AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ERITREANS GATHERED TO OPPOSE THE BOLOGNA FESTIVAL

29.06.2014

As the leadership of the ENC4DC, we send our greetings and congratulations to the Eritrean opposition parties and civil society groups and individuals meeting in Bologna.   2014 is the 40^th anniversary of the first Bologna festival, then transferred to Eritrea after independence.  Now that Eritreans have been fleeing the country in their thousands, the Dictator, Isaias Aferwerki, has chosen to follow them to Bologna, in an effort to mobilise his supporters, to undermine the opposition and to raise money for his own fascistic purposes. 

This is a government that has ignored the suffering of its own citizens: those in detention camps in Israel, and making a desperate call for help by marching to the border; those held for ransom in Sinai, and drowning in the seas off Lampedusa.  Eritreans at home and in the diaspora are increasingly turning against the dictatorship.  The recent thirty-eight page pastoral letter by four Catholic bishops in Eritrea, Where is your brother? (Genesis 4:9) is a strong appeal to the Eritrean people and an indicator of this movement away from the PFDJ and towards democracy and freedom.

We urge all those who oppose the dictatorship to unite in bringing this situation to the world’s attention.   The ENC4DC is appealing to the UN, EU, the Pope and to the Italian government in particular, to align themselves with the Eritrean opposition, and to close all offices of the PFDJ.  Hundreds of Eritrean asylum-seekers are sleeping on the streets of Rome, Milan and other Italian cities.  Let us bring this scandal of forced migration and suffering to an early end.

Leadership of the Eritrean National Council for Democratic Chage

Chairman, Tzeggai Yohannes Deres

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Posted by farajat on Jun 30 2014 Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry