The Need for Credible and Acceptable Coalition of the Opposition

ELF-RC is an organization struggling to help bring about peace, democracy, justice and prosperity in Eritrea. It believes that these objectives cannot be attained without the full participation of the people. That is why the ELF-RC takes it as a priority task to enhance the knowledge and the political awareness of our people.

The ELF-RC was not carried away by the heated passion and euphoria that prevailed in Eritrea after liberation in 1991. The organization was not to be misled by short-term interests and calculations. On the contrary, the ELF-RC very soon started to engage itself in informing the people that the clique in power was opposed to peace, to justice and to democracy. It was from those days on that this organization has been urging the people and sister political organizations to bring together their energies against the homegrown dictatorship.

The ELF-RC fully appreciates the fact that people acquire knowledge and political awareness not only from what they are told but also from their own life experiences. In the aftermath of the country’s liberation, and at a time when a big number of our people and the world applauded in favour of Isaias, the ELF-RC had to continue the struggle, sometimes with special care in handling certain issues lest we harm the feeling of our people, but always believing that our people will, through experience, discover the truth about the dictatorship and join in the struggle against it.

As we struggled with conviction and expectation of the end result, the Eritrean people, their friends in the neighbourhood and the world community at large have finally realized that the regime in Eritrea was indeed a dictatorship inimical to peace, justice and democracy. Those individuals good at producing endless pontifications and indiscriminately passing ungrateful judgments on the opposition about what has been achieved and has not, will not be expected to accept the realities they wanted to deny. They can go on repeating their long litanies saying: ‘nothing has been changed, nothing worthwhile done... nothing, ... nothing’. Yet, they will not be able to efface the truth and hard-won facts planted on the ground through extended struggle. No system or regime change can be effected without changing the thinking, the mindset of people in a society. Changing the views and convictions of people is the most difficult task requiring an uphill struggle for change. It is only after bringing about change of mind that change of systems and regimes can occur. In a word, no change can be expected without struggling to bring about subjective change first. The ELF-RC has effectively played its part in bringing about measurable subjective change in our society.

Now, it is great to see our struggle for change making big strides. Yet, the ELF-RC is not an organization willing to accept “any kind of change”. No. This organization relentlessly struggles for change, but change for the better.

The change we stand and struggle for is one that is determined to replace a dictatorial system by a democratic system; to replace darkness by light; to replace oppression, injustice and discrimination by justice and equality; to remove hatred and in its place implant mutual respect and love; to remove slavery and have freedom instead; to bring about unity in place of fragmentation, and to make peace prevail over the Eritrean soil in place of war and clouds of war.

All these can be realized only by the Eritrean people and Eritrean opposition organizations. This will not imply that the Eritrean people and the opposition organizations do not need the moral and material support of friendly neighbours and the world community. What it obviously means is that our people cannot expect, and should not be led to expect, any outside force to do for them the necessary house clearing. On top of that, the challenge ahead for our people is not simply the removal of Isaias and his cronies. What is also required is possessing as of now the political awareness and capacity that can ensure laying down on reliable foundations a structure for peaceful transition to a democratic multi-party system of governance in the post-dictatorship Eritrea.

What is not negotiable is our people’s need for a credible, trustworthy and thus acceptable organization or a coalition of organizations that primarily depends on our people. This is the wish and the aspiration that has been manifestly expressed by Eritreans in their great majority. The latest fragmentations in the opposition camp could not loosen our people’s determined will of to struggle for change to the better. Nor have our people been misled by any sloganeering of counterfeit regroupings whose stillborn projects cannot and will not be allowed to see the light of the day.

The ELF-RC is of the conviction that in the struggle to remove the one-man dictatorship of Isaias Afeworki and in the inseparable hard task of laying down as of now the transition framework for a democratic system, all the opposition forces worth the name must agree to work together by adopting and being guided by the following fundamental principles and minimum democratic workplan:

1. Commitment to struggle against dictatorship and oppression, and against all inequalities and discriminations based on culture, religion, origin or gender.

2. Endorse the covenant of establishing in Eritrea a constitutional multiparty democratic system that equally protects and promotes the rights and duties of all Eritreans. Rule of law should reign supreme in the State under the checks and balances of legislative, executive and judiciary branches, and there shall be guarantees for the peaceful and lawful transfer of power from one party to the other in a democratic manner.

3. The State shall guarantee freedom of faith and worship, freedom of thought and freedom to express ones opinion in a peaceful manner; the State shall protect human rights and promote justice, equality and dignity of all persons.

4. There shall be full respect to the diversity in culture, religion and origin that prevails in Eritrea. There shall be mutual acceptance and respect, and continued struggle to promote interaction among the constituents parts of the Eritrean society.

5. Eritrea shall establish a decentralized state structure and administration within a situation that shall not jeopardize the unity of the people and their homeland.

6. The State shall proclaim Arabic and Tigrinia as the official languages of Eritrea in government functions as well as media of instruction and information.

7. The State shall respect international treaties and charters promoting human rights and world peace.

8. Relations of democratic Eritrea with its neighbours shall be based on the principles of good neighbournliness, mutual respect, promotion of common interests and on the full understanding that differences shall be resolved through peaceful dialogue and in a fraternal manner. The State of Eritrea shall actively participate with all neighbours in promoting regional prosperity and stability. Eritrea shall strive to preserve and to further deepen the cultural, historical and human relations we share with our neighbours.

9. The government of free Eritrea shall strive to promote relations with the Arab and African regions. To this end, the Eritrean State shall establish durable bilateral and collective links with the Arab League, the African Union and other regional organizations.

10. The broad coalition shall struggle to preserve in all aspects the strong unity of the people and their organizations until the removal of the one-man dictatorship. This shall be achieved by resolving through democratic dialogue all secondary contradictions and differences that can arise between opposition organizations. Our lofty objectives for peace, unity and democracy shall be attained through mutual respect and tolerance and firm adherence to the fundamentals of our national accord and shared common factors.