By Lieutenant Kidane - Oct 24, 2006
Stalin used Lavrenta Berya Berya (A Ukrainian by birth if I am not mistaken) as his henchman and liquidated prominent leaders in the party and great generals in the Army. Finally Stalin destroyed Berya with the weapon he polished himself for long years.
Isaias has been using this system ever after he came to power in the Hizbawi Haylitat [People’s Force.] He uses the dynamic persons or key figures for a certain period of time. The moment they start to grumble about the situation, he removes them from power unceremoniously (midiskal or “freezing”.) If they seem to be dangerous and a threat to his power, he tarnishes them as traitors and imprisons them.
Currently he is grooming Tekle Manjus, Affan and others by discarding the G-20 (the corrupt generals) which he used to destroy the G-15 (the central committee members he had used to destroy Yemeen and Menkae.) Filipos, Samuel China, Tewil and even the bull Wuchu will soon be powerless.
The problem with the poor fellows (forget the ministers) around the president is that they never understand history. Sebhat Efrem is an outright opportunist that betrayed the G15; Samuel China is Sebhat's follower, for he was the one that brought him to such a lofty position which in fact he never deserved.
Filipos trusted Mesfun Hagos but not enough to talk his mind; he wasn’t bold enough. Umer Tewil is a hedonist and is nowhere in the picture. Wuchu knows only implementing military orders. In general all these persons have become career people and never care about the livelihood of their soldiers or the plight of the masses. All the principles and slogans of the liberation movement have become forgotten in the dusty memory of the Generals. Gone are those days.
In 1986, in the halefatat seminars, [a special purging campaign against what Isaias then called the Three Privileges of corruption] Isaias told EPLF combatants in the trenches, "You should be aware of your leaders as of now. Because, unless you struggle for your rights now, after the liberation of Eritrea, these same people will spit upon you from palaces in Asmara. Therefore you should be bold enough to speak out and criticize them now." Of course the combatants were afraid and retorted by saying, "If we speak out now, we will suffer the consequences immediately after you leave this place," and Isaias replied, "Ajokatkum xnxya aynekum zenfirelkum yelen" [Fear not! Nobody will dare touch you.]
What happened next some think it is Isaias prophesy being fulfilled, but in actual fact,it was the combatants prophesy fulfilled. Because the masses became confident and talked and talked disclosing the corruption that was rampant in the trenches and the Offices of the Battalion, Brigade, and Division. A typical example was Filipos’s Division. When every one criticized him, Isaias insulted and scolded him as a Seraqi [thief] and Metefafi'e [a chieat.] On the third day, those combatants that talked their mind began to be demoted and downgraded. Of course some were successful in reaching Anberbeb Wetehaderawi biet xhfet [military office], whose chief then was Asmerom Gherezghiher and transferred to other Units.
Now Isaias will never hold such meetings because he is afraid he will be punished by severe criticism of the combatants and he knows that he will lose the loyalty of the corrupted generals.
The main concern of these generals now is their land cruisers; that the diesel shortage does not affect them because their children will be late for school and, finally, the gardens in their villas. The villas for which they don't have ownership title "libreto" and for which they never paid rent. Some time ago, some generals were sitting at the house of a veteran who had passed a way, paying their condolences. All of a sudden General Wuchu said,"Ente vila tewahibna alena nay dahray gn endi'e" [Villas we have been granted; what happens next, who knows?] and laughed uproariously.
As for Asmerom Gherezghiher, now Brigadier General, and the Chief Financial Officer of the Eritrean Defense Forces, he has been on deterioration path since the 1st organizational congress of the EPLF, when he attended as one of the leaders of Shewate Hade. He was a selfless person of peasant origin and always sided with the masses but now, like everybody else, he is totally compromised.
My compatriots! What does one await from such people? They are afraid not to be imprisoned while they are under prison; they are afraid to die while they are already dead. They are in prison because they don’t ever get out of Eritrea and are in a fence without barbed wire. They are dead because they can never talk their mind but only gossip and say, "Ezi Seb'ai texelilu iyu ymesleni! Entay iyu zegebir zelo?" [The man has lost his mind! What is he doing?] If someone can't talk his mind or if his conscience is blaming him and he is afraid to take a principled action, then he is dead.
On the opposite, those that are in prison are free for they talked their mind and are still free to talk. But on the other hand, the families of the imprisoned are the ones who actually pay the price because they can’t ask the whereabouts of their brothers or children or fathers.
To be continued.
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