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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Thu Nov 18 2010 - 13:57:56 EST
<http://www.eritreacompass.com/eritrean-news/54-politics/458-six-degrees-of-
separation-paulos-tesfagirogis-and-eritreas-enemies.html> Six Degrees of
Separation -Paulos Tesfagirogis and Eritrea’s Enemies
Source. http://www.eritreacompass.com
Thursday, 18 November 2010 13:11
Written by Sophia Tesfamariam
Six Degrees of Separation -Paulos Tesfagirogis and Eritrea’s Enemies
Click here to read Part 2
<http://www.eritreacompass.com/eritrean-news/54-politics/459-six-degrees-of-
separation-paulos-tesfagirogis-and-eritreas-enemies-part-2.html>
On 20 November 2010, Eritreans around the world will be launching the 30
days of Action for Eritrea, to call on the Barack Obama Administration and
the United Nations to annul and repeal the unfair and unjust Resolution 1907
(2009) that imposed sanctions on the people of Eritrea. One of the
proponents of the sanctions against Eritrea is Paulos Tesfagiorgis, a
self-desribed Eritrean “dissident”. Every time I sat down to write about
Paulos Tesfagiorgis and his escapades in the Eritrean political sphere,
other more pressing issues pull me away and I end up saving my materials for
a future date. Today, almost 10 years later, my ever expanding dossier on
Tesfagiorgis is ready for the sharing. In fulfillment of my many previous
promises to do so, in this sitting I will try to shed some light on the
ongoing destabilization campaign against Eritrea and Tesfagiorgis’ role in
it. If I get interrupted again, I promise to return from where we leave off
today.
After a hiatus from the Eritrean cyber political scene, Paulos Tesfagiorgis
is back…this time he is organizing “conferences” in Europe and the United
States. This slippery personality lurks in the periphery and pounces to
attack Eritrea and its leadership, and then retreats just as abruptly into
his hideaway. I for one was waiting for him to return so we can resume our
dialogue with him. The IDEA site says that he was involved in the Iraqi
constitution making process and that he was in Baghdad as a Senior Legal
Officer with the UNDPA and UNAMI. In the meantime, Bereket Habte Sellasie,
his colleague and friend was making recommendations for the Afghanistan
Constitution…hmmm
Today, I will endeavor to show the relationship between Tesfagiorgis and the
various individuals and groups, Eritreans and non-Eritreans, who have
orchestrated an unprecedented vilification and defamation campaign designed
to weaken the State of Eritrea diplomatically, economically, financially and
militarily. In essence it is an effort to destabilize the Government of
Eritrea. I will show the “degree of separation” between Tesfagiorgis and
them, hence the title for this article. A definition is in order…
Frigyes Karinthy, a Hungarian author, playwright, poet, journalist, and
translator was the first proponent of the six degrees of separation concept.
Also referred to as the "Human Web", it refers to the idea that everyone is
on average approximately six steps away from any other person on Earth, so
that a chain of, "a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average,
to connect any two people in six steps or fewer. So what does this have to
do with Paulos Tesfagiorgis and Eritrea’s enemies…I am unequivocally
asserting that Tesfagiorgis is the man in the middle, but let us see how the
dots connect…
If you are like me, when the assault on the people of Eritrea began in 2000
with mercenary minority regime in Ethiopia and the Eritrean Quislings League
(EQL) led by Haile Menkorios, Bereket Habte Selassie and Paulos
Tesfagiorgis, you suspected that something was on the offing. When entities
such as Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Committee
for the Protection of Journalists and Reporters San Frontiers (also sans
couth) who were unknown to Eritreans and had no presence in Eritrea (except
individuals who entered under false pretenses) were leading the assault
against Eritrea, you were sure that there was. For today, we will take a
look at some of these groups and individuals and see how they operate.
Who is behind Human Rights Watch? What is the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED)? What is Reporters Sans Frontiers and why are they adamant
about blemishing Eritrea’s image? How and when did they hook up with
Tesfagiorgis? To understand what NED, HRW and RSF are, and to help us
understand the ongoing efforts to destabilize Eritrea, I will defer to
others who have studied these groups and their agendas longer than I have.
One such person is Paul Trennor.
In his 2004 article “Who is behind Human Rights Watch?, in addition to
telling us that Human Rights Watch is a joint venture of George Soros and
the State Department, Treanor noted that:
"...human-rights interventionism became a consensus among the 'foreign
policy elite' even before September 11. Human Rights Watch itself is part of
that elite, which includes government departments, foundations, NGO's and
academics. It is certainly not an association of 'concerned private
citizens'. HRW board members include present and past government employees,
and overlapping directorates link it to the major foreign policy lobbies in
the US…”
We know that every single “journalist” that deserted Eritrea, somehow found
their way to Canada, Europe and the United States. But that is not all. They
were also rewarded…not sure why they were being awarded…
· Milkias Mihretab, was awarded the Percy Qoboza Award from the U.S.-based
National Association of Black Journalists and also Amnesty International’s
2002 Special Award for Human-Rights Journalism Under Threat. He was issued a
US visa in Sudan and brought to the US just weeks after the September 11
attacks.
· Khaled Abdu, co-founder and former editor in chief of Admas, became a
recipient of Human Right Watch’s Hellman/Hammett grant.
· Aaron Berhane, writer and editor at Setit, now living in Canada is also a
recipient of Human Right Watch’s Hellman/Hammett grant.
· Kidane Yibrah Beyene, a reporter is also a recipient of Human Right
Watch’s Hellman/Hammett grant.
· Semere Taezaz Sium, a reporter at Keste Debena was brought to the US and
was awarded Human Right Watch’s Hellman/Hammett grant.
I don’t know of any other individuals that are receiving support for running
away from Eritrea and coming to these western capitals…what is so special
about these runaway reporters san couth?
Anyway, let’s move on; let us see what Human Rights Watch and Reporters
Without Borders are all about. Every Eritrean has bee concerned about their
biased and distorted annual reports on Eritrea, but instead of paying heed
to our concerns, they seem to be getting even more virulent in their
presentations. When George Soros announced recently that he was making the
big donation to Human Rights Watch, I am sure there were many people who
felt insulted by his insult on our intelligence. HRW is George Soros, so why
the façade?
Louis Proyect in a 23 February article also expresses his concerns about HRW
and Reporters Sans Frontiers and similar groups. He wrote:
“…The purpose of HRW and Reporters without Borders clearly is to prepare
public opinion for armed intervention down the road if "peaceful" efforts
fail at restoring political power to the rich…As a dramatic example of the
hypocrisy of "peaceful" subversion, nothing surpasses the NGOs funded by
Peter Ackerman, the corporate raider who amassed a fortune working for
Drexel-Burnham in the 1970s, a now defunct firm associated with an earlier
meltdown on Wall Street. Using his ill-gotten gains, Ackerman is the main
support for the Albert Einstein Institution and the International Center on
Nonviolent Conflict, upon whose board he sits…”
Those of us who have been following development in Eritrea have come across
the Albert Einstein Institute. It is the one that was helping the group of
Eritrean students in South Africa with producing the manual on how to
overthrow a government. This group was funded by NED and Grassroots
International and was recruited by Dan Connell and Paulos Tesfagiorgis. One
of these recruits, a Daniel R. Mekonnen, now a staple in the Eritrean cyber
political scene translated that manual into Tigrinya and was supposed to be
distributed in Eritrea by…
Anyway, let us see what else Proyect has to say about these NGOs:
“…Despite the Gandhian pretensions, the International Center on Nonviolent
Conflict devotes itself to meddling in the internal affairs of countries
that endured the so-called "coloured" revolutions in Ukraine, Serbia, and
Georgia…Ackerman, following George Soros, an old hand at this, sees nothing
wrong with spending millions to influence the political outcomes in other
countries. When such outcomes lead to unemployment and economic calamity
that produce sickness and death due to privatized health care, the loss of
life is every bit of much a consequence of murder as it is in Iraq or
Afghanistan…”
A member of an Eritrean “human rights” group recruited by Dan Connell
(Freedom House) and Paulos Tesfagiorgis once wrote that the NED grants were
“educational grants”. If they really are educational grants, why are they
not offered to the thousands of Americans that can’t afford college tuition?
If they are grants for civic education, then why haven’t Eritrean community
organizations been able to secure funding for their civic projects right
here in the United States? For gullible individuals, or others who may be
railroaded by Tesfagiorgis and his ilk, whilst there is lots of material
about the NED in cyberspace, I invite them to also read William Robinson’s,
‘Promoting polyarchy: globalization, US intervention, and hegemony’. It will
give them a better idea of what NED is about. Robinson wrote:
"…[T]he NED was created in the highest echelons of the US national security
state, as part of the same project that led to the illegal operations of the
Iran-Contra scandal. It is organically integrated into the overall execution
of US national security and foreign policy. In structure, organization, and
operation, it is closer to clandestine and national security organs such as
the CIA than apolitical or humanitarian endowments as its name would
suggest. The NED has operated in tandem with all major interventionist
undertakings in the 1980s and 1990s…”
The sudden mushrooming of Eritrean “human rights” and “democracy” groups in
2000, with Paulos Tesfagiorgis and Bereket Habte Selassie in the lead
concerned Eritreans. These two had remained conspicuously silent during the
two year war of aggression and invasion launched by the minority regime in
Ethiopia. So what were they up to now? Bereket Habte Sellassie and Assefaw
Tekeste had secretly met with the minority regime’s advisors in Japan and
that while he serving as Attorney General in Ethiopia during the Emperor’s
reign, Habte Selassie was also responsible for drafting the clause that
enabled Ethiopia’s annexation of Eritrea, triggering the 30-year long armed
struggle for Eritrea’s independence. But that is not all.
Although he held several high-level positions within the Ethiopian
government, including Federal Supreme Court Judge, Vice Minister of Interior
and the Mayor of Harar during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, he is
mostly remembered for his role as Co-Chairman of the Inquiry Commission
established during Menghistu Hailmariam’s brutal “Derg” regime (preceded the
current regime led by Meles Zenawi).
On 23 November 1974, Aman Andom, a distinguished military officer of
Eritrean descent, was killed in a gunfight in his home for refusing to sign
on to a decision to deploy massive forces to crush the Eritrean struggle for
independence and also for not approving the extra judicial killings of the
individuals being investigated by the Inquiry Commission headed by Dr.
Bereket. That same night, 60 members of the Emperor’s regime were taken from
the wine cellar at the Palace to Akaki prison and machine gunned to death,
and their bodies were tossed in freshly dug shallow graves.
Amongst the dead were prominent Ethiopian Ministers, civil servants, and
decorated Army officers including Aklilu Habte Wolde who served as
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister and Rear Admiral Eskindir Desta, the Emperors
grandson. They were all killed extra judicially. Right after the massacres
of Aman Andom and the 60 prominent members of the Emperor’s government,
Bereket Habte Selassie escaped to Eritrea. Unlike the Eritrean Constitution
Commission that he has written about ad nauseum, he has remained
conspicuously mum about the Inquiry Commission in Ethiopia he was appointed
to lead.
Anyway, let’s go back to Tesfagiorgis…
Before we get into Paulos Tesfagiorgis and his current exploits, I believe a
bit of background on the man and his “tilt” is in order. For that, I will
rely on his own writings and will begin with his October 1991 Thesis, “Human
Rights, Development and Non-Governmental Organizations in the Horn of
Africa”. In a 271-page paper he outlines the blueprint for his pipedream,
exposes his elitist tendencies and propensity for exaggeration and self
aggrandizement, and his utter contempt for the Eritrean people and their
struggle. Tesfagiorgis writes:
“…From 1976 to 1989, l directed the work of the Eritrean Relief Association
(ERA), the only no-governmental organization in liberated Eritrea attempting
to alleviate the situation of a people suffering the effects of a long war
as well as drought and famine. During these fourteen years, as a participant
in the Eritrean struggle and as the chairman of the ERA, l found myself
negotiating with representatives of Northern non-governmental organizations,
international aid agencies and foreign governments on current and future
practices of relief and development within Eritrea as well as elsewhere…”
As Chairperson of the relief organization, I can understand how he could
negotiate on current practices with these external entities, but how is it
that he found himself “negotiating” on “future practices of relief and
development within Eritrea”? Since Eritrea achieved independence in May
1991, two years after he sought asylum in Canada, who gave him the mandate
to “negotiate” on behalf of the Eritrean people?
ERA was set up as the humanitarian wing of the Eritrean Peoples Liberation
Front (EPLF) in 1975 and it was around that time that Tesfagiorgis went to
Eritrea from Wisconsin. In order to facilitate the work of ERA, a call was
made for someone to come from Eritrea to run the organization which was
headquartered in Khartoum, but had offices around the world. In 1976,
Tesfagiorgis was sent by the EPLF to Khartoum to direct ERA’s work. I don’t
want to get into too many details about his tenure at ERA today, suffice it
to mention that in 1989, when the EPLF decided to move all its operations,
including ERA, to Eritrea, Tesfagiorgis left ERA citing medical problems and
eventually sought asylum in Canada.
Let us go on…
In his 1991 paper, Tesfagiorgis wrote something that had me going back
several times to make sure that I was reading his paper correctly. He wrote:
“……experience has given me the deep conviction that economic development and
human rights are interdependent and utterly inseparable. We cannot have one
without the other…again, through my experience in directing a
non-governmental organization and negotiating with many other such
organizations -- that NGOs, which have played such a key role in saving
human lives in the Horn of Africa, have also a key role to play in the
protection and promotion of human rights…”
If economic development and human rights are interdependent, how does
Tesfagiorgis explain his 12 year long campaign to deny Eritrea any
development or humanitarian assistance? Was it not Tesfagiorgis and his
partners who established several “human rights” and “democracy” cyber NGOs
and campaigned with his international partners to stop development aid from
reaching Eritrea?
No need to exaggerate the role of NGOs, after all they are human beings, not
some super creatures from outer space. There are over 1000 local and
international NGOs operating in Ethiopia today, but they have not been able
to stop the genocides in Gambela, Ogaden and Oromia regions, the
extrajudicial massacres of thousands and the detention of over 40,000
innocent Ethiopians by the minority regime and its henchmen. International
NGOs have not been able to stop the extra-ordinary renditions and torture of
prisoners in Ethiopia’s secret cells and the rapes and looting by Ethiopia’s
marauding forces in Somalia. The thousands of NGOs operating in the Congo
have not prevented the ongoing killings and rapes there. There are over 7000
local and international NGOs operating in Kenya and none were able to
prevent the post election violence and massacres that left over 1000 people
dead. So, I don’t know what Tesfagirogis means by NGOs saving lives!
A lot has been written about Eritrea and NGOs and most of the information
was laundered by Tesfagiorgis and his partners to drive a wedge between the
Government of Eritrea and international NGOs. I’d like to stress here that
Eritrea has always acknowledged, without either exaggerating or underrating,
the value of assistance received from foreign NGOs. No one in Eritrea has
ever denied the role played by international NGOs in alleviating the
peoples’ hardships and in providing humanitarian aid during the struggle for
independence. Under conditions of total international isolation, in the eyes
of the Eritrean people and the EPLF, the morale value of the assistance
provided by international NGOs was greater than any material assistance that
may have provided.
Tesfagiorgis wrote the following in his 1991 thesis:
“…the United Nations General Assembly clearly made the linkage between human
rights and development in a December 1982 resolution by declaring that the
right to development is "an inalienable human right," …Development is
increasingly recognized as a human right of individuals as well as peoples
development as a human right is the expression of the correct interpretation
of the spirit of the UN Charter and the International Bill of Human Rights.
It is the reinforcement and realization of all existing human rights which
result in the highest degree of dignity, freedom and justice. Development as
a human right promises the best quality of life for the individual,
communities, and society as a whole…”
So how does Tesfagiorgis explain the 12 year long campaign to arrest
Eritrea’s development? How does he reconcile this with the activities that
he and his partners have carried out to stop any development aid from going
to Eritrea? The right to food is a basic human right, a right that
Tesfagiorgis and his partners violated by working with “international NGOs”
to deprive the people of Eritrea of much needed humanitarian aid during the
2002 drought.
Almost every report on Eritrea produced by Tesfagiorgis’ international
partners mentions something about Eritrea using the 1998-2000 war with
Ethiopia and the refusal of the US led international community to implement
the final and binding delimitation and demarcation decisions of the
independent Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission “as an excuse for
suspending the duly adopted constitution of the country, postponing free and
fair elections, derogating fundamental rights and freedoms in an unlimited
manner”. No surprises there, since they “cut and paste” each others messages
circulated through the “network”, but let us see what Tesfagiorgis used to
say about peace and development back then. In his 1991 paper, he wrote:
“…For the first time in 30 years, we have an end to armed hostility in
Eritrea and Ethiopia. The fundamental prerequisite for human rights is now
in place: peace…”
Let me repeat that:
“…The fundamental prerequisite for human rights is now in place: peace…”
So if peace is a prerequisite, why couldn’t he and his partners wait until
Eritrea was at peace? Barely had the guns fallen silent and while the ground
was still smoldering, and before the people of Eritrea had a chance to bury
their war dead and heal their wounded, and before the Cessation of
Hostilities Agreements were signed by Eritrea and Ethiopia ,Tesfagiorgis and
his partners began their ugly and vicious campaign against Eritrea in 2000.
Emboldened by the diplomatic, financial, political and military support and
shield he received from his western backers and encouraged by the campaign
led by Tesfagiorgis to undermine the Government of Eritrea, the minority
regime in Ethiopiarefused to abide by the agreements that it had signed in
2000. Today, it continues to occupy sovereign Eritrean territories,
including Badme. As for Tesfagiorgis, not only is this “human rights” and
“democracy” activist not going to condemn the minority regime in Ethiopia
for violations of human rights or vote rigging, or the massacre of innocent
people for voting it out of office, or for occupying sovereign Eritrean
territories, but he is instead looking to do business with the genocidal
lawless regime.
Click here to read more in Part 2
<http://www.eritreacompass.com/eritrean-news/54-politics/459-six-degrees-of-
separation-paulos-tesfagirogis-and-eritreas-enemies-part-2.html> …
_____
The EQL is an alliance of jilted and scorned individuals, of like-minded
defectors, deserters and draft dodgers, disgruntled runaway diplomats,
pedophiles, rapists, deceitful counterfeiters, information launderers and an
assortment of shameless scandalous opportunists disguised as “journalists”,
“human rights” and “democracy” activists, pawns who serve as runners for
western fundamentalist Christian cartels, self-professed "intellectuals and
professionals", and pseudo-intellectuals who call for academic freedom while
engaging in academic dishonesty, miscreant mercenary Eritrean elite who have
spent the last 12 years slavishly parroting prepared anti-Eritrea
propaganda, in exchange for pitiful stipends. Paulos Tesfagiorgis is central
in this grouping.
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/HRW.html accessed 30 October 2010
http://www.swans.com/library/art15/lproy52.html accessed 30 October 2010
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/79224 accessed 30 October 2010
Sophia Tesfamariam
Sophia Tesfamariam
<http://www.eritreacompass.com/images/stories/paulostesfagiorgisportrettbrun
614.jpg> Paulos Tesfagiorgis
Paulos Tesfagiorgis
