Dear Semere,

I came across your superbly written discourse about the Eritrean Termidor at Awate.com under the title, “He Doesn’t Hate you; He despises You.”  What prompted me to pen down a bit of my take is, your portrayal of him [Isaias] as the one who despises but doesn’t hate Eritreans; and as the one who ‘loved Eritrea.‘  Had it not been for this blemish, I tell you, I wouldn’t eavesdrop on your article.  But I beg to disagree.  Not only does he despise us; but also hates us.  Neither does he love Eritrea nor Eritreaness.

If only we could listen to one another, we would have had a consensus as to how to confront the dictator, as his story, from alpha to omega [approaching], ran a gamut of misdeeds.   Sadly, we are devoid of any consensus and consequently unable to fight him.

What has made this possible is our understanding of him: his zombies and foot soldiers portray him as a ‘hero,’ who, with his divine powers, singlehandedly saved us from annihilation by the Ethiopians; therefore, equating him with God.  There was a story once heralded by his devotees that Isaias, the Gladiator, fired the whole magazine of his AK 47 on a wall with the intended purpose of showing his creative powers; and what was the poked marks on the wall reveal?  His name.  Do these people have innate abilities of reason an sanity?  These people believed in this kind of absurd narrative that It is impossible to reason with them.

Some still rationalize his misdeeds as unfortunate episode but doesn’t erase the fact that he was a hero; therefore, an attempt to offset his misdeeds with his pseudo heroism and absolve him of any responsibility.

Whats more, there are those commoners or tegadeltys’ alike, though giants, to use your own adjectives, were nonetheless dwarfed by the dictator, who are eagerly awaiting for the genuine Eritrean history to be told.

Such is the enigma surrounding him that we couldn’t even agree about his legacy when in fact he has been implementing his decades old hidden agenda of destroying Eritrea and its people; if only we could open our eyes and listen to one another.

Mr. Semere,

I am a bit surprised at your description of him and you should have known more than anybody else that the dictator was neither a hero nor he loved Eritrea.  Despite what his herd would like to describe him, he never fired a single shot and according to Mesfin Hagos, he never commanded an army.  He is a coward bully who relied, like a street boy, on violence and settled scores through the barrel of a gun.  He is the destroyer of the Eritrean nation and the hater of Eritreans.  He is in our midst to annihilate us unless we wake up; and wake up soon.  Since his early days, he was bent on destroying the Eritrean national interest when he, for example, had made an unholy alliance with the woyanes in his odyssey to annihilate the ELF in the early 80s. This could hardly been described as a love for Eritrea.

Even now, look at how the well planned work-in-progress of slowly de-populating Eritrea.  According to the UNHCR, Eritrea is hemorrhaging of its youth at alarming rate of 1500 per month.  At this rate, what is going to happen in two or three years time?  Who is the dictator preparing an empty Eritrea for?  This is what an enemy does.  It is so appalling that we don’t even have a plan to reverse this dangerous trend.

What was, for example, the reaction to the Lampedusa victims?  It is incredible but  true that while the whole world united in grief, their own government described them as, ‘African migrants‘ with complete apathy to their suffering.

A true Eritrean, for example would have invested in human resources.  What poor Eritrea is subjected to is the brain drain of the work force and the educated.  This is the deadly enemy we are facing, not the person who ‘loved Eritrea.’  Achievers and true leaders don’t do this to their people; enemies and invaders do.

I could have described more and more of what, every decent Eritrean, know about this dictator.  Despite your portrayal of him, I don’t hesitate for a moment you fail to understand the misery and predicament of our people.

Dear Semere,

More than forty years since the dictator towered above us, we still couldn’t solve the enigma surrounding him: we still debate whether he loved Eritrea or not, we still wrangle about his importance or lack thereof, in the Eritrean Independence struggle. Worse yet, to the consternation of many Eritreans, he is portrayed as the embodiment of Eritrea and its independence; so much so that to some loud mouthed loyalists, Eritrean Independence wouldn’t have materialized without him.  Remember that this person, as the proverbial connotation implies – success has a thousand fathers, while failure is an orphan –  has spent his entire life in aggrandizing himself in every achievement our compatriots had and belittling others for every setbacks they suffered.  Once, we were told, women were hysterically ululating the tunes of, “wedi afom birye nska anbesa asakirka nebriye.”  What better way of creating a herd mentality than this?  Not only does he despise us, but also hate us.  It is time to wake up!

Regards,

Tesfamichael Kidane