Fetsum: SELF RELIANCE or SELF DESTRUCTION
Fetsum: SELF RELIANCE or SELF DESTRUCTION I have been unable to use mailing services from Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail because of hackers that damaged my computers with severe viruses and completely crippled my communication capacity with
Fetsum: SELF RELIANCE or SELF DESTRUCTION
I have been unable to use mailing services from Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail because of hackers that damaged my computers with severe viruses and completely crippled my communication capacity with the world. In the meantime, I will continue writing and posting articles using other means of communication and hopefully it will work out good. I, however, do not have my old mail addresses and have been unable to access my mails for quite some time now. This has certainly affected my communication with Assenna and please excuse my delayed articles on past events until I catch up with the most current affairs concerning Eritrea.
I express my deepest sorrow on the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea and my condolence to all citizens that have been directly affected by the occasion. In the mean time, the Eritrean people and the whole world expect the Eritrean regime to respect our dead citizens and their right of burial at home according to our traditional values without any complications. We are going to closely monitor the situation until our dead rest in peace at home.
Confession: I avoided the president’s recent interview with ERiTv for a while because of monotony. Knowing him to be predictable, I did not expect anything new to be excited about. I just did not have the time and the patience to hear the causes of all our problems through denial, contradiction and of course arrogance and obstinacy to say the least. Someone convinced me to listen to it and I did. I hope it is not too late to discuss it here and see what happens.
“The illusive Self Reliance formula in Eritrea has finally produced destruction in all aspects of life in 22 years of confusion and negligence. “ President Afwerki
The question is why? I will do the best to neutrally share my opinion in search of an exit for the society and the president from the mess we are in.
First from the forum
belay nega: “ንኤርትራ ሙሁር ዘይኮነ መስተውዓሊ እዩ ዘድልያሙሁራትሞ አብዚኳ አብጽሑና[አረኪሶሙና]”
Comment: WOW!!
MightyEmbasoyra: Ato Belay,ብዘይ “መስተውዓሊ”ምሁር ምዕብልቲ ሃገር ክትሃንጽ ኣጸጋሚ’ዩ.
belay nega: “Fitsum; A gov whom we offered to, our own golds to conduct the war of 1998,what is wrong if applies the one from BISHA to defend the country? Rather we have to be thankful for giving us a break.”
Response: No Eritrean offered this government anything for war; we were all driven to it by bad leadership. Using BISHA’s revenues to defending the country would‘ve been fantastic but there was nothing to defend except to develop since the Badme war and specially since 2010, the time BISHA started making money for the regime in millions.
A surprising episode
Genet: “Fetsum, Welcome back. Thanks for the info. Very good, straightforward facts for the sleeping Eritreans”
Suleiman Salim: “Genet, Try to think for yourself. meTaQ’it aytKuni.”
Comment: that is actually what she did: expressed her opinion on something.
Genet:“SuleimanSalim???Who are you? No one can be this stupid and dead brain. The loose cannon dictator on his historical interview told us the hard truth. Whatever you PFDJs were doing for the past 22 years in our country, leads to a big ZERO0000000. IF I WERE YOU, I WOULD BE EMBARRASSED TO EVEN SPEAK. After that interview, you are here to speak and defend the dictator and PFDJ. What are you smoking? Who are you really??
Comment: in fact the destruction in material value is in billions, in education and opportunity in terms of decades, needless to imagine the emotional and momentum (psychological) setback inflicted upon our society by the Afwerki regime. For a failed government to think of starting from the scratch ahead after 22 years of blunder in everything does not mathematically start you from Zero but from minus tens of years my dear Genet. We are at minimum 22 years behind where we started immediately during independence when we should at minimum be 22 years ahead in development, education economics, justice, etc. Both make our situation at least 44 years behind from where we should have been today. Yet, we are still in the stage of figuring out what to do now and not even in re-experimentation situation as the president kept on talking about using the term PILOT (trial and error) several times in the interview.
This is similar to a 22 year old adult starting to learn how to stand and walk, like a 1 year old toddler!
But even said PILOTing is not possible in the current Eritrean situation because there is no plan or projection to PILOT, PERIOD!! The government has no written documentation to show on the president’s “COPMPLETE POLICY RECONFIGURATION” stuff he was talking about. He said it to breath a bit from the suffocating situation he put himself and us in; I don’t think they have any research oriented focus on anything about what to do next. Translate this illusion to TIME and you will find Eritrea far more behind where it should be than the 44 years I speculated earlier in this discussion. Each year from now under this regime will further translate to 2 negative years for the Eritrean society compared to other societies in our region specially if the regime avoids the root cause of the cumulative problem (lack of DEMOCRACY and JUSTICE) in its so said PILOTING arrangement. The cause of a problem cannot be its remedy or a problem cannot be solved by its cause: Absolute dictatorship cannot solve the problems it caused in Eritrea.
Suleiman Salim: “Genet, “historical interview told US the hard truth” I have never known you in such a state. Ser-Ser aytbeli. Are you sure that President Issaias Afeworki Abraham was talking to you?””
modoshto: “suleiman do belka; Eta Suleiman tibil simsi entay gieratika anta tsebib ri’esi , Tumuy Hilina. bejaka talk to your conscience.”
Suleiman Salim: “Modeshto (Modesto), Italyawi diKa?”
Comment: I don’t know about you but I happened to be a person who laughs like a fool when I confront a surprise as such. Suleiman’s response at the end of the episode indeed made my day!
Art out of misery:
Yemane Johar: “ ከዋጋዓኩም! ሎሚ ቅነዩ:: ክልተ መንእስያትኣብ ሓደ ጽምው ዝበለ ጎደና ኣስመራ እንዳዕለሉ ይኸዱ፡፡ ብዘረባዘረባ
ሓደ ካብኣቶም ፡ «ኣንታ ዓርከይ እዛ ዓድስ ምምሕዳራ እምበርስኢኖም» ይብሎ፡፡ ስም ከይጠቐሰ፡፡
እቲ ሓደ ድማ ትቕብል ኣቢሉ «ኣንታ እወ ሓቅኻ፡ ክላእንተዘካርዩዋኳ ምሓሸ» ይብሎ፡፡
«ሓቅኻ የካርዩዋ የካርዩዋ» ኢሎም እናኸዱ እንከለዉ ሓደ ዕብይ ቁሩብ ሕስብ ኣቢሎም «ሓሳባትኩምሲ ጽቡቕ ነይሩ ዞም ደቀይሉችን ማይን ዘይብላ እሞ መን ክካረያ?! ኢሎም ኣስሒቖሞም ኣመትናብርኦም ክገብሩ መንገዶም ቀጺሎም፡፡”
On the recent interview with president Afwerki
The president’s recent interview was indeed historical because he at least said some things with substantial contents of truth for the first time in his 22 years of dictatorship. The experience was a clear indicative of how our country’s journey had so far been from the time of independence and how it will be in the future under the same socio-political arrangement. I will try to comment on some points hereunder.
In general, the president blatantly described his government’s performance in the last 22 years as “KILIWLAW AMAHADRA” meaning that Eritrea’s political administration in the last two decades had been anarchic, disorganized and defocused. I thank him for admitting this. No one forced the country to suffer this problem, however, but the leaders chose to run it as such. Eritrea has brilliant and highly educated individuals that could help but they were denied the opportunity through intimidation, isolation, intrigues, apartheid and humiliating tactics as a State Policy. Our country was left under the mercy of unqualified and submissive opportunists and here we are at the end of the day.
On energy:
The president said that the “120 MW energy plant expected to help a lot was not functioning at even 50% potential. “ This must be the HIRGIGIGO power plant erected long time ago in Senhit before the Badme war. After discussing endless factors associated to ENERGY, the president said that his government was incapable of meeting the factors and effectively delivering energy to the people.
“We can buy energy from Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan and even Djibouti if the Cost/KWH is more beneficial. Who knows what we would do in this regard in the future, maybe we can develop ours too, if we want.”, said Mr. Afwerki.
Comment: The confused president unconsciously disclosed that Eritrea was the only country in the region without adequate energy for the people. If the Sudanese, the Ethiopians and Djibouti and specially the new Southern Sudan could efficiently supply power to the people, why could not the Eritrean government do it in Eritrea? Can you imagine Eritrea, an adult at this point in the go thinking of buying electrical power from the baby Southern Sudan as Afwerki’s alternative to the solution?
The president’s claim that he can “buy power from one of them if the Cost/KWH is profitable “ of course is a cheap shot aimed at misinforming his supporters but it does not hold water in front of basic commonsense and reality because there is no way importing power can be cheaper than supplying it yourself. It would cost the country more to buy power from outside compared to supplying it from local energy plants, needless to mention the amount of money the buyer has to invest on such a wide-area oriented project (material, poles, wiring, labor, insurance, security, experts, etc).
All these are not even the main agenda here: Supplying energy to the people is the sole responsibility of any government in the world: this is the least a government can do in a society because it is very important (mandatory) and easy to do. All one has to do is investing on power plants, using experts to erect them and monitoring them periodically. You simply cannot have anything going (business, tourism, diplomatic relationship, infrastructures, etc) without electricity at least in the capital city.
This is the reason that all countries including the newest Southern Sudan have electricity. All dictators have excellent records in this aspect although they were all destructive on the question of freedom. Mengistu used to transport fluid energy from mainland Ethiopia on air to Asmara, for instance even when the city was encircled by our fighters back in the late eighties. The Eritrean government does not even have this minimum capacity today after 22 years of absolute dictatorship.
Therefore, the president’s admission to failure in this regard is appreciable but his excuses do not make sense. The situation does not accommodate contemplations such as WE CAN DO THIS AND THAT: it rather requires immediately doing it without this or that. If a government cannot supply electricity to the people from any source by hook or by crook, it has literally failed to lead and should move on. Piloting is not the solution to this problem and no healthy individual can buy the president’s means of resurrection from its self-made graveyard under the same political setup (absolute dictatorship) with the same officials and advisors who caused the problem. This is where the president made a terrible mistake in the interview: he avoided talking about the only solution to our problems and to his regrettable performance; DEMOCRACY and JUSTICE.
The catch: Things can change if the president comes back to reality. But I seriously believe the regime failed in this regard on purpose for other reasons than the president’s excuses. He cannot be the only failed leader in the region on electricity because electric power is a straight forward issue that every government had no problem supplying. The existing Electrical Power plants should have the capacity to supply power in Asmara as they did in the past. As social awareness started to become a problem, however, the regime started to ration power for at least two important purposes.
The first: he wanted the people to talk about their problems and focus there instead of about and on their political issues. Remember that Afwerkism uses misery and poverty as oppressing tools of the society like the old fashioned dictators in the era of communism. As such, the president tried to shift the focus of the people through hardship.
The other reason is of course to disallow the people from accessing the INTERNET as often as they want. INTERNET has become pain in the butt to the remaining dictators because they can neither localize information within nor deceive the people without any other reference to learn from any longer. Nigeria, for instance tried this tactic in the earlier days of INTERNET but failed because it quickly realized that it was impossible to do. So has been the outlook of Afwerki on INTERNET. As a result the regime has succeeded in substantially stopping Eritreans from enjoying it by denying them electricity and by narrowing the BANDWIDTH to the point it takes hours to download information in ASMARA. It is the nature of all dictators to try things like this here and there but the reason Afwerki does it better than any one of them in the continent is because he is an ABSOLUTE DICTATOR (the worst in the world).
Water
The president admits that water is a priority, a life necessity and that access to water is the right of any person in the world including in Eritrea.
“The problem is how to meet the factors that give a society the capacity to produce water and who to ration it to first” he adds.
If water is a priority, a necessity and a right, why would a government bother about who to give it first and why would this become its hardest obstacle to supply enough of it to the people indiscriminately?
He further said that; “People outside Asmara have more problems after all, although they must have water as a right. Therefore residents of the city should appreciate what they have instead of complaining”. Eritreans do not need a lecture or an advise on this because they must have it to continue life like any other people in the world. Unfortunately, Afwerki is addicted to interference because he is an absolute dictator. No leader can be more desperate and nonsensical than this in my opinion. The job of any government is not to philosophize on the irrelevant issues he brought to the table vis-à-vis WATER but only to abundantly supply it. This is important and simple similar to the power issue I discussed because infrastructure is the only answer which the government drastically failed to do. It could not do what all nations do for their people as a matter of socio-political obligation. “You cannot have the right to ask for water so that you can waste 2 fistos of it when others are suffering the problem more elsewhere in Eritrea. Higher consciousness will economize water and therefore human consciousness is the main answer to this problem.” Further; “people go to water and water does not come to people” said the desperately isolated president for having had no vision and excuse as a leader to justify the water crisis in the country.
To the contrary, a government brings water to people as part of its job and no government has the right to question the right of people for unlimited access to water but only to meet the demand and supply it as much. Human consciousness may help a little but the primary solution must come from the government. Said human consciousness is thus not responsible for what is happening in the country, only mismanagement is.
Once more, they let our people suffer so that they can only talk about their problems as we witness it today in our country.
Therefore, the president’s admission to failure in this regard is appreciable but his excuses do not make sense. It is not time for WE CAN DO THIS AND THAT it is time to just do it without this or that like any other government in the world does. If a government cannot supply water to the people from any source by hook or by crook, it has literally failed to lead and should drastically transform or move on. The society can no longer sustain the burden of absolute dictatorship. Nothing will fix the problem unless the president helps the society in the areas of DEMOCRACY and JUSTICE despite what happened in the past or the people resolve the issue through the power of UNITY.
See you soon
Genet October 15, 2013
Fetsum
Welcome back again! Sorry, to hear about your computer issue. About the outcome of endless lies, by the dictator, it amounted to minus 44 or less. Therefore, I stand corrected.
Thanks to the dictator and his supporters, there is no short of misery in our country.
The candlelight vigil, should have been started, after the dictator’s interview about the state of our nation Eritrea. He told us our country is dead. Now, we are faced with the current death of our young, women and children of Eritrea. My biggest concern is that we will forget them. I want every Eritrean to keep our young brothers and sisters in his/her daily prayer. To not stop from fighting for our people. To cont. to stand up for our people. Not to be afraid, to tell the truth on be half of our people. Thanks, for the article.
Genet
belay nega October 16, 2013
Genet
“The candlelight vigil, should have been started, after the dictator’s interview about the state of our nation Eritrea. He told us our country is dead.”
Eritrea was pronounced dead, by the accidental hero AWATE in 1961.
You should give credit to the president, for saving us from wondering and ask ourselves: how would look like free Eritrea?
ትሕመቅ ትጸብቅ ነጻነት ርኢና
ክሳብ ሕጂ ዊግ እንዳ ቀየረ አጽንሒዋ ሕጂ ግን ናይ ቅርጺ ርእሲ ኮይኑ እቲ ጸገም Eritrean issue is ugly by nature.
jone October 16, 2013
I think so to talk about a dictator , by the way he is not a dictator , he is Nazi,we know about him , even a fish in sea they know about him, but the really problem is Eritrean who live all over the world, we didn’t stand up fight east Africa cancer Pfdg, these is not to talk about regiem hegdef, but let us talk how to organize and mobiles, after that fight, these is a perfect time, to fight the whole world don’t like isayes, we have supports from usa, Europen union, Ethiopia , Sudan Djibouti, the only solution for Eritrean to bring isayes, and his supports in to justice, we have base in Ethiopia, our brothers and sister they went from all over the world to Ethiopia, in history dictator never left powe with out force, Eritrean spring is on the way, those who believe in freedom liberty, justice
rora eskindir October 16, 2013
that is the way brother Fitsum! the mafia will do everything to destroy and we will do everything to speak up. that is what’s killing them. what would not the president give for an opportunity to go on talking and saying nothing as he did for the last many years?
Sahle Yosieph October 16, 2013
I don’t see why you are been sabotage, the dictator can’ t do it, because you try to give him life, from opposition there is no justifiable reason, from the get go it became all about you, like you have special roll. We are in a dire situation for solution. Debating with the dictator is passed 15 years ago for some of us, for some 40 years ago, attacking the young organization, is not the way to go. Our generation is failed to handout a just society, so let’s give a room and life to the young Eritrean.
johnny October 16, 2013
you see everytime he open his mouth, I meant to say the dictator always trying to blame somebody for any problem the country encounter on someone shoulder.(the dictator)i am not responsible for anythings that has been going bad before i came in.so the reporters cannot ask him what the government has done since independent.it just baloney. there days are numbered and blame anybody not me kind of atitiude.so Eritrean lets get ready to get this clown and put them in public place and force them to confess the criminals things they have done since day one to those pure Eritrean tegadeltyi.
ghenet October 18, 2013
Hi Fitsum,
What happened to you computer is really sad. But ab qalsi kemu eyu. TWEDIQ, TESIIKA KDANKA NEGIFKA TEQTSL! such is life. I do miss our communcation.
This is a good article. keep it up.