Bereket Kidane Archives

Isaias Afwerki – Eritrea’s Rock of Gibraltar

July 8, 2016November 2, 2019TesfaNews99 Comments

BY BEREKET KIDANE, A European ambassador posted to Asmara recently told the BBC that President Isaias Afewerki was the only African leader who cares about his people. Eritreans have always known that and that is why they continue to stand by him.

A Look Back at the Battle of Massawa

May 15, 2016February 6, 2023TesfaNews25 Comments

BY BEREKET KIDANE After the fall of Afabet, Moscow was effectively finished with Ethiopia. The Soviet Union’s military establishment started withdrawing its advisers and stopped its shipments to Ethiopia. To keep the free flow of arms and its addiction to modern battlefield weapons going, the Ethiopian government started trading Falashas, Ethiopian Jews, for Israeli cluster […]

Eritrea: A Look Back at the Battle of Afabet

May 11, 2016March 18, 2020TesfaNews7 Comments

BY BEREKET KIDANE It was at Adi Shirum that the outcome of Eritrea’s thirty-year Armed Struggle for Independence was decided in March 1988. The total liberation of Eritrea did not happen for another three years, but the Battle of Afabet was the moment the War of Independence’s ending became clear to both the colonial Ethiopian […]

A Look Back at the Battle of Dekemhare

May 1, 2016May 22, 2020TesfaNews1 Comment

BY BEREKET KIDANE Twenty-five years ago this month, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Army (EPLA), the armed wing of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), started making preparations for its final major offensive or “zazami quinat ዛዛሚ ኩናት” in Tigrigna to take Asmara and Assab and liberate Eritrea from the enemy. The fall of the Nadew […]

Meles Zenawi’s Decision to Build Renaissance Dam was Out of Emotion: President Isaias

January 24, 2016October 23, 2020TesfaNews9 Comments

BY BEREKET KIDANE President Isaias Afewerki in his January 2016 interview with local journalists broadcast on Eri-TV described the late Ethiopian leader’s decision to build the Renaissance Dam as an emotional one and not well-thought-out. President Isaias recounted how in 1993, while attending the OAU Conference in Cairo, the late Meles Zenawi had mentioned to […]

Eritrea: Long Live September 1st

August 29, 2015August 31, 2020TesfaNews20 Comments

BY BEREKET KIDANE September 1st is the anniversary of the first shot fired in the armed struggle for Eritrea’s independence popularly known as “ghedli” in Tigrigna or “Sawra” in Arabic. The pivotal shot was fired by Hamid Idriss Awate and his men on September 1, 1961, at a place called Mount Adal, between Agordat and […]