Democracy of Destitution

By Berhan Hagos

As much as we pounce on each other’s words within the opposition camp, it is equally important to address and refute propaganda emanating from PIA and PFDJ. The primary purpose of “opposition” is to counter every propaganda emanating from the regime. The opposition camp in general and opposition leadership specifically can’t simply ignore the propaganda emanating from PFDJ, assuming that the general public will automatically ignore it. The purpose of PFDJ propaganda isn’t to win converts overnight, but to slowly sow the seeds of doubt and erode the public’s convictions towards their own beliefs and views. PFDJ is intensely engaged in propagating its agenda, either by plastering the pictures of its leader or using every opportunity to promote its illusionary socio-economic growth.

Effective political campaigns are the ones that manage to leave their messages seared in people’s heads the longest. When PIA conducts an interview, there should be an avalanche of responses from the public refuting every statement made during the interview. The avalanche of responses should begin to flood within hours in order to ensure that the opposition has the last word. If such interviews aren’t addressed immediately, listeners could be more influenced by the last statements and arguments (made by PFDJ). To do nothing is to abdicate our responsibility.

Although many would dismiss the illusionary socio-economic successes, the subtle and sometimes open PFDJ propaganda is to link dictatorship as being requisite to forestall ethno-religious conflicts in Eritrea. During PIA’s latest interview with China Daily, PIA made such connection by alluding to ethno-religious strife, economic destitutions and unstable democracies in Africa.

Although most of our quarrels with PIA is his gross human rights violations of our own brothers and sisters, and beyond that our doubts with his political judgment and question of trust, we can’t outright dismiss his concerns, which might be shared by many, that democracy in an infant nation may encounter many challenges. But the questions are, “Is imprisoning, torturing, execution and exiling your small population the only way to develop a country? What are the experiences of other people and countries around the world, not just Africa? Etc…”

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Sir Winston Churchill



PIA’s Interview

First of all it is interesting that PIA would address foreign issues with domestic audience, and domestic issues with foreign audience. I guess it is probably safe to discuss issues that you hope your audience isn’t that familiar. PIA refused to give answers regarding the mining sector with local media and thus Eritrean public, and yet addressed the mining sector and many other socio-economic issues with China Daily, which is primarily targeted at foreign audience.

That is to be expected! Imagine what would happen if PIA was to repeat his China Daily answers to Eritreans in local media that there are no bread line-ups and that Eritrea will be one of the richest in the world very soon as PIA alluded to or said during his interview. At the very least, people would throw out their radios and televisions out the window, and at the worst, you could have a riot on your hand.

The interview contains many inconsistencies that would take the size of an encyclopedia to address. But for this article purpose, I will point out some of PIA’s arguments and quick refutation,

1. PIA said, “When a small minority is benefiting from the resources available to a country and the bigger majority is living in destitution, how can we talk about democracy?”

There are differences among rights & freedoms, rule-of-law and democracy. One may have rights and freedoms or rule-of-law without democracy. Democracy is only one system for governance. Some may choose stable monarchial system such as Jordan or Morocco, and yet maintain rule-of-law and protect rights & freedoms. However, based on historical experience, democracy is the best system of government that offers the best possibility of maintaining the rule-of-law and rights & freedom, and thus the automatic association among these different terminologies.

The question to PIA shouldn’t be whether there is democracy in Eritrea or not, but why PFDJ is blatantly violating basic human rights and why it is engaged in severe breach of the rule-of-law. In other words, the issue isn’t necessarily democracy, which is the next level issue, but the rule-of-law and human rights.

Is PIA suggesting that imprisoning, torturing, executing and exiling Eritreans are the only ways to achieve economic success, which will then enable democracy?


2. PIA said, “The socio-economic transformation is very important. Unless you live at a higher level of assimilation, if you live in a tribal society, and you go for democracy in a tribal society, you get divided in to hundreds of political parties and vertical polarization is not good at all. So we need to have participation, when you have 80%, 90% of the population living below the poverty line, how can you talk about democracy?”

The stepping stone for democracy is the respect for rule-of-law. Although “modern” democracy is rooted in Greek philosophy, ‘limited form’ of form of democracy evolved and was practiced by Greeks, Romans and later by Anglo-Saxons. On the other hand, the rule-of-law has existed throughout history in various ‘tribal’, multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies. Eritrean society has lived under rule-of-law for centuries. PIA uses ‘tribal’ and not multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies. He uses a specific terminology, and it would be counterproductive in our search for answers to purposely confuse issues for propaganda purposes. There are ‘tribal’ issues in such countries as Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan. The question is, ‘Is Eritrea primarily a ‘tribal’ society, as PIA is insinuating?’ Can higher level assimilation be achieved through Sawa? What are the side-effects of Sawa, with its worse adverse effects?

Although Eritrean economy is still in its infancy, its society is significantly more advanced than many nations in the world,

Ø The various Eritrean ethnic, religious and regional areas have interacted with each other for centuries. Each group had its own traditional laws that allowed non-members belonging to other groups to settle and live in peace as part of that society without requiring individuals or groups to convert religion or change costumes to assimilate. What makes Eritrean society unique is our centuries’ old respect for rule-of-law, which can be used as the springboard towards creating a democratic system of government.

Ø The second factor that allowed the Eritrean society to evolve is its thirty-year armed struggle for independence.


The Eritrean struggle did expose some of the challenges of multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-regional society. PIA and some of his ideological supporters might be partly influenced by the experiences of early Eritrean struggle, which may have accentuated some of the differences within Eritrean society. But for astute observers, one can derive more positive lessons than negative lessons from the early times of our struggle. When one examines the Eritrean political struggles of the forties and fifties, it was about how wise elders belonging to every segment of Eritrea came to an agreement on many issues and waged their united campaigns on this basis. The lesson of Eritrean armed struggle is also about how Eritreans quickly overcame regional structure to wage its liberation struggle. However, it would be fallacious to simplistically argue that the fact ELF was initially structured along ethnical/tribal basis is itself indication of Eritrean society still being ‘tribal’. Needless to say, starting an armed struggle is never easy, and thus requires “natural alliances” to ensure that the struggle for liberation gains tractions. PIA didn’t start the armed struggle. Had he started the armed struggle, and especially if he was from the regions (and not from Asmara), he would have sought his “natural and immediate allies” to form his organization. What is important is how an organization evolves with changing realities. ELF was quickly evolving, which eventually begat EPLF. By late seventies, there was even convergence of ideologies. At the level of rank-and-file of both movements, there was little difference in terms of ‘integration’ of various segments of Eritrean population. The Eritrean struggle is evidence of Eritrean people’s maturity.

Moreover, ‘tribal’ society puts its tribal interests ahead of national issues. By insinuating that Eritrea remains a ‘tribal’ society, he is negating the heroic acts of Eritrean struggle for independence. Over 120,000 Eritreans sacrificed their lives, and some 200,000 lost their limbs or other parts of their precious bodies for Eritrea, not for their tribes. If there are a couple of nations in the world with its population exhibiting fervent nationalism, it is Eritreans.


Just as PIA is probably extrapolating his experiences of the 1960’s and the experiences of some other ‘tribal’ societies in Africa and elsewhere, Diaspora opposition must be cautious of extrapolating their politics of Bay Area, Frankfurt or Jeddah into Eritrea. Just because one has reached certain conclusions on lab mice, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will or it won’t work on other animals or humans. One can only reach a conclusion once one has tested a system on actual or very similar conditions.

PIA is prescribing a medication for an illness that may not exist or is misdiagnosed. Worse is to prescribe heavy doses of medication that may endanger a healthy person’s life in anticipation that this person may protract a specific terminal non-communicable disease in the future because his distant cousin or his neighbor has that terminal disease.



3. Continuing with the quotation in part (2) above, the second part of PIA’s assault on democracy is that poor people can’t practice democracy. This raises a whole slew of questions,
Ø How is a country like India, with utter poverty, continues to practice democracy?
Ø How does a country with massive defections, imprisonments and other human rights violations able to embark on economic prosperity?
Ø Although democracy might be an evolving campaign, rule-of-law is directly experienced in one’s every day life. Isn’t PFDJ pulling the rug under Eritrean democracy by trampling the rule-of-law, which in turn worsens and perpetuates poverty in Eritrea, and then to claim that Eritrea isn’t ready for democracy? This is like creating a circular argument.


PIA’s convenient economic policy is based on using internal resources to build infrastructures, which they tell us is then used as springboard for more vigorous economic ventures in the future. But the most important “infrastructure” for domestic and foreign investors is the rule-of-law and stability. “Physical infrastructure” is just money – and the world is awash with it. The most precious commodity in the world today is the “intangible infrastructures”, which includes enthusiastic and skilled human resources, rule-of-law and stability, and vibrant domestic business sector.

PIA has been harping infrastructures for the last 15 years. Yet, cell phones and internet were introduced in “lawless” Somalia before Eritrea. One berth in Port of Massawa has been expanded in a decade and half, while Djibouti has built a dozen more berths during the same time by tying up its activities with Dubai Ports. A total of 300 Km of roads have been built over a decade a half, most of it over pre-existing Italian road structures. That is only 20 Km a year (or 50 meters a day). Examining all the other projects, the total investment is less than $15 per Eritrean per year. At this pace, we will be left in the dust by the rest of the world.

What is perplexing is when PIA stated that “natural resources” have been a curse to Africans. If poverty is a curse and if sudden wealth is also a curse, what type of economic path is PIA charting for Eritreans? In reality, the only curse for Africans has been self-serving and egotistical leaders who are turning their subjects into experimental guinea pigs while they live lavish lives.

What is even more perplexing is for PFDJ and its media to exhort ‘hard work’. How do you tell a purposely impoverished Eritrean to work harder while his ‘army superiors’ are living lavish life? In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, one has the Alphas, the Betas and the Deltas (if memory serves me right). Basically these are genetically engineered people, with the Alphas being basically the masters and the Deltas being the exploited workers. Everybody accepts their roles. PIA’s Brave New World doesn’t work in Eritrea.

In late 20th century and beginning 21st century, countries in Latin America and Asia are pursuing the same economic path as Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and other countries did over a half-century ago. Even China, the mother of all communist ideologists, has opened up all its doors for Western multi-national companies – the modern day imperialists. In his interview, PIA says that China’s products are gaining on quality, as if the Chinese themselves are achieving these successes. In reality, Western companies located in China and receiving supplies from China impose quality standards, and thus teaching the Chinese on quality. However, PIA makes his statements as if the Chinese have reached a critical stage of assuring quality on their own and to Western’s detriment.

As we are witnessing with Dubai’s meteoric economic rise, as long as there is stability and rule-of-law, infrastructure growth and foreign investments can grow simultaneously at the same pace – in fact, reinforcing each other.


4. Eritrea’s future is partially tied to the fate of its neighbors. Eritrea can’t become an island of super economic prosperity and super democratic nation while its neighbors remain bogged down with internal strife. One of PIA’s efforts to dominate the horn region might be to become the invisible hand that navigates the entire horn region into socio-economic prosperity. But Eritrea’s choice for its future isn’t about attaining either everything or nothing as PIA would like us to believe. ‘Everything’ being the entire horn region prospers together or ‘nothing’ being that Eritreans must suffer through repressive Eritrean regimes or unstable horn region. In-between is a world where 4/5 of the world nations and populations finds itself – evolving democracy anchored in rule-of-law and stability, and comfortably living in the world of uncertainties.

The history of leaders throughout the ages is rife with those who began their quests with good intentions but at the end only bringing the worst misery ever to their subjects. When wars weren’t fought for religion or land, it was then fought to bring ‘civilizations’ to barbarians. PIA’s current quest in the horn is to bring ‘civilization’ to barbarians (i.e. tribal societies), which will in the end meet its historical fate.

As mentioned above, PIA might view Eritrean society as still being ‘tribal’. But more likely, he believes that Eritreans are ready for democracy, but that without tackling ‘tribalism’ at regional level, Eritrea’s democracy will stumble. Barely a month after gaining our independence in 1991, PIA was publicly claiming that he would entertain confederation with Ethiopia, and soon after was actively involved in the Great Lakes area. [Note: At ideological level, I am not against some form of closer political and economic relationships with Ethiopia and other countries in the region.] PIA may believe that strong arm is needed in the horn region, i.e. in Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and beyond, to transform the ‘tribal’ societies in the horn region. For PIA, he is the modern day Roman Emperor or Genghis Khan that will conquer and transform the Horn region. Hitler dreamed of the day the ‘Arian’ race would rule the world – Hitler’s dream of transforming his society and beyond. Hitler embarked on conquering the world but only to lose after costing the lives of some 50 Million people. Stalin said that killing one person is a murder, and killing many is statistics. Stalin would proceed with social experimentation. Communism brought miseries and only to eventually fail by attempting to bring about revolutionary change through quick societal transformations. Similarly for PIA, his victims are only statistics in his futile attempt to transform the various societies in the horn region.

PIA needs to sacrifice Eritrean lives and finances to achieve this age old dream of all Emperors throughout history. In fact, the vast majority of these emperors or conquerors believed that they were chosen by God, gods or higher beings to carryout their murderous campaigns for the ‘good of man’ or ‘to civilize’ barbarians. Closer examination of history shows that they all ultimately failed. But there is a major difference between what PIA is doing and what other Emperors did. For instance, Roman Emperors pillaged ‘barbarians’ to benefit Rome. Similarly, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the British pillaged ‘barbarians’ to benefit their homelands. In contrast, PIA is pillaging Eritrea, a good prospect for working democracy, for the sake of his campaign in the horn region.

But unlike history where victors wrote their versions of events through their scribers, thus rationalizing or downplaying their atrocities, we live in an information age where every individual is empowered to put his/her thoughts on record and maintained for future generations. It is said that to date the Spanish Civil War is the only history extensively written by the losing side. But the losing side, the Republicans, would later find sympathy from the Allies because of the Nationalists’ opportunistic alliances with the Axis powers, which allowed the Republicans to publicize their cause through the Allies despite their loss. PFDJ will be judged by history through the voluminous documents that exist in the age of information.

Some 3,000 years ago Athenians had the law of ‘Ostracis’. Every number of years, some 6,000 Athenian citizens cast ballots naming the most influential person in their society. Instead of giving this most influential person a medal, this person was banished from Athens for ten years. Three thousand years later, for intellectual Eritreans to bow to the most influential person in Eritrea is to unlearn history.


5. PIA’s most fallacious reasoning is that economic prosperity is the only requisite component in a society to achieve democracy. It is already said that man can’t live with bread alone. As important or more important is a societal value system that ensures people are able to act in fair, compassionate and respectful manners. Some sub-Saharan African countries are gushing with oil money and have largely educated population, yet their societal values are so messed up that the prospect of democracy is slim.

Even countries like Pakistan which barely 50-years ago was largely free of corruption is now suffering from endemic and systematic corruption at all levels of government that it isn’t ‘tribalism’ or assimilation that is holding back full economic growth and democracy but erosion of values that will create obstacles for Pakistan’s future.

Of course, PIA’s beacon of hope is always China, which on the surface appears to be slowly and quietly fighting corruption. But China is now actively engaged in re-introducing Confucianism into its society to bring back social values. In fact, China is trying to export Confucianism to world by opening some 500 centers around the world. China is doing this despite the fact some 85% of its population still lives in utter poverty.

In Eritrea, PIA is waging his war against traditional Eritrean social values and replacing them with corrupt practices, cruelness and other destructive values. Sawa is the major vehicle for PIA’s social experiment and transformation. Emperors and conquerors throughout history have never succeeded to supplant traditional values with new values with success. In reality, they destroyed traditional values and unwittingly or conveniently replaced them with destructive values. PIA’s social experiment will surely meet the same fate, with Eritrea paying heavy sacrifice and even jeopardizing its long-term viability as a nation.



PFDJ-China-Sudan
In Mafia circles, it is called protection money. A business located on the territory of a certain mafia boss must pay protection money to the mafia group lest ‘intruders’ break his legs.

PIA’s resurfacing advocacy for China has many reasons. PIA doesn’t want to be a small fish in a big pond, but a big fish in small pond. PIA’s call for ‘partnership’ is similar to North Korea’s arm flexing with its nuclear program or Iran’s multiple approach to be treated as one of the big fish in its region.

PIA is fully aware that as what Somalia is to the US for its security reasons, Sudan is to the Chinese for economic reasons. America wants the Ethiopian regime or whoever to become the foreign security contractors for American security needs in the region, and especially Somalia. Similarly, China needs long-term stability in Sudan in order to fully exploit Sudanese oil. Once China becomes fully reliant on Sudanese oil, China can’t afford for Sudan to become unstable. If it did, China will be forced to intervene to maintain its oil flow. But if another country, such as Eritrea, offers to become the foreign security contractor for Chinese interests in the region, China would be more than willing to delegate that responsibility.

In return, Eritrea would be viewed as ‘partner’ with the Chinese government. Whenever the Chinese don’t deliver on Eritrean needs, suddenly some ‘Sudan Opposition Group’ never heard of before throws a couple of bombs at some Sudanese refineries shutting down oil deliver for a couple of days. The next day, the Chinese would capitulate. That is called partnership. Instead of swimming in the big pond, make sure the giants are forced to swim in your small pond.

Similarly, ‘partnership’ would have been created with the Americans by creating and then controlling UIC government in Somalia.



PFDJ-Israel-US
PFDJ is waging his campaign against the US with the hope that he has a backdoor to the US – Israel. Although he hasn’t been able to play this card as he would like, PIA is sure that the US will tolerate his antics, including hosting UIC in Asmara.

It is suffice to bring to attention to my readers the manner in which PIA responds whenever asked about Israel. In fact, if there are two nations PIA respects in the world, it is China and Israel. The rationale is simple.




Organizational Challenges

‘Hade Libi, Hade Hizbi’ would be ideal, but is it realistic to expect such unison in thoughts and actions? Or even, one may wonder its impact on creativity, innovativeness and individual initiatives.

In my view, the continuous call for mergers of various types of organizations, esp. political, is a misplaced effort. There is a major difference between armed and non-armed organizations. Naturally, armies must be commanded through central leadership and chain-of-command must be strictly adhered to. But even with military, there are different types of organizational structures. For instance, during the war between Nazi Germany and Red Russia, Nazi Panther units were only given a mission and the field commander was responsible for achieving that mission. This flexibility allowed German troops to advance quickly. In contrast, Russian army officers had to wait for Stalin for every military maneuver which slowed down response time in a very fluid battlefield. Russia would eventually only win due to severe Russian winter and Russian people’s determination.

Instead of calling for and over-exerting efforts to create mergers, it is more productive for us to learn to work in multi-organizational environment. In a way, merger is an attempt to internalize inter-organizational relationships. By internalizing relationships, leaders attempt to reduce ‘external’ accountability and to avoid the grueling task of arriving consensus or compromise through negotiations. For instance, when PFDJ says it has 600,000 [forced] members (about 50% of the adult population), this is an attempt to internalize relationships which become instruments of its political game.

Our call should be for unity in principles and shared values only.

If one is to examine religious organizations throughout history, the rigid centralized or monopolistic structures keep their followers inline through strong-arm tactics either through ex-communication or worldly punishments. For Orthodox and Catholic religions are facing stiff challenges to evolve or possibly face declining followers. Islam is facing its own challenges. The Protestant and evangelical branches are based on loose relationships between parishes and its hierarchy. This allows individual parishes to cater its approach suited for local conditions. On the other end of the spectrum are religious/philosophies of Buddha, Shinto, Hinduism and other similar religions that are totally decentralized.

For instance, if the only three political organizations in a political institution merge, power is suddenly usurped from the members to the merged organization’s leadership. The merged organization may perform better for short time, but will succumb to its own inherent rigidity leading to splinters. The existence of multiple political organizations with the same or very similar platforms is important because leadership should always be under pressure to address the concerns of its members lest the disgruntled members jump ship to the other similar political organization.

Moreover, as stated above, Eritreans must learn the art of negotiation. Negotiation forces negotiators to prioritize their needs and then to settle to everyone’s satisfactions. It would be naïve to think that in democratic societies all issues are settled through majority votes. Instead, probably some 95% of the issues would be settled through negotiations and 5% of the issues settled through majority vote. Thus it is critical we learn this important skill. Moreover, when we develop negotiation skills with each other, we would be able to deal with the world where every (99.99999%) political and economic dealings are settled through negotiations.


Leadership Performance
The ostensible reason for EDA’s breakup is due to a crisis in selecting leadership. Everybody alludes to or states that the incumbent leader didn’t deliver on results or questions his performance. Nobody wants to discuss what these criteria are for evaluating performance.

Both blocs’ reluctances for stating these criteria for evaluating performance are understandable. No one wants himself/herself to be judged by the same criteria set for one leader. It always remains up to the wider community of political activists to set those standards and criteria, and for the inner political players to refine them.


As a wise king once said, “nothing under the sun is new!”
Learn from history!



I would like to express my much appreciation to Asmarino.com, which is a textbook example of how political campaigns should be waged. I hope that your absence will be very brief.


Berhan Hagos
March 30, 2007