To The Point

ELF-RC and there fore Nharnet.com stand for unity and diversity:

Nharnet.com was launched when ELF-RC was under the chairmanship of Ahmad Nasser.  The team structure was approved and its members appointed by him as the chairman.  Nharnet was mainly launched to promote the principles and democratic programs of the organization.  Its man task is to advocate and promote democracy and contrast it with the dictatorial regime in Asmara.  Of course, the organization chose to be open and its chairman at that time announced launch of an official website despite the fact that it could have been launched as an independent website as we have seen some of the Eritrean websites do.  As such, Nharnet played a great role bringing the brutal acts of the dictatorship of PFDJ under the column of Weekly News.  Its first task was to expose the dictatorship which always had promoted itself as a democratic progressive organization.  One of the first editorials of the team was a comparison of what ELF-RC stand for and the policies of the dictatorial regime.

The mission of Nharnet remains consistent and as a matter of fact the same.  The ultimate goal is to replace the dictatorial system by a democratic government that respects the human aspect that includes their freedom to worship what ever they choose and maintain their equality under the eyes of the law and gives them back the power to select a system of their choice and the leaders who serve under that system.  Nothing more nothing less.  That choice of a system and a leadership that the people can change its composition on an established democratic constitution is the core of the ELF-RC political principles and at the heart of commitment of The Nharnet Team.  It therefore is only a simple logical deduction that the team will defend this core principle against any individual(s) or group(s) that attempt to undermine it.  Any tactical, management, or personal shortcomings of any leader even it they were true cannot be used as legitimate excuses to undermine these principles that were attained by a long and fierce struggle. 

As every one witnessed for the past year, the struggle to accomplish that objective has not been smooth and at times outright slippery and full of significant obstacles.  The biggest obstacle of all the obstacles has been the crisis the organization has gone through when RC decided to change the chairman at its second regular  session that exposed itself after the delegation Seyoum and Ahmad walked out of the 5th regular session of the ENA.  This development was not contained and resulted in the split of the organization.  The Nharnet Team tried to remain neutral and did not post editorial commentaries that can be construed one way or the other for a long time.  The Team was of course defending the organization and its leadership against all defamations by the ENA and other forces as it did when Ahmad was a chairman.  However, after a while, it became clear that the defamation was being launched and the obstacle was erected by those who wanted to change the outcome of the second regular RC Session by suffocating the organization and hindering its functions.  The choice was either to stand on the side of the legal rule of law or on the 1976 like lawlessness.  The same reasons why many of the team members stood against the 1976 lawlessness persuaded the team to choose to abide by the rule of the law.  The choice was never a choice of personalities but a choice of abiding by rule of law. 

Some, using different pen names, have blamed us for not standing with the splitting group and their accusation goes as far as "divisive practices" of course by distorting what we wrote.  One of those writers was some one using the  name "Saedia" Ali.  We really do not care what the real name is be it Ismail, Idris, Woldu, or Worku.  The main thing is the content and accusation.

Ms. /Mr. Author quoted the paragraph below from what we responded to Excerpts from Dr. Habte's interview. 

“The allegation By Dr. Habte and drum beat by the Awate Team do not hold any water because the elements who have been led by Moslems for the last 41 years without any complaint abiding by the rules of the law in the ELF-RC principles adopted at its National Congresses cannot be painted any divisive colors because they voted for a chairman who is deemed competent, skilled and hard-working who happens to be Christian after 4 decades.  It just does not add up.  To the contrary, those who want to cry foul at this point are those who took it for granted it is only a Moslem who can lead ELF-RC and cannot take the change brought about after 41 years well”. 

The team stands by its comment.  The author's attempt to construe its intention and meaning fails miserably. The author in fact insults the intelligence of the reader by trying to misread the clear and simple message of the paragraph.  The team never brought the subject of religion as a reason for any thing.  Dr. Habte did.  We said it was wrong.  The above statement simply defends the members of RC that struggled life long against the worst accusation ever labelled against them.  These are fighters who stood against the chauvinistic "Nhnan Elamanan", against the agitation of 1976 anarchism, and the 1982 split.  The team also simply stated a fact that these people never wavered in their struggle and gave it all they had under Moslem chairmen.  These facts directly contradict the failed attempt defamation by Habte.  Action speaks louder than words and the historical record of the heroic leaders put his accusation to shame. Thus, we were forced to state the facts in defence of the history and record of those accused by Dr. Habte.  Well, we would not have brought that fact if it was not "Entezey tdefaani men mewdekeni".

The author keeps changing "her" color  to seem a moderate who stands for unity and then writes the following that really exposes the true nature of  "her" hatred and the underlying reason why "she" tries to tarnish The Nharnet Team.

"Isn’t it fair If Eritrean moslems demand and say, a Christian leader have tried to lead Eritrea and failed, so give us a chance, a Moslem to lead Eritrean people with out differentiating between Moslems and Christians who belong to one Eritrea."

As far as we are concerned a dictatorial system is not for the benefit of all Eritreans regardless of who is sitting at the top.  That system would not be good for any Eritrean if Romadan or Fozia were the head of PFDJ and the president of the dictatorial government.  ELF-RC and by the same light Nharnet is about changing a system not personalities.  The same is true of our stand within the organization.  We do not care who the person is as long as the leader is elected legally within the rules and laws of the organization.  If the roles were reversed and Ahmad stayed on the legal side and Seyoum broke the rule of law, we would have defended Ahmad like we are doing with Ibrahim and Seyoum. 

However, the author and "her" likes like to see things through religious binoculars and see Isayas as a representative of Christians.  What a tragedy!!!!  This is what amounts to a PFDJ bigotry.  The author's provocation also plays right into the hands of PFDJ because that is how it wants to continue in power by appearing to be representative of a segment of society that are most oppressed by it.  It would pretend to appear as if it belongs to a segment or region of a society that are most disadvantaged by it.  As far as we can tell, it does not represent any segment of our society as it is an outlaw government that climbed to power under the barrel of the gun.  Otherwise, if we chose to bring down ourselves to "Saedia's" level of biased and bigoted argument, we could have used "her" own logic to "her" face about what happen in ELF-RC.  You see, "Saedia's" destructive argument does not lead any where but to a closed road.  What we said repeatedly is, good or bad, clever or foolish, cruel or kind, what ever your opinion of the leader, he is entitled to lead as long as he is elected legally and democratically the same way the others before him did.  That is the bottom line.  It is "Saedia" and "her" likes who keep hammering personal attacks and launch character assassinations. However, the ELF-RC members are telling them to get back to the bottom line, respecting the rule of law.

Then the author says "Now the Schoolmates of Isayas, Woldeyesus Ammar and Seyoum Ogbamichail want us to go through that divisive pass again." 

What a travesty!!! We would not even care about this remark as it is really extremely shallow and defeats itself.  But we want to enlighten the author and the author alone as we do not want to insult the intelligence of our readers.  We want to let the author know that Isayas struggled with many of the leaders in the opposition. If they will have his influence, wouldn't it be more from the most recent contact in the struggle?  What about those who were his comrades in the leadership who are in the opposition now, are they condemned for ever?  Why did you choose to go back to who went to the same school as the dictator?  What is next? those who lived in the same city, the same region ...etc.  Doesn't this sound the same kind of response Desbele Kahsai got, deploring the whole highlanders, for an article he wrote.  But, there is one curious point that every one should know and that is the fact that Ahmad Nasser was also Isayas's schoolmate.  Doesn't the fact the author picked Seyoum and Woldeyesus and not Ahmad speak volumes to the state of mind of  extremism of "Saedia" and likes?

Finally, we find something that  "Saedia" wrote that we agree with:

"Eritrea is for all Eritreans and power is for every Eritrean who is capable to lead us to peace and prosperity, and let us work together to be united as Eritreans who share one homeland leaving our religious affiliation apart, As a very a prominent Egyptian politician Saad Zeglul said,” religion is a personal affiliation, but a nation is for all of us”."

We also agree and call on all Eritreans as we do not categorize them as genuine and fake like the author on the following ' to be united against any organisation or individual that wants to divide Eritrean people that have lived for centuries without any problems.'  That can only be accomplished though by respecting the majority rules principle of democracy.  It can only come to bear fruit by practicing democracy even when your point of view and/or your candidate are defeated.

Awate Staff  toy with the noble ELF-RC profile:

There are also those (individuals and groups) who are trying to undermine the diversity and unity by attacking ELF-RC and its leaders at every chance they got.  One such group is some of the members of the Awate Team.  In a direct contrast to their claim to be the champions of reconciliation, they meddle in the midst of the internal crisis of ELF-RC.  Despite their obvious advertisement of Dr. Habte's allegations, they make mockery of the legitimate defence of our organization's principles and unity in diversity.  Here is what they said:

"Meanwhile, with all this going on, what did the Eritrean opposition radio have to say on 26 October?   “Please note that the Eritrean opposition radio station, Voice of the Eritrean People, was not traced on 9990 kHz at 1730 gmt on Sunday, 26 October” reports BBC monitoring team.   No doubt, they were very busy preparing the 12 th response to Dr. Habte which has become now an all-consuming obsession with Eritrea's once-great opposition organization…Reports that they are thinking of changing their name to Dr. Habte Liberation Front (DHLF) are seriously exaggerated…

And Now You Are Up To Date on The Nations In The Hood…"

In a desperate attempt at putting the ELF-RC in a light which they have long relished to put it in, the Awate staff in an article titled “Nations in the Hood” posted on October 31, have so clumsily indulged in an ill-advised, amateurish sarcasm. Targeting as always ELF-RC profile, the team bluntly and shamelessly tried to belittle the organization’s responses to Dr. Habte’s falsehoods in his self-incriminating interview orchestrated by the Awate staff itself.

Ironically enough, the ill-will of the staff stands starkly naked for what it has in no time shown itself to be.

1. First of all, the “Voice of the Eritrean People” referred to above has nothing to do with ELF-RC radio program whatsoever.
2. Secondly the ELF-RC happens to have no radio broadcast neither on the date indicated nor on any other Sunday. 

The Awate staff, in their over eagerness to bruise the reputation and status of the ELF-RC, did not bother to differentiate, or else decided not to, between the “Voice of Democratic Eritrea International” and “Voice of the Eritrean People.” 

We would hereby like to assure all ill-wishers, so obviously including the Awate staff, who have since long joined the now exposed smear campaign aimed at the ELF-RC, that they can expect still more responses and surgical commentaries to sinister and false allegations that have targeted the record of the ever-great national democratic organization and the noble ideals and principles it has always stood for. The organization won’t under any pretext shy away from the duty to stand up against falsehood of ill-wishers, from whichever corner they might lurk, and under whatever colors they might try to sail around.  The interview that was supposed to jerk the organization steadied it as reflected by the responses from our diverse members, leadership and file and ranks alike.

It is very curious that the staff chose to keep quiet about the ENA meeting when compared to last year where they were feeding distorted information like "Seyoum withdrew..."  It is also interesting to note that they never cared to comment on the ENA stand on the commission border ruling, and the failure to amend Number 3 and 4 of the charter as expected as well as the recommendation to restructure the secretariat.   

Our members and supporters should not worry about extremists throwing all they have at ELF-RC.  In the long run, the principles and practices of democracy of their ELF-RC are the solutions for the problems in Eritrea.  In the Eritrea ELF-RC envisions every one, no matter how extreme, will have a chance to express them selves and sell their ideas to the people but will not dictate their terms on the will of the people.  The will of the majority will prevail based on rules of law adopted and ratified by the people.  Those that tell you it is only by compromising your principles and joining the ENA that we can succeed; let them know that we are not in business to compete with the ENA; we are rather for replacing a dictatorship by a democratic one.  After all, the Alliance came to being by the vision of our leaders like Ibrahim M. Ali.  Those who want to tell you that the ENA made changes on chapters 3 and 4, tell them that we believe in separation of religion and government.  The ones that want to sell you the idea of self determination of nations in Eritrea; tell them we believe in equality of all segments of our people and if there are special circumstances, constitutional amendment ratified by the people is the solution.  They have the right to sell their political programs to the people but we will not allow them to dictate it on us or on our people. So, we can work together on the minimum points we can agree up on with all of them.

Give The Power Back to The People

The Nharnet Team

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