A stagnant mind in Asmara reflects at the AU summit through Ambassador Girma Asmerom’s vocal chord

By Fetsum Abraham
The Author of “From Feminist to Rapist”//”The Curse of Being and Living it”

A worker was abused by his boss both verbally and physically to find himself surprised and disappointed when the abuse stopped for a while. He had been conditioned to accept the offense as gratuity for his servitude or as approval to his productivity and associated the break with his unacceptable performance.
• The blind supporters of the regime will never get enough of Afwerki’s abuse because they are conditioned to feel useless without. Their empty mind has nothing to produce and only waits for thinking analysis to take place in Afwerki’s mind so that they can broadcast the result everywhere. Worthlessness is associated with their existence: they must have their doze of abuse for their lives to feel meaningful. They are addicted to humiliation and can not accept equality with the boss and speak their mind (whatever that mind is worth for). Afwerki knows this very well and continues to give them their fix to keep them around. He does not appreciate their intelligence and hummers that insecure head with the language it understands: more abuse and humiliation. You give a dog a piece of meat to bark around and you humiliate a blind Afwerkist to keep him around: Afwerki perfectly applies this logic on his useless followers.
• Apparently, we are similar to other materials on earth. A human being is after all a molecule composed of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon atoms for the most part that gets affected by environmental and circumstantial factors like any MATER there is. When a mind is unused for a long time, it rusts; when it is denied the freedom of exposure to other ideas through freedom of speech by the self or by authority, it remains static in substance. It loses its creativity and becomes a passive partner with no other role in society than listening to the boss: a mere receiver like a radio. A person in this condition lives at a lower level of one’s potential. Add a little humiliation and bullism here and there from the boss to that, the stagnant mind loses its composure and the minute level of confidence left within; completely surrendering to absolute dictation. The psychological state of a person in this condition should then be dull and monotonous: a conformist mind conditioned to paraphrase what has been said or to read what has been written like a transmitting antenna in a communication link.
• The president by the way is highly emotional; has physically attacked one of his men in a public bar once upon a time in the Eritrean experience: he was drunk. THE VICTIM ACCEPTED IT AS PRESIDENTIAL SLAP AND MOVED ON. I also know from first hand information that two lower officials had critically bitten a Minister (Naizghi Kiflu) up in a bar in downtown Asmara. All this hooliganism in public, I suppose reflects the president’s sociological outlook overall and his refusal to conform to the universal presidential code of conduct. The president wants to have the cake and eat it too: to be ordinary and a leader concurrently.
• To my research, there exist at least two ways of controlling people:
• Blackmailing: “is the crime of threatening to reveal damaging or embarrassing information in order to [earn] cooperation out of the victim. For blackmail to be effective, the blackmailer must, in most cases, have physical proof of the information he or she threatens to reveal, such as photographs or letters. Blackmail [] in this sense [] may rely on a threat of action other than exposing the victim’s secrets.”
• Although this tactic should certainly have been used through out the Eritrean experience, I do not personally think it is any longer practical in Eritrea. The president does not have to do anything in order to eliminate a person because he dictates the Eritrean life absolutely. Like in Sadam’s Iraq and Kadaffi’s Libya, this criminal method of achieving cooperation does not work in Afwerki’s Eritrea, where there is no transparent communication between the leader and the people because of the monopolized media and press in the country. Meles Zenawi, however, used blackmailing as one of his best tactics of sidelining (NOT ELIMINATING) his opponents in few events: he jailed his first deputy prime minister through the blackmail of CORRUPTION in the nineties and used it on SIYE ABRAHA to neutralize him from his political circle, to state the least.
• Psychological manipulation: “also known as emotional manipulation, is a form of persuasion. It can involve brainwashing or bullying, and is usually deceptive or abusive in nature. It typically uses various forms of abuse, such as emotional blackmail[ing (inculcating fear and insecurity)]” and verbal abuse.” Manipulative people may lack appropriate sensitivity and caring for others, or they may believe that manipulating others is the best way to get what they want. Manipulative people may be afraid to form healthy relationships, or afraid of not being accepted. Manipulative behaviors often stem from an inability to accept responsibility for one’s own life, problems, and behaviors. Psychological manipulation tactics are often employed in an attempt to foist that responsibility off on others.”
• DISKELA (freezing) is a Maoist method of psychological manipulation: demoralizing a suspect by means of paying the person for uselessness. Such a person is fired from the post without one’s knowledge. The salary is paid fully and the office is open for the person but no one at work communicates with him. He gets the point after a lot of humiliation behind his back. The person is also restricted from working another job and moving around at will. Most victims end up frustrated and resolve the problem by means of boozing. This is killing a person’s substance by mental emasculation. No one wants to be in this situation. Such a person is willing to do anything after that to prove his obedience to the boss.
• Manipulatively controlling people is of course way of life in the Eritrean government circle. Mr Afwerki may not be that intelligent and highly educated but is a master of manipulation because he is obsessively controlling. Once again, these “behaviors often stem from an inability to accept responsibility for one’s own life and problems. ” He can not control his life and he controls other lives in revenge. I call people like Afwerki Explosive Sufferers in my coming book “SPIRITUAL ENGINEERING”(though I do not discuss him there); meaning that they are too cold to care for anyone. They suffer internally and they cause extreme suffering externally as a result. They explode: they radiate negative energy to the atmosphere or dissipate their internal inferno on society.
• Because of fear and opportunism, the Eritrean officials including Girma Asmerom are tightly controlled through the president’s meticulous psychological manipulation.
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• GIRMA ASMEROM IN AU (Africa Union)
• Our representative attended the latest AU summit in Addis: According to the government of Eritrea’s Press Release; ” Ambassador Girma calls on the AU to pay serious attention to implementation of EEBC ruling”, Asmara, 30 January 2013; in Shabait; –
• “Eritrea’s Ambassador to the African Union (AU), Mr. Girma Asmerom, has called on the Union, as one of the guarantors of the Algiers Agreement of December 2000, to pay serious attention to the implementation of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC)’s final and binding ruling.”
Comment
I thought this idea was monotonously exhausted in such a forum for any audience to be excited about. Did not the universe pay too much attention to implement it to the extent of deploying 4000 UN supervised international forces in the country a long time ago? Did not the universe walk passed that experience already (because of the regime’s extremely rigid and destructive diplomacy) and conditioned to desperately wait for a miracle to permanently close this very direct and simple political business? Afwerki kicked out the UN officers before completing the job just because they did not do it punctually as a result of Ethiopian reluctance to give back Badme without dialogue with Eritrea. What does he want now and can he be specific?
Eritrea on the podium continues;
“Ambassador Girma made the call in a speech he delivered at the African Union Summit which convened in Addis Ababa on 28 January 2013. He emphasized that despite the fact that the Eritrea-Ethiopia border issue has reached legal conclusion in accordance with the EEBC’s ruling on the basis of the Algiers Peace Agreement, sovereign Eritrean territories, including the town of Badme, still remain under Ethiopian occupation, thus attesting to the AU’s failure to live up to its responsibility. Ambassador Girma further reminded the Union to play its due role as regards bringing an end to Ethiopia’s continued occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories, and thereby promote peace and stability in the entire Horn of Africa region.”
Comment
Everybody knows that the Eritrea-Ethiopia border issue has reached legal conclusion but here is the Question: What does Girma want the AU to do? Return Badme by fighting or by diplomacy? AU accepts the Algers Agreement like any other nation and organization in the world; the UN, USA, EU EGAD included. By this, AU fully carried its responsibility; the rest is our diplomatic responsibility ladies and gentlemen!!! AU has no answer to the Eritrean issue that has already been answered way back in 2000. Brother Girma was, therefore a little backward in psychological time in this scenario.
I stand willing to be corrected but I believe the only country that does not want to resolve the Badme crisis is Eritrea, needless to state that Ethiopians must eventually return Badme to its owner Eritrea and most likely peacefully and diplomatically. They know this very well. This remains to be the first national assignment of any visionary leader after Afwerki who failed to solve the problem by force and by diplomacy (the only means of resolving such a problem).
NEGOTIATION
Conventionally, one does not negotiate with an ally but with an enemy. The concept of negotiation was created to settle the difference between two opposing sides (all inclusive) by means of dialogue AND compromise rather than by means of violence. But the Eritrean president does not want to talk to the Ethiopians; how then can the Ethiopians give Badme back to Eritrea? Should the international community airlift and drop it in Asmara in the absence of a diplomatic receiver from the Eritrean government? Badme is a RealEstate that can not be delivered by mail or a Messenger. Someone from our country must sit down to sign the relevant documents associated with reintegrating it to its motherland Eritrea. This is what the Eritrean government is refusing to do.
Please see the following article for substance:
ARTICLE: Ethiopia PM willing to talk to Eritrea
In an exclusive interview, Hailemariam Desalegn tells Al Jazeera he is ready to speak to President Issaias Afeworki.
Last Modified: 06 Dec 2012 12:49

“Hailemariam Desalegn, Ethiopia’s prime minister, has said that he is willing to hold talks with neighboring Eritrea, with whom Addis Ababa fought a border war that ended in 2000. “If you ask me, ‘Do you want to go to Asmara and sit down and negotiate with Isaias Afwerki?’ Then, I will say yes’,” Hailemariam said in an interview with Al Jazeera to be broadcast on Saturday.
“The most important thing for us is to fight poverty … to have regional integration. If we two do that, it will be much more productive,” Hailemariam added.
“My predecessor Meles Zenawi had asked for more than 50 times even to go to Asmara and negotiate with Mister Isaias Afwerki,” he said.””
Comment
The Ethiopian Prime Minister indicated that Ethiopians are focused on fighting poverty and regional integration based on transparent socio-economical factors. The country’s vision on the ground testifies to this statement. There is no secret to the thought that they want to use our ports for money and negotiate this along side the process by which Badme comes home to Eritrea. Is not this what we Eritreans want too? Don’t you want to get paid in millions of dollars from Ethiopians for using our ports? Whether we like it or not Ethiopians have the right to use our ports by agreement with any Eritrean government like they have the right to use port Djibouti by agreement with the government of Djibouti.
We own the ports but we can not deny our neighbor Ethiopia access to the sea as long as it conforms to a mutually beneficial deal, meaning that they will pay to use our ports like they do it with Djibouti for civilian and commercial purposes. Any landlocked country has after all the right to use the ports of a neighboring country by agreement (there are 48 landlocked countries in the world that survive by applying this civilized understanding). In our case, Ethiopians further want to secure peace out of the proxy war going on for years by the two countries through negotiation. Is not this what we want too; so that our business people can benefit from the big market in Ethiopia should Eritrea decide to adapt peaceful coexistence and a free market economic policy in the future?
MONOTONOUS DECEPTION THAT DOES NOT WORK IN TODAY’S REALM OF ERITREAN PUBLIC AWARENESS
The turn of events concerning the issue convinces me that the Eritrean government is still trying to distort the truth here telling its blind followers that Ethiopians have a hidden agenda on our ports that they want to spell out in the so called negotiation process. The question is; what if this was the case? In what way can this ‘anticipated Ethiopian tendency’ affect the fate of Badme and our ports when the so called negotiation ought to be conducted with Eritrea’s absolute freedom to reject it if necessary? Ethiopians can talk whatever they want in such a dialogue and I keep going rejecting what I do not like if I had that responsibility; PERIOD: would not you?
By all logical means; Eritrea’s ownership of the sea and the ports has already been assured through the following legal procedures and no Eritrean political group or individual should be insecure of this!!
1) Eritrean/Yemeni agreement provoked by the Hanish Island crisis. The outcome of this conflict has assured Eritrea to legally own its share of the RED SEA and ISLANDS by universal understanding.
2) The border interface between Djibouti and Eritrea, and that between the Sudan and Eritrea assures us the legal ownership of our sea coast, the islands and the ports by universal consensus.
3) The Algers agreement with Ethiopia and the international verdict at the HAGUE guarantee Eritrea’s ownership of its share of the Red Sea, the ports and islands through the signatures of Prime Meles Zenawi and at least that of the US, African Union and UN representatives’ on the binding legal document in discussion.
Therefore;
The Eritrean nationhood with its current geographic look is irreversible by force or by conspiracy for ever. The boundaries have been demarcated already. All Eritrea needs now is a devoted leadership that secures peace and Badme through negotiation with Ethiopia. Brother Girma Asmerom’s speech on this subject at the AU was, thus, respectfully nagging, boring and static in flavor that can only originate from a rigidly centralized mind somewhere else: A mind as such stagnates the flow of life itself. It kills the essence of time in society; lacks creativity, dwelling on the same expired and out-of-sink rhetoric with reality. In so stating, I do not think poor Girma was allowed to articulate his thoughts of the issue to the degree of comfortable subjective representation; not in this absolute dictatorship environment!! The brother, nevertheless, appeared to have duplicated the mind of the central command in beautiful Asmara stressing;
“that the Eritrea-Ethiopia border dispute has been resolved through the Final and Binding arbitration ten years ago, the Eritrean Ambassador to the AU underscored that the problem has nothing to do with the issue of “political will” or “dialogue.” As such, attempts to push the two parties to go back to so-called “dialogue and the negotiating table” are but acts designed to derail and frustrate the legally and conclusively resolved border issue. ”
Comment
I partially agree with Girma in that dialogue has nothing to do with the border issue but again it does. A smart politician would convert it to hit his objective. What is wrong with having a dialogue and using it to achieve the goal (returning Badme) instead of wasting the opportunity otherwise for no result? Is not this the same failed diplomatic path that has been over-used by the government to suppress the democratic and justice demands of our country?
CONCLUSION
To rap it up; Eritrea’s unflinching mentality will continue to hold Eritreans hostage as long as the society tolerates it. What it is that the regime does not want to close the border issue formally because this will open the door for many other pending issues veiled by its Badme excuse to the open. It is sticking to the dead case (border issue) not to implement the constitution because Afwerki will lose power by popular vote in fair election. He is afraid to face the outcome of his many political miscalculations since the last 14 years, such as the consequence of his injustice on many Eritrean prisoners. In this issue, he is in crossroads; he can not release prisoners because quiet a few of them have died in custody and their issues will come to the surface as a result. In the flip of it, he can no longer continue to rule by force without addressing this issue. He is confused but focused on only one thing: his power. The country is not running efficiently to my understanding but in fragmentation based only on how to keep him there without anything else to do. Keeping him in power with nothing else considered important has become the national policy and the political vision of the country at this juncture in the Eritrean experience.

I, likewise see the people’s situation in another version of cross roads: they can no longer sustain the pressure of absolute dictatorship without compromising their nationhood and he will never leave them alone willingly. Apparently, the world has stopped Afwerki from being adventurous elsewhere but no one can change the redundant Eritrean reality except Eritreans. This necessitates an all inclusive (internal + external) united front comprising all resistance groups based on honest desire to challenge the task completely free of domination. Let intellectuals, academicians and the people involve freely in public debates to exchange ideas and to cultivate qualified leadership that can represent the society in the universal arena. Eritreans must stop yearning for leadership individually or in group and concentrate on creating a conducive environment for all to exchange ideas on issues concerning the country publicly and internationally without prejudice and pretension.