MAY 18, 2014
Eritreans are always praised for their hard work, dedication, selflessness, and sacrifices. This time, however, it is essential to extend praise to the leaders of Eritrea that kept the country and its people focused, United, Peaceful, and Secured amidst threats, hurdles, and evil designs.
By Amanuel Biedemariam,
If one asks a nation leader what your primary responsibility is, undoubtedly, it is to safeguard the nation. What does protecting a country entail? For the layman defending a nation could mean placing armed personal on the borders to ward off enemies. That is the most straightforward and obvious answer. What does Eritrea need to safeguard? To answer, one must ask what do the enemy target. Every aspect of Eritrean life is a target. Hence, Eritrea must look at everything with the eyes of security.
They aim to undermine the independence and recolonize Eritrea. To that end, in 1998-2000 with a bogus fabricated border dispute waged a destructive war that took the lives of our 21,000, wounded thousands more, and displaced millions needlessly. The war intended to break the backbone of the people, to dilute or annihilate a generation of Eritrean fighters that liberated Eritrea.
Winning Battles/Wars: In Washington DC, the then Ambassador Birhane Gebrekristos gathered Ethiopians and told them that our soldiers would have ‘breakfast in Assab. The TPLF started the war, sure that they could retake Eritrea. When that failed, they attacked the Port Asseb of Eritrea. The Ethiopian people have always had their eyes on the Red Sea. The TPLF used the attacks to maintain their support. It failed. They showed their sinister intentions.
They gave Eritrea six months of existence. Since the assault and machinations to undermine the independence of Eritrea has been relentless.
Food Security: In 2000, a devastating drought hit the Horn of Africa region and affected Eritrea. As a result, the UN pledged aid for Eritrea. However, the US sabotaged it to starve the people to revolt.
Eritrea ended up buying thousands of tons and averted disaster. Food is a tool the West uses to control poor and underdeveloped nations. Today Eritrea has reserves that can last for years.
Water is a lifeline that no country can take for granted. Here again, Eritrea provided potable water in every corner, established dams, and incentivized farming turning once nomadic traditions into settlements that are integral to the future of Eritrea.
For decades, the people of Eritrea suffered at the hands of brutal Ethiopian soldiers. Relentless wars destroyed medical infrastructures rendering most Eritrean communities inaccessible. Eritrean communities were underserved medically. In addition, traditions, customs, and religious practices hampered access to remote areas making it difficult for those that practiced medicine to get close to women and infants. Infant mortality rates were high; Eritrea’s lowlands are prone to Malaria. Hence, combating Malaria was urgent; AIDS was a serious threat; there existed no medical institutions and facilities; hence, the population’s medical needs were unmet and compounded by lack of resources, the situation was dire.
Here again, Eritrea established medical training institutions, embarked on major medical personnel training programs, built hospitals at record pace creatively, and started assigning trained medical personnel throughout the nation filling gaps wherever needed. Eritrea is setting the trend by creating sustainability using indigenous expertise trained in Eritrea. Eritrea is managing to reverse brain drain by producing personnel at a steady pace. These efforts are bearing fruit by reducing infant mortality rates, the threat of Malaria, HIV-AIDS, and other infectious diseases surpassing international expectations. It is worth noting, as a relatively small population, health threats have national security implications.
Education is another key that can determine the future of Eritrea. Developing the human resources necessary to rebuild Eritrea required educated public, educational infrastructures, and trained personnel to educate the people of Eritrea. After independence, the primary focus for Eritrea was to establish teachers training institutions and train teachers that can then be assigned all over Eritrea to serve underserved communities. As a result, Eritrea’s literacy rate is amongst the highest in Africa.
Education is a human rights and existential issue in Eritrea. Education is central to the life of the people of Eritrea. The government has a firm outlook that states Eritrea’s children deserve equal education no matter where they live. That is the only way to ensure a bright future for the nation. To that end, Eritrea devised creative programs to provide a standard that married education to nation-building endeavors and national service. In Eritrea, there exists no village without access to education, no matter how remote. That is also how Eritrea can ensure and maintain balanced human resources distributed throughout the nation.
Asymmetric Warfare on Eritrea
The Asymmetric-Warfare, the enemies, waged on Eritrea is multifaceted and targets central cores of the population with the youth as their primary focus. By targeting youth, they can achieve many goals. Deny Eritrea’s vital workforce for development and rob her of a core population that can defend the nation. To that end, attracting, distracting, and incentivizing youth to flee is the primary goal.
Just imagine, what would Eritrea look like today if the army was weak? Eritrea’s foresight and brilliance anticipated all Eritrea’s defense and human resources needs and married it to the national defense and developmental strategy. That move saved Eritrea in 2000. Today Eritrea is endowed with a sizeable sustainable military that is mobile and capable of mobilizing in no time.
Only nations that can control the situation can dictate the terms and outcomes of a given political situation. In 2000, Ethiopian soldiers were able to infiltrate Eritrean territories through Sudan and inflicted some damage.
Since Eritrea secured the area; restored relations with Sudan; helped to bring/ink peace between the various factions in Eastern Sudan; advanced Eritrean and Sudanese economic, diplomatic, political, and strategic interests.
At this stage, Eritrea and Sudan are working together, implementing agreements they signed- changing the outlook of both people, setting a precedent on how African countries can coexist as partners, reversing-trend of violence that plagued Africans forever. They are building the infrastructures necessary to connect both countries. In the process, made-worthless Western machinations and designs kill African economies and social structures. Nothing or no one can change the solid relations that exist between the peoples of Sudan and Eritrea. It is historical, and the interests are aligned perfectly. It will change people’s fortunes in both countries, and the positive influence will advance the region’s interests.
It means the ingenuity of Eritrea’s leaders is combating the impact of negative influences (wars, conflicts) imposed by the West and replacing it with positive influences.
The implications of the Sudanese-Eritrean efforts on jobs, economic, and social stability are far more significant than can be imagined. It will also combat human trafficking by securing borders and giving free access-unhampered by visas, which will help create freedom of movement. It will reverse access of human flight through Sudan, deny access to terrorists by ejecting them from the area. Securing good relations with Sudan allows Eritrea to focus on one of Eritrea’s most important goals: emasculate threats from the south.
The process Eritrea embarked on may have seemed impossible. Still, in time and with stealthy- brilliance, doggedness, and eyes on the goal, Eritrean wit outwitted the enemies, killed the primary plan, and reversed it to the benefit of Eritrea.
Security
In terms of national security, how is Eritrea faring 23-years after independence and 16-years of hostilities from Ethiopia?
Here again, it is no secret that Ethiopia has no resources to engage against Eritrea without the support of the US. Ethiopia is the stick the US has used against Eritrea for decades. Managing the stick while keeping Eritrea’s national strategic, economic, social, and security in focus was and remained a challenge.
One of the most unreported attributes of the government of Eritrea is the ability to focus with a laser-sharp eye on the enemy and defeat it. The TPLF is an existential threat to Eritrea. Therefore eliminating the danger is imperative. And as such, no matter what happens anywhere, no matter what any country says or does and, no matter the cost, Eritrea will come out victorious. There is no alternative to victory.
The TPLF can play all the propaganda games it needs to play. They can lie about Eritrea’s youth, how they are under an oppressive government, and try to entice them to leave their homes. They have also used the AU, UN to lobby on its behalf around the globe with the sole intent of demonizing Eritrea, etc.
However, the noose will keep tightening until the TPLF suffocates to death. That is guaranteed, and nothing or no one can or will save the vermin.
So how is the TPLF faring today? Today the TPLF is in no position to threaten Eritrea. The stick is very brittle, gasping for air and awaiting imminent death, hunted by Ethiopians everywhere. The political and diplomatic supremacy it once felt that it once had dissipated.
On the contrary, despite all the machinations to isolate or sell the notion of an isolated nation, Eritrea is asserting solid diplomatic relations based on mutual economic, security, and other interests across the globe.
In addition, the once US-dominated global seen is waning, and as a result, the previously US-dominated UN is no more a platform for US agendas. The US can no longer exploit the UN to further its agendas because it collides with the interests of other nations with veto powers.
Furthermore, African nations that the US herded to sanction Eritrea at one time are at odds with each other. With Salva Kiir of South Sudan accusing Hailemariam Desalegn of Ethiopia for making him sign an agreement with threats of arrest. It is a bad precedent for a sitting president of another AU member nation to be threatened to sign or go to jail in the prisons of the host nation. With threats, Secretary John Kerry and Desalegn just changed the government of South Sudan. Ethiopia is at odds with Uganda in South Sudan and so on… Imagine the US forcing UN member nations to sign agreements or face jail in the US in New York City. That was Eritrea’s fate.
Praises
It is not customary for Eritreans to praise leaders. Eritreans have shared the responsibility of fighting for liberation, defense, and nation-building equally. Eritreans are always praised for their hard work, dedication, selflessness, and sacrifices. This time, however, it is essential to extend praise to the leaders of Eritrea that navigated the nation through one difficult period.
All one has to do is look at what is taking place in Somalia. Ethiopian authorities appoint the leadership from the president to the local levels. TPLF’s design for Eritrea; bring limo drivers from DC to govern while the nation decayed in blood.
Eritrea’s brave men and women leaders, without complaint and without changing their shoes, refusing the trapping that plagues corrupt African leaders, are leading Eritrea by example. From the president on down, all leaders live modest lives amongst the people. They remained faithful to their compatriots and the martyrs by focusing on fulfilling what martyrs gave their lives for, Eritrea that is free in the truest sense.
They focused on threats, hurdles, barrages of complaints from self-centered individuals, and hired guns. They focused on the future no matter what was going around them. With the tenacity, attitude, and drive of a Honey-Badger and fierceness, Eritrea’s leaders are standing above the rest, propelling Eritrea to certain freedom.
They deserve praise and gratitude for heralding a mindset and value system that placed the people’s interests first—credit for keeping Eritrea united, peaceful, and secured.
