Paulos M. Natnael

Author, commenter, interested in technology, literature & history. #FreePoliticalPrisoners in #Eritrea. @SDState @SNHU Eritrean-American 🇺🇸

[Paulos M. Natnael @plss4]

“We must always take sides. Nuetrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” —Elie Wiesel, author of the classic, “Night,” was a survivor of the Holocaust.

[Tuum Ghebreyohannes 🚴‍♀️🇪🇷 @Ghebreyohannes]

ስውር ኣሰራርሓ ስለያ መሓውር ህግደፍ ከመይ ይመስል?::
credit goes to Eripm #Eritrea 🇪🇷
Part #4

[Tuum Ghebreyohannes 🚴‍♀️🇪🇷 @Ghebreyohannes]

ስውር ኣሰራርሓ ስለያ መሓውር ህግደፍ ከመይ ይመስል?::
credit goes to Eripm #Eritrea 🇪🇷
Part #1

[Paulos M. Natnael @plss4]

I hope you’re not disappointed today 🤔Mayor! Good luck, from a Chelsea fan!

[Zohran Kwame Mamdani @ZohranKMamdani]

“Why argue with an Arsenal fan when you can just wait?” We waited. We won. We are champions of England - and we are just one game away from being crowned champions of Europe. Read my piece on what Arsenal means to me here: https://t.co/J6cg388mRH

[Erin Burnett OutFront @OutFrontCNN]

CNN learning “no fat soldiers” will be invited to Trump’s WH UFC fights. Sources say they must “look good” on camera, meet weight standards, and they have to pay their own way there.

[Bahlbi የማነ 🇪🇷🇨🇦 @Bahlbiyemane]

ኤርትራውያን መበል 35 ዓመት ብዓል ናጽነት ከብዕሉ ይሻባሸቡ ኣለዉ። ኣብ ፖሊቲካዊ ፍልስፍና ብዙሕ ዘፈላልዩ ስነ-ሓሳባት ምህላዎም ከም ጸጋ ተወሲዱ፡ ፍልልያትና ብተጻዋርነትን ምክብባርን ምስ እንዝትየሎም ነታ ክንሃንጻ ንብህግ ምዕብልትን ዲሞክራስያዊትን መጻኢት ኤርትራ ዓቢ ኣበርክቶ እዩ። ኣብዚ ግና ሓደ ከም ርዱእ ክውሰድ ዝግብኦ፡ ኣብ ዋጋ ዕዳጋ ክኣቱ ዘይግብኦ ነገር እንተሎ ናጽነት ኤርትራ እዩ። ናጽነት ኤርትራ ፖለቲካዊ ፍልስፍና ኣይኮነን። ናጽነት ኤርትራ ምስ ውልቀ-ምልክን ዲሞክራስን ዘተሓሕዝ ምንም የብሉን። ናጽነት ኤርትራ ብመስዋእቲ ኤርትራውያን መጺኡ፣ ዲሞክራሲ ክኣ ብህልዋት እዩ ዝህነጽ/ክህነጽ። ህልዋት ምስ ዝሰንፉ ክኣ ምልኪ ይነግስ። ጀጋኑ ኤርትራውያን ተሰዊኦም ናጽነት ኣምጺኦም፡ ኣነን ንስኹምን ስለ ዝሓመቕና ክኣ ውልቀ-ምልኪ ነጊሱ። ካብ ኩሉ ዝኸፍኤ ክኣ፡ ብሕመቕና ዝሻደነ ውልቀምልኪ ኣላሽ ስለዘበልና፡ ናጽነት ኣይኣብዕልን እየ ኢልካ ንፍረ መስዋእቲ ኤርትራውያን ምሕሳም። ናጽነት ኤርትራ ናይ ኢሰያስ ኣይኮነን። ናጽነት ኤርትራ ፍረ መስዋእቲ ህዝቢ ኤርትራ እዩ። ዋንነቱ ክኣ ናይ ህዝቢ እዩ። ናጽነት፡ ኣብ ትሕቲ ዲሞክራሲ ጥራሕ ዝኽበር ኣይኮነን። ኣብ ትሕቲ ምልኪ ይኹን ኣብ ትሕቲ ዲሞክራሲ ንዘላኣለም ዝኽበር እዩ። ኣብ ኤርትራ፡ ዘይተጸበናዮ ብዙሕ ኣደራዕ ወሪዱና ንስቓይ፡ ሕሰም፡ ሞትን ስደትን ተጋሊጽና ኣለና። ብውልቀምልኪ ተጨውያ ዘላ ሃገር ብኸመይ ናብ ህዝቢ ንምለሳ ንዝብል ፖለቲካውን ስትራተጂካውን ፍልስፍና ክንፈላለ ንቡር እዩ፡ ብናጽነት ኤርትራ እንተተፈላሊና ግና ዘራኽብ የብልናን። ሩሑስ መበል 35 መዓልቲ ናጽነት🎉 #Eritrea

[Ro Khanna @RoKhanna]

There is not a single mention of Gaza in the 192 page DNC autopsy report. As someone who campaigned in Michigan and Wisconsin, let me tell you- one of the main reasons we lost was our blank check to Israel while they committed a genocide.

Our party must put human rights first.

[Cameron Hudson @_hudsonc]

"The US' recent decisions-lifting sanctions on🇪🇷and removing arms restrictions on🇪🇹-reveal Trump’s strategy: not full alignment with either side, but rather the construction of a managed balance between🇪🇷and🇪🇹 into a rivalry contained under a🇺🇸 umbrella." https://t.co/fbmLowheeG

[Paulos M. Natnael @plss4]

@saayEritrea Amazing time it was, May 1991.

[Ciham’s Uncle @saayEritrea]

Isaias Afwerki & His 32 Years of Failed Proxy Wars

https://t.co/G4bKG7CasC

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

Hunter Biden on Elon Musk:

“You’ve got some motherf-cker who’s made over $251 billion being a United States citizen, that got here and stayed here illegally before he got his citizenship, sitting here lecturing us on who we should allow into the US”

[Ciham’s Uncle @saayEritrea]

Hoping Sanctions End Brings Reform in Eritrea? You Miss How Isaiaism Actually Works!

When ideology, the original appeal to legitimacy, fails, it’s customary for autocracies to lean hard on a different tool. The good news is that unlike many others who trade ideology for ethnicity (Saddam, Assad, Moi, Omar Al Beshir, etc), Isaiaism does not use patronage system that favors a certain ethnicity or region or religion.

Not because he is beyond that, but because he doesn’t want to empower anyone that will eventually pose a threat to him.

The bad news is that President Isaias’ legitimacy to govern is based on something much worse: coercion & fear, fragmentation, and permanent mobilization.

This is Isaiaism:

1. Coercion & Fear: This includes mass surveillance, indefinite national service, imprisonment, torture, and extra‑legal killings. Members of the “ruling party” PFDJ and their immediate family members are just as susceptible to be surveilled, imprisoned, tortured, and killed extrajudicially by prisons designed to snuff their lives (no health care, no church, no mosque, no books, no family visitation: just a slow agonizing death.)

It’s not an accident that almost 700,000 Eritreans, from a population of 4.5 million, have left the country. In times of peace.

2. Fragmentation: in Eritrea, it is illegal for more than 7 people to gather unless they are at a funeral, a wedding or attending a government-sponsored event. The most terrifying thing to the Isaiaism is a people excercising their freedom of assembly without Isaiaisists chaperoning it. Again, even the faces of PFDJ that many people blame for being the pillars of PFDJ don’t have the right to assemble, unless they are gathered to bury a comrade or attend their kids’ or grandkids’ wedding.

While Isaiaists will not use ethnicity as a tool of patronage, they will certainly use it to break apart any organized group they see as a threat. This group is a threat? It is because it’s full of Jihadists (Muslims.) This other is a threat? They are from Akele Guzay, they are Pente, they are not really Eritreans. They are from Tigray. They are hamburger-loving Americans.

3. Permanent Mobilization: the country must always be on war footing. Since independence, Isaiaism has led Eritrea to war with Yemen (1994), Sudan (1995), Ethiopia (1998-2000), Djibouti (2008), Ethiopia again (2020-22.) Conflicts are never resolved: external conspiracies are used to justify indefinite national service and the suppression of dissent in the name of national security and unity.

In short, the old EPLF/PFDJ revolutionary nationalism has basically dried up, and replaced by Isaiaism which runs on a highly securitized, personalized style of rule centered on Isaias himself.

So when American sanctions are removed, they will provide no tangible change to the people and will be used solely to polish the image of Isaias as the man, the prophet, who made America reconcile with him on his terms.

But sanctions or no sanctions, the tools of governance—coercion & fear, fragmentation, and permanent mobilization—are here to stay as long as Isaias is president because it is the ONLY way he knows to govern. You can’t give what you don’t have, as the Arabs say.

Again, this is not a commentary on the merits or demerits of sanctions. It is a commentary on the predictability of the man (Isaias) who likes people to believe he is unpredictable and the only way he knows how to govern (Isaiaism.)

Those of you who believe otherwise are welcome to place a wager on it. I don’t mind taking your money.

[Paulos M. Natnael @plss4]

@ZecariasG @Bahlbiyemane Good idea but so many times over the past 35 years they have had a chance to do so for the sake of the country & its people. I doubt it seriously if they are thinking in those terms. If any, they will claim they have “triumphed” in spite of sanctions & other difficulties.

[Hasan alrabay @HasanEssam29636]

One of the most terrifying images in history: a transformation from life to death.

Gaza in 2023 and 2026!

[Paulos M. Natnael @plss4]

@AKorybko A “joint Ethiopian-US port in Assab”? Really? Try again.

[Paulos M. Natnael @plss4]

@mkheirom I agree. Sanctions harm far more the ordinary people than those in power.

[Mohamed Kheir Omer @mkheirom]

Lifting the US sanctions on Eritrea is long overdue

As some readers may know, there was a time when I argued for sanctions against #Eritrea because of the regime's persistent and deeply upsetting human rights abuses against its own citizens. As the vast majority of Eritreans, I had an expectation that the attention of the outside world would ensure that those in positions of power would be held accountable. However, in the years since and particularly after observing the diverging responses of Western governments to wars in #Ukraine versus #Gaza, I have become increasingly doubtful about how sanctions are used in international relations. The US sanctions on Eritrea were not implemented in the interest of the #Eritrean people, and now they will be lifted for the sake of current geopolitical considerations.

Today, I am not bothered by the principle of accountability itself but rather its selective application. Although sanctions are often discussed as measures to protect human rights and international law, in practice, they seem strongly influenced by political interests and geostrategic alliances. Some states are sanctioned quickly and comprehensively, while others, even if accused of similar grievous breaches of rights but happen to be allied, financially involved or geopolitically advantageous, escape with caution or are outright protected.

This contradiction is exemplified by Eritrea. If we take the war on #Tigray, Eritrean armed forces have rightly been accused of committing serious abuses throughout the course of the war. Many of those reports also described atrocities committed by Ethiopian forces, but #Ethiopia's army was not sanctioned. The international response was nonsensically weighted towards Eritrea.

In #Sudan, we can see another variation of the same song today. The #US has imposed sanctions on certain individuals associated with both the SAF and RSF, as well as on foreign mercenaries purportedly fighting on the side of one or the other faction. But the critics point to a refusal to directly challenge regional players such as the #UAE, which stands accused of financing or facilitating the war. This, to many observers, further strengthens the view that sanctions are driven not by value-based principles but by self-interested political and economic considerations.

There is also the uncomfortable truth that sanctions hardly ever deliver on their own goals. Over the mountain ranges in Eritrea, where many of the targets are high-ranking military or security officials whose presence in the West is so limited that individual sanctions have little impact and who work through opaque channels and systems using foreign names and regional alliances to sidestep restrictions. As a result, the impact is fairly limited for ground-level decision-makers.

The rest of us of the population get by unscathed. We already know that economic isolation, banking restrictions, and diplomatic pressure are deepening hardship, which they barely endure under authoritarian rule. Eritrea shows that sanctions produce no political change and do nothing to bolster opposition. Even the opposition has remained divided and failed to turn international pressure into domestic political pressure.

In the end, significant change in Eritrea — as in so many authoritarian cases — will not stem from foreign sanctions alone. It will have to come from within the society, via political change initiated and spearheaded by the Eritreans.

There is no excuse to overlook or justify human rights abuses. Far from it. However, when the principles of justice are binding only at certain times, they cannot be expected to provide moral authority for the international community. Otherwise, sanctions will continue to be seen around the world not as instruments of justice but as tools of geopolitical self-interest disguised in the language of human rights.

[AronT @Aribanob]

#South Beach, one of the most well-known neighborhoods in #Durban, has long been a place where migrants and local residents live side by side in relative harmony. It is therefore deeply troubling to see individuals, claiming to act in the name of patriotism, forcing migrants—including #refugees and #asylum_seekers—to shut down their businesses.

Many #Eritrean refugee, including the gentle man in the video are legally registered in #SouthAfrica, earning an honest living through his small spa shop. #Refugees and asylum seekers are legally permitted to work and to live with dignity in this country. Their presence is not outside the law.

What we are witnessing, however, is a pattern of individuals taking the law into their own hands—imposing informal “street law” under the pretext of targeting illegal migrants or undocumented migrants. This is not law enforcement; it is vigilantism.

The continued inaction of the state is a critical issue. When such actions go unchallenged and perpetrators are not held accountable, it emboldens further abuses. Over time, this normalizes and legitimizes organized forms of xenophobia and Afrophobia, undermining both the rule of law and the constitutional protections that South Africa claims to uphold.

#Migrants #refugees #Durban #South_Africa #Xenophobia #AfroPhobia
@JacintaNgobese @unhcrsafrica @DefendDefenders @FrontLineHRD @amnesty @AmnestySAfrica @BBCAfrica @ForumSouthern @SARefugee_Led @GovernmentZA @Inqubeko_news @SABCNews @zeteo_news @GroundUp_News @SAPoliceService @AfricaisBlack @Abramjee @penuelist_ @Julius_S_Malema @ChrisExcel102 @PresidencyZA @Pontifex @Thuso1Africa @jimNjue_ @zizipho50 #SouthAfrica

[Frank C @FrankCMYK]

No shit Sherlock. The apartheid welfare queen known as @elonmusk spent years screaming racist dog whistles through a megaphone while half this country kept responding like confused goldfish every single time. “Wait… this is who he is?” YES. The man practically turned Twitter into Stormfront with better branding.

It’s amazing how the so-called “superior race” spends most of its time crying about equality. The second they have to compete in a system that isn’t rigged in their favor, here come the tears: DEI, immigrants, Black people, women, pronouns, history books, colleges, Disney, fucking mermaids.