The Report Card On Eritrea’s Turtle Economy
What is the role of governments? That is: when should a government’s coercive power be used? The answer is on a continuum: on the one side is a classic libertarian view which argues that the only time...
View ArticleEritrea, Africa: The Last Big Man Standing
[As I write this, I haven’t heard Isaias Afwerki’s speech. If history is a guide, he will blame his predecessor for the mess who, in turn, will blame his predecessor all the way back to whoever has...
View ArticleOur New Culture of Victimhood and Voyeurism
Virgil, Dante, Sartre, Milton and James Joyce all took turns describing hell. But it took an Eritrean, Mulugeta, to surpass them all. It is just what we Eritreans do, we are special. This is what...
View ArticleDictatorship: a Rational Choice –Until It is Not
“Rational choice theory”, proposed by economists to describe market economies, has been adopted in criminology, religion and, of course, political science. Essentially, the theory assumes that, prior...
View Articleنداء لفك الارتباط مع اسياس افورقي والتعاطي مع الخيارات البديلة
هذه ترجمة للنص الكامل لكلمة الاستاذ صالح يونس في الجلسة التى نظمها بعض نشطاء حقوق الانسان الارتريين والدوليين وتضمن الحضور عدد من الارتريين ، والاصدقاء ، مسئولي الملف الافريقي في الامم المتحدة ،...
View ArticleThe Riddle of The Unpredictable
We are faced with the Liar’s Riddle. Two doors, one guarded by a compulsive liar, one guarded by a compulsive truth-teller. One door leads to heaven, one to hell. The guards are identical twins....
View ArticleIsaias: Too Strange to Captain Our Ship of State
Shore but only a kilometer away, Shoes new, untraveled, for a new day, Fire on deck, 60-foot of God’s acre. Black dots, tearless eyes, Slippery arms, sudden goodbyes, Took wing soaked in water....
View ArticleYounis: Disengage from Isaias Afwerki; Engage Alternative Voices
[This is the entire text of the speech made by Saleh Younis, and addressed to attendants of an event organized by Eritrean and international human rights activists and was attended by Eritreans,...
View ArticleThe Essence of Isaiasism: Forced Labor
First of all, yes, when awate 7.0 is launched (1/1/14), we will have a blog for Haile the Great (and all our contributors) so that they can post their pieces directly and people don’t have to fish for...
View ArticleYohannes Tikabo and the King’s Men
This is the story of Yohannes Tikabo and Yosief Ghebrehiwet. More accurately, about their beliefs. Two Eritreans, with varying degrees of enthusiasm for their particular identity. First things first:...
View ArticleBreaking Through Our Dejavu of Disasters
You could spend a lifetime marveling at the criminality of the Eritrean government, if you were not so awestruck by its stupidity. I am saying the Eritrean government because using its...
View ArticleHow To Win Eritrea’s “Political Legitimacy” Argument
Since 1991, the debate between Eritrean regime supporters and the opposition has been that of legitimacy. Back in the 1990s, the arguments were crude. The opposition would ask “who elected you to lead...
View ArticleAfro-Pessimism, Optimism, Realism And Eritrea
Much of the scholarship that deals with African development can be categorized as Afro-pessimist, Afro-optimist or Afro-realist. To-date, the case for pessimism had been easier to make: Africa is so...
View ArticleI Was Wrong
Ever ordered “Chef’s Special” at a restaurant? Don’t: it is stuff the restaurant couldn’t sell. Also, two Americans opened a Chinese restaurant in China and everything Chinese was alien to the Chinese:...
View ArticleCongratulations Mr. Yemane Gebremeskel, Incoming MoI
Mr. Yemane Gebremeskel, aka “Charlie”, has been named Eritrea’s Minister of Information, according to his ghost writers at Tesfanews.com. He replaces Ali Abdu, who defected from the post in November...
View ArticleCome And See (What We Want You To See)!
The good news is that the Eritrean opposition and the Eritrean government have started talking to one another. The bad news is that it is proxy talks: it is discussions by our favorite foreigners....
View ArticleWhen Eritreans Went To The Polls In 1997
Everybody is going to the polls, let’s go to ours. Well, it is a different kind of poll our is an opinion poll and not voting poll. And it requires a time machine…that takes us 18 years back. And it is...
View ArticleSovereignty, International Law and the Commission of Inquiry Eritrea
On June 27, 2014, the UN’s Human Rights Council (HRC) mandated a Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea (CoIE) to conduct an investigation on whether the Government of Eritrea (GoE) has violated the human...
View ArticleThe Churning
There were two demonstrations in Geneva in June 2015 on the occasion of the Human Right Council’s 29th session (HRC 29): one was in opposition to the damning report issued to the HRC by a body it...
View ArticleProfessor Asmerom Legesse Gets It Wrong
In an article entitled “Critique of the Human Rights Commission [sic] on Eritrea”, Professor Asmerom Legesse attempts to take to task the Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea (CoI-E) as well as Ms. Sheila...
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