in their country: the negotiation initiated by Yemane Monkey in Italy went down the drain as fake as usual. He was trying to make money out of the tragedy and the Italians knew it: they took the most practical action at last (giving the victims Italian citizenship and burying them in the country). Yet, this failed to motivate the so called opposition forces to unite ONLY temporarily until they change the government. The regime undermined society by rejecting our victims and the opposition rejected the society by failing to unite on their cause. The two destructive forces have proven to be menace to the cause of freedom and democracy in Eritrea. They do not want to unite and they are scared of fighting each other, which at least would have been something interesting to see if that is the only choice as it looks like: It would be better than dead silence and impotence on everything concerning freedom in Eritrea, I just don’t know how we can trust these losers any longer!

In the mean time, the youth organizations are still dizzy on the question of unity as usual. Where is the unified pressure on the opposition forces to unite? What would motivate the youth to unite more than this tragedy? The Diaspora’s reaction to this tragedy has been remarkable: yet, none of them so far is pushing hard for unity (the only solution to the problem). In the mean time, the opposition camp as a whole has one more time blown this wonderful opportunity and effectively killed the momentum of resistance in my opinion. A unified action for unified resistance was necessary immediately after the accident when the international community was freshly intact with it. It may be a little late now but what is our future based on the dormant and hopeless opposition camp that does not respect our interest on unity? If the youth fails to openly take the initiative to unite on this crisis, what does it want? I am afraid that Eritreans will have to start something new as soon as possible by sidelining all opposition groups that resist unity. We need to call the spade a spade and move on.

In conclusion, all of us including the regime and specially the organized youth/opposition groups are responsible for the death of our people in the sea. We are also together responsible for the condition of our refugees in Ethiopia. See you soon