A Preface of Reluctance and Recognition For more than two decades, I avoided President Isaias Afwerki’s speeches.

They were predictable, monotonous, and devoid of substance — exercises in tedium that tested the limits of my patience.

His demeanor, too, has always unsettled me: the way he talks, the way he walks, the way he carries himself.

He embodies much of what has gone wrong in Eritrea—a ruler who hardened his heart, burdened his people, and made the land groan beneath the weight of his reign (Bible).

When a ruler ages without humility, his rule hardens into oppression (Quran).

There are people within the regime I would have gladly met, shared a drink with, or debated over a meal.

Isaias is not one of them.

I am genuinely grateful I never had the misfortune of shaking his hand.

This year, however, I read his Independence Day address—thanks to the English translation posted on Shabait.

It confirmed everything I have long believed.

What follows is not merely a critique of a speech but an examination of what it reveals about Eritrea’s political decay and the worldview of the man who has presided over it.

A Speech About Everything Except Eritrea Eritrea marked its 35th independence anniversary—a moment that should have invited national reflection, gratitude, and sober assessment.

Instead, Isaias delivered a 4,800‑word address in which barely one eighth acknowledged the occasion.

More than half drifted into a rambling meditation on U.S.

politics, Donald Trump, global debt, Venezuela, Iran, and the supposed unraveling of the international order.

It was, in essence, a speech about everything except Eritrea.

Anniversaries are mirrors.

They reveal not only where a nation stands but also where its leaders believe themselves to be.

This year’s address exposed a president increasingly detached from the lived realities of our people and absorbed in a grand geopolitical narrative that has little bearing on Eritrea’s urgent needs.

The Hollow Ritual of Celebration Of the nearly five thousand words delivered in Asmera, only 620 — roughly 12 percent — were dedicated to the independence anniversary itself.

These were the familiar refrains: the valor of the martyrs (true to the adage ሓበሻን ደርሆን ምስ ሞቱ ይኸብሩ), the resilience of the people, and the sanctity of sovereignty.

Ceremonial, interchangeable, and devoid of introspection.

The rest fell into two categories: about 32 percent touched on Eritrea in vague, repetitive terms a full 55 percent had nothing to do with Eritrea at all Isaias is correct that Independence Day is a measure of national trajectory.

But he is profoundly wrong to frame it through “the additional sacrifices made in the last 35 years to confront persistent hostilities and subterfuges.” Those “sacrifices” were not imposed on Eritrea — they were manufactured by his own misguided policies, military adventurism, and unnecessary regional interventions stretching from Ethiopia to Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, and even the Congo.

Even the UN and U.S.

sanctions imposed on Eritrea were direct consequences of these reckless choices.

They had nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with Eritrea’s urgent and long‑delayed need for nation‑building, institutional development, and economic reconstruction.

Every diversion of resources, every diplomatic crisis, and every episode of self‑inflicted isolation was a choice—his choice—and Eritrea has paid the price in lost decades, lost opportunities, and lost generations.

A Nation Abandoned by Its Leadership The task of national development should have been the government’s sole preoccupation.

Instead, Eritrea was dragged into conflicts that had nothing to do with its national interest.

Isaias and his small circle of enablers — men who have ruled the country by fiat and fear — are responsible for every dimension of the national malaise our people endure today.

The economic stagnation, the institutional vacuum, the mass exodus of youth, the suffocation of civic life, and the erosion of national confidence are not accidents of history.

They are the direct consequences of decisions made by a leadership that has consistently placed its own survival above the well‑being of the nation.

When Isaias says, “We must reflect on where we stood yesterday, where we stand today, and what the future will hold,” he is right—and the record is damning.

His 35‑year tenure makes him one of the most inept, incompetent, and delusional autocrats in modern African history.

A 35‑year rule by a single man should be unacceptable to any Eritrean, even if that leader were competent or benevolent.

To endure such unbroken, unaccountable power under a leader whose record is catastrophic is an indictment not of the people, but of the system he built to suppress them.

Most of us know this truth because we have lived it for decades.

This year’s speech made the disconnect undeniable.

And if further proof were needed, the fact that more than ten percent of the population has fled—voting with their feet—reveals just how unbearable and hopeless life has become.

No people abandon their homeland in such numbers unless the state has failed them at the most fundamental level.

A few days ago, I spoke with a pro‑Isaias Eritrean who, without prompting, admitted that he is doing everything he can to get his own nephews out of the country because, as he put it, “You and I both know there is no future for young people in Eritrea.” His private admission exposes what many regime supporters will never say publicly: even those who defend the system understand, deep down, that it has nothing to offer the next generation.

Avoidance Masquerading as Analysis Instead of addressing… the indefinite national service and the endless....