Isayas: From Confrontation to Avoidance
Isayas has been suiting everything to his whims commending and condemning or avoiding and compromising or admitting and denying in order to benefiting the vision for his tyranny. As powerful as he is, nothing lies outside Isayas’s power in that he shuts the door on those unwelcomed and widely opens the door on those favored. His link is an opportunity found to many, opening for them the door widely for everything including regular/irregular businesses, scholarships and travelling. Many of his favored close friends bounced back from business failures with just his approvals. His relationship with others is based on never to confuse those that strengthen his power with those that weaken his position. Thus, using avoidance approach as a means to ignore and discourage those unwanted is designed to enable him to avoid setbacks by shifting shames and failures to others through confrontation.
At first, Massawa was chosen to be the tyrant’s convenient place for imposing his tyranny’s reality on the Eritrean people and the whole nation by avoidance or staying away from making direct decisions to address questions of the time or sensitive and controversial issues. To further narrow the tyrant’s inner circles, his place of avoidance was first moved to Gahtelay and then to Adi Halo. From his place of avoidance, the tyrant must be using the most sophisticated technology to check on his regent or the generals or those who are potential sources of threats, while the people are only allowed to use a reverse peephole to follow where and what the tyrant is doing at his new place of avoidance, Adi Halo. Although the tyrant’s avoidance approach is not a response or a solution to correcting his behavior and controlling his arrogance, the continuation of his confrontational behaviors from Adi Halo is becoming a cause for blaming all failures on the tyrant and making the criminal generals into victims of the tyrant.
All those remote controlled by the tyrant from Adi Halo are said to be doing their best to carry out orders strictly as instructed. Yet, there is no any peace associated with what those remote controlled are carrying out because they know that in the event of any fault they are on their own and supposed to take the blame. They cannot resign. The only option they have is either to commit suicide or flee the country. Their taking the blame makes the tyrant always perfect and all achievements are meant to release greatness for the tyrant, who is hiding in Adi Halo. Unless the place of avoidance is meant to hide the tyrant’s poor health, for the people who are seeing the country shaped by the generals’ decisions may push the tyrant out of the people’s minds.
No doubt, the tyrant’s staying at distance or not being directly involved might be reducing his bitterness towards those who secretly blame and criticize him. Similarly, his absence might also be denying him to praise those who deserve it and, as well, is preventing him from building relationship with those who could serve him better. With the generals’ decisions shaping the country and resolving all the tensions between the government and the people, it seems like Isayas has either quietly handed the power over or that he was forced to hand the power over to the military junta of criminal generals to govern the country. It would have been better for Isayas not to hide in his place of avoidance and, instead, return to secure his regular office as the safest place from where he could face the realties without avoiding direct confrontation, when needed.
Confrontation as a Means to Get Away with his Denials
Isayas’s close friends always try to find out whether his confrontational behavior springs from cover ups or strength. If Isayas has no frustration and has no reason to be pretentious, why would he be so confrontational? If there is anything that comes back to haunt him in the fear of retaliation from the silent supports of G-15, can’t he silence the source of the threat? BTW, do these silent supporters of G-15 have power to counterattack and who are they?
Should Isayas be suffering from frustration other than failure of his rule, he then could be having a problem of making a precise distinction between his supporters and those supports of the G-15. And, if Isayas knows what Wedi Ali was up to, then he can have a hint about the potential threats. Otherwise, Isayas, as the most power man, has to move on peacefully past his actions of dismantling the political opinions of the G-15 inside Eritrea. After all, Isayas is well aware that it takes a lot of crookedness, bullying and intimidation to be a dictator but it takes courage and openness to be a good leader.
The EPLF veterans believe that the EPLF’s legacies are the only forces that can drive the democratic changes in Eritrea. Isayas is blamed for most or 99.99% of leadership failures to live up to the EPLF’s legacies and the Eritrean Revolution’s promises. If Isayas’s denial of these facts is the root cause for his frustration, then his arrogance or confrontation on all fronts is to deny the truth and punish those who are trying to find the truth in an effort to bring about justice and rule of law in Eritrea. The fear from Isayas’s punishment have made all those around him wretchedly blind to the ugly political reality in Eritrea, where tyranny has inflicted fear, forced labor, slavery, wide starvation and economic devastation that are forcing the people to flee the country depopulating the country. Many of Isayas’s life-long comrades tried to put truth into his lips but every attempt was met with anger and negative reciprocity escalating him into a full-fledged confrontation with everyone around. The following are a few examples of his confrontations and denials:
-When a group of religious people questioned about the failure of the government to function appropriately, Isayas replied asking, “What can I do by myself when the entrusted Muslims have become drunkards and the entrusted Christians have become thieves?”
-When a journalist asked Isayas about democracy in Eritrea, he answered saying that, “Democracy has so many definitions and it is a shocking fact that it has even failed to work in the USA and UK.”
-When close friends informed Isayas that there are people who are questioning his good intentions and backgrounds, he told them, “Tell those people that like I brought the independence by breaking away, I could surrender it back.”
-When a journalist asked Isayas to clarify about press freedom in Eritrea, he explained that, “You can no longer persuade people that there is freedom of press and freedom of expression or there to be unchecked political opinions (anywhere in the world).”
-When a close friend from Hadamu of Asmara jokingly suggested to Isayas that he could run for election from Hadamu rather than Tselot, Isayas jokingly and without anger retorted saying that, “All of Kebesas cannot trace back more than four generations in Eritrea, and specifically you of Hadamu starting with your Harogot and general Inghida cannot count back more than two generations in Eritrea.”
-When a close friend from Sahle jokingly suggested to Isayas that he could run for election from Sahle rather than Hamasien, he jokingly without anger replied explaining that, “With exception of Naras, Kunamas, Danakil and the Eritrean crocodiles, all the rest are of new arrivals from across the borders.”
-When a journalist asked him as to why thousands of Eritrean youth were fleeing, Isayas replied, “They will come back. They are just on picnic and for sure they will come back soon.”
-When people asked about the mined gold, Isayas answered, “That mined metal has its owner and it is unhealthy to expect a change in the economy of the country from the mined gold.”
All of Isayas’s confrontational statements are to escape accountability and clarity. It is not a surprise to see the secret holders fleeing the country when they feel that their secrecy is failing. Although Isayas knows that the best way to ensure credibility of his entrusted people is through confrontation and not avoidance, his choice for avoidance is not without cost. For sure, the avoidance approach is failing to keep the horrors of his rule in safe hands. Thus, for those silent supporters of the G-15, it is time to be firm in holding their grounds. They don’t have to be allowing themselves to be stuck in between Isayas and his generals. This time, the silent supporters of G-15 have to declare their political stances if they could to send a message that they too are there. They don’t have to continue to be politically repentant who are forced to stay out of politics condemned to work only towards self-destruction.
Other Forces that can pose a Coup Threat are the Pro-G15 Elements
Indeed, to many of Eritreans inside Eritrea, the absence of Isayas or staying away from sight is only about who he is and not what he does. During his absence, the tyrant has been forced to share his authority, however; his generals with whom the authority is shared, they have become more cruel and abusive. It looks that according to the forces of tyranny, the generals appear to be worse in terrorizing the people into submission. Everyone is pressured to comply with the orders of the generals. Should the generals do not remain to be loyal dogs to Isayas during his absence, they could unite the people in hating the tyrant and removing him any time. Similarly, it is time for the silent supporters of G15 to match their political practices with their principles even if that poisons their relationship with the generals. After all, in the absence of Isayas there is no a safe distance from the criminal generals, who are accused of corruption and crimes. The game played by the pro-G15 elements, in the absence of the tyrant, should be challenging the unfettered powers of the generals. Otherwise, military dictatorship will become inevitable taking root by the unrestricted discretion the generals are enjoying during the tyrant’s absence.
The other possibilities for Isayas’s turning away to take stance of avoidance in Adi Halo to escape blames could be due to his inability to forgive himself for what he did to the G-15. It is usual that young and cruel revolutionists, like Isayas and Gadhafi, when they get old, they try to review their past mistakes in isolated places. Very much, Isayas should be in such life crisis reviewing and looking, as regret stricken person, into his past mistakes in isolated places like Adi Halo, while at the same time keeping his distance from those who let him commit the mistake against his life-long comrades.
If Isayas is suffering one betrayal pain for each of the betrayed G-15, then he must be suffering from 15 betrayals that he has to deal with at his place of avoidance in Adi Halo. Prior to the G-15 disappearance, Isayas must have had trust and respect for each of them. And, if deep inside Isayas admits that he had backstabbed each of the G-15 when they served the nation honestly and honorably, he might be struggling, in Adi Halo, for the right words of apologies to their families and offspring who suffered the consequences. Therefore, if Adi Halo could not end the pains of Isayas for the betrayal of his life-long comrades, the only solution is for Isayas to honor those comrades, who perished in his dungeons, by stepping down and handing power back to the people in the name of the G-15.
Long Live Eritrea
Mamino
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