{"id":281638,"date":"2024-12-02T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=281638"},"modified":"2024-11-30T06:54:05","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T06:54:05","slug":"washington-post-attacks-eritrean-americans-for-organizing-in-their-own-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/12\/washington-post-attacks-eritrean-americans-for-organizing-in-their-own-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post Attacks Eritrean Americans for Organizing in Their Own Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Brigade N’Hamedu riot at an Eritrean festival in The Hague, 2024<\/p><\/div>\n

The Washington Post\u2019s latest anti-Eritrea propaganda demonizes Eritrean immigrants defending themselves in the West.<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

27 Nov 2024 <\/em>– The US has a lot of problematic friends in the Red Sea region, most notably Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). Along with his habit of chopping off heads <\/a> and having them hung in the public square, MBS is credited with having journalist Adnan Khashoggi dismembered with a bone saw <\/a> at the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia has performed a record 213 public executions <\/a> this year. <\/span><\/p>\n

More Gulf monarchies distinguished by hair-raising human rights violations and even modern-day slavery <\/a> include the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar. Like Saudi Arabia, they all prop up the petrodollar, host US military bases, and purchase vast lethal supplies of US weapons, and all but Qatar backstab Palestine. None could disembowel enough kittens to fall afoul of US sanctions.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then of course there\u2019s Israel. <\/span><\/p>\n

Just south and west of this ghastly pantheon is Eritrea, a Red Sea nation that defies the dictates of Western powers, pursues egalitarian social development, eschews IMF and World Bank debt, demands a fair price for its natural resources, and refuses to collaborate with AFRICOM <\/a>, the US Africa Command. <\/span><\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Eritrea is heavily sanctioned<\/a> by the U.S. for alleged human rights abuse. Exclusion from the SWIFT system for conducting international financial transactions puts it in the exclusive company of the West\u2019s other favorite bogeymen, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. <\/span><\/p>\n

Western politicians, pundits, and press relentlessly castigate Eritrea\u2014never mind their headchopping friends across the Red Sea\u2014with the most recent salvo coming from the Washington Post<\/em>. The Biden Administration trained its soft power sights on the country, and this comes in its waning days.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Post<\/em>\u2019s Nairobi correspondent, Katharine Houreld, authored the hit piece titled \u201cHow a tyrannical African country freely raises money in the U.S. <\/a>\u201d She notes that the US sanctioned Eritrea\u2019s ruling party in 2022, alleges that the ruling party and the government are one and the same, and worries that it might be illegal to fundraise for a US sanctioned country in the US, citing anonymous experts who \u201csaid the practices deserve closer scrutiny, including the role played by nonprofit groups.\u201d A US government Fact sheet <\/a> says it\u2019s legal to send humanitarian assistance to Cuba, which has been under US sanctions since 1962, so this threat of \u201cclose scrutiny\u201d appears intended to intimidate Eritrean Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n

At least 14 nonprofits raise money to be spent in Israel, including two, Israel Friends <\/a> and Friends of the Israel Defense Force <\/a> (FIDF), who raise funds directly for the IDF. That\u2019s just for the record, given that Israel is of course not sanctioned by the US. <\/span><\/p>\n

Fundraising for a lawsuit to protect Eritrean Americans<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A careful read of Katharine Houreld\u2019s piece makes it clear that very little of the fundraising it decries is about funds to be spent by the Eritrean government or even to be spent in Eritrea. It’s about a Zoom call which she claims was intended to raise money for a lawsuit against people who\u2019ve attacked Eritrean Americans at cultural festivals and events here in the US, specifically for their attack on the Eritrean American Festival in the Seattle-Tacoma area in August 2023. Houreld also mentions past fundraising for COVID relief and cancer care in Eritrea. <\/span><\/p>\n

I attended the 2022 Eritrean Festival in Dallas, where someone gave a presentation on delivering improved cancer care. People in the audience then stood up, one after another, glowing and eager to announce contributions on behalf of their local Eritrean American communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was no fundraising of any sort at the 2023 festival in Seattle or the 2024 festival in Washington DC.<\/span><\/p>\n

Houreld also writes that these are festivals “where women in diaphanous white dresses twirl in traditional dances, pro-government musicians croon before rapt audiences, and attendees feast on steaming bowls of Eritrean cuisine.” Oh . . . My . . .God. Sounds like fun. As one Eritrean American responded on X, \u201cWe don\u2019t need the government or the Washington Post<\/em>\u2019s permission to have a good time!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Houreld is writing about the Seattle festival from Nairobi, but I was there. The hooligans arrived at 6 a.m., waking us up to loud sounds of destruction and gunshots. They tore down exhibition tents, vandalized property, even set Eritrean dresses on\u00a0<\/strong>fire, and paraded around waving American flags and blue-and-green Brigade N\u2019Hamedu flags. They later sent several festival goers to the nearest emergency room.<\/p>\n

Many Brigade N\u2019Hamedu militants seem to have emigrated from the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, which lost its 2020-2022 war with the Ethiopian government aided by Eritrea. Others seem to be Eritreans from near the border between Tigray and Eritrea who identify as Tigrayans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Western countries give special preference to migrants from Eritrea, as they do Cubans and Venezuelans, in an attempt to depopulate those countries of their gifted and educated youth. The Daily Mail<\/em> <\/a> recently published an expos\u00e9 about Tigrayans on TikTok, bragging that they had managed to \u201ccon their way into Britain\u201d by claiming to be Eritrean and \u201csharing huge swathes of training material to convince case officers they are from Eritrea.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

At least three individuals named in the EAGS\u00a0lawsuit are of Tigrayan origin<\/span>. Temesgen Kahsay, a named defendant who identifies as Tigrayan, openly admits on social media that \u201ca large portion of the Eritrean opposition are Tigrayans. Others are Tigrayan by their mother or father\u2019s ancestry lines.\u201d\u00a0 This statement is supported by ongoing investigations. For example, in Germany, where the first\u00a0attack occurred in a parliamentary hearing, German politician\u00a0J\u00f6rg-Uwe Hahn notes <\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0\u201cthe perpetrators of violence are violent groups led by the probably extremist organization ‘Brigade N’Hamedu’ from Tigray (Northern Ethiopia).” The narrative that Eritreans are \u201cclashing\u201d continues to erode.<\/span><\/p>\n

The militants are on a mission to undermine and violently attack Eritrean expat communities throughout the West, from Stockholm <\/a> to Seattle <\/a> and even Tel Aviv <\/a>.\u00a0 In 2023, they attacked festivals and events in those cities and in Giessen <\/a> and Stuttgart <\/a>, Germany, London <\/a>, Toronto <\/a>, Calgary <\/a>, Edmonton <\/a>, Denver, Dallas, St. Louis, and Atlanta.\u00a0 In 2024, they attacked in The Hague <\/a>, Breslau <\/a>, London <\/a>, Indianapolis <\/a>, Charlotte <\/a>, and again Tel Aviv <\/a> (church service) and Atlanta.<\/span><\/p>\n

The group openly operates with a \u201cPlan A\u201d to warn municipal authorities\u00a0and venue\u00a0owners\u00a0that there may be violence and prevent them from granting permits for Eritrean-themed events. Their \u201cPlan B\u201d is to attack the events if that fails.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of her essay, Katharine Houreld writes, \u201cEarlier this year, for example, about 100 Eritreans living across the United States joined a Zoom call co-hosted by officials from the Eritrean Embassy aimed at raising money to support their country\u2019s struggle against its opponents,\u201d which of course sounds repressive. No government should struggle against its opponents, should they? Especially not against opponents favored by the US government, opponents who might even be attempting a color revolution.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Eritrean charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires,\u201d Houreld continues, \u201cpressed those on the call to hold their own fundraising events and to urge fellow members of the diaspora to contribute as much as they could.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

It then takes Houreld another eleven paragraphs to acknowledge that the fundraising that she believes took place on this Zoom call was neither for money to be spent by the Eritrean government, nor even to be spent within the borders of Eritrea. She believes that it was instead to be spent by the Eritrean Association in Greater Seattle (EAGS) in support of their legal complaint against the hooligans who attacked their festival. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Eritrean officials on the call said the money, in this instance,\u201d she finally writes, \u201cwould finance a lawsuit in the United States against demonstrators who had been protesting against Eritrean government abuses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Demonstrators protesting? Brigade N\u2019Hamedu proudly documented their own EAGS\u00a0festival riot <\/a> on social media livestreams and then posted it to a\u00a0YouTube channel <\/a>. A number of the defendants in the lawsuit can be easily identified in the video.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike the constant stream of Western media propaganda\u00a0demonizing Eritreans, Brigade N\u2019Hamedu\u2019s violent attacks are creating evidence that they are violating the laws of host countries across the West.<\/span><\/p>\n

As earlier reported here, investigations of the many 2023 attacks are underway, and in Calgary, 28 people have been indicted on 63 criminal charges.<\/span><\/p>\n

Calgary Chief Constable Mark Neufeld told local news, \u201cWe\u2019re not policing ideologies. We don\u2019t get on one side or the other of this. This is around behavior for us, and so the behavior that we see in the videos and the reporting of this is the very same behavior that we\u2019ve seen in other cities, and it\u2019s not OK. It\u2019s not OK in our city.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Neufeld also said that these were not clashes between two groups but violent attacks by one group upon another.<\/span><\/p>\n

The list of Brigade N\u2019Hamedu attackers who have been indicted and\/or convicted keeps growing. Hundreds have been arrested and charged around the world. Global kingpin John Black was sentenced <\/a> to four years for the Hague attack.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Notable charges in the USA, include Kidane Woldemariam, who faces felony assault charges with a deadly weapon; he allegedly shot Eritreans at a peaceful event in November 2023. Haile Tseada, a defendant in the EAGS lawsuit, was arrested and charged with assaulting Charlotte police in the February 2024 riot. <\/span><\/p>\n

There have been no more attacks since the EAGS filed their federal complaint. <\/span><\/p>\n

Another lawsuit based on the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which makes it illegal to participate in organized crime, is in the works.<\/span><\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended Stanford University and is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a>. In 2014 she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize<\/em> for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at <\/em>ann@anngarrison.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 blackagendareport.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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