CONGRATULATIONS GRADUATES 2006!!

The end of school year is approaching quickly and this month is the time of observance or ceremonies for all graduating students in different part of the world. Graduation is a time to celebrate for parents, grandparents, students and relatives. Graduation ceremony is a key component of the center’s work as it gives a goal to match the students can aspire and allows families, students and greater community to celebrate the student’s accomplishment. There are many Eritreans graduating this year at different levels and fields.  I would like to congratulate you on your well-deserved and successful completion of your studies.  I also wish you the best in your future endeavors be it pursuing further education.  I want to encourage to those who graduate from High school and four years collage to challenge themselves to higher education.  It has been said knowledge is power.  Knowledge is self-reliance.  Knowledge is confidence.  Knowledge is the key to development. Knowledge is the product of education. 

This has special meaning to you as Eritrean young generation.  To start with, you are the first generation citizen of the Eritrean refugees. You went to school with students of different cultures than your household and you have had to adjust to new environments to survive and succeed in your classrooms.  You have had to go through tremendous challenge of fitting in as you came from a different background than most of your classmates.  Despite these challenges, you had done well and are succeeding in completing your studies.  Most of you had born during the Eritrean armed struggle was at its peak.  You are refugee who endured so much financial and cultural difficulties.  Your childhood did not start with comfort and warmth as your parents tried to make it in new countries without any financial resources and in many instances with language barriers.  But, all these hindrances helped them to be determined to focus in education and they are good example to their children. 

Dear graduates, allow me to take this opportunity to bring the Eritrea’s, situation to your attention. Political imprisonment, arbitrary, detention, disappearance, suspected extra judicial detention and execution, torture and inhuman treatment of persons, group executions, ever widening religious persecutions, forced conscription, sexual violation of women conscripts are becoming common practice of the PFDJ’s leader, Isaias’s regime.  Isaias’s duration in power has no vested interest in peace, education and rule of law. The Eritrean people have been deprived of his/her freedom and liberty and they are suffering under a tyranny that never believes in liberty and freedom of his citizen. The dictator has destroyed the lives of Eritrean young generation and left them with out education, career, and married life. The Eritrean young boys and girls are working in the dictator’s farms and constructions without pay and girls are used for sexual pleasure and servants of the regime’s generals.

Dear Graduates, I challenge you to remember the young scholars who are graduating after Eritrea gained its independence; but they did not get the chance to peruse their education and their lives, because of lack of democracy, transparency, accountability, justice and freedom of speech.  They are young scholars who are faced and witnessed their brothers and sisters in Asmara University being jailed, sent to excruciating climates that caused many deaths, and forced to go to meaningless services in camps.  They are young scholars who witnessed and are still witnessing while their counterparts are hunted and taken to military camps and horrendous detention centers.  Today, you are unfortunately witnessed thousands of young scholars back home being sent to death to a totally avoidable and senseless war and unlimited service. The Eritrean soil has been too hot to accommodate its sons and daughters. As a result, they have to flee in thousands for safety, desperately taking risky routs and means of transportation that have caused the death of many young men and women. What does it mean to be a young scholar under this circumstance?  What do you think the solution would be to the dilemma our country is in? How do you compare freedom granted to you in your new adopted countries to those oppressed in Eritrea, where your uncles, aunts and cousins who are facing distress, detention and persecution?

In conclusion, I CONGRATULATE YOU, and challenge you to be thoughtful citizen and give your voice for the oppressed and voiceless young men and women in Eritrea. I want remind you not to fall for biases, hatred and propaganda.  You are equipped with analytical skills that will help you see through things clearly.  You are in the country where you are free to think, speak, write and express your opinion.  Do not forget your uncles, aunts and cousins back in Eritrea that does not have this opportunity. 

CONGRATULATIONS ONCE AGAIN!!

Woldeslassie Gebremedhim