Yonas

[Yonas @peak_african]

@hasanthehun @andrejgee https://t.co/UjepAYFPyb

[Yonas @peak_african]

@RevRecover

[SaaYEritrea @saayEritrea]

30 minutes dedicated to #Sudan when the interview was advertised it was going to be about domestic affairs!

Can you imagine if the heads of governments of our neighbors, for example Sudan, were to speak about #Eritrea and its regions and its people the same way Isaias does about them?

It would be something like this:

“Sudan’s national interest is affected by how Eritrea’s government treats the Beni Amer, the Habab, the Marya, the Beja (Hedareb), the Rashaida and other peoples who also have kin in Sudan.

“These societies are marginalized and tens of thousands of them have lived in refugee camps of Sudan since the 1960s. The government of Eritrea, whose mandate to govern ended in 1997 (per Proclamation 37/1993) should transition power to the people, all people of Eritrea….”

Most of you would say “that’s none of your business!” But here is Isaias, year after year, opining on the governance of others as if he is a pundit.

[Yonas @peak_african]

@saayEritrea

[Yonas @peak_african]

@ElizabethTecle @EGerasouli35992 @martinplaut Elsa, this man has retweeted Charlie Kirk - a vile racist and muslim-hating right-wing influencer.

This is a major problem. I hope our muslim brothers & sisters are included in the “blue revolution”. If so, there is no space for this rhetoric and people who think this way.

[Yonas @peak_african]

@dsavy_dan @nonchalaannt DM me

[Yonas @peak_african]

@acitizenco PFDJ = Promises, Failures, Delays, Justifications

[Yonas @peak_african]

@acitizenco PFDJ = Promises, Failures, Delays, Justifications

[Yonas @peak_african]

@zaidnaf @EmbassyEritrea turning a blind eye to the oppression of Eritrean people is deeply disrespectful and shows a disturbing lack of integrity and basic decency

[Yonas @peak_african]

@GogeernEritrea bitten by a snake in panama… now bitten by the snake in asmara

[Yonas @peak_african]

@IanECox yep, the trade craft has been lost

[Yonas @peak_african]

@robel_yeshiwas Same can be said about Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, etc.

[Yonas @peak_african]

the “colorful attires committee” morphed into this current stage as a reflex to the relentless astroturfing campaigns of the Tigrayans during the war

mimicking what they perceived as effective advocacy

[SaaYEritrea @saayEritrea]

At the end of Independence Day festivities at Asmara Stadium, they give credit to those who organized the event. Sadly, this doesn’t include thanking the “Applause Committee”, the “Reading Facial Expression of Isaias Committee” and the “Colorful Attires Committee”, so we will assume it is the Minister of Culture.

1. Applause Committee: This is a phrase an #Eritrea|n came up with when we are trying to understand a misplaced applause. “እታ ናይጣቕዒት ኮሚቴ ኣጋግያቶም" is how he explained it (“The Applause Committee led them astray.”)

Here’s why.

For the first time since #Ethiopia’s PM @AbiyAhmedAli started his treatise on Water, Sea, and Access in October 2023, the government of Eritrea had not updated its people, officially, as to the status of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Peace & Friendship Agreement of 2018. And this is the phrase the president used to describe it: ተበጊሱ ነበረ ትስፉው ሃንቀውታ በኒኑ እዩ:: @shabait translated it to “the optimistic prospects that were in the offing have dissipated.”

The audience applauded. I don’t know why other than they finally got the position of the government and, it turns out, Awel Seied was not improvising all this time.

2. “Reading Facial Expression of Isaias Committee”

During the Cold War, the U.S. could only read who was ascending and who was descending within the closed circuit USSR leadership based on the seating arrangement of USSR officials during the annual May Day parade.

This is harder to do in #Eritrea. Was Foreign Minister Osman Saleh absent because he is traveling or sick or sidelined? Has #PFDJ Political Director Yemane Gebreab been defrosted and returned to prominence or he was just substituting for Osman Saleh? Whatever happened to #EPLF legend Sebhat Ephrem?

Only Isaias knows.

Whoever is present, their role is to exemplify servility and abjectness by inventing protocols that don’t exist: stand when the President is standing; laugh when he is laughing and to be sour faced when he is. The committee on reading Isaias did its job well.

3. Colorful Attires Committee

#PFDJ inherited the “Kebele” (neighborhood co-op) administration from #Ethiopia’s Mengistu and weaponized it into a local administration with enforcement mechanism. Your son went to exile? It will be reported to the kebele and you will be fined. There is a guest visiting you? Reported. There is a national holiday? They will tell the women how to dress, how to braid their hair and if they can’t attend what the corresponding fine is.

This is so important, a kebele (ንኡስ ዞባ) competition is conducted as to who wore it well (Abashawl Neighborhood of Asmara used to win it every year back when I used to follow this)

What’s new this year is that the Diaspora Eritrean version of nationalism—Eritrean flag displayed in bandana, shawl, tassel, hat, ነጸላ, ጋቢ, መቕነዓት, face paint—has taken over. It’s like watching a political party convention, if run by sports fans. Every year the clothes get louder and in-your-face.

This is something the People’s Front would never have tolerated but the People’s Front is dead: long live the People’s Front. Now entirely personified in Isaias Afwerki.

As to the speech, at this point I have nothing to say about the speech—I see it no different from all previous speeches following the zoom-in methodology of story-telling (The Globe -> #Africa -> Region -> #Eritrea), where every year Isaias makes new promises. But I may have something to say about the political culture that never asks “whatever happened to all the pledges made in the past years” and that’s not an Isaias problem, now, is it?

[Yonas @peak_african]

@ErRenaissance @saayEritrea 😂😂 I shouldn’t be laughing, but damn