Mr Cawthorne
Thank you at least for trying to be impartial, those who try to be impartial reporters are like a flower that sprouted in the middle of a sewage system, it gets overwhelmed by the surrounding.
Journalism has become an incestuous state of affairs that gets dictated by interested parties to create initial momentum, there after they cross feed from each other .
The best example of this is Dick Cheney’s saga of the Niger Yellow cake saga. Officials leak information to newspapers, and they quote newspapers as a source. Things propel themselves from there.

As we know, truth in the end comes out,but by then it is history and there are new lies to be made.

When Eritreans say it is conspiracy it is not a figment of their imagination but based on facts that can be substantiated by anyone, but people rarely do.
Even the people that were part of the conspiracy write about it on their books and memoirs.

Two such examples are the books
Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations by John Bolton
Where he clearly implicates the Bush Admin represented by Jendayi Frazer and Blair Admin represented by Lord Malloc-Brown as the culprits for the impasse between Eritrea and Ethiopian.

“Unvanquished: U.S.– U.N. Saga” by Boutros Boutros?Ghali Secretary general for UN (92-97)
In the book he accuses the current puppet master in Somalia Ould Abdallah (UN Official) the same man that is accusing Eritrea of gun running, and was instrumental for falsifying of the UN monitoring report that stated 2000 Eritrean troops in Somalia in 2007, as sleepery eel that was bought by the Americans.

Here is an excerpt from(Page279):

After a late Saturday night arrival in early July in Yaoundé,� �the capital of Cameroon and the 
host city for the OAU summit, I b egan to seek support among the  delegates  early  Sunday 
morning. Although warned that the A mericans were on the scene in forc e, I was shocked to 
find such a high powered U.S. team of officials work ing so intensely to discredit me.  There, in 
the hotel lobby, I realized for th e first time the full meaning of  the American term “lobbying.” 
Countless young American diplomats s eemed to be constantly rushing from  one part of the 
hotel to another. Every time I ste pped into the elevator, I would en counter a sweating 
American Foreign Service officer on� �his or her way to meetings with  African leaders. 
“Assistant Secretary of State  for African Affairs George Moose wa s there. With him was the 
man who  had  held  that  same  job  during  the Bush Administration, Herman  “Hank” Cohen, 
now director of a  foundation dealing with Africa.  I knew both men, because we had o ften 
worked together on African issues.  Strangest of all  to me was  the presence of Ahmedou 
Ould Abdallah, a Mauritanian I had� �appointed as my special representat ive for Burundi. 
Ould Abdallah had slipped into the� �American camp like an eel, perhaps  because he had 
suddenly left the United Nations to  become the new head of Cohen’s� �foundation. My aide 
Fayza Abulnaga cornered Ould Abdalla h with  feline  fury  in a hotel corridor and denounced 
him as a despicable turncoat.”

Andrew
Thanks for the articles.

For those denigrators, nay sayers and day dreamers, is it not the countries that purport to be democratic countries flooding Africa with arms, sucking dry African resources with the help of few greedy citizens and vilifying any one who does not agree with them.
Unfortunately in every country there are placard waving useful idiots that are clueless of what is at stake.

Leaving the countless invasions based on lies and heinous crimes like Abu graib that no one wants to explain, why aren’t the so called democratic countries not accountable to the same rules and international law.

My casing point is the Journalists that were locked since 2001 in Iraq with out trials, because they are allegedly “high security threat.” . I don’t see the same uproar or US ranked 173rd by RSF (that is funded by USAID & NED)
http://tinyurl.com/ry49de

or the UN and AU protesting of arms dumping in Africa bought from the so called Axis of evil with uncle sam’s money
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/world/ 08ethiopia.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VJka6q16 Os

One can write a book the size of “war and peace” on the hypocrisy and conspiracies that are still going on.

Corrected version

We all know the difficulties Eritrea is faced with over the past 7 years. We have a stubborn government that is fixated on this self reliance model …Which is noble in itself but needs partners to succeed. They need to tone down the rhetoric.

I was one first few who joined a chorus of people asking for more transparency from the government back in 2000. I saw how the so called opposition was highjacked by foreign interests (USAID, England and some American NGO in the States). I was disappointed by the lack of honesty and transparency by this so- called opposition groups that I withdrew all my support. No wonder why the opposition has failed miserably .

What you have now is loose association of groups with different and opposite views (one is pro-democracy and one is pro-sharia etc..) that the only thing bonding them for now is their hatred towards the PIA and the money they are getting through peace and democracy organizations.

Having said that, I am fully supportive of the GOE Actions. PIAis our Mandela our Che and one thing for sure he leaves no one indifferent! –):

Talking about conspiracy –):
All hate emails you are getting are not all from Eritreans… Our friendly neighbors followed the story as well read below and are not particularly happy about all media attention the PIA is been getting
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/2 009/05/woyanne-reacts-to-president-isaia s-afwerkis-interview/

Good job Andrew and so long!