By

Dayyan Mesmer

A Tale of Two Tyrannies: Eritrea and

Egypt
Sixty years since the end of colonialism, and yet the continent of Africa has never
been short of tyrants and despots who live on the suffering and pain of their subjects.
In the wake of independence the majority of Africans thought that their agony,
humilation and exploitation at the hands of colonial powers was over. Moreover,
they sanguinely albeit mistakenly believed that their leaders who waged successful
insurgencies would also lead them to a bright and hopeful future. How wrong they
were. Alas, African leaders rather chilled the optimism for a better future and
turned out to be worst dictators and tyrants outdoing all the savagery of their
colonial predecessors.
Several decades on, history would repeat itself with the upcoming generation of new
leaders and their memoirs of doings. Ferocious brutes would come to the reins of
power in succession and perpetuate the suffering of their population, murder and
plunder their impoverished subjects, pillage state coffers, unleash conflicts, create
devastation and destruction with their averse policies and what nots. As if these
were not enough, they would boost their foreign policy relations not with the export
development cooperation dimmed perfectly natural with sane leaders but rather with
extorting money through the forceful deportation of helpless refugees and asylum
seekers. Such a horrendous atrocity is being perpetrated by none else other than
the savage tyrants- Isayas Afeworki of Eritrea and his Egyptian accomplice Hosni
Mubarek.
Reports coming both from inside Eritrea and Egypt consistently tell about the
horrible detention, mistreatment and forceful extradition of Eritrean refugees back
to Eritrea. Needless to say, Eritrea is a country that has come to a standstill where
desperation has reigned. It is a degenerated country whose people is convulsing
against the abuses and excesses of the exceptionally brutal regime of Isayas Afeworki
and his military henchmen who are notorious for their torturing, abducting and
extrajudicial killing of innocent civilians and army recruits. As a consequence of
the ruthless despotic Isayas Afeworki who has relentlessly assaulted and plunged his
own people into perpetual regional wars and conflicts, Eritrea is in shambles whose
people leave it in droves. A large number of the youth is fleeing the cities, villages,
the labor camps and military bases everyday by crossing the border into Ethiopia
or the Sudan then to either to Libya or Egypt to find their way to further migrate
to the West. Once they leave Eritrea behind, yet they would be confronted with the
nightmare of the Sahara and the rough seas of the Mediterranean.
Despite all this, many people arrive in Egypt only to be arrested by the infamous
Egyptian army who are obsessed by military adventure to shoot and kill defence-
less Eritrean women and children. These people are uprooted refugees in need of
protection. Instead, the brutal state apparatus of Egypt would arrest them, put
them in detention often subjected to inhumane conditions for several months, in
some instances for years, before they strike a deal with their partners in crime- the
Eritrean security to forcefully deport them back to Eritrea.
Once back in Eritrea, the Eritrean tyrant and his cronies from the PFDJ would
stage a mock reception and welcome fanfare to hoodwink Eritreans abroad and the
international community at large into believing that the Eritrean government abides
by international laws and respects human rights. Nothing could be further from the
truth and that the Eritrean people are not so naive as the nescient crash-course
PFDJ cadres would have them believe.
Indeed, the returnees would be sent to one of the territorial prisons, that Eritrea has
become, in the lowland in a place called Wi’a and be exposed to the harsh wilderness
in what is known to be one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Needless to
say, they would be subjected to a horrendous treatment in the hands of the military
generals whose epic fame of savagery against the population is a byword.
Will the Egyptian authorities realize the consequence of their actions in colluding
with the rogue regime of Eritrea by endangering innocent civilians? When will Egyp-
tian authorities stop racketeering by deporting refugees? When will the Egyptian
tyrants stop the killing of Eritrean refugees?