Yemane Abselom's Blog

A Response to "To Avoid Another Conflict in the Horn of Africa, Now is the Time to Act" by Former Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome Wirtu on Al Jazeera By: Yemane Abselom (wedi abselom) February 18, 2025 For decades, global news reporting has been dominated by Western media outlets such as the BBC (British), VOA (American), and DW (German). While these outlets claim to uphold principles of free and independent journalism, their coverage often aligns with Western political and economic agendas. When Al Jazeera emerged, there was hope that it would provide an alternative voice—one that would prioritize the interests of the Middle East and the Global South. Its early reporting on Iraq and Afghanistan, which exposed Western propaganda and war crimes, won it widespread respect. However, telling the truth comes at a cost, and it appears that those financing Al Jazeera were unwilling to continue paying that price. Over time, its editorial stance has drifted closer to that of Wester...

Since its initiation in 2010, the Asmara Mining Conference has been playing its modest role in broadening the knowledge and understanding of the recent developments in the mineral industry of the Arabian-Nubian Shield in general and the Eritrean mining industry in particular. The Eritrean Government recognizes that the mining industry can be one of the fundamental building blocks in the construction of a 'sustainable national economy'. ERITREA MINING JOURNAL: Asmara Mining Conference 2014

"ERITREA - "The Other Narrative" is a 25 minutes documentary brought to you by African Strategies an independent think thank organisation based in Asmara Eritrea. The documentary is intendend to show the facts on the ground, with footage and editing of high standard quality of TV Broadcast. It consists interview conduct with professionals across multi sectors on Eritrea's national service program that have been serving the country and also with experts across various fields and sectors. It depicts the life of Eritrea's youth in national service, how they view it and one to one interview that demonstrates nothing less than thought leadership. Eritrea is currently one of the African country that has achieved all three health Millennium Development Goals as of end of 2013 with data that is validated and verified by United Nations Agencies. In the documentary the efforts made for education, health, mining and other infrastructure projects, with its main focus on...

"Realizing the cardinal role investment could play in Eritrea's development imperatives, the government of The State of Eritrea encourages investment, development and utilization of the country's natural resources, expanding exports, fostering transfer of technologies and SME's development. The following briefs the policy on investment and available opportunities for investment in the State of Eritrea." Investment Policy and Opportunities of the State of Eritrea

The Organization of Eritrean-American produced this document during Eritrea's 23rd Independence Celebrations. It highlights Eritrea's marvelous achievements in the last 23 years and its natural beauty. Happy Birthday Eritrea! by wedi_abselom

Leaked secret documents written in Amharic by Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry Tedros Andhanom Ghebreyesus urges its diplomats around the world to counter Eritrea’s successful diplomatic offensive to repeal the illegal and unjust sanctions on Eritrea. The document stresses the need to use the regional body Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) as a cover for Ethiopia's activities against Eritrea. The documents asserted that UN Sanction Resolutions No. 1907 and 2023 are authored by the US and could not be lifted as long as the United States, who still holds the 'pencil' of their engineering, does not change its stance on Eritrea. Part I Secret Ethiopian Government Documents About Eritrea  (Amharic) Part II Secret Ethiopian Government Documents About Eritrea  (Amharic) Tigrinya Translation of Secret Ethiopian Government Documents About Eritrea

Eritrea's detractors have continue to lie left and right about life in Eritrea.  Some lies are easier to disprove than others and most have been easily disproved.  Yet, it has not stopped them from telling every imaginable lie that will stick. One lie told in the summer of 2011 was that there was drought in Eritrea and the government was hiding it.  Here is a BBC article titled "Drought in Eritrea: Hunger despite government denials" .  Eritrea gets over 100,000 Eritrean's visiting their homeland every year and they travel all over the country.  Here is a youtube video disproving this one big fat lie from someone that visited that year. From description on youtube: "Outsiders may claim that Eritrea is affected by drought and insist on forcing famine on Eritrea. But the 2011 rainy seasons (ክራማት) in Eritrea saw a fair distribution of rainfall. Crops in most of parts of the country are in good condition promising another bumper harvest year. Harvest gathering fo...

April 1996 Antiquated, iron trains have stood abandoned for 20 years during Eritrea's war with Ethiopia. Now an army of veteran rail workers and their new apprentices are coaxing them back to life. The Eritrean people are determined to reconstruct their dilapidated railway without any outside help. In the hot, dusty hills, they rescue the old rails from bunkers used during the war. All 169,000 steel sleepers have to be dug up from the ground, straightened and hauled back to the original track. They aim to complete 120 km of track, snaking from the coast to the capital. Transport Minister, Giorgis Teklemikael, says Eritrea's self-reliance and 'can do' philosophy will prevail. A train operating between Massawa and its suburbs is the first sign of success. Produced by ABC Australia Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Eritrea's enemies are leaving no stone unturned to disrupt the bond between the Eritrean government and the Eritrean diaspora.  A bond that is stronger than any other, and that has stood the test of time. Eritrea fought 30 years of long and bitter struggle for independence.  The world had ignored and refused to help Eritrea's right to self determination.  Eritreans had to rely on themselves. During the struggle for Independence an estimated one third of the 3 million population was forced to leave the country. However, Eritreans are very patriotic people.  Wherever they may be, they continued to organize to work for the liberation of their country and to defend the right of their population.  During the struggle for Independence Eritreans raised funds, wrote letters and marched to protest the world's unfair treatment of Eritrea and many went back to help in the armed struggle.  During the armed struggle the Eritrean leader...

Professor Joel Brinkley wrote an article on the San Francisco Chronicle under the title "Eritrea, the most repressive nation on Earth", on April 29, 2012.  When Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, writes on Eritrea, one hopes it would be an original piece that explores the complex issues in depth.  However, the contents of his column were nothing but a copy and paste of several reports that have misleading information on Eritrea and a complete avoidance of current and recent events that lead us to where we are today.  Professor Brinkley has chosen to ignore the elephant in the room and he expects us to do the same. It is true Eritrea won its independence in 1991, after waging a 30 years long and bitter struggle for independence.  Between 1991 and 1998, before the war with Ethiopia broke out, Eritrea under the current leadership had won many accolades, including the New York Times, ...

The following video is from 2007 -- 5 years after the Algeries Agreement.  It is astounding that nothing has changed 5 years later (10 years after the agreement was signed).  --- Youtube description of video follows --  The Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi & TPLF refuses to accept the UN sponsored Hague verdict - the FINAL and BINDING Algiers agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia. And now are in the process to invade Eritrea under a false pretext. In this video clip: After having announced full acceptance of the verdict, and for a little while danced with joy in the streets of Addis, with their Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin holding a press conference to tell the world that "the decision was fair and legal -- that sanity had won over insanity, and that the rule of law had prevailed over the rule of the jungle" they called upon the international community to obligate Eritrea to accept the decision as final and binding and further called upon the commiss...

In May 1998, Ethiopian troops fired and shot on an Eritrean platoon   on routine duty along the border town of Badme killing several of its  members. The Eritrean government's response was one of patience and a  resolute determination to resolve the matter peacefully. However, the  minority led Ethiopian government's response was a declaration of an  all out war on Eritrea under the pretext that Eritrea had invaded  undefined Ethiopian territory that later was concocted as "Badme and  its environs". The minority led Ethiopian government had hoped a war  with Eritrea would give it the legitimacy it had failed to achieve  domestically through its divisive and ethnocentric governance.  After a catastrophic bloodshed, the case went for arbitration to the  Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, the highest court of  arbitration in the world. The independent boundary commission that  was setup with the consent of the ...

The history of injustice by successive Ethiopian rulers against the people of Eritrea are too numerous to list here.  In the interest of time, allow me to focus on recent attempts by the government of Ethiopia to muzzle the people and government of Eritrea. In 1998, the government of Ethiopia lied to its people and the international community when it claimed Eritrea invaded Badme, a territory it falsely claimed as Ethiopian.  Soon after, Ethiopia declared war on Eritrea. After much blood was shed on both sides, the government of Ethiopia was forced to take the matter to an international arbitration court in The Hague.    The ruling of the court was agreed to be final and binding by both parties and was witnessed and guaranteed by the United States, the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union.   The court ruled that Badme, the flashpoint of the war, was a sovereign Eritrean territory and had been so for over 100 years. However, the gov...

During the struggle for independence in Eritrea, the Ethiopian army was known for its brutal repression of Eritreans. The Ethiopian Army committed extrajudicial killings, murder and rape in Eritrea.  However, when the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) captured Ethiopian soldiers, they treated them with dignity and respect.  They fed and educated the Ethiopian soldiers with the limited resources they had.  At that time, the international community had refused to recognize both Eritrea and the prisoners of war.   At independence in 1991, Eritrea released its  hundreds  of thousands prisoners of war to Ethiopia.    Watch a video of this remarkable story from the 1980's:

Eritrea's Ministry of Information website shabait.com reports that "The Monitoring Group, in its report to the Security Council, explained that the accusation against Eritrea alleging that it sent three aircrafts carrying weapons to Somalia was unfounded and to the contrary external forces have entered Somalia uninvited and against Resolution 1725 (2006)." The timing of Kenya's accusation was very malicious to say the least.  It was designed to thwart Eritrea's successful attempt to set the record straight that it had no interest in supporting extremists anywhere let alone in its neighborhood.   The Kenyan government knows full well that the allegations about Eritrea's support for al Shabaab was peddled by Ethiopia to divert attention from its illegal occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories in violation of a final and binding international arbitration. Kenya's accusation came in November of 2011, a month after President Isaias afworki's succe...

Successive of its leaders have sold Ethiopia as “a Christian nation in the strategically important Red Sea region dominated by nations that are hostile to the interests of Israel and the United States.”  As such, Ethiopia has received enormous financial and military support from the United States. The current minority government in Ethiopia has gone even further by painting  the horn of Africa region as a hot bed of extremists and it has labeled itself as the front to the war on terror. This cannot be any further from the truth.   The fact is that Ethiopia's population of 80 million is evenly split between followers of Islam and Orthodox  Christianity.  That puts the Muslim population in Ethiopia around 40 million.  That is larger than the Muslim population of Eritrea (2.5 Million), Djibouti (880,000), Somalia (10 Million), Kenya (4.5 Million) and Uganda (4 Million).  The Muslim population of Ethiopia is even larger than of Sudan estimated a...

Eritrea celebrated its 20th independence anniversary this year (2011).  While most African countries have had 50 years of independence to rebuild their country, Eritrea has had 20 tumultuous years.  A recurring drought, an invasion by neighbour, an interference by outsiders has not stopped the country's march forward.  Eritrea's achievements in all sectors are unparalleled in Africa.  The president of Eritrea and its top leadership have been wrongly vilified by some in the western media.  There are many reasons why I love the government of Eritrea.  Here are my top 20 in honour of Eritrea's 20 years of Independence: Natural Resources like gold will be harvested to benefit Eritreans first.  The government of Eritrea negotiated a 40% ownership while the standard is 10% in other parts of Africa. No fertile land will be sold to foreigner unlike other countries in Africa. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/ethiopia-centre-global-farmlan...