The Gold Curse

 One of the arguments against Eritrea’s federation with Ethiopia was that these two entities practiced two different political systems – Ethiopia still practicing a feudal system and Eritrea experiencing industrial growth set in motion under the Italian colonizers and social transformations under the English in the form of parliamentary system, free media and labor movements.   Merging two different political systems under one federal system was surely a recipe for bloody conflicts.

Half a century later, it is Eritrea that is heading backwards into a feudal system – a king and his noblemen, i.e. his military officers and PFDJ officials.  The British dismantled Eritrea’s ‘telefrica’ or ‘overhead cable transport system’, but it is PFDJ that has finally managed to dismantle every progress made under the Italians, i.e. by closing down the remaining Eritrean industrial system, and under the British, i.e. by closing down any semblance of democracy, rule-of-law, education, free media and labor unions, and whatever cohesion gained under the liberation struggle. 

We have now a regime that is carrying a hidden agenda to prove to the Eritreans that the Ethiopians, esp. the Tigrayan leadership, are more advanced than Eritreans.  Ethiopia’s politics is significantly more sophisticated than PFDJ’s – and this isn’t because Eritreans are backward people.  Why is PMMZ more confident in releasing his political arch rivals such as Mr. Siye Abraha and 38 CUD leaders while the Eritrean regime insists on keeping thousands of ordinary Eritreans and mothers such as Aster and Senait in PFDJ Dungeons, let alone political prisoners? 

The answer is simple:  PFDJ wants to prove correct those opponents of Eritrean independence who argued that Eritrea is incapable of living as an independent nation.  Eritrea is fast backpedaling into oblivion.  Eritrea’s fate isn’t an accident but a deliberate policy by a regime and its lackeys determined to destroy our nationalism and then to hand us back to Ethiopia through the backdoor – a merger between feudal Eritrea with ‘developing’ Ethiopia.  What an irony!     

Eritreans shouldn’t be fooled; PFDJ is Woyane’s mercenary in Eritrea!  There can NOT be any other possible explanation.  No self-respecting nation and government would deliberately and purposely destroy its own body; it wouldn’t engage in national suicide.

It is difficult to swallow recent reports that Dr. Woldai, Mr. Alamin, Mr. Jabir and Mr. Yemane tried to plead with PIA to change Eritrea’s economic course lest Eritrean economy collapses.  Eritrea’s current economic woes is purposely self-inflicted by the Maestro of power usurpation himself – PIA.  PIA had been absorbing dictators’ manuals scripted or practiced by usurpers and egomaniac dictators throughout history while the rest of us longed to enjoy the fruits of our independence.

Zimbabwe’s recent economic meltdown is itself a good indication of PIA’s acute awareness of maintaining a stranglehold on the economy during self-induced crisis.  Eritrea won’t have Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation.  PIA’s solution to tackle potential hyperinflation is through the game of keeping grocery shelves empty.  Prices can’t go up if there is nothing to buy.  Although the effects of empty grocery shelves and skyrocketing prices is the same to the ordinary citizen who can’t obtain the basics either way, the mental effect of the two situations are different.  Hyperinflation creates a euphoric and speculative nature that can overspill into politics through euphoric effects on ordinary citizens. 

Unlike hyperinflation, artificial or controlled low prices for non-existent goods allows the politically and economically challenged regime to falsely claim that basic items are readily available for sale at low prices.   

One may speculate that PIA’s efforts from the outset to monopolize the Eritrean economy and society was a long-term plan to raze Eritrea to the ground and build a new Eritrea built on his own outdated philosophy and image.  PIA’s monopoly encompasses both the supply and the demand sides of the economy.  Controlling one side without the other [i.e. both supply and demand] would nullify PIA’s intended objectives.  PIA controlled supply side by slowly squeezing out private sector businesses.  PIA controlled demand side by slowly turning every Eritrean into his slave – slaves unable to command wages that would have chased every available good in the country in dwindling market.  By turning every citizen into slave, PIA avoids the pressure of paying wages and salaries from dwindling government coffers thus necessitating printing money, which is the cause of hyperinflation.

PIA is following every chapter and verse of dictators’ manuals accumulated over centuries.  The burning question is always ‘what next’.  It is very simple to destroy a house, a person and a country.  But the vexing question is always what will it take to build a house, a person and a country. What takes one man to destroy, it takes thousands to build.  PIA is easily destroying our Eritrea – but that is the easy part.  But does he have the thousands to build the country; these are thousands of people who aren’t enslaved but use their enthusiasms, their innovativeness, their ingenuities and resourcefulness to build their country.          

Despite PIA’s outward appearance of grasping the evolving economic realities of today, in reality, PIA is still stuck in the “convenient” revolutionary ideologies of the early to middle of the 20^th century.  The benevolent dictators of Singapore and other successful economic tigers put their countries on economic fast-path ensuring that their populations enjoyed the fruits of its labor immediately.  Economic progresses were visible by the day – not just in building some illusionary infrastructures – but by ensuring that their economies generated export incomes immediately.  Simultaneously, private sector was allowed to flourish and become key partners in the economic race.  In PIA’s Eritrea, the country has become literally a cashless society, which is a sign of not a collapsing economy but an already dead one.  There is no effort to generate export income.   No Eritrean, including Dr. Woldai and company, can honestly tell us that PIA has any kind of strategy to pull Eritrea out of its socio-economic disaster. 

What are Eritrea’s economic challenges?

Ø       Roughly 4 Million Population, of which

o        Some 1 Million Eritreans live abroad,

o        50% of the population is less than 18 years old

o        80% of the population lives in rural areas

Ø       This leaves 300,000 who are over 18 years old and living in the cities,

o        Reducing this number by 50,000 for national service men [i.e. those from cities],

o        Again reducing the 300,000 by the elderly, incapacitated and unemployables – we are left to less than 200,000 Eritreans.

o        Again reducing this number by 10,000 in PFDJ Dungeons,

In effect, PFDJ’s economy can’t sustain measly 150,000 people.  Instead, PFDJ has amassed a network of snitches in the cities, numbering around 5,000 (or 1 in 30) to control these 150,000.  Observing today’s world, 150,000 people are employed by averaged sized companies in the West, India and China.  In fact, in China and India, they probably squeeze 150,000 people into a couple of high-rise buildings.    

PFDJ’s illusionary economic developments cheered by its lackeys isn’t more than $ 1 Billion USD in the last 16 years.  Private houses are financed by individual Eritreans.  The only expensive government project is the Hirgigo Electric Generating Station costing $ 200 Million USD (financed by Middle Eastern countries).  The remaining projects are small changes - $ 10 million USD here, $ 50 Million USD there – not amounting more than $ 1 Billion total – at an artificially controlled exchange rate at that.

Just to put these numbers in perspectives for PFDJ cheerleaders, the Stardust Hotel Casino in Las Vegas was demolished recently to be replaced by a new $ 4 Billion dollar hotel.  This amount represents 4 times the amount the Eritrean illusionary con artists have spent in 16 years.  Imagine one SMALL company in America spending four (4) times the amount of whole nation spent in 16 years.  These days, $ 1 Billion doesn’t buy you a corner store on the strip in Las Vegas.  If what excites PFDJ cheerleaders is concrete and steel, there is no need to plug themselves to PFDJ misinformation satellite programs but take trips to the beautiful city of Las Vegas and watch with their own eyes a beautiful $4 Billion hotel going up.  This is where these lackeys can learn efficiency, economic prosperity and beauty all at the same time. 

Another illustration of PIA’s inability to engage in a steady and sustainable economic path is the total absence of affordable housing.  Every year, some 30,000 Eritreans reach the age of 18.  Assuming some 6,000 of these live in the cities and a 50%-50% male-female mix, some 3,000 new dwellings every year should have been built to accommodate married couples.  In the last 16 years, there are no reports of a single affordable housing being built.  What are the implications?

Ø       In the last 16 years, 48,000 new affordable dwellings should have been built.  This demand keeps increasing by 3,000 every year. 

Ø       Without proper jobs and married life, young people can’t pursue normal lives, thus by extension the whole country can’t pursue normal life. 

The three most basic necessities of life are food, shelter and clothing.  When these young people can’t find proper dwellings, they will build slum areas to put roofs over their heads.  They won’t have proper sanitation, leading to health problems and unsafe conditions.  Even if the border problem is to be resolved tomorrow, PIA must keep some 100,000 young people of marrying age, who are originally from the cities, in the mountains and valleys of Eritrea just to prevent them from coming back to Asmara and other major towns.  Any PIA effort to prevent these young people from returning to the cities will eventually lead to open conflict.  The other alternative, as stated above, is to create slums throughout Asmara and other towns on Eritrea.  Slum Areas bring higher crimes, disease epidemics, and other social problems.     

PIA has no roadmap for Eritrean economic development.  No PFDJ cheerleader can tell us where we are headed economically or socially – it is like asking higdefawiyans to name PIA’s legal successor, there is none.  Eritrea economy is sinking in a quicksand due to the following reasons:

1.      Capital:  capital is one of the most critical factors for economic growth, hence prosperity

a.      Private capital – private businesses have been driven out of the country and thus choking off private capital,

b.      PFDJ capital – is stashed away in secret banks, used to finance every subversive forces in the horn and used to corrupt Eritrean lackeys,

c.      International capital – won’t come to a country that is hyperventilating on a warpath and financing every destabilizing forces in the horn, where mothers are thrown into PFDJ Dungeons and kept in incommunicado and, in general, the rule-of-law doesn’t exist in its vocabulary.  The Eritrean ambassador to India called for Indian investors to invest in the empty Free Zone.  “Eritrean Free Zone” is where Indian investors come with cash into the ‘zone’, and leave Eritrea ‘free’ of their cash.  Soon, Dr. Ravinder Rena of Eritrea Institute of Ancient Technology will become the front-man for PFDJ business claiming that an Indian investor is investing in the Free Zone.  

2.      Skilled labor: no economy can develop without the right mix of educated, experienced and skilled labor.  Skill itself isn’t adequate without the right attitude, hope and enthusiasm among the labor force.  Certificates issued at faster rate than Johnnie Walker flowing in the country aren’t worth the paper they are written on.  Teaching 300,000 Warsai-Yikealos to become amateur masons doesn’t move Eritrea one single step forward.

3.      Land:  PFDJ is forced to distribute land for housing in order to muzzle possible Diaspora opposition.  Beyond that, PFDJ doesn’t have any plans to distribute land for economic growth purposes.  In fact, it is interesting to note that the regime is bent on alienating every Eritrean, including the regime’s supporters.  For instance, many regime supporters were allocated land and when they deposited funds to build their houses, suddenly, they were told to stop building houses resulting in significant financial losses.  Moreover, the regime is asking extortionist prices to build houses itself for its captive clients. 

4.      Infrastructure:  PFDJ claims that 300,000 Warsai-Yikealo servicemen are engaged in economic development, but in reality, if these many servicemen were truly busy bees, we would have built tens of thousands of miles of roads crisscrossing the country, tens of thousands of houses, etc… by now.  In reality, the infrastructure projects are negligible.  The 80 MW Hirgigo Electric Station doesn’t run more than few ‘electric mogogos’ and washing machines.  Just for comparison, our neighboring Tigray, with slightly more population, is building a 300 MW (almost 4 times) of sustainable, environmentally friendly and cheaper hydro-electric power station at Takeze.  Cell phones and internet were introduced in chaotic Somalia before Eritrea.  Tiny Djibouti has 10 times the port capacity than Eritrea.  What is the point of building few roads when you have chocked off all economic developments and driven up fuel prices well beyond world market prices?  These infrastructure projects should instead be called ‘look busy projects’.  Again, what happened to the Superemo look-busy project called the “Grand Train Project”?    

5.      Domestic & Export Market: Eritrea is a small market and too poor, i.e. little purchasing power, to be of any interest for investment for domestic consumption.  Its potential lies in possibly engaging in exporting its natural resources and services.  Eritrea isn’t competitive on wages and experienced labor to compete against China and other Asian countries.

6.      Agriculture:  Interesting that Ministers and PFDJ officials keep telling us that Eritrea’s agricultural sector will grow in the future (for now 25% only – down from 75% in 1998) as if people can live without eating for the next 15 years while PFDJ bungles up one endeavor after another.  Of course, the ministers and PFDJ officials can afford to take their sweet time to develop the agricultural sector because they don’t have to line up for bread every morning and enjoy three meals a day.  I wonder what their agricultural reports would have been like if they had to line up for bread at three o’clock in the morning everyday. 

Export Market

The burning question remains if Eritrea has enough natural resources and exportable goods and services to realize its economic prosperity.

1.      Marine Resources:  estimates range that Eritrea can export up to 100,000 tones per year, which is 100 Million kilograms of fish.  At an average price of $1 USD per kg, Eritrea has a potential export of $ 100 Million USD.  According to some estimates, PIA receives some $ 20 Million USD from selling fishing rights every year.  This money is stashed away in foreign banks and used for its subversive and corrupt activities.

2.      Services:  Eritrea is located at a strategic geographical position and blessed with 1,000 kms of coastal line of a very strategic waterway.

3.      Mining and Natural Resources:  Eritrea has a significant potential to produce gold and base metals.  

Why will PIA scuttle every effort to exploit Eritrea’s natural wealth?  First, it should be noted that PFDJ is stashing away hard currencies earned from selling fishing rights to Egypt, Yemen and South Korea.  PFDJ discouraged Saudi Fisheries from investing in Eritrea, while shutting down local fishing businesses such as privately owned Red Sea Fisheries Company.  PIA destroyed the Ministry of Marine Resources, which was beginning to develop under the capable leadership of Min. Petros Solomon.  Min. Haggi is busy sipping away his tea in Massawa while his Ministry rusts away in salt.  PIA’s reason for selling fishing rights to foreigners than allowing locals, such as Red Sea Fisheries, to exploit the marine resources sector is simple – PIA doesn’t want Eritreans to know how much money is being stashed away in Singaporean Banks.  Eritreans are only to be told how bad situations are in Ethiopia and Somalia. 

PIA won’t develop the Mining sector for the following reasons [PIA’s gold curse]:

Ø       PIA has been busily engaged in destroying Eritrea as a viable nation.  If he is to be removed from power, he wants to ensure that the following government collapses due to empty government coffers.  “Après moi le deluge”  

Ø       Dictators’ manuals are based on the philosophy that they must keep the population poor and destitute.  Prospering population demands rights and freedoms that dictators can’t provide.  PIA can afford to buy flour for bread, but wants to keep people frustrated by keeping the population occupied with everyday mundane activities.  Four hours to buy two loafs of bread costing less than 3 cents (USD).  That is how much Eritreans are worth in PIA’s Eritrea – less than 1 cent an hour.      

Ø       PIA won’t derive any significant income from developing Eritrean mining sector for the next 5 to 7 years while the necessary legal agreements are prepared, the mining companies set up their operations and return their initial investments.  However, the Eritrean population will assume that PFDJ is earning hundreds of millions of dollars immediately and thus increasing the Eritrean people’s frustrations over their illegitimate government.  This could potentially spark a public uprising.  This is why PIA wants to play down the earning potentials of the mining sector, i.e. this is designed to play down expectations.

Ø       Any sudden wealth will also increase the potential for a military coup.  Army officers drunk with too much money and unrestricted powers will only vie for the ultimate position.  PIA wants to manipulate people’s greed to keep himself in power but greed carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction through uncontrollable excesses.

Ø       Moreover, greater foreign investment in mining and other sectors will attract greater interests of foreign powers.  This will deprive PIA his absolute rule over Eritrea.  Western based mining companies are doomed in Eritrean mining sector.  Chinese mining companies might be used if and when PIA decides to exploit this industry, but this won’t happen any time soon.  China’s ‘doesn’t ask’ attitude suits PIA just fine.  But that is also changing. Increasingly China is also being pressured by the Western powers as manifested in Chinese efforts in the Darfur region of Sudan.    

Request to Meskerem.net

Ø       Meskerem.net has been busy taunting the opposition camp calling for various debates on the flag, Ethiopia and other secondary issues.  It also enjoys throwing statistics showing Eritrea ahead of Ethiopia on some international statistics.

I just wonder if meskerem.net has the guts, the internal fortitude or ‘me’anta’, to ask [on its website] the PFDJ regime to release Aster, Senait and the thousands of prisoners-of-conscious as PMMZ has done for Siye Abraha and the 38 CUD political prisoners.  Can this website ask Mr. Alamin to tell us what PFDJ values we are supposed to emulate – injustice, intolerance, servitude, arrogance, cowardice or what?  Why pose questions to the opposition camp only? 

Ø       It is also interesting that pro-PFDJ dimtsi.com is getting some first-hand information from New York.  Ummmmm, interesting!  I suppose the other pro-PFDJ websites lack that typical PFDJ connection, that same pull.  

Congratulations to asmarino.com, EMDHR and asena-online who are doing just a marvelous job.  One’s blood boils against the regime whenever one watches Asmarino videos. 

Long Live Eritrea! 

PFDJ can’t and won’t destroy our love for our Great Eritrea!

Release now Aster, Senait and thousands of innocent Eritreans in PFDJ Dungeons!

Help and Strength to our fellow countrymen in Libya and Sudan!

Berhan Hagos

July 23, 2007