Category: Articles

The Story Begins on the 18th of September 2001

After fighting for thirty years, in May 1991, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) liberated Eritrea from the Ethiopian occupation. Two years after, an internationally supervised referendum was carried out and Eritrea became an independent state in May 1993.

Eritrea’s National Service ‘A Cancerous Growth’

(oneworld.org, Daniel Nelson, September 6, 2016) National service in Eritrea “is like a cancerous growth” that has been eating into people’s lives, a London-based Eritrean academic told an MPs’ group in the Houses of Parliament on Monday. Prof Gaim Kibreab of London Southbank University told the…

How Eritrea Became a Major UAE Base

(warontherocks.com, Alex Mello and Michael Knights, September 2, 2016) Britain militarily withdrew from areas “east of Suez” in 1971, triggering the Trucial States to form today’s United Arab Emirates. Now, 45 years later, this Arab country is increasingly focused on projecting military power “west of Suez.”…

Warsay Slave Labor

Eritrean Conscripts Are Not Slaves

Recently, the Information Minister of Eritrea, Mr Yemane Gebermeskel, confirmed that indefinite National Service is going to remain without fundamental change, but that the government is planning to increase the present very low wages paid to conscripts: Eritrea won’t shorten national service despite migration fears.

Eritrea Won’t Shorten National Service Despite Migration Fears

(reuters.com, Edmund Blair, Feb 25, 2016) Eritrea is not prepared to stop forcing its youth into lengthy stretches of work as soldiers and civil servants, a conscription policy that is driving waves of refugees to make the perilous trip across the Sahara desert and Mediterranean Sea…

The Roots and Evo­lu­tions of YPFDJ, in search for 2nd gen­er­a­tion cadres

(fithinews.com, Biniam Yohannes, Feb 10, 2016) A decade after inde­pen­dence, the Eritrean People’s Lib­er­a­tion Front (EPLF), which won the war of inde­pen­dence from Ethiopian coloni­sa­tion in 1991, had started becom­ing the very enemy it drove out dur­ing its 30-​year pop­u­lar strug­gle. In 1994, a year after…