ABORTING THE POLITICAL ASPIRATION OF THE PFDJ LEADERSHIP

Dr. Tesfa G. Gebremedhin

When a house is destined for sale, the owner of the house makes the necessary preparation on the house before it is put on the market. The owner removes all the furniture out of the house. The house must be clean and painted both the inside and outside to make it attractive to potential buyers. If it is prepared well, it would appeal to buyers and it should also sell fast and at a reasonable price. In view of what could happen in the preparation of a house for sale in the market, a similar situation has been taking place in the preparation of giving away Eritrea to Ethiopia by the PFDJ leadership. It seems obvious that the PFDJ leader has been in a mission for a long time to prepare Eritrea for the Ethiopians to take over and to make it a part and parcel of their country. Putting into consideration all the spontaneous deliberation recently manifested by the nerve-touching and heart-breaking statements boldly expressed by the two leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea in several occasions, accompanied by the people’s outburst for the misguided and fallacious celebration and funfair events undertaken in many parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea and the disguised and undisclosed agreements signed between Eritrea and Ethiopia and between Eritrea and other neighboring countries, it is unavoidable reality that the two leaders must have some hidden agenda that would jeopardize the sovereignty of Eritrea and the precious national identity and welfare of the Eritrean people.  

The wagon shown below driven by the PFDJ leader is called the wagon for expulsion and migration. The wagon with its driver symbolizes the well-designed and calculated mafia-type organized system and intrigues utilized by the PFDJ leadership to create uncomfortable and unbearable situation in Eritrea for our younger generations and systematically push them away to leave their beloved country involuntarily. The whole mechanism and network reflect how the PFDJ government in Eritrea has been preparing Eritrea for the Ethiopians by removing all Eritreans out of the country. The PFDJ leader says in the image below, “Let’s just go forward!” Where to? It does not really matter with the PFDJ leader where our Eritrean youth disappear as long as they go away out of Eritrea by crossing the borders and he would hope that they would never come back to Eritrea. The cliff in front of the wagon and beyond represent the hardship at the border where there was shoot and kill policy, the senseless inhumane crimes in the deserts and the heart-breaking drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. These are the reflections of the worst conditions our Eritrean young men and women must face and endure to escape from the iron-fisted rule of the PFDJ government and desperately migrate to foreign countries. Obviously, hundreds of thousands of our young men and women have been systematically driven out of the country to become the victims of merciless human traffickers and smugglers together with the support and collaboration of Eritreans from inside Eritrea.

The PFDJ leadership is a vicious gang or clique composed of a very few ‘yes-sir’ gang members maneuvered by a controlling leader. The PFDJ leadership might have some big dreams and wishes to accomplish. The first dream must be to remove tactically all Eritreans out of Eritrea and prepare it for a re-settlement program for the Ethiopians. The second dream must be to remove any territorial barriers and unexpected roadblocks and bottlenecks that could hinder to open the borders, and to give a deaf-ear or ignore the social and political oppositions that could outcry from the inside and outside the country. The third and final dream must be to welcome the Ethiopians at the border and celebrate the ceremony by cutting ribbons, cocktail drinks and Champaign bubbles. To fulfill this reckless mission and life-long dreams, the PFDJ leadership must have already organized two major step by step schemes to expel Eritreans out of Eritrea.  

The first scheme of the PFDJ leadership must be to create and escalate the already unbearable and deplorable situations in Eritrean so that the Eritrean youth including very young and innocent children and mothers would be frustrated and become restless and then to make them aboard the wagon for expulsion and migration. At the edge of the cliff they all get unloaded to go to the border. As we all know it, many must have died crossing the deserts and some of them were buried in the burning sands and some were eaten by the vultures. Mothers and fathers in Eritrea have been crying and weeping tears of blood in their eyes when they were told that their children have been either perished in the desert sands or brutally killed in Libya simply for being innocent migrants. Surely, the rest who managed to escape from the horrific ordeal and who were able to cross the deserts and Mediterranean Sea, have migrated mainly to Europe, North America and Australia. Life in Eritrea has become harsh and intolerable for our Eritrean youth. It is described as a hopeless journey in which they find a dead-end road at the end of the day. It is described as uncertain future in which the Eritrean youth do not see light at the end of the tunnel. It hast became a normal part of life that hundreds of our younger generations must cross the border every possible day to migrate to foreign countries. Many families have been uprooted from their respective villages and towns and ended up in refugee concentration camps mainly in Ethiopia and Sudan. As the result, many family houses are permanently closed in many villages of the country. Finally, in the second scheme members of PFDJ would soon be forced to aboard the wagon for expulsion and migration to be dumped at the border and they would face the same fate and destiny as the previous Eritrean migrants. Such avalanche of human crisis that have happened in Eritrea have rarely occurred in other countries of Africa. This situation has already created economic disaster, social unrest and political chaos and disorder in Eritrea. We should all be aware that this horrible situation is what has been really happening to our beloved Eritrea and to the people of Eritrea and the situation would continue to appear until the PFDJ leadership accomplishes its political aspiration, or until a radical change of government leadership takes place in Eritrea. Hopefully, a miracle would happen soon in favor of the Eritrean people upon the will and the glory of the Almighty God.

We must be careful and smart to realize the dubious intentions of the PFDJ leaderships and the ultimate wishes of the Ethiopian government. It is evident that if the Ethiopians have the slightest opportunity to fulfill their desire, they would never hesitate to take over and put Eritrea under their full control. If the PFDJ leader finds a good opportunity to completely fulfill his selfish desire, he would never stop from attempting to give away Eritrea to Ethiopia on a silver plate. In view of the current situations in Eritrea, we must understand that the massive exodus of our younger generations from Eritrea to Ethiopia and to other countries should be considered as a big threat to the survival of the national sovereignty of Eritrea because the remaining older generations in Eritrea are too old to defend against any foreign aggression or against any hidden agenda agreed between the Ethiopian government and the government in Eritrea. Despite our drawbacks in coming together in unity and our limitations in focusing our attention against our true enemy, all the dreams of the PFDJ leadership and the wishful thinking of the Ethiopian government would never happen at all because the Eritrean youth have stood up on their feet to make sure that Eritrea is and will be for the Eritreans only, no more and no less. Eritrea will remain for the Eritreans forever if and only if we all Eritreans in Diasporas avoid our immature behaviors, mere ignorance and lack of discipline frequently manifested on the social medias and if we stop creating animosity, hostility, quarrels, and squabbles among ourselves and if we really rely concentrating on our immediate national issues that concern all Eritreans. We need to come together in peace and unity and join hands with our Eritrean young men and women who are leading the way in various countries, regions and continents. Giving the power to the people must be our national obligation and goal to accomplish together as concerned Eritreans.

It must be clear to every Eritrean without distinction to age, gender, ethnicity, region and religion that we, Eritreans in Diasporas cannot remove the PFDJ leadership from its position by shouting in anger on the social medias or by throwing rocks and stones with a sling-shot from a distance. But, we can play a significant role in support of the people’s movement in Eritrea to abort the hidden agenda of both the PFDJ and Ethiopian leadership and to help dispose the PFDJ leadership from its position. If we really understand the deep-rooted offensive causes and painful effects of what have been happening in Eritrea over the years and if we are really concerned about the welfare of our people and determined to defend and safeguard the sovereignty of Eritrea, we need to come together in unity to step one step forward far beyond ‘enough is enough’ campaign and accomplish our final goal. We need to establish a strong and powerful formal organization with its necessary appropriate institutional characteristics and proper structural formation. The immediate thing to do is that like the mass organization during the struggle for independence, our various scattered many political functions, civic groups, people’s movements, and social medias must be properly coordinated and well-disciplined and appropriately interconnected at national, regional and inter-continental levels in North America, Europe, Australia, Middle East, and Africa with a common ground under the same umbrella or banner called ‘The Rainbow Coalition of Eritreans for Justice and Democracy in Eritrea,’ in which every concerned Eritrean in Diasporas must be registered as a member of the organization at local or national level. The Rainbow Coalition must reflect the full consideration, strong combination and fair representation of all Eritreans by gender, ethnicity, region, religion, and age to initiate and propel a united and dynamic people’s movement. Our organization must first be uniquely positioned and well-grounded to cultivate and strengthen its movement at local and national levels to successfully accomplish its national obligations. Our organization must be led by properly elected competent, educated, dedicated, devoted and well-disciplined Eritrean young men and women supported by prominent Eritrean scholars and professionals and Eritrean elders of great wisdom, maturity and experience to serve as major advisors, mentors and even as guardian angels. The organization must have some active committees engaged in various functions and division of labor or responsibilities. One of the committees should be a Fund-Raising and Finance Committee engaged in raising funds from members, humanitarian and supporting organizations to finance the people’s movement in Eritrea, to financially assist Eritreans involved full time in running the movement, and to allocate funds for organizing demonstrations and other events. A Research and Development Committee composed of Eritrean scholars and professionals is desperately needed to conduct research on the nature of the various undisclosed agreements signed with Ethiopia and other countries by PFDJ leadership in the name of Eritrea and to prepare legal procedures that could refute, expunge, or defuse these concealed agreements because these agreements could lead to undesirable political subjugation, social assimilation and economic integration of Eritrea with Ethiopia without the consent of the Eritrean people. The signed agreements could be detrimental to the sovereignty of Eritrea and adversary to the welfare of its people.  Members of the Research and Development Committee would also be engaged in the preparation of programs for national economic development and social progress after the demise of the PFDJ leadership in Eritrea. A Committee for Lobbying and Publicity is also another important committee which should be engaged in lobbying for support from UN, AU, EU and other international organizations, US Department of State, UK parliament, and other governments. The members of this committee must have the experience in lobbying with the necessary communication skills and the way with people. A Committee for Recruitment and Mobilization must be formed to recruit and mobilize membership, to organize demonstrations and other important social and political events, to initiate public discussions, symposium or orientations that would help to expose the evil and wicked PFDJ leadership in Eritrea. We might even need the divine intervention in removing the PFDJ regime from its roots and in instituting and propelling the rule of law in Eritrea.

It is obvious that we love our country and respect our people. Traditionally, we have been fortunate that we have never had broken homes in our households because marriage is considered as a sacred and blessed institution in our society. But nowadays, our family unit has been disintegrated, our family tie has been dismantled, and our extended family system has been disconnected and our Eritrean children have been constantly separated from their parents by forcing them to participate in the summer field program, to attend the Sawa military training, and to serve in the endless national military service. Consequently, it is unfortunate that we have a broken nation because the PFDJ regime has disrespected our family values and national cultural heritage and disgraced the sovereignty and integrity of our country and the identity and dignity of the Eritrean people. If our concern or desire is then to safeguard the sovereignty of our country and secure the welfare of our people, we must all wake up to do the right thing immediately before it is too late. Currently, we have a good opportunity to identify our enemies or opponents and to appreciate our friends or supporters in our people’s movement for a change. We need to understand that if we do not have enemies amongst ourselves, the enemies from outside cannot hurt us much. The worst thing to do in life is to become the adversary of our own people. We should not worry about our enemies because we know them very well, but we must be very careful about our so-called friends and even relatives because they know us from inside out. Lao Tzu says, “S/He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.” So also, our Eritrean youth have come out leading the way for all of us and they say enough is enough and let us go to work.  It is then time to go to work because we have a job to do. The time has already arrived at our door steps for the old generation and our Eritrean scholars and professionals to break our barriers and come out of our cocoon or egg shells, to spread our wings and fly like an eagle by joining hands in unity and dignity with our young men and women in support of the dynamic Eritrean people’s movement. We, the older generation and Eritrean scholars and professionals need to boldly speak out and actively participate in the current dynamic Eritrean People’s Movement for our own sake and for the sake of our children and grandchildren. Our children and grandchildren will have the opportunity to enjoy the fruits and harvests of tomorrow from the seeds we sow and plant today. We can only live in peace and harmony tomorrow, if we respect our national identity today. It is evident that if we do not know our identity, we know nothing about ourselves, or if we lose our Eritrean identity, we lose everything. We came to this world as Eritreans; we have lived in this world as Eritreans; and when the time comes we must leave this world as Eritreans. We are who we say we are. We are the proud Eritreans who cherish our Eritrean identity, honor our martyrs, and respect our Eritrean people. God bless Eritrea and its people!

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