At the biggest Eritrean public meeting held in Jeddah celebrating reconciliation between the ELF-RC and the PLF, Osman Saleh Sabe explained that he never knew that what he was doing was wrong.  He added, he was misled by his supporters’ loudness, cheering and clapping hands. He said in a clear statement that the staunch supporters were fully responsible for what had gone wrong.  Accordingly, in an autocratic leadership the onus of putting sense into the leadership rests on the staunch supporters’ level of loudness, which is expressed in the form of loud cheering, dancing, and clapping hands.  In sports, for example, athletes are carried away with the excitement of their fans.  With the loudness and cheering, the playing defenders are into more defending and the playing attackers are driven into more attacking.  Similarly, autocratic leaders like Isayas seek to excel in everything by suppressing dissenting opinions, even minor controversial issues about their governance.  Despite Isayas’s intimidation and threats the people’s dissenting opinions could not be brought under complete control.  Yes, because he is surrounded by some yes-persons, he thinks he’s always right and his word is the law and final.  His only concern is the Eritrean Diasporas diehards, offshore investors.  There is no governance issue so long the offshore investors are clapping their hands in support of what he is doing.

Isayas designed himself by fitting into the shoes of Sabe.  Isayas as a supreme power runs Eritrea like a tiny shop, everything is within his reach and no need for step tools to reach high shelves where the old items are collecting dust, such as the constitution.  Isayas is only humbled and warmhearted as well as blinded by the loudness of his fans and cheerleaders.  He doesn’t have mental illness.  He is just endeared to his staunch supporters who pay the 2% (two percent).  He appears to be a reflection of what the offshore investors want him to be.  He is a vulture because the Diasporas diehards are loud, cheering and dancing at his vulture policies.  They could bring him to his sense if they would – just by singing and dancing taming songs.  Let me quote Hady (Awate.com article, years back) warning the readers, “Don’t follow Isayasism because it is accused of irrationality.”  And let me add to that the following: If you currently follow Isayasism, please work hard to put sense into it so as to be tamed.  Otherwise, the opposition is much stronger nowadays and can apply Mengistu’s principle of “Ma’n Yiferal” (fear not those who do not deserve respect) and that would send the country into hell.  Your taming effect will help to avoid having another Somalia or Libya in Africa.  Don’t let Eritrea just be another Somalia or Libya.

If Eritrea would become another Somalia or Libya, it is only because of the Isayas’s staunch supporters, who are cheering and dancing at the innocents’ mishaps.  Indeed, only through sense making cheering and dancing Eritrea can be saved from becoming a failed state.  Tragedies like Lampedusa are not to be celebrated with cheering and dances, commending the accused and condemning the victim.  The day of the mishap should be a day to be observed with silence in memories of those who died in all tragedies.  Like Sabe said bringing to the attention of his staunch supporters, let not the Diasporas diehards mislead Isayas into more of Lampedusa by their cheering and dancing at the memories of the tragedy.  The anniversary should be a day of condemnation for not taking action before the tragedy occurred.

Isayas should not be underestimated.  He single handedly whack-a-moled his comrades and silenced the whole population inside Eritrea.  All previous and current higher officials are/were made to look like free officials.  According to oxford dictionary, whack-a-mole is “an arcade game in which players use a mallet to hit toy moles, which appear at random, back into their holes.”  For sure, Isayas has been treating those around him like toys hammering them into their holes whenever they try to pop up.  He gives them no choice.  Once whack-a-moled, they are either cowed into silence or become cow milked Isayas guys and those demented are made to look like compelled to flee the country on the condition no to open their mouth against him.  Those with dissenting views are not allowed to remain even walky talky let alone to flee the country.  Their only place is in the highly guarded containment facilities or the solitary-confinement cells.  And those who are cow milked Isayas guys always have to comply with his absolute authority, listening with unquestioning obedience in that they freeze when they are told to freeze and to unfreeze when they are told to unfreeze.  Internally everything is under his control.  Externally, as an interest-based political negotiator and not a principled politician serving the country and its people, he failed to attract foreign investors or to establish good relationship with other countries.  Negotiation, if any, should ensure that everything revolves around his safety and protection of his interest.  He considers any feedback from those around him as intrusion into his right of making decisions.  That is why all of his officials perform at their best blind focus doing only what they have been told to do.

Revolutionists are adventurists by their nature.  They are energetic and motivated, capable of being in many places at the same time in order to train additional brains and hands, however; Isayas proved to be otherwise endeavoring to be in all places at the same time not to train but to ensure his absolute control.  Thus, Isayas has become an effective detractor betraying the ideals of the revolution, deviating from the legacies of the fallen heroes and putting his comrades in endless sufferings.  He, therefore, falls within those who come to power in the name of the masses and then engage in mass destruction to consolidate and maximize their own power (dictatorship).  In the process Isayas provided fertile grounds for corruption and even human traffickers in an effort to reach and punish those who departed him.  If the chased escapees had landed safely elsewhere and continue to remain a threat to Isayas, his staunch supporters would work hard to malign and disparage them.

Therefore, if Isayas is only concerned with the 2% payers’ feelings and he is doing what he is doing only to satisfy them, then they are fully responsible for the horrible crimes he is committing.  Isayas seeks achievements that trigger his staunch supporters cheers and excitements and he is ready to go as far as what it requires, even to the extent of committing unheard of crimes against the innocent Eritreans.  What then? As guiders of his actions, it is only them who have to make sense and not him.

The staunch supporters are ready to put their lives at risks by virtue of their commitment to their vows of ‘Isu NiHna, NiHna Isu’.  Again the staunch supporters by taking vows they are committed to represent him.  The rule of representation grants the victims of Isayas the rights of action at law against all those who voluntarily stepped into his shoes (the vow takers).  The victims can sue the vow takers individually or collectively to stand a trial in place of Isayas for damages they sustained or suffered at the hands of Isayas.  Knowing that and in order to defend the vow takers, Isayas created YPFDJ (Young People’s Front for Democracy and Justices) to protect the vow takers, using YPFDJ as their first line of defense.  Thus, the YPFDJ for the first time has become an overseas wing that represents Isayas’s military establishment.  The members are SAWA trained and are believed to protect Isayas’s offshore interest against the oppositions’ actions of rage.

The YPFDJ members rather than being pushed into discomfort zones or confrontations with their sisters, brothers, or other family members in the process of defending Isayas’s interests, they should take command of their thinking and feelings to deal with them amicably.  That kind of approaches will promote bottom-up flow of new transformation or tendencies.  Only then YPFDJ members will become what they claim, standing for democracy and justices thereby changing the direction of the wind in Eritrea.  Empower yourself with creating different reality on the ruins of group thinking and don’t be swayed by empty threats of Isayas claiming to have thousands of eyes and long reach.  Don’t expect recognition or appreciation from Isayas and the group thinking that he wants to implement in your YPFDJ will only develop destructive behaviors in each of you, like it did in those before you.

You know well that your YPFDJ does not have cohesiveness with PFDJ.  You don’t have “we-ness” with them.  You are already into ‘them and we’ because you understand what the wording ‘democracy and justices’ means.  This means you don’t belong to their group thinking and, therefore, you don’t have to conform to it.  Your conformity to their group thinking is an accomplishment to Isayas but an embarrassment to you because you are at SAWA generation age and conforming to the group thinking would be a betrayal to them.  Indeed, your cohesiveness of “we-ness” goes with the youth on the other side.

Because the Isayas’s group interest does not represent the Eritrean people, we have diverging interests.  So long you (YPFDJ) are defending Isayas’s interest and the other youth are defending his victims (the whole Eritrean people) there is no convergence of interest to be served and that is bad for the nation building.  As you are well aware, the people are suffering as a result of Isayas’s abuses of power.  The suffering people are fighting for their suffrage, the right to choose their own destiny like the other people in other countries to have dignity as well as destiny of democracy and justices.  Should you be part of the group thinking you would be intoxicated with anti-Eritrean people and as a result you’re going to have no command of your judgment – your behavior will be similar to that of a person with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.15%, a level consistent with legal intoxication having impaired judgment and wrong perception or trouble understanding what you are doing despite your claim that you stand for democracy and justices.  Make no mistake; the youth on the other side were not intimidated by Isayas’s threats when they occupied many of his embassies.  To avoid recurrence, Isayas wants to turn the youth on both sides against each other.  What you both have to do is to explore means of engaging each other for the sake of saving Eritrea and its people.

Happy Eritrean Revolution day to all.

Mamino