My friends and I at awate.com called the G-15 [Group of 15] Eritrea’s reformers. To us, this was common sense: after all, here were a group of 15 members of the ruling party, People’s Front for Democracy & Justice (PFDJ) writing an open letter to PFDJ Members and describing their letter as “a call for correction, a call for peaceful and democratic dialogue, a call for strengthening and consolidation, a call for unity, a call for the rule of law and for justice, through peaceful and legal ways and means.” But, in our Eritrea, “reform” is a dirty word and they were shunned by some members of the Opposition (because their call was not radical enough, inclusive enough) and by some in the PFDJ (because they were airing intra-party differences.)
That letter was written on May 27, 2001 (more than 18 years ago!) and made available in English, Tigrinya and Arabic and immediately published by Eritrea’s main opposition websites, Awate and Asmarino. (For a clean and easily-accessible version of the letter in English, refer here. For the sequence of events that preceded and followed the letter, refer here.)
On September 18, less than four months after they signed the document, eleven of the G-15 had been hauled to prison, and they have never been heard from again. (The other four had made themselves unavailable for arrest.) This is what the whole world knows. Lesser known is that, since January 2001, the Isaias-loyalists had been conducting “seminars” (oh, how I hate that word, a substitute for “brainwashing”) where, in the absence of the G-15, they accused them of treason and defeatism and all who questioned the wisdom or fairness of accusing people without giving them the opportunity to defend themselves were also hauled to prison for showing loyalty to their front and not to its chairman.
So, September 18, 2001 was not just the day the “G-15” were arrested. A diplomat was expelled, Eritrean employees of US embassy were arrested (for doing their jobs and translating the Eritrean independent press); it was the beginning of the international view of Eritrea as a pariah state. It was the day that the 1997 Eritrean constitution was indefinitely suspended, a prelude to its unceremonious death; it was the day that made the Warsay-Yikealo campaign (of holding Eritreans indefinitely in military or forced labor camps) inevitable. It was the day that the PFDJ gave up any pretense that it was popular, or a front, or that it valued democracy and justice: henceforth, it would just be a Trojan horse to be stuffed with whatever hallucinations its chairman was afflicted with.
One can make the argument that the G-15, many of whom had been part of the EPLF’s culture of disappearance and mercilessly stifling dissent, knew what was coming and willingly sacrificed themselves for it. While this is highly admirable, it is par for the course within their culture of self-sacrifice. What makes the day supremely painful is that it was also the day that young, idealistic Eritreans who did their job by giving us a platform to read dissenting views (independent journalists) were arrested and made to disappear. 18 years and counting.
It is small consolation to the G-15 who are either dead or withering away in solitary confinement but they had predicted that if Isaias Afwerki chose the path of confrontation over their call for change, a terrible future awaited Eritrea. But to Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea was never as important as Isaias Afwerki.
There have been some attempts to reform the system: some that we know of (Wedi Ali, for example) and some that we don’t. What is clear is that, as another prisoner, Finance Minister Berhane Abrehe, wrote in his book which was released in 2018, what Isaias Afwerki did was to run a coup against the legitimate government and institutions of Eritrea. And in that unholy mission, he had allies who, to this day, are unrepentant about what they did:
For those who seek peaceful change, the path is to for the party and the country to use the party’s rules and the country’s laws to hold Isaias Afwerki accountable for conducting an extra-legal power grab. Examples:
- In its February 1994 congress, the PFDJ decided that the next congress would be in February 1996, but no later than six months later. More than 15 years later, the meeting was never held and hasn’t been held. This violates the party’s rules;
- The Executive Committee of the PFDJ is scheduled to hold monthly meetings and the Central Council of the PFDJ is scheduled to hold meetings every four months. In violation of party rules, they have not met for 19 years. Since the party rules say the Chairman makes all decisions between their meetings, this is naked power-grab.
- The National Council (parliament) is supposed to meet every six months. It hasn’t met since February 2002. Since the Cabinet of Ministers as well the President is supposed to report to the National Council, since the National Council is supposed to approve budgets, and since the National Council has been unilaterally dissolved, the Cabinet of Ministers now reports only to the President. That’s on those days (seasons) the President decides to convene it. This also means the President has unilateral power on the nation’s budget to spend the national wealth as he sees fit (whether it is to fund armed groups or stash it in personal banks in China.)
- The ratified constitution was supposed to be implemented in 1997. Even if one allows for the Eritrea-Ethiopia war to be a legitimate reason for its suspension (it wasn’t), there was no reason for it not to be implemented in 2001. The decision to indefinitely suspend it and eventually kill it was to consolidate one-man rule in Eritrea. It is how an interim government with a four-year life-span becomes a permanent one.
How do we get accountability and peaceful change? For the members of the PFDJ who take their front seriously, they have an obligation to their comrades–including all who have been made to disappear and to perish in agonizing death–to follow the dictates of their party and demand (NOW) reconvening a meeting of all the surviving members in the infrastructures that exist and following through on decisions these bodies had made. Failure to do so is to endorse Isaias Afwerki’s decision to assume absolute power by dissolving all checks and balances (Central Committee, Executive Committee, Parliament.) And no Weyane-blaming and useless flag-waving and revolutionary anthem chanting is going to absolve your sorry asses of this dereliction of duty.
Those of us who are not members of the PFDJ have one and only one powerful tool: the 1997 Constitution. To focus on its imperfections is to ignore its lethal power to dethrone a tyrant LEGALLY. There are two diametrically opposed groups of Eritreans who believe the 1997 Constitution is fatally flawed: the Isaiasists and the traditional opposition. The Isaiasists have a strategy for claiming so (to enshrine one man rule); it is unclear to me (I am not claiming there isn’t one) what the strategy of the traditional opposition is. Notice, I am not saying what the “stand” of the traditional opposition is but what is their strategy?
Well, this is not the day for us to have intra-opposition feud. But if we are going to mourn, for the 18th year, the disappearance of people and commemorate Eritrea’s one-way journey to absolute despotism, isn’t it also the day to mount a counter coup? A Democratic coup? And can one have a democratic coup without reference to a legal and binding document? That’s the 1997 constitution. A legal and binding document is not undone by the whims of a tyrant and his echo chamber.
Part of the challenge here is that our tyrant is a man-child. I was discussing with a friend about what Isaias will do with Sebhat Ephrem: our only living 4-star general who survived an assassination attempt on his life (no doubt ordered by Isaias Afwerki), returned to Eritrea with no Plan B, and is now under house arrest (foreign diplomats are NOT allowed to meet with him and the only evidence he is in Eritrea is a picture by a freelance “journalist”) I said maybe he will just sneak him in to the next Cabinet of Ministers meeting. She said, no, because he is a man-child, and he is trying to show he is accountable to nobody, he will disappear him. And maybe make a Ramadan Mohammed Nur out of him: he shows up randomly (at the Abiy-Isaias love fest in Asmara last year, most Ethiopians thought tragic figure Ramadan Mohammed Nur was a waiter.) Because: the last act of self-sacrifice of EPLF and PFDJ is, apparently, to humiliate themselves in the service of Isaias because Isaias is Eritrea (for now)?
Listen up 20 somethings and 30 somethings and 40 somethings! Man, did Haile Selasse look so indispensable (he was an Elect of God for God’s sake!) He perished. Man, oh man, did Mengistu Hailemariam look indispensable! He had the entire Soviet Bloc (Russians, East Germans, Cubans, South Yemenis, Libyans, and the whole frigging fake-ass “Pan Africa”) behind him. And he tucked his tail and ran away to Zimbabwe. This indispensable, indestructible looking and sounding Isaias Afwerki will disappear by act of God (or, hopefully Son-of-Adam-And-Eve will help the Almighty.) Do you just want to wait and wait and wait or do you want to act? And do you want to act smart or stubborn?
Reject the entire Birther movement, whether it calls itself Tigray-Tigrini, or Agazian or Dekebat movement. This thing called Eritrea (or as Isaias calls it “eza hager” because even its name is offensive to him) is just one or two degrees of separation: we are all intermarried, intermixed and inter-mounted. As my friend Saleh Gadi likes to say, “people, really, whatever you think, you can’t count beyond 7 generations of your ancestry so shut the fuck up.” Well, ok, Saleh would never use vulgar language but I am. Tell everybody: we are sure of only one thing: we are Eritreans. None of the birther stuff is going to help us rid ourselves of a demonstrably insane president and his groupies. Yemane Gebreab is not an asshole because he is from Tigray. No, he is an asshole because he is a weak, opportunistic man who believes that the end (proximity to power) justifies the means (unspeakable cruelty and sadism.)
And, no, there is nothing wrong with our culture, our history. The fact that Mad Man Isaias Afwerki is totally in charge of Eritrea in 2019 tells us nothing about our culture. Anymore than the emergence of Mao or Trump or the Khmer Rouge tell us anything of the countries they came from, other than the times. Stop blaming yourself, your ancestors, your culture, your customs (or worse: other people’s ancestors, culture, customs) for whatever we are going through. Let’s just be smart: what is our legal and peaceful way of overthrowing Isaias Afwerki? I believe that’s what the G-15 and the journalists who disappeared on September 18, 2001 would like us to answer and then act on, as they wither away in Eira Eiro. I also believe if we ask them, “what is the one thing you want?” They would say: “implement the 1997 constitution.
Long Live the 1997 Eritrean Constitution: the hangman for Isaias Afwerki and his enablers. And if you are not into the whole brevity thing, as the Big Lebowski would say, if you are an EPLFite and PFDJite, use the rules and bylaws of your party not for us, but for the sake of your dead and dying comrades. Either way, rules or laws are the surest and fastest way to run a legal counter coup against the illegal coup Isaias Afwerki ran on Eritrea on September 18, 2001. And if I am wrong, I would love to hear the alternatives.
