Fetsum’s article
Fetsum: Is Wedi Vacarro running his head ahead of his tail? Is he doing things faster than his objectiveThis article will share my views on whether Wedi Vacarro’s head (Strategy) is well synchronized with his
Fetsum: Is Wedi Vacarro running his head ahead of his tail? Is he doing things faster than his objectiveThis article will share my views on whether Wedi Vacarro’s head (Strategy) is well synchronized with his tail (tactic) to achieve his objective. I will try to present my thoughts about the way the movement has been going and its missing links in relation to its potential appearance to succeed.
First, back to the forum:
Meretse Asmelash: Dear Fistum: Many of us have started to worry what exactly is going on with him. Indeed, having different seminaries at different cities, nations, or around the six continents for that matter is very essential and no one can deny that. However, despite of its importance (seminar after seminar) he simply does not have the luxury of time on his side. Besides, I for one believe every movement be it old or new needs to leave some type of a footnote on the ground where it walked, stood or rest for traceability. Authors who wish to sell their newly published books sign their books for their readers. Singers as well as all companies who have new products for the public hand out their samples and leave information where you can contact them. Wedi Vacaro’s voyage seems to lack that. Hence, if he wants to accomplish his good-hope mission he needs to sit down, work on his road-map, and go from it. Otherwise, if the current time persists down the road it is easy to be tripped and fall down forever without knowing what exactly happened. BTW whatever he is doing I wish him a good-luck.
Comment: I agree that Wedi Vacarro is working hard for his philosophy more than any opposition group and the EDA combined but there is no doubt that he could have done it a lot more assertive. I sometimes see it as a very exciting movement without a cover in the back. As a character, the brother has the material and charismatic capacity to change our situation, but tactically, he appears to be a political adventurer in the fast lane with a lot of voids behind. His movement lacks a concrete road map to Asmara. Nothing is in writing so far and he has not taken the initiative to meet genuine Eritreans for unity as long as my knowledge is concerned. I think these factors at minimum should have been considered prerequisite for his movement way ahead before he started his tour internationally.
The question is if he knows them (genuine Eritreans) or not: I cannot answer this with complete confidence but I know that any person who reads and researches or uses other applicable sources would know who is who in this resistance. Nor do I believe the very hard working and dedicated organizers of his speeches and events had keen interest to make this possible despite my weak expectation from them, in fact none. They were supposed to give him information about dedicated individuals in their communities, only in vain! Experience says that they have served the resistance more than most of us and got it here but they were never willing to interconnect activists and introduce them to each other for obvious reasons beyond this discussion. This is simply the Eritrean mode of activism to my understanding and we will continue paying dearly for this destructive negation like Eritrea has been paying for the regime’s mistake in this regard. I see clear similarity between the opposition and the regime in wasting resources because of greed and fear. Whatever he is doing, I wish him the best like you.
MightyEmbasoyra:“I am just being curious here but Ato Fitsum was writing many articles on “Unity” way before wedi Vacarro’s tour on unity. Did wedi Vacarro at least sat down with Ato Fitsum to talk about it? I would expect it that would a no brainer to do. Did wedi Vacarro add anything new that we haven’t heard or read on those many articles by Ato Fitsum? Or it is just Ato Fitsum initiated and wedi Vacarro tries to implement it.”
Comment: Thanks for asking and here is the answer from global point of view. This is not about who started it or not to me but how we could succeed using all elements of unity and other available resources efficiently. My brother has the potential to be the champion in this connection and this would be wonderful to see as long as we create a condition where our people can peacefully live in their country at the end of the effort.
Unfortunately, the answer is NO and I don’t think it will ever happen with him and the opposition group leaders. Independent minded individuals scare Eritrean politicians (all inclusive) because of many factors I leave for you to figure out. Although I don’t think these factors affected how he did his business in his tours, I have been convinced that there is unbelievable amount of negativity within ourselves to the point we cannot work together for the same cause with substantial love and brotherhood. We suffer from jealousy, greed, denial, ignorance, hasadnet, fear, low self esteem, etc. intensely. EGO has psychologically damaged the Eritrea confidence and the backward culture did its toll in parallel with the unexpected hopelessness at home for some brothers and sisters in the struggle to avoid getting help from our collective talents. The groups insulate themselves effectively that no one can penetrate their circles. No one could force the self in and they block it on purpose in spite of deep urgency to do so. Do not expect any group in the resistance to include people like me in their activities and I strongly believe that the Eritrean case will be resolved one way or another without our direct involvement and that I will continue my life in the States until I die.
I can tell you that exclusion or discrimination pattern was a very hard pill for me to swallow at first as a member of the AMICHE community with a slightly different mindset but I am comfortable with it now because that is what it is and how it is going to be. Eritrean politicians do not even encourage you to contribute for their advantage at all: They simply do not acknowledge your existence because of deep rooted inferiority complex, rigidity, pretension, bias, empty pride and arrogance, again based on my experience!! Brother, you said “I would expect it that would a no brainer to do” and I agree in view of many societies including the Ethiopians but not in view of our politicians.
In so stating, I had deep interest to meet him in person in DC for few minutes; I could not. But I did remind him during his speech about these issues within about 2 or 3 minutes as one of the questioners in the event: the fact that all doors have been closed to genuine Eritreans for unity and that we have been segregated from actively participating in the resistance by groups and individuals that tend to monopolize it completely. I seriously warned him to be careful about the committees and that independent minds would better serve the struggle neutrally and expressed my hope for inclusion in his movement. I also reminded him that we were tired of splitting after meetings with no follow up assignments ahead because of lack of leadership, strategy and mismanagement. I had further written an article ahead of his arrival in Assenna for a chance to meet him in the process (you can go back and see it) and the important of independent minds in the committee. That was the maximum I could do within my capacity to get a minute of his time in privacy and it did not work. As usual as it has always been with other scenarios, the organizers did not want to see this happen and they kept him private within their circle away from other genuine Eritreans until he left the city and that was it. Was I angry? Not at all because who am I anyway to feel that way? I could only get angry if I saw myself different from other Eritreans, which I don’t. Was I disappointed? Yes I was because we could have exchanged ideas and introduce each other for further contact and cooperation.
Based on my observation and experience, the Eritrean opposition leaders (the young and the old) do not want to attract people like me into their resistance and I don’t see any difference with Wedi Vacarro. He is part of the culture that denied us to interconnect and work hard for our people with maximum closeness. Like all others in the category, he came from the culture where the president came from, the reason the opposition is weak and ineffective, I have no idea if this had something to do with it. That is why I did not care much about it. In fact someone told me that they most likely consider me a threat rather than a comrade and I believe it: I have seen enough signs of it in this journey. They see things in terms of competition rather than relationship for a common cause. They deny someone’s talent because of fear and tend to kill it instead of taking advantage of it. They see everything in terms of how it affects their popularity/image and personal interest and tend to discourage you away through many tactics still based on my experience. Isaias does his isolation in terms of MIDISKAL and these poor brothers do it in terms of IGNORING, UNDERMIMNG and DENYING. I have never met any group or individual in this category, nor have I ever been invited to share my opinion in any meeting conducted in Washington DC or elsewhere in the world. It is business as usual: about whom you know rather than what you know and what you can do for the cause and I am living with this reality minus resentment. The more I see them doing it, the more disgusted I get and the stronger I want to stay away from them. I have given up to the point I don’t care meeting them or even seeing them anymore because they do not excite me intellectually and spiritually.
I have no energy to be part of their intrigues and zigzags thank God I have no political or material motive in this resistance except humanitarian to let their weakness affect my life. They can do what they want to do with their thirst for power and attention, but I know I will individually struggle as much as I can from distance until something takes place in Eritrea. It is my spiritual duty to serve for universal freedom and justice and that is where it stops as far as my ERIRAWINET is concerned in this life. As a result of this choice, I am living a peaceful and stress free life under the spiritual guidelines of Buddhism. I, however, will most likely remain here in the States for the rest of it because I don’t think I can live happily and safely in Eritrea after the regime dissolves out of the way, should I stay alive until. I don’t trust the politicians at all!!!
Meretse Asmelash: “ Dear MightyEmbasoyra, I guess Fistum’s initiative is the same like yours and mine. You know the Eritrean politics is very complicated. When it comes to the Eritrean politics someone could come to this world, grows old and die before he/she knew a bit about it. I guess it is the nature of Eritrean politics. For this reason, with a little help here and there we taught wedi vacaro could do the job. Because he seems he got the qualification. But regardless how good is someone it is mission impossible without the help of others.
Regarding your question: I only have the same observation when it comes the realtionship between Fistum and Wedivacaro. I hope wedi vacaro moves the right direction.”
Regarding your question: I only have the same observation when it comes the realtionship between Fistum and Wedivacaro. I hope wedi vacaro moves the right direction.”
Comment: I fully respect his creativity and hard work; and I support him 100% like any other ordinary Eritrean from distance, needless to state that I am for freedom and democracy in Eritrea with honest spiritual commitment for my own psychic gratification. My responsibility here is doing what I can do for the cause within things I can control and moving on with peace of mind. God bless Wedi Vacarro!!I wish the brother the best and I thank him for what he is doing from the depth of my heart.
There is however, a major difference between his philosophy and mine. His philosophy in short is about uniting all Eritreans to officially demand the president’s resignation behind international support and dealing with the process of democracy after the regime ceases to exist. He foresees forming a government after the removal of the regime and expects external support for this cause. The NUMBER of Eritrean supporters of his plan is therefore crucial to attract international politicians into supporting him and he better prove it materially. The committees are at least seemingly supposed to do this job for him in the absence of any written description about his philosophy but I don’t see them helping out by collecting as many Eritreans as possible into the cause in DC (I don’t know how the others are doing) though it is too early to judge. In this regard, the brother should have first organized the committees under this understanding before dispatching them to work with some guidelines, and checking and balancing mechanisms. I don’t think he did this!!
My philosophy is about collecting all opposition groups on equal basis regardless of their political outlooks to form a TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT in absentia and working for international recognition towards temporarily installing it in post Afwerki Eritrea until the groups split into political parties and a permanent constitution is agreed upon. Then of course one of them would win election in Democratic Eritrea to replace the transitional government and run the country under said agreed upon amendable national constitution. This concentrates on temporary unity of all opposition groups for transitional government without directly involving the people but Vacarro’s targets the people in Diaspora (all inclusive) to voice for government change in Eritrea and deal with the rest then after. Mine exclusively focuses on the unity of all organized groups for democratic change in Eritrea and his inclusively focuses on the entire population specially those in the Diaspora to remove the regime by popular demand.
We have the same strategy with different tactics but I believe that he can mix both concepts should he decide to do so and we will see what happens in the future.
Dani:“Fetsum, I could not understand what your message is. I am wondering what you are going to achieve by writing such article. I think you are missing something. I would love you join Wedi Vacaro and fill the missing gap. So please if you can join him to bring down this devil who is destroying our people and country. You have spent so much time on commenting. You must say enough is enough to in action including your confusing articles. Wedi Vacaro is a Hero and he should continue till we bring these criminal self appointed regime of Gug Mangug.”
Comment: I wrote that article to share my personal view and nothing else for. Yes Wedi Vacarro is a hero and he should continue the struggle till victory. I am sorry for my confusing articles. I, however, cannot join Vacarro without his invitation nor could I force myself into his movement bypassing the timidly tight organizers of his events that privatized him in his tours. Vacarro does not know me as long as I am concerned. I don’t even think he has ever read my articles on unity. I hope the brother has collected other Eritreans for help but I do not exist in his mind to “fill the missing gap”, my capacity to do this immaterial. I can only wish him good luck from the periphery.
Hitzit: “Dear Ato Futsum:Thank you and you deserve admiration for your time for offering your feedback. On the issue of secession though, we have to be very objective, not subjective per se. People can belive secession as a concept, but in our case we cannot afford to entertain the idea of secession when the unity and solidarity of all Eritrean citizens opposition and civic groups and individual politicians are prereqisuite to fight the dictatorsip. To me it is like putting the horse behind the Wagon. Every standing issue can be resolved within the frame work of future democratic Eritrea. Democracy is not applied in the same way in different societies. The demoracy that is practised in Europe is not the same like the one in North America. Each country is free to tailor its democracy to suite to customs and cultures of that country, provided the people of acountry agree upon.”
Comment: I do not think any sane Eritrean supports the secession of any region in our country but you can only assert your position of unity through unconditional equality of all Eritreans and democratic rule. Minus that, you can neither stop the tendency of separation nor can you justify your objective of unity. We have nothing to fear here if we unconditionally support each other and install genuine democracy in our country: the society can challenge any separatist movement only under these conditions needless to say that education (literacy) will take care of the rest.
Is Wedi Vacarro doing things faster than his objective? Is he running his head ahead of his tail?
This is a hard topic to discuss but important for all of us to be aware of. My subjective opinion on the way the brother is navigating his philosophy says that he is doing it without solid preparation and organizational input. Vacarro dispatched his movement in reaction to the Lampadusa accident and he said this clearly in his speeches. This means he started it on emotional grounds rather than on research oriented reasoning and collective Eritrean brain power. It was hasty, lacks strong intellectual content in my understanding and it will dearly pay the price as a result unless swiftly reconfigured. The question is why I think this way and here are my answers for that:
a) Like I said earlier, he did not present his ideas in writing, the reason people have problems understanding what it was all about. This cannot attract international politicians at all because lack of documentation is the best sign of weakness in intellectual substance.
b) He had no instruction as to how the committees should have been organized, the reason he left it open for anyone to be a member of, without forecasting the possibility of infiltration from both sides of the duality (the government and the opposition). This situation allowed the committees to be dominated by individuals affiliated with certain groups in the resistance including few anti-Vacorrian individuals as well. This is ok though because it would allow different minds to interact and resolve something in unison, but only without grudges and competition and in the condition the committees were not left to operate alone without checking and balancing mechanism from their respective communities. As it stands today, the opposition groups have tremendous power to destruct and paralyze his movement from within. In other words, they can remotely control and even destroy his movement through their people in the committees, and I am afraid the damage might have already been done. The Vacarroian philosophy of unification may fail as a result of internal sabotage from within the committees if it has not failed yet!!
c) It is not clear whether there is a connection between him and the committees and there is no sign of forward movement through the committees to date, my case in point being the Washington DC scenario. We have not heard anything or seen any activity yet from our committee in DC. We don’t know if it is waiting for direction from him, simply napping it out because of incapacity or deliberate sabotage, still giving it the benefit of the doubt because of the holiday season. One wonders on what the next assignment and what the ultimate guideline may be. How are the committees organized to deliver what? There is no information on what they are supposed to do next: Are they totally independent of him or not? Has there been any connection between him and the committees since the movement started?
d) How are the committees everywhere designed to work interdependently? Are they interconnected with each other under a centralized body?
e) There is no dedicated website where we can share our ideas openly to date and I have no idea how Vacarro will communicate with the people and read their minds.
f) There is no information to date on whether he fully supports the EDA and what he plans to do with it and the other groups in the resistance. This is a very important issue he needs to address immediately in my opinion, for people to have a clear picture of his agenda.
g) There is no information as to how he met and what he discussed with the US State Department and the UN and what his challenges had been. Everything seems to be kept in secret and this is not good at all.
h) There is no information as to who his advisors were and no one knows how he continues doing his activities and drafts his plans ahead. On what basis or requirement did he choose his advisors if he did indeed?
i) There is no sign that the committees would involve other minds from their respective communities to assist and everything seems to be back to the old days of stillness (inactivity)
Enjoy the drama without personalizing it
lon adi January 7, 2014
Dear Fitsum,
First, thanks for an interesting read. I respect your opinion, and understand most of your points. However, I agree with a couple of the comments above that you should not wait to be invited. Having said that, I just remember how I first find out there were deleyti fethi meetings, and hmm, you may be right, I guess it can be difficult unless you know at least one person who is already there (but am sure you must know many people, am fairly new to the DC area, compared to you. Let’s go to the solution as it can be an issue to many others too. One thing I can assure you though, nothing has been done to exclude others. Please understand the limitation we have. In fact, I dare you to take the task of making sure many independent minds like you are involved. I will call you tomorrow to get your email; I will give you all the emails we have for DC area; you add yours and other emails you have, and we will try to reach more people. The reason you have not heard from the DC area committee is because it has not yet finished delegating the tasks/departments. Once we are done delegating tasks to each committee member who will be acting as the coordinator of his/her particular ‘department’, everyone, YES Everyone is welcome to work in the section s/he feels can be productive. Hope you are ready! In the coming weeks, you will be happy to see the website with mission statements, planned meetings, if any, and any other relevant information. Again, there is nothing ever done to exclude anyone purposely, but the limitation in resources can make it look so. Please lets bring all the issues and work on the solution together. Wait for the call tomorrow:)….or email me your email address lonadi@yahoo.com. Keep up the good fight!
fetsum abrahamt January 7, 2014
Hi Lon,
Good news and thank u. I can not e-mail u from my PCs because of scam and I think it is better if u call me at 202-702-3977. But text me first so that I know who is calling. Tnx. My E-mail does not work and I do not want to release my new e-mail here for a reason.
Genet January 7, 2014
That is what I am talking about. This is the time to act, for smart and honest people to help the Eritrean people.
Genet
Thomas Tewelde January 8, 2014
Why dont you write about your mentors Sofia Tesfamarima and Ghideon Abay Asmerom during your high days in DC.
Salem January 8, 2014
Dear Fitsum I absolutely agree to what you wrote and I fully understand and share your views with regard to the ‘mitekikhab’ and initiative of Eritreans without clear roadmap and objectives. As in most cases you find this “mt’ekhikhabat’ short lived ineffective with shallow ideas messages. I reckon this is the main cause for the ‘shenkolel’. I strongly agree on the point that independent minds and thinkers like you would have been more productive and would have made the political struggle much more easier than it is now had they been asked or got chance to participate on all public forums and speeches. As history shows such invitations have never happened. Because most politicians seek for pseudo- scientists (intellectuals) with malleable intelligence and manipulative. The reason is obvious.
However, having said that I don’t accept the point you stated, however, I cannot join Vacarro without his invitation nor could I force myself into his movement bypassing the timidly tight organizers of his events that privatized him in his tours. Dear Fitsum I believe you shouldn’t wait for someone to invite you to be part of his initiative. Mind you!!! As you said there so many ‘gug magug’ and incompetent people (who seem to be organizers) but want to kidnap every opportunity. Dear Fitsum, with due respect I wouldn’t choose your preference to put yourself as a spectator. As long as you are Eritrean, possessing such a sharp mind and independent thinking capacity, I believe you have the right to shape the destiny of our country. Starting from now you have the moral responsibility to organize yourself with the people with whom you feel they have or share your views for good and commit for noble cause. If you allow me I would love to call you and share my views.
Warmly
Salem
fetsum abrahamt January 9, 2014
Dear Salem;
Thank u very much for ur encouraging words and I loive to talk to u at 202-702-3977. Tnx