President Issayas A Foolish Foe: A Dangerous Friend

A Foolish Foe: A Dangerous Friend

Genenew Assefa 04/15/10

It was a pleasant surprise to hear from Tibebe Samuel, albeit in the guise of an article intended for a broader audience. His piece which seeks to debunk the claim about Issayas’ friendliness towards Ethiopia is cogently argued with pertinent illustrative support. Punctuating his argument with biographical anecdotes, as he does, Tibebe has certainly added flavor to his otherwise grim subject. Nonetheless, as the central contention of the article is so basic, it is doubtful whether the time and energy devoted to it can be justified. It is rather a pity that so much ink had to be spilled for what should by now have been obvious even to the densest among the émigré anti-EPRDF lunatic circles. For these desperate Diaspora naysayers notwithstanding, Isayas is ontologically incapable of serving Ethiopia as an external supportive agent of peace and democracy. Not even in Hegel’s shrewd sense of the cunningness of history encapsulated in the philosopher’s cryptic adage, ‘The Owl of Minerva Flies by Night’, can Issayas be expected to be an ally of democracy in Ethiopia. Not, at least, while he continues to suppress it with unremitting ferocity in his own Eritrea.

If proof need be, suffice it to refer to Issayas’ seemingly interminable ramblings on the subject. Indeed his mumbo-jumbo media utterances lay bare his jaundiced view of democracy in general, and the robust effort to institutionalize it in Ethiopia, in particular. Instances are also legion where Issayas pours scorn on the experiment underway to indigenize democracy in the collectivist African cultural matrix. Selectively citing instances of election-related ethnic clashes, he often pontificates about the hazardous dissonance between the principle of democratic plurality and Africa’s multiethnic identity makeup. Thus, Issayas is arguably the only 21^st century president who repeatedly blasts democracy with febrile intensity. No doubt his is a self-serving exercise as the principle of democratic governance is antithetical to the rigidly structured one-man rule in Eritrea. In a nutshell, democracy for Issayas is at best a shoddy artifice that Western imperialists seek to dump on Africa. And at worst, a façade invented by the West to mask its perennial global domination.

The sad thing is, Issayas’ anti-imperialist ramblings never seem to succeed in establishing the intrinsic linkage that he thinks there is between Western aggression and democracy, or between free elections and ethnic confrontation. Obviously Issayas lacks the sophistication of, say, neo-Marxists who are effective in unmasking the gaps in neo-liberalism’s promises and actual delivery. Nor does he seem to have what it takes to expose the frequent double standards in Western foreign policy. Where, for instance, certain state behaviors in certain countries are rewarded, whereas in others they are censured as anti-democratic transgressions. If truth be told, Issayas’ anti-imperialist pronouncements sound more like Saddam Hussein’s tedious monologues that his captive Iraqi audience used to dread. In fact, that is why Eritreans had lived in fear of the possible repercussions of Issayas’ shrill rhetoric and his gratuitous provocative acts of hostility towards the powerful and the not so powerful alike.

What is curious is the dual irony in Issayas’ anti-Western ranting that commentators often overlook. Not many seem to notice that his anti-imperialism neither draws from pan-Africanist perspective or from any variant of Socialist Internationalism; nor does it resonate with global Islamic solidarity, much less with enlightenment precepts of cosmopolitanism. Before we venture to offer our own take on this conundrum, it is perhaps useful to quickly point out and comment on the first irony. Admittedly Issayas is not the only leader who pocks fun at the hypocrisy of Western exponents of the neoliberal dogma, though in his case it sounds more like a self-parody. By all reckoning, the Eritrean government is arguably the sole exception that has made a virtue of suppression of democracy without offering anything of comparable worth. It is one thing to ridicule democracy riding on a tidal wave of economic growth. It is quite another to disparage the system without having anything to show for it by way of compensation. For instance, until recently, most South East Asian states were reluctant to introduce democracy, doubting the applicability of its individualistic principles in an Asiatic cultural milieu. Nonetheless, their economic performance was so spectacular that it gave them vital breathing space by shielding them from both domestic and foreign-based pro-democracy pressure groups. Obviously the same can be said about China. Or even about the oil-rich countries whose leaders, notably Kaddafi, occasionally attack Western democracies to ingratiate himself and his bizarre regime with the Muslim population of the world.

In contrast, Issayas’ is not only a government that rules without a constitution marked by zero tolerance of dissent with no justifiable ground. It is also infamous for its undue and routine interference in what little there is that can be described as a private sector in the Eritrea’s remittance-based economy. We can agree with Issayas that democracy does not guarantee instant development. Where we differ with the president is that, at the very least, democracy helps to change an inept government before its reckless policies sink a country into an economic swamp. With the exception of the small circle of PFDJ Brahmins, Eritreans are painfully aware of the ruinous consequences of the deadly combination of Issayas’ anti-democratic politics and arbitrary economic policy direction. The EPDJ strongman may deny it, as he often does, including in his latest interview with Aljazeera. Nonetheless, his stranglehold on Eritrea and his party’s suffocating grip on Eritrea’s economy has set in motion a steady flow of mass exodus to Ethiopia, the Sudan and ultimately to the West. Eritreans are indeed voting with their feet since – extremely costly and perilously risky as it is – flight has become the only form of dissent available to them. Selective as his memory is, Issayas forgets that he himself had at one point expressed alarm at the rate with which his countrymen --- for whose liberation he takes the lion’s share of the credit --- are fleeing the only government they ever called their own. Never one to accept responsibility for his own blunders, Issayas, nonetheless, blamed the whole thing on Mossad, Mi 16 and the CIA. He held these intelligence agencies responsible for luring the impressionable young out of their homeland with deliberate intention of robbing Eritrea of its youth. Similarly, when asked in the same Aljazeera interview why his government obstructs the flow of food-aid to needy Eritreans, Issayas’ response was denial. In this instance, however, he did not say ‘Where are the evidences?” as he often roars back whenever he is confronted with uncomfortable questions. In this case, he retorted: “We don’t need your food .Why do you send us food when we are not starving?’’ It is clear that what Issayas means is that independent Eretria can never face food-security issues. One can understand how the president could feel uncomfortable by this question. No doubt any president would, let alone Issayas whose government until recently boasted of transforming Eritrea into an African Singapore. It is, therefore, not surprising that Issayas is visibly irritated whenever the issue of food-aid is raised in connection with Eritrea. After all, as far as Eritreans and their president are concerned, appealing for external food aid is an intrinsically Ethiopian phenomenon that self-reliant Eritrea would never accept. Nevertheless, it slipped the president’s notice that his response flatly negated Girma Asmerom’s recent interview. An interview where, with a typical air of overconfidence that we have come to expect from Eritrean officials, the Ambassador said, ‘’ Eritrea will surprise the world by achieving food security in two years.’

This discrepancy between the two men’s statements by no means indicates the degree of latitude that Eritrean officials enjoy vise-a-vise their president. In fact, the incongruity between Girma’s somewhat nuanced approach and Issayas’ more cavalier stance might bode ill to the Ambassador. The poor man may even have to cross his fingers and pray that his boss may never, especially in one of his frequent menacing moods, recall what he (Girma Asmerom) said about Eritrea’s yet unresolved food security problem. As statements like these sound jarring to Issayas ears, the ambassador could easily be purged like many other high-raking EPLF veterans whose whereabouts remains unknown. Indeed, in light of the PFDJ’s spectacular economic promises, to openly admit that Eritrea needs at least two more years before becoming food self- sufficient, could carry grave consequences. If it is a small comfort, however, given that Issayas has lately gotten off Ethiopia’s back, the Ambassador might not be accused of being a TPLF mole. Nevertheless, if he continues to even slightly veer from the line set by Issayas, he could be easily railroaded as a paid coordinator of an imperialist sleeper cell inside Eritrea. All this is, of course, speculative, though not too farfetched considering Issayas’ unchecked presidential powers and whimsical behavioral pattern. Counterfactual as it is, our speculation at least highlights the Damocles-like sword that hangs over all Eritrean government officials. As all Eritreans know very well, the little room that EPDJ cabinet members have to exercise their ministerial powers depends on Issayas’ capricious mood. This is because Eritrean officials are only answerable to the president and not to any right-bearing electorate. There is nothing surprising here. Since the Eritrean political elite believes that its legitimacy to govern emanates from its innate fitness to guide and command all Eritreans for all times. As a manifest destiny of sorts, this claim to inborn trait to rule, at least where the PFDJ is concerned, requires no validation by popular consent of the governed expressed through periodic democratic elections.

What was not foretold in Eritrea’s great destiny is that Issayas would up the ante and provoke squabble with the world’s biggest power. He has certainly catapulted himself to the big league where the players at least have the resources to talk tough to US imperialism. Thus, at present the US has replaced Ethiopia as the bogyman that Issayas blames for every disastrous error that his government commits. In a surprising twist Issayas has even gone to the extent of blaming the CIA for the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean war. This must have struck the people of Eritrea like a bolt from the blue. Since not even Issayas’ familiar flip-flop could have prepared them for such a disorienting Orwellian inversion. With such official topsy-turvy in matters of grave national concern, it is doubtful if the Eritrean people can henceforth be able tell who their enemy is at any given point in time. Indeed one can imagine how bewildered they must have felt when being told that their real enemy now is Uncle Sam and not Ethiopia. The reversal is all the more astounding for Eritrean citizens were mobilized to hate, first Yemen, then Sudan and finally their Southern neighbor. Based on Issayas’ hate index, Eritreans were told that Ethiopia was their worst enemy who invaded their country to re-annex the port of Assab. In one stroke, however, the president erased all that as it is no longer useful to him in his current war of words with the USA. Besides, as far as Issayas is concerned, at a time when Eritrea is in a collision course with the lone superpower of the globe, it would be undignified to exchange accusations with what he often describes as a ‘dirt-poor’ African country. Thus, presently the terrain where Eritrea is fighting to preserve its hard-won independence has been elevated. The focus of its hate campaign, therefore, cannot be Ethiopia but the USA, its vicious arm, the CIA along with the AU, the UN, including the EU that Issayas ridicules as puppets of America.

No doubt the Whitehouse and the CIA can be blamed for many things. By no stretch of imagination, however, can the Ethio-Eritrean war be one of them. To its credit, the Ethiopian government does not share this bizarre Eritrean twist that shifts the cause of the war elsewhere. Fantastic as it is, let us, for the sake of argument, say, that the white foreign policy czars in Washington and devious spies at Langley did play a dirty role in instigating the bloody war. If this is true, it does not occur to Issayas that it could be interpreted as a sad commentary on the Eritrean government. Since, at the very least, such admission is self-deprecatory, especially for a government that claims to be cleverer than any other African state. For it is by no means the mark of a clever leadership to be manipulated by outsiders into a major war of mass destruction. Confessing to being tricked by America only reinforces what Eurocentric ex-colonial white officers used to tell us about the ease with which they used to fool ‘primitive African tribal communities’ to devour each other. No doubt the CIA may have to answer for many diabolic acts, but not for engineering the Ethio-Eritrean war. Issayas’ latest fabrication aside, the USA had nothing to gain from the mutual destruction of these two African countries. In point of fact, at the time the Whitehouse saw both Eritrea and Ethiopia as useful local allies in what it defined as America’s war on global terrorism. That is why the president was the first world leader to try and broker truce between these belligerent states. All this, nonetheless, carry no weight in Issayas’ ever changing incomprehensible political and diplomatic position. Worse still, today more than ever, Asmara is intensifying its massive negative propaganda campaign against the USA. No one knows what benefit could be had from such shrill propaganda whose punch lines appeal to no one. Barring, of course, those who tend to go into ecstatic frenzy and cheer whenever a macho Third-World leader wages a media war against the Whitehouse. Telling about the power equation in all this is, if you can call it that, Washington’s response. As Meles once put it, since it ‘knows that a barking dog does not bite’ Washington simply followed Ethiopia’s lead and granted collective US entry permit to all Eritreans. Had the risk not been exceedingly high, or the retributive regime less draconian, one can imagine how many Eritreans would have headed to the United States. No amount of EPDJ propaganda about the monstrosity of American imperialism would have stopped Eritrean citizens from flooding the US embassies in Khartoum and Addis Ababa en-route to America. Where, as all immigrants do, Eritrean refugees would be naturalized US citizens after they pass by the Statute of Liberty whose engraving reads: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free more’.

This brings us to the second of the two ironies mentioned above about the indeterminacy of the doctrinal bases of Issayas’ anti-imperialist rhetoric. We have noted the absence of any self-conscious reference to any globally known ideo-poltical orientations in Issayas’ brand of anti-imperialism. One can, however, detect that its contours are modeled on EPLF’s own hackneyed slogan of ‘Self-Reliance’ long rendered obsolete by globalization (the most successful globalizers are largely self-reliant). Whereas the content appears to be rooted in EPLF’s own fancifully imagined sense of Eritrea’s peerless ingenuity and even superior innate ability. (I think Tekeste has uncovered the actual root of this sense as originating in deliberate Italian schemes during the last hours of the colony, of which the EPLF is an unwitting subject) A recent illustration of this inflated self-appraisal is Issayas’ interview with Aljazeera cited earlier. Many Ethiopians roared with laughter when, after enumerating the individual countries that Eritrea tops, the president ended the interview by flatly stating, ‘We Are Number One in Africa’. The incredulity with which viewers received Issayas’ generous self-ranking is understandable. For it is difficult to imagine in what areas and by what yardstick Eritrea could be ahead of its African counterparts. Perhaps the only thing that Eritreans can be -- Numoro Uno! -- is at repeatedly praising themselves as ‘Number One in Africa.’’ Beyond this immodesty, it is difficult to see by what comparative disadvantage the rest of African nations could lag behind Eritrea.

Hilarious though it is, this self-glorification is not a joke where Eritreans are concerned. In fact, a close scrutiny shows that it is a deeply-ingrained streak in Eritrean nationalism as defined and articulated by its present heir and political leadership i.e. the EPLF/EPDJ. As well known, one underling commonality among virtually all national liberation movements is the demand for equality in the guise of self rule. Another defining common denominator is defiance against the alien ruler’s claim to superiority. In other words, all national liberation movements not only invoke the principle of the right to national self-determination, but also make claim to be no less capable than their alien occupiers in terms of intellectual capacity, cultural traits and organizational skills to shoulder the responsibilities of self-rule. African independence parties, no doubt, often quarreled among themselves regarding their readiness to self-rule – Ghana, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Haiti, Malawi, etc. – the argument being that ‘we learn statecraft by doing’ and through command over resources, i.e. Nkrumah’s “Freedom Now!” vs. Danquah’s gradualism. Whereas the Eritrean independence movement seems to have been fueled and sustained by a markedly different additional impulse. The movement does not appear to have been exclusively driven by popular discontentment at being burdened by a foreign yoke per se. In equal measure, it seems to be propelled by elite indignation at the ‘civilizational’ and intellectual gap between the Eritrean population and those who replaced the Italians as the country’s overlords.

Perhaps a quick comparative glance at the Eritrean Liberation Movement and its Southern Sudanese counterpart could shed a better light on the point we are trying to make here. For instance, the SPLA’s central objection against the Sharia government of Khartoum is the imposition of laws exclusively drawn from the religious and cultural experiences of Northern Sudan. The Southern elite neither makes claim to cultural superiority. Nor does it disparage the cultural traits or intellectual aptitude of the Arabic speaking North. At the most fundamental level, the same is true of the TPLF. Granted, unknowingly or otherwise some have tried to discredit the movement by labeling its leadership as the brainchild of Issayas Afeworki and the EPLF, which has now deteriorated into a pliant rubberstamp. Nonetheless, there is more than meets the eye in the contrast between the TPLF’s defining Ideo-poltical line and the EPLF’s bedrock doctrinal belief. Both as a movement and as a member of a ruling coalition party, the TPLF has never claimed to be a bearer of a culture that dwarfs the customs and traditions of other nationalities and peoples in Ethiopia. Let alone over the formerly dominant state-baked Amhara mores, language and tradition once held as the standard by which all other Ethiopian cultures were measured. In marked opposition, the present guardians of Eritrean nationalism seldom hide their belief in Eritreans’ inbuilt greater aptitude than their Amharic-speaking ‘annexationist’ neighbors. Including over all other African peoples whose governments, lacking in the kind of quick- mindedness unique to Eritreans, never endorsed EPLF’s struggle for independence.

To the Eritrean elite, Ethiopian political hegemony over Eritrea was as an anomalous a scenario as the Greeks twice found themselves during the course of their long an history. Naturally the highly civilized ancient Greeks were perplexed by the tragic twist of events that culminated in the loss of their freedom and annexation of all their Hellenic realms by their intellectual distant-second Roman conquerors. Similarly, their modern decedents were also embittered by their subordination at the hands of the Muslim Ottoman Turks who made no claim to any glorious antiquity. A cursory glance at their mid-19^th century nationalist literature brings to light that Grecian anger was not exclusively directed at Ottoman ‘otherness.’ It was equally pointed at the presumed coarsens of Turkic culture and the Ottomans’ lack of epic history comparable to Homeric Greece. It is not farfetched, then, to draw a parallel here with the audible undertones of Eritrean nationalist discourse. That is why we repeatedly said that one pivotal element that propelled and continues to sustain Eritrean nationalism is not unalloyed anger at alien rule alone. An equally animating factor was, and continues to be, resentment against the perceived cultural laggardness of the foreign dominator i.e. Ethiopia. Had the former been the case (given that there was no shortage of foreign rule) Eritrean nationalism would have surfaced earlier than it did. Indeed, had that been the case, nationalist Eritreans would have had an occasion to celebrate a gallant historical moment of resistance against Italian colonialism. As, for instance, their Ethiopian neighbors do with much pride and overflowing of glory that reverberates across the whole continent and the African Diaspora.

To the contrary, there is a thinly veiled pride among the Eritrean urban population in the access they had to modern amenities and the opportunity to acquire new technical skills that came by way of Italian curtsey courtesy. In large measure, early apprenticeship and on-the-job training in modern vocational workshops seems to be the source of the urban Eritrean elite perception of itself as an advanced breed. As a rule, anti-colonial nationalist consciousness does not germinate so long as the urban elite still held widespread appreciation for the trappings of modernity that inevitably trail European colonialism. This in part explains the absence of any nationalistic anti-colonial struggle in Eritrea throughout the Italian period. Whatever Eritrean national consciousness existed prior to the full-fledged armed struggle, it appeared towards the end of the British mandate. Ironically it arose not from indigenous aspiration for statehood. Paradoxical as it may seem, it sprang from Brittan’s own vexing dilemma of what to do with former Italian colonies once the axis were defeated.

Given the global climate of opinion and its own circumstances at the time, Brittan had to consult the Eritrean people to resolve this dilemma. As widely known, the response split Eritrea into two rival camps that reflected the religious divide and differential pattern of demographic settlement. Opting for federation with Ethiopia the Unionist party mobilized the highland Christian population. In marked contrast, the largely lowland-based Rabita Islamia strongly campaigned against the idea of political association with Ethiopia that defined itself as a ‘Christian Island’. Like its contemporary the Muslim League of Pakistan, the Rabita Islamia warned Eritrean Muslims of the danger that lurked behind the idea of political reintegration with Christian Ethiopia. At this stage, neither the Unionist or Muslim party platforms reflected Eritrean nationalism as we know it today. Contrary to official Eritrean historiography, popular/elite consciousness level during the British mandate, let alone the Italian period, could by no means be read as nationalist in substance. If anything, what was palpably visible in the urban and highland rural outskirts of Eritrea was Ethiopian nationalism. The victory that the better organized and better financed Unionist party scored in the first 1952 Referendum underscores this fact.

Nonetheless, out of the defeat of the Islamic cause was born the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) that for the first time called attention to the existence of a separate Eritrean identity distinct enough to warrant secession from Ethiopia. A crucial point to bear in mind here is that the armed movement was not, as it were, sparked by a litany of economic, cultural or political grievances. Rather, the catalyzing factor was perceived fear of being religiously disadvantaged in Eritrea’s political reunion with Ethiopia. Though it had enlisted some Christian highlanders in its ranks, until the late 1960s the ELF was generally perceived, not without good reason, as a pro-Arab Islamic movement. But in fairness to the ELF, one thing must be said here. From the late 1960s on, the movement had grown into a genuine untied front where competing ideo-poltical perspectives were tolerated at all leadership levels. Such ideological diversity within one organization bounded by a commonly held overriding political objective was never to be repeated in the Horn of Africa. Some, in fact, trace the ELF’s undoing to lack of monolithic thinking within its leadership. Be that as it may, up until the early 70s, it would be inaccurate to characterize the ELF-led armed struggle as an expression of Eritrean nationalism as a trans-confessional, trans-ethnic and trans-regional phenomenon. It was certainly the visible preponderance of Muslim lowlanders in the resistance movement that caused an unbridgeable internal chasm within the ELF which in 1972 led to the formation of the Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (EPLF).

This splinter movement was, needless to say, spearheaded by Issayas and his close circle of predominantly highland Christians whose successful carrier career proved detrimental to its rival. To its credit, the EPLF from the outset rearticulated the Eritrean cause in stricter civic nationalist terms with left-leaning ideological overtones. Fortuitously, the birth of the EPLF coincided with: i) the height of the global anti-imperialist movement that romanticized liberation struggles across the world, including in Eritrea. ii) The radicalization of the Ethiopian student movement that indicted the country as a ‘Prison of Nations’ and openly endorsed the claims of all nationalist movement, particularly the Eritrean struggle as a just cause. And, iii) the beginning of the self-defeating turn in Ethiopia’s policy that first dismissed the organized armed rebellion in Eritrea as mere banditry. And later as an Arab Trojan horse bent on spreading Islam in Ethiopia.

Worse still, the post-1974 militarization of state and society further exasperated the situation. As many bitterly remember, Mengistu followed his brutal elimination of all internal opposition by insisting on a military definition of the Eritrean question. Not surprisingly, such a definition permanently excluded any political solution. Instead, the absence of a political component in Ethiopia’s policy and the attendant indiscriminate repression provoked mass defection from the Christian highlands to the resistance camps, mainly to the EPLF base areas. Thus, with the appearance of the EPLF, on the one hand, and the complete militarization of Ethiopia’s administrative presence in Eritrea, the circle was complete. What began as a regional and religious awareness grew into a full-fledged national consciousness. Henceforth, the majority of Eritreans, both in the lowlands and the highlands, Muslims as well as Christians, begun to see themselves as a distinct people and as a nation that deserve political expression.

Those who rallied behind the EPLF were not only urged to pay sacrifices for Eritrean independence. They were also promised an infinitely better future in the new Eritrea: A shining example that at once would reflect the peerless dexterity of the Eritrean people and the ineptness of their former hegemon. Capitalizing on the monumental incompetence of the Dergue regime, the EPLF inculcated in the liberation movement a unique self-willed sense of destiny, as it were, that only Eritreans share by virtue of the particularity of their Eritrean heritage. No doubt this self-perception was a redoubtable source of strength that enabled Eritrean combatants to endure untold hardships and prevail over a powerful enemy during the war of liberation. The EPLF’s military exploits not only reinforced and fortified the self-referential streak in popular Eritrean nationalist discourse. It was also showcased as proof of their innately endowed incomparable prowess. In time, EPLF’s performance at the battle fields instilled in its ranks a profound ethos of invincibility, particularly among the leadership, including Issayas himself. Western acolytes that could readily parrot the myth of the un-African-like genius of the Eritrean people were not lacking. No doubt, some Western commentators had many overly optimistic things to say about Ethiopia’s future in the immediate aftermath of her resounding 1896 victory over Italy. But nothing can compare to what was written by self-appointed Western experts and reporters alike about where post-liberation Eritrea would be in the not too distant future. Predictions were certainly legion in the Western media, heralding the miraculous changes that the world was about to witness in Eritrea in ways that could never be imagined in Africa.

As pointed out earlier, the inflated sense of ‘self’ imbedded in the Eritrean liberation movement has certainly been a poignant stimulus during the armed struggle. Once independence was achieved, however, it seems to have turned into a woeful liability. For one thing, hubris and grandiose self-assuredness was responsible for why many of the EPDJ’s overambitious plans for the future of the country never materialized. Including, for the broken promises of conjuring up an Asian miracle on Eritrean soil that the EPDJ pledged to deliver in a dazzlingly short time span. To fail in this ambition as Eritrea did miserably is one thing. In fact, what is worse is, there is a growing suspicion that Eritrea’s economy may have lately stagnated and receded to pre-independence levels. There is a point that has to be noted in Eritrea’s poor showing. And that is the much-flouted Eritrean ingenuity -- so impressively manifested in the military sphere -- could not translate into economic growth much less into a spectacular take-off witnessed in Asian Tiger countries.

As can be expected, once the prospect of achieving a Singaporean rate of growth faded into ethereal mist, doubt crept in. Confidence in the widely-held belief that Eritreans can create wonders in every imaginable field of human endeavor dwindled. Thus, the only way that Issayas could sustain the myth of Eritrean ingenuity was by flashing Eritrea’s military prowess and browbeating his neighbors. To varying degrees, Yemen, Sudan, Djibouti and, worst of all, Ethiopia suffered from his erratic self-aggrandizing acts of provocations. In the Ethiopian case, however, Issayas’ reckless muscle-flexing plunged his government into a full-scale war from which Eritrea could never recover or regain its former Spartan aura. To the shocking dismay of the country’s elite, the war exploded the myth of Eritrean invincibility. Nothing could have been more demoralizing than to lose the only ground on which the Eritrean nationalists could sustain the fable about their innate advantages over other Africans. Issayas’ monumental ego was certainly deflated by the ignominious defeat. What was hard to swallow was the defeat that his army suffered was at the hands of those he had so often scornfully dismissed as inferior.

Western media flattery that glorified independent Eritrea as the only shining spot in an otherwise ‘Dark Continent’ came to a screeching halt. And, to Issayas’ misfortune, it turned into a veritable negative campaign centered on equating his new country with the pariah state of North Korea. Worse still, dissent, hitherto unthinkable, surfaced within the ranks of the once staunchly loyal Eritrean Diaspora. Some, in fact, began to openly wonder whether Eretria might not have fared better during Haile Selassie than under the PFDJ. Others are expressing their bafflement as to how everything could descend to such a level no sooner than the world barely finished lauding Eretria as the only hope in Africa. Yet others are preoccupied by a related, but a more perplexing question. They are wrestling with themselves to explain how the PFDJ that enjoyed near-unanimous support as a liberator of the nation could in so short a time be dreaded like the regime it replaced barely a decade ago. In sum, the Bademe debacle and the resultant self-doubt that suddenly manifested within the nationalist camp, has dented the PFDJ’s well-polished external profile and Issayas’ global image. The difficult post-war developments have undoubtedly diminished the acceptance rating of the small tight-knit circle of what remains of Eritrea’s founding fathers. Precipitous decline in popularity has in turn forced the Issayas circle to resort to what it knows best.

The PFDJ is certainly an expert at making self-serving invidious comparison between Eritrea and Ethiopia based on Issayas warped image of the country. Indeed today the only way Issayas can revitalize and perpetuate the legend of Eritrea’s self-ascribed modernity is by saturated propaganda about how Ethiopia pales by comparison in every imaginable sphere. Not a day goes by before Eritrean state television beams 30-year old film footages of starvation in Ethiopia narrated in perfect Amharic using the present tense. Nor does Eritrean media propaganda pass any public gathering in Addis Ababa before casting it as an anti-government mass uprising, presaging an imminent state collapse. Unfortunately for Issayas, Ethiopia is not going down the drain. It is neither in the throes of political chaos or in a steep economic decline. The situation, in fact, is far from what Issayas and his new Ethiopian friends in the Diaspora have been predicting with absolute certitude. As the whole world knows, not least Eritrean citizens, by any development measurement index, Ethiopia today is closer than ever to shed its age-old sorry image that Issayas has vested interest in preserving. Indeed, as the world’s fifth fastest growing economy, it is only a question of time before Ethiopia brakes the vicious cycle of drought and dependency on food-aid. When that happens, one wonders on what grounds Issayas could rejuvenate and reproduce the legend about Eritrean’s inherent edge over Ethiopians and Africans as a whole.

Thus, as we have pointed out earlier, ever since year 2000 one no longer hears any confident declarations from Asmara. No delusionary forecast has been made about how Eritrea would soon surprise the world by becoming the first Tiger nation in Africa. Instead, what Eritreans are being told at present is how fortunate they are compared to their starving Ethiopian neighbors who are condemned to endure unrelenting political turmoil. As this desperate twist is a self-fulfilling prophesy Eritrea had to embark on a secret policy of instigating turmoil in Ethiopia. By recruiting malcontented indigenous groups Isayas sought to destabilize Ethiopia by sponsoring terrorist acts. Nonetheless the tactic failed to produce the kind of situation that fitted his prophesy of gloom and doom. Unrelenting as he is, Issayas, nonetheless, immediately switched to woo the Union of Islamic Courts that suddenly emerged and established itself as the strongest faction in Mogadishu. Emboldened by Issayas’ arms shipment, the UIC ill-advisedly declared a ‘Holy War’ against Ethiopia which Addis Ababa promptly perceived as an immediate and serious national security danger. To its shocking surprise, however, the UIC only belatedly discovered, as other Ethiopian and Sudanese insurgents, including the EPRDF did before it, that Issayas is not only an unreliable, but a dangerous friend.

However, even after the Jihadist threat was removed and the UIC was replaced by the UN-recognized Transitional Federal Government, Issayas would not give up. He quickly realigned himself with the Al-Shabab -- a terrorist organization with close links to Al-Qaida. Despite receiving numerous warnings to desist from funneling weapons to this terrorist outfit, Issayas refused to budge. Fed up with his defiant region-wide destabilization policy, the latest being military incursion into Djibouti’s territory, the UN Security Council slapped Eritrea with international sanction. The sad part is the pressure for this severe measure came not from the USA but from the AU- an organization that Issayas never skipped a chance to malign. He has, in fact, earned notoriety for his repeated condescending remarks against the AU that cast doubt on how he perceives Eritreans and himself in terms of belonging to the family of African peoples. The above-mentioned declarative statement where Issayas says ‘We Are Number One in Africa.’ certainly compounds the doubt about Eritrean self-perception in relation to other African societies. For one cannot fathom on what grounds Issayas could be bold enough to place Eritrea above the rest of Africa. Such a statement only reflects how deeply entrenched the consciously cultivated sense of un-African ‘otherness’ is in the Eritrean liberation movement. Otherwise no president could say, ‘We Are Number One in Africa,’ on the morrow his country became the first member state to be slammed by a sanction motion at an AU heads of states summit.

Shocking as such motion would be to any country, the Eritrean government, however, has been careful not to show any signs of being perturbed. No doubt, open display of aggravation would have been contrary to Eritreans’ self-proclaimed limitless capacity to weather any storm. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how Eritrea copes with the situation a few years after the sanction begins to take its toll. Judging by the experience of other countries that buckled under sanction, the future does not look good for Eritrea. One thing is certain here. The sanction would greatly diminish Issayas’ potential to wage proxy wars against neighboring states. It will certainly restrict his chances of joggling around surrogate outfits that lend themselves to be used as pawns in his region-wide destabilization bid. That is probably why the Ginbot 7 group appeared as cheerleaders at the PFDJ-organized anti-sanction rally in Washington.

This brings us back to Tibebe’s article where he tries to caution anti- EPRDF groups against the folly of relying on Issayas. His argument, however, overlooks that the reason why the anti-EPRDF groups in the Diaspora depend on Asmara is not because they are ignorant of Issayas’ dim opinion of democracy or the intensity of his regime’s oppressiveness. As none of this bothers these malcontented Diaspora groups, they flock to Asmara for they have no other place to go where they can expect a warm reception. As they cannot promote their dangerous revanchist agenda through legal and democratic channels inside Ethiopia, they have to find an external backer that affords them the chance to retry their luck by other means. These forces know that Issayas needs them and vice-versa. The whole world is also aware that Issayas would underwrite any activity aimed at undermining the current government. For the myth of Eritrean ingenuity can only be sustained so long as Ethiopia is on a downward swing.

The shortsightedness of these groupings, however, is that they don’t seem to sense that alliance with Issayas is on many levels fraught with danger. To begin with any Ethiopian opposition that strikes a deal with Issayas leaves itself open to charges of treason that does not sit well with the Ethiopian public. It does not take a genius to anticipate the devastating political consequences that such an insurgency group would have to bear when, as it has to, blow up civilian targets in Ethiopia. Secondly these groupings are clueless that entering an accord with Issayas is like a Fustian bargain. He certainly will not think twice before he holds them accountable if their delivery falls short of his expectations. On the other hand, let us say that by some miraculous feat these local EPDJ underlings bulge as a formidable political factor in Ethiopia. Issayas, however, is not the myopic they think he is who would loosen his grip on their organizations or grant them full independence of action. For the whole rational behind Eritrea’s policy of backing anti-EPRDF forces in Ethiopia is not to substitute one big Ethiopian political organization by another. Rather, Issayas’ agenda is to arm as many equally balanced feuding factions as possible and drown the country into the abyss of endless internecine wars. As we have repeatedly argued above, according to the zero-sum political outlook of the ruling clique in Asmara, Eritrean claim to superiority can only be validated by Ethiopia’s downfall.

Pathological as this thinking is, from the Ethiopian government perspective, however, the unholy alliance between Issayas and the extremist Ethiopian opposition forces could well be a blessing in disguise. Indeed if Ethiopia has to have an enemy, she could not hope for a more foolish foe than Issayas who shoots himself on the foot. Foolish indeed as he is, he forgets that there is no political force in Ethiopia committed to a peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship with Eritrea as the current ruling party, the ERRDF, is. With the notable exception of Benito Mussolini, never has the country faced an enemy whose tactless aggressive behavior and choice of friends, often converts the international community into ardent allies of Ethiopian.