http://ascenteq.com/project/epdp

(This obituary to Patriot Seyoum Ogbamichael was written 20 years ago

to the day. Yet, even those who read it two decades ago will still find it,

I believe, fresh and worth reading).

I shudder under spells of pain combined with anger every time I recall or hear people mention names like: Michael Ghaber, Mahmoud Jenjer, Woldedawit Temesghen, and Mussie Tesfamichael – old time close friends whose burial I could not attend when they fell while contributing more than their share for the national cause and its sentiments that we shared with extraordinary intensity. Seyoum Ogbamichael has now elongated the list and in his special ways made the pain almost unbearable to human limitations and frailties. Little understood and ill known hero till the end, Seyoum was a big asset to our entire liberation struggle era as well as to the current uphill fight for reconciliation, acceptable change and democratization. His death is a loss beyond description at this hour of the unfinished struggle that he helped build at the cost of his entire life and at a big price paid by his loved ones.

A Person of Rare Qualities

Seyoum was a man of exceptional attributes. Until he let out his last breath in an Addis Ababa hospital, where he stepped in during the morning hours of 17 December, still walking straight and sturdy, Seyoum possessed inexhaustible physical energy and vitality that helped him accomplish all what he was doing. In average, he slept less than five hours every night throughout his adult life - yet he did not show weakness until the fateful 17 December 2005.

As of his early teenage, Seyoum single-mindedly wanted to see an independent Eritrea flying the Blue Flag. No flinching. His steadfastness and courage remained big astonishment even to his close peers at all stages of his life. His prioritization of tasks and reading of situations usually led him to conclusions almost all of which were proven by future developments to have been right and correct. He advocated and championed those conclusions and beliefs with absolute determination. The intelligent and gifted Seyoum I knew possessed huge self-acquired knowledge and competence that justified his drive to achieve under any circumstance. And everyone who knew him well will recall that Seyoum was always willing to accept responsibility with self-confidence. The very nature of the fight for national liberation and transition to democracy required not only a huge capacity to communicate through the spoken and the written word, but it also required the skill to motivate others for more work and sacrifice of their time and energy. These are among the much looked after qualities for success in one’s work, especially as a leader. Seyoum had them all in plenty - and for sure more than any of his political critics at any time in the long or the recent past. In other words, Seyoum was a Successful Motivator and a Great Communicator who can make his listeners see the Hopes and the attainable Visions that he saw and that were clear in his head and clear in his language.

I Met Seyoum in Grade 9 

It was in September 1961, that Seyoum Ogbamichael and I first met as classmates in grade 9 at Prince Mekonnen Secondary School in Asmara. Seyoum was about 15 and I a couple of years older and almost ‘mature’ enough with my ‘political awareness’ about Eritrean nationalism – probably because of the age-advantage plus of the advantage of my background from the ever restive Keren and its highly politicized shopkeepers; outspoken and authority-defying elders like Tiluq Hamad; class teachers like Seyoum Negasi, and ardent nationalist classmates like Mahmoud Jenjer (who joined the ELF in 1963 and martyred in 1966). Young Seyoum Ogbamichael was among the first ‘comrade’ I met and felt comfortable with at Prince Mekonnen, a school whose political environment gradually became Keren-like.

And it was after a couple of previously quiet years in Asmara that we, 9^th graders of the 1961-62 academic year succeeded to revive student militancy and organized our first big demonstration in May 1962, parading in the streets of Asmara and embarrassing government officials and onlookers with our audacious chant of:

Natsinet Delina!

Hagizuna!!

The phrase was put together in a chat between us the ‘ring leaders’ while running near Cinema Roma on our way to the Parliament soon after we (Seyoum and other students from Prince Mekonnen) managed to go and force out from their classes the then less politically active Haile Selassie I Secondary School students to join us in that initial demo. By 1963, Seyoum was a fire-brand student leader. In fact, I used to call the 1963 demonstration “Seyoum’s demonstration” because it was he who pushed the rest of us organize it!

Between 1961 to 1965, Asmara demonstrations became yearly events from our school, with the same batch of students leading those modest political acts that eventually helped awaken many Asmara residents to full and passionate national awareness. Seyoum was already a prominent member of this small group of student leaders, who, incidentally, were same class or same grade-mates for four years. Besides Seyoum and I, the others included my closest friend Michael Ghaber, Mussie Tesfamichael, Haile Woldetensae, Isayas Afeworki, Bereket ‘Aket’, Abdurahman Hassan Mehri, the twins Andom/Habtom Ghebremichael and a few others in the lower grades, among them Gherezgheher Tewolde and Abdalla Hassan.

Seyoum  with ELF in 1965, Aged 19

After another big demonstration in mid-March 1965, Seyoum and his closest friend Woldedawit thought that we three were the most wanted by the security at Agip and that we better join the ELF in the field within days. I objected justifying that we would, among other excuses, serve the cause better inside Asmara and later in Addis than in the field and that it was preferable for us to take the risk of a short imprisonment at Agip. Seyoum and Woldedawit did not agree. Finally, by the third week of March 1965, the three of us found ourselves standing at the Asmara bus station: I seeing them off and remaining behind and they trying to reach the field by making a diversion through Ethiopia. When they finally reached Kassala, Seyoum and Woldedawit were given assignments which included going back to Asmara and organizing ELF cells on professional and work categories. 

10 Years in Prison

It was while conducting the above mentioned ELF assignment inside Asmara in late August 1965 that Seyoum and Woldedawit were arrested and kept in prison for 10 years.

Amid all the suffering they were subjected to in enemy dungeons, Seyoum and his colleague never failed to talk to every prisoner they met about the nationalist struggle and its politics. By Woldedawit’s estimation, approximately 25,000 short- and long-term prisoners were lectured on Eritrean nationalism by both of them during the years of their incarceration. Thus, the prison years were not wasted by Seyoum and his friend. It was also in prison that Seyoum managed to learn Arabic, French and some Spanish in addition to his already existing command of Italian, English, Amharic and of course Tigrinya, a language that he might have helped to develop in certain ways.

Back to the ELF in the Field

After release from prison in February 1975, Seyoum served in a number of important posts in the ELF. He was not one of the ‘new comers’ though, as the 1975 recruits to the front were pejoratively referred to. As indicated, Seyoum always lived abreast the ELF while in prison by following all developments within it.

Thus he, Woldedawit and their likes had no lack of knowledge of the political situation in the front to flirt with mostly emotional judgments that led many fresh comers to lawlessness by demanding, among other things, another ‘national congress’ a few months after the second ELF congress of 1975 was convened. By 1977, the ELF army more than quadrupled from its previous size and this meant that the vast majority of ELFers were ‘new comers’ who were liable to misleading whisper of certain interest groups and hot tempers here and there. Seyoum was a great voice and a major contributor (though still little evaluated and appreciated) in the salvation of his front from that crisis that could even have brought about a more dangerous ‘armed’ polarization in Eritrea at that stage. His memorable 1977 radio messages reprimanding the encouragement of sectarianism in the EPLF and lawlessness in the ELF, and his radio poems teaching people to submit to dialogue and the rule of law were characteristic of Seyoum.  He repeated the same 1977 stand and voiced the same message and took the same stand against lawlessness in his organization in 1982 and again in 2003.

A Fierce Opponent of Dictatorship

Seyoum’s unflinching stand against the dictatorship in Eritrea is also about the rule of law and democracy. In 1991, Seyoum was among the key ELF-RC leaders who absolutely rejected the Isayas-regime’s offer to members of Eritrean political organizations to return home as ‘individuals’. The ELF-RC firmly asked for one-to-one dialogue with the new government, and Seyoum’s role in that stand is understandable. But as we all know a scheduled ELF-RC delegation’s visit to Asmara, of which Seyoum was to be a member, was foiled by the one-man decision-making mechanism that plagued the Isayas-led organization for decades.

Like many others, I am of the conviction that the ELF-RC will be remembered in Eritrean history for a good number of things, prominent among them being its firm defense of principles at any stage whose reckless violation would result in obliterating the entire national edifice. One of this is ELF-RC’s insistence in 1993 to be considered as a partner in the referendum. The organization believed that the ABC of democratic participation could be learned by forcing EPLF at least to allow members of other organizations to vote in the referendum with the IDs of their respective organizations. This was to show the EPLF and its leader that Eritrean citizenship cannot be determined by decrees issued by a leader of a single political organization but by an elected national assembly in the future. We can recall Seyoum was the strongest ELF-RC voice in the insistence that the ABC for our democratic participation in the new Eritrea be started at the referendum. He went to the extent of bending (not breaking) decisions of his organization to see to it that the EPLF denial of others’ participation is challenged. It was also during that early period that Seyoum assisted some kind-hearted compatriots to absolutely drop considering Isayas Afeworki as a bed-fellow before multi-party democracy is openly granted.

What Seyoum Was

Seyoum was a moving engine. He at times wrongly assumed that others were made of the same stuff as he. That did not help him easily obtain the understanding he deserved. He could be compared to a successful business manager who would lead a profit-making corporation. (And of course no  successful manager would be expected to be as meek as the shopkeeper around the corner.)  After any problem of misunderstanding with his work colleagues, Seyoum would immediately start reconciling and talking in a normal businesslike way as if nothing had happened. Others would carry on with their grudges – not he. At one point five years ago, I suggested to Seyoum something like this: “Why don’t you try to change some of your traits that sometimes create misunderstandings...?”  His solid response was: “Emo ente qeyires Seyoum aykonkun beleni enber!” (Meaning: If I change [my way of doing things] I will end up being not myself). Seyoum remained to be himself and did not regret that he was what he was. As we bury his remains on 30 December, we will be celebrating what Seyoum was and what he stood for. 

What Seyoum Was Not

Seyoum was not anti-democrat. He, who insisted throughout his life that others abide by commonly agreed upon rules and laws cannot be a candidate ‘dictator’. He was not a Kebessan chauvinist. He was not isolationist. He was the other side of Isayas and his Nhnan Elamanan. He was not anti-unity. He was not anti- this and that (name it yourself). He simply was one of my heroes, of  my ‘Ras Tessema Asberoms’ (with the meaning that I gave to this phrase in an earlier write up.)

Eternal Memory to Our Martyrs!