HOW TO GO ABOUT DICTATORS AND
THEIR DICTATORIAL SYSTEMS?
The VKP ( January 1, 2004 )

 

Though there are very few, but genuine fellow-Eritreans opposing dictatorship, accusing dictators of their dictatorial characters and systems, yet most of us prefer to talk and argue about, discuss on and even very strongly condemn more the “dictatorships” and the dictatorial systems than attack the dictators themselves.

It is rather difficult to ascertain what the main motives are which keep preventing us from being sincere, direct and coherent in uncompromisingly dealing with dictators and their evil-deeds.

Browsing through the information material of the Internet or even simply conversing with quite a few fellow-Eritreans on this topic, there are either the same few writers, interviewers and interviewed on dictatorship or one encounters similar fellow-country-persons, talking superficially about the matter, generally condemning “dictatorship” but not specifically identifying a given “dictator,” no matter how often one may try to shift the focus from the general to the specific point of the dialogue. One therefore wonders whether such attitude to be a deliberate “beating round the bush” or a touchy subject one prefers to be evasive about, in order not to compromise either one’s own interests and benefits, deriving from the dictatorial system of the dictator himself or else, one is being simply a coward person and afraid of dictators themselves. Either ways, one is fooling oneself by trying to deny that “dictatorship” is the work of a dictator and it exists solely and as long as the dictator himself exists and operates. It is and it should be the dictator the main target.

It has often been said and repeated that dictators are not usually born but simply let, not only grow up as such, but also supported to ascend the leadership ladder, where they would either stay for life or descend only as dead dictators. Even a grown up democrat can and is said to turn into the worst dictator, once he is left too long, too alone and to free to hold, manoeuvre and use “a Field-Marshal’s” like baton.

One would however refuse to believe that, many fellow-Eritreans lack of such insight into the minds, the systems and the actions of dictators, for they have seen and experienced enough of them, before and even after the more than thirty years of struggle for their territorial independence, but there must be other deeply seated reasons why we are often becoming the slaves of the dictators of our own make. Are we therefore letting our leaders too long, too free and too alone to hold, manoeuvre and use the baton of the leadership upon us? Are we afraid of falling out of our dictators’ grace, once we confront, criticise and condemn their characters and evil-deeds ? Are we afraid of losing our personal or group’s interests and benefits, once we tell them the truth of the face that they are dictators? If we are not therefore constrained by such series of hindrances but honestly meaning to combat and defeat our dictators and “to-be-dictators” as well as their dictatorial characters, tendencies and systems, what is preventing us from collectively confronting a Mr. Isayas Afwerki, criticising, condemning and telling him to have been ruling the country for too long, too free and too alone and therefore that he has turned himself into an absolute and a cruel dictator, needing to be uncompromisingly fought against and removed from his presidency, which is anyway, self-appointed? It is in fact, not only an effrontery by him, but also a coward state of inertia by all of us Eritreans, to being continuously fooled about by a self-appointed ruler who has defined himself as the elected “president of the Sovereign State of Eritrea,” but for life. How to go about with such a dictator? Let him continue to fool us?

Looking into our own house, how are we the Kunama people, to go about a Kunama leader of a Kunama organisation, today turned into one of the worst criminals the Kunama history has ever known? We have been fooled about for too long, by that self-appointed leader who has turned, not only himself into a cruel dictator, but has made and shaped a whole organisation, into his own image and resemblance. Mr. Adolay Kornelios Osman, has managed to turn the DMLEK and its entire military, political and administrative wings into a subservient organisation, solely dedicated to his own personal service and maintenance of his political and leadership posts. He has been eliminating all the contending forces within the organisation, simply and very falsely accusing them of all kinds of spying activities, mischief, misdeeds and misdemeanours of his own fantasy and imagination. He has been using identical techniques to accuse and denigrate his own colleagues in the organisational leadership, both within and outside of the ENA. The continuous news recently filtering from many sources, even from within the ENA’s sister-organisations themselves, are revealing that, Mr. Adolay Kornelios Osman, has created himself a comfortable life in the Ethiopian capital of Addis-Ababa, dedicating himself totally in his own continuous attempts to establish his own person and authority within the ENA and only partly working for the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of the Eritrean Kunama, he, on the other hand, claims to be a leader, spearheading its entire military activities but in reality, only and simply remote-controlling it.

After having directly killed or let die in the underground prison-cells of his own construction four of his own kinds, expelled and isolated others, from the organisation itself, the present DMLEK’s leader is now totally free from any fear of leadership contention, within the organisation and therefore he is now trying to find and denigrate, accusing of the same leadership aspirations and ambitions, those Kunama expatriates who anyway have not the faintest interests in his leadership obsessions. Is the man grown too much of a dictator? No doubt about it. No Kunama person would ever and so cold-bloodedly kill his own fellow Kunama ethnic-group members unless he has turned himself into the worst leader and dictator. The Kunama history is full of his ethnic-group members being killed by their enemies and strangers but never by their own people. Has Mr. Adolay Kornelios Osman not overturned our entire history? What are we Kunama saying and doing against such an arrogant dictator, from within our own Kunama, known as “a peaceful, peace-loving and conflict-avoiding” society?

Why are then certain Kunama individuals who, up to yesterday, like our own selves, (the web-master and the co-writer of the www.eritrean-kunama.com), were the staunchest supporters of the person and of the leadership of Mr. Adolay Kornelios Osman, have all of a sudden gone into an unexplainable silence, once the VKP’s team has found out, published and revealed the homicidal crimes, committed at the hands and at the orders of Mr. Adolay Kornelios Osman himself? Are those fellow-Kunama being simply cowards, afraid of him or else still believing in the innocence, honesty and leadership qualitiess and advantages of the present DMLEK’s leader? Throughout our entire Kunama history, the Kunama people have always had their own ethnic-group leaders, like the late Mr. Sila Abel Fagi’s calibre, sacrificing their own lives on behalf of and for their own Kunama people, never spilling the blood of even a single person of their own kind, in order either to protect themselves or promote their own leadership and other interests. In front of such morally very high-graded examples, Mr. Adolay Kornelios Osman, following his very low and degrading acts of violence, should feel ashamed of being even born as a Kunama, let alone leading a Kunama organisation, struggling for the Kunama cause. All those fellow-Kunama too, who are still doubting Mr. A. Kornelios Osman’s dictatorial character, of his cynical and very cruel conduct, of his lies and continuous use of the politics of defamation and are therefore refusing to come out in the open, as some of us are now doing and uncompromisingly condemning his homicidal acts, should be equally feeling ashamed of being Kunama, caring more about the lives of their own kinds, rather than supporting a cruel dictator’s leadership. It is no use, both for us Kunama people in particular as well as for all of us Eritreans in general, hesitating to confront, condemn and try to defeat the dictator himself rather than wasting our time moaning about dictatorship and its inherently seated malicious characteristics. We need to go about dictators with a resolute determination to defeat them first, before fighting dictatorship as a principle and system. Let us therefore consider the various, Mr. Isayas Afwerkis, Mr. Adolay Kornelios Osmans and all the other dictators in the entire world, eliminating our people in order to secure their own lives and interests, more like animals, killing other animals in order to survive, than as our fellow-human-beings deserving our support and respect.

As our fellow-Eritrean compatriot, Mr. Adhanom Fitiwi, states in his brief but very to-the-point article, “Dictatorship Always Ends In Humiliation, dictators are cruel. Because they are cruel, they are apprehended by the people fearfully. Their method is repression and their tactic is nationalism. Whatever crimes they commit to protect their power is for the sake of the nation.” Very similarly, Mr. Adolay Kornelios Osman, in one of his latest writings in “Erit-Alliance.org,” unreasonably trying to justify the murders he committed against those four fellow-Kunama individuals, arrogantly states: “the DMLEK is neither government share holder, nor a business organisation fighting for profit or lucrative job but is an organisation to liberate the oppressed mass-the Kunama nationality of Eritrea. To its capacity, the leadership of DMLEK has done the sacred job of sparing the life of the organization prior to anything.” If the DMLEK were “to liberate the oppressed Kunama people,” why and what right did its leader have to order the hanging and the death of those Kunama individuals in his own underground prison-cells? Can his claim of “sparing the life of the organisation” justify his actions and defend him from any kind of legal or even illegal punishment? Let him reflect upon it. An organisation can neither be accused of committing homicidal crimes in order to protect its own life nor is there any justifiable reason that an organisation should spare its life with the death of its own members, confronting its leader for being a dictator and practising dictatorship. An organisation is only a tool a dictator can use to practise his dictatorship and that is exactly the way many dictators follow identifying their own selves either with the organisation itself or with the nation they claim to be protecting and serving. It is more than legitimate a move for any members of an organisation to accuse a dictator of practising and exercising dictatorship but there is no legal principles justifying the elimination of those human-beings simply for criticising, accusing and opposing a dictator’s rule. It is only the arrogance of a cruel dictator which can commit such crimes and justify them.

Our final appeal therefore is that, we Eritreans in general and we the Kunama people in particular, should never let our leaders occupy such leadership posts and stay for too long a time; never let them walk and act alone and freely but always under our own watchful eyes and surveillance as well as accompanied by our active co-operation and consent. This is in fact, part of our Kunama cultural value to tackle conflicts, look for and find solutions to our own social, territorial and other related problems, collectively and mostly through peacefully and patiently held dialogues and communally agreed upon decision-making and taking processes. Our egalitarian socio-cultural tradition does not and cannot allow any single person playing the boss, dictating and dispensing orders, in the likes of hierarchically structured ethnic-groups and societies. The Kunama has society has its own unique ways of running its own ethnic affairs which totally deffer from many of the other Eritrean ethnic-groups Mr. Adolay Kornelios Osman is not therefore there to create, bring about and teach, the entire Kunama people, new cultural values or try to impose his own principles upon our own century-old customs, based on our ancestrally and traditionally egalitarian modes of regulating our own affairs and life-style. The very fact that, the present DMLEK’s leader has abused of his dictatorship to the point of eliminating our own kinds in order to safe his own life is a clear indication that the man is more than just a dictator at the brink of creating and forming an hybrid society of his own make, devoid of any historico-cultural background and values. This seems to be in fact, the system of any dictator in this world, to try to found and form a society of their own ideology with a projection of their own legacy to be assimilated, maintained, preserved and transmitted to the following generations. Take Mr. Isayas Afwerki, his PFDJ regime’s legacy of forming a new generation of Eritreans in the SAWA military training-camps where the traditional ethno-cultural and religious values of the various Eritrean ethnic-groups are being supplanted, replaced by an amorphous culture, according to the whims and likes of the present Eritrean regime’s leader. We can break that legacy only if and when we are able to identify, fight and defeat dictators and their systems at the earliest stages of their formation. Let us get this message.

The VKP ( January 1, 2004