Johan Öbrink om Dawit Isaak

1. Simon Says:
   
   maj 27, 2009 at 19:23

   Mr Obrink,

   Most Eritreans believe Dawit should be given a day in court to defend himself, but at the same time you can not guarantee that he has not done what is accused of doing. It is a fact that NED and other organizations that work to push outside interests were funding and using Journalists in Eritrea.

   Reputation:

   Sadly institutions like RSF that seem to be independant, have been implicated time and time again vilifying countries that do not agree with the US.

   RSF itself admited that Washington supports it through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an agency created by the administration of Ronald Reagan with the aim of promoting the agenda of the White House around the world including Africa and South America.

   Conveniently neither RSF nor any one else likes to raise similar case to Dawit, where the United States locked a Reuters Journalist/Photographer in Iraq with out trial since 2001 due to “Security threat” and Eritrea’s own 3 Journalists that were kidnapped in Kenya and transferred to Somalia then further moved to Ethiopia to be interrogated by Ethiopia and their western allied agents.
   http://tinyurl.com/qm7pwk

   Have a look at their handy work in venezuela.
   http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CB199F2C87E55121
   http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/National%20EndowmentDemo.html

   Allegation:

   You have gone back in history, yes there were Swedish individuals that support the independence of Eritrea, but consistently Official governments of Sweden were on the main, supporters of Ethiopia, going as far back as Emperor Haile Sellassie.

   Leaving History aside, currently all the EU member countries including the supposedly enlightened Nordic countries with the exception of Norway are taking their marching orders from the United States, knowing fully well they are supporting genocide, murders and all sort of heinous things in the horn Africa.

   You can protest, but the facts are facts.

   I will elaborate. When Ethiopia tried to get access to the sea by force in 1998, it caused the biggest war in Africa since world war II,
   http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/may/18/ethiopia
   In the end 19,000 Eritreans died defending their country when Ethiopia sent more that 100,000 as cannon fodders to attack their positions.

   When the Hague based international border commission made their ruling in favor of Eritrea, US, EU (Sweden by proxy),AU and UN were witnesses and guarantor of the ruling that was meant to be upheld by the UNSC.

   Instead literally all countries in EU including Sweden took their marching order from the US and were happy for the International law not be implemented, because US wants to use Ethiopia as a proxy gun for hire.
   Even worse they did not protest at any time when the Bush administration with the British help were trying to reverse the ruling at the UN.

   http://www.slate.com/id/2178793/

   So to say Sweden supports the border ruling is a whitewash. If that was the case, leaving Dawit’s issue aside for a moment, is that the reason why Sweden cut Development aid to Eritrea, while increasing the aid to Ethiopia by billions in spite of the heinous crime that was called worse than Darfur by UN ?

   Illegal invasion of Somalia with UN and US complicity
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VJka6q16Os

   Somalia Crisis worse than Darfur, says UN
   http://tinyurl.com/cern3e

   Ethiopia’s ‘own Darfur’ as villagers flee government-backed violence
   http://tinyurl.com/ysmvtc

   193 Protesters Said Killed in Ethiopia election fraud
   http://tinyurl.com/og52nu
   - Hide quoted text -

   Ethiopia: Army Commits Executions, Torture, and Rape in Ogaden
   Donors Should Act to Stop Crimes Against Humanity
   http://tinyurl.com/cg4ygx

   Many Western countries increased their Aid by many folds to the tune of $3billion/yr (you can find out what Swedens contribution is ) to coincide with the invasion of Somalia, while all countries were being warned about the Ethiopian atrocities by Red Cross, HRW etc..
   The only country that stood its ground was Norway and was accused by Ethiopia as a terrorist supporter for its effort.
   http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1990861.ece

   So Mr. Obrink,
   Stop pretending that Sweden is this benovalent liberal democracy. The Swedish people might be in their own country, but their government is not. The Swedish government is part of the instigators of the genocide that is manifesting itself in the horn of Africa by arming and financing Ethiopia.
   http://tinyurl.com/djt9yu

   You might call the current Eritrean leader Dictator because your close association to Dawit, but that makes you hypocrite, as your tax money is financing much worse genocide and horrors in the Horn of Africa.

   You or any one else might not see the importance of settling the Border issue (not only in words but by deed ), but when the very countries that purport to be democratic are the once blocking peace and democratization in Eritrea, Dawits issue becomes sideline issue.

   In the 30 year war, the motto was “The interest of the many precedes the interest of the unit”

   The people that you call the Loyalists, might not agree with many things with the current government, but they see the criminal behaviour of the countries that purport to be Democratic countries as worse than the mistakes that a Eritrea, that is newly liberated from hundreds of years of colonization does.

2. Martin Ängeby Says:
   
   maj 29, 2009 at 09:44

   Simon, are you exercising undue foreign influence on the govenment of Sweden? Should you be thown into prison?

   Regardless of histoty, there is no special right for the formerly colonized or otherwise brutalized to freely infringe human rights.

   There may be worse disctators than Afewerki, but that does not make him less of a dictator.

3. Simon Says:
   
   maj 29, 2009 at 15:45

   Martin,

   I fully agree with you. I believe in free speech as well as rule of law. What I am trying to point out is ” Sweden and western countries need to practice what they preach”. One can not lecture one country about human rights selectively, while funding genocide on another country that is being accused of worst atrocities in Africa. It creates a credibility issue.

   Eritrea in spite of the brutalization it received for centuries, forgave the people that helped in the brutalization and was in the right track for democratization for time being, until the border war.
   You can listen to this NPR interview with the British Author Michaela Wrong about the history of Eritrea.
   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4729800

   Yet at the first hurdle,history repeated itself and the so called “free world” reverted to the colonialist mentality. In spite of Eritrea wining its case by legal means in the “Hague court of international arbitration”
   the free world blatantly ignored and abrogated their responsibility from enforcing the law, instead they are financing and arming the very country that is breaking the law to the tune of $3 billion/yr for their perceived end.

   Now Eritrea remembering what has gone before and this last incident has lost complete faith in the so called world community and is saying what right have you got telling us about local internal matters when you can not even be bothered to uphold the international rule of law.

   One can argue rightly human rights can never be negotiable, but sadly as we have seen from the recent past,even western countries put security above human rights.
   Let alone countries like Eritrea that are located in volatile environment and with unborn western style democracy, countries like the US with all their resources and stable environment feel compelled to incarcerate journalists indefinitely with out trial. http://tinyurl.com/qm7pwk

   I am not condoning the behaviour, but that is the reality. If we follow the same logic, can we call Bush and Obama dictators for incarcerating the journalists indefinitely?

   Sadly Dawit’s case is now so politicized and intertwined with bigger issue like security and the border issue, with out addressing those fundamental problems I don’t see any thing progressing positively.

4. Johan Öbrink Says:
   
   maj 30, 2009 at 16:33

   Simon,
   Incarcerating people, journalists or not, without trial, is allways wrong. One big difference between Bush/Obama and Afwerki is that Obama was just elected into office, changing the policies of Bush. This is what happens in a democracy. This is what doesn’t happen in a dictatorship like Eritrea. Even if Ethiopia is the main aggressor, you cannot claim that Afwerkis policies have been successful.

   Sadly you cannot claim that they are bad if you are in Eritrea because you will get thrown in prison like Dawit. And then malicious lies about you will be spread. And they will be believed by people leaving comments on the Liberati blog.

5. Johan Öbrink Says:
   
   maj 30, 2009 at 16:36

   Simon,
   I never claimed Sweden supported Eritreas right of independence. I am saying that the same individuals who supported Eritrea then, are the ones leading the struggle to free Dawit now. It is the same struggle. The struggle for liberation of the Eritrean people. The enemy has changed from Selassie to Mengistu to Afwerki.

6. Interesting Says:
   
   juni 7, 2009 at 00:15

   Johan,

   It is very interesting that you preach “democracy and free press” only on countries that are not willing to go the path os USA. There are countries who never had election or free press long before Eritrea was free as a country. But you are as silent as the masters of democracy.

   Sadly since you are being told to do what you have to do (I dont have evidence but the spirit says it all), you lectures on democracy doesn’t have any value a all!

   That the Americans have elected Obama democraticaly, then good for them and that the swedish has elected the present government that good for them and if Eritreans (who elected last 1994 through representatives) want to wait due to other priorities then good for them. Why do you want to impose you ideologies on others by any means. If you willingly or unwillingly have accepted other ideology its up to you but you have to respect other people and nation for your own best! Because relation of peoples always originates from respect of others.

   And most importantly if you want to free other you need to set free your self.

   http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/9/bush_rove_tied_to_effort_to

   Thank you!

7. Fille Says:
   
   juni 9, 2009 at 15:53

   Johan,

   What exactly had Bush done to be compared with Obama?
   Concerning Obama I would say let’s wait and see. By the way wasn’t it Obama who said recently he will not close down Guantanamo?

8. Tretusen dagar i finkan | Liberati Says:
   
   december 10, 2009 at 10:04

   [...] Sara Sommerfeld skriver med anledning av detta. Liberatis Johan Öbrink har tidigare lagt ut texten här på liberatibloggen. Dawitkampanjens hemsida hittar ni här. Skrivet av Martin Ängeby | Taggar: Dawit Isaak [...]

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