Assisment
Sophia Tesfamariam’s Failed and Flawed Seminar in Vancouver on March 3, 2013
It’s very ironic how Ms. Sophia Tesfamariam has titled her lecture “Development and Human Rights” without ever mentioning the dire current human rights situation in Eritrea. Instead she spent a great deal of her time lecturing attendees about America and the homeless people in the streets of Washington D.C., about Al-Shabaab and the outright denial of Eritrean regime’s involvement in Somalian affairs…etc. The stat she presented during her first part of her presentation would make the uninformed person believe that Eritrea is now almost one inch below heaven. “Lots of roads are being built and who knows the gold may flow through these roads”, she jokingly said with a big grin on her face, almost sarcastically. Unfortunately her statistics were deliberately cooked and cherry picked with the intent of deceiving her attendees. Alas, her stats were refuted right on the spot, thanks to the quick thinking of one of the attendees who Googled online. I must give her credit though as she was so quick to admit that her graphic representation might have had some flaws. There was one picture in particular that she showed us that caught my attention. It is about a 3/4 storey building construction in Massawa, owned by Mussa Ali’s Construction Company, of course according to her. She boastfully confirmed that the builders were, indeed, national service conscripts who were happily doing their jobs. She further continued to say “when I mentioned to one of the builders that their ‘warsay yike’alos’ work is seen as wefri barnet ‘campaign of slavery’ by those in the Diaspora”, the worker replied to her “tell those who say that come to visit to the country and witness for themselves how our lives are being transformed from ex-farmers to electricians and brick layers…etc.” I was wondering how many conscripts it would take to build a 3/4 storey building as there are about 300,000 soldiers in Eritrea as per
It’s very ironic how Ms. Sophia Tesfamariam has titled her lecture “Development and Human Rights” without ever mentioning the dire current human rights situation in Eritrea. Instead she spent a great deal of her time lecturing attendees about America and the homeless people in the streets of Washington D.C., about Al-Shabaab and the outright denial of Eritrean regime’s involvement in Somalian affairs…etc. The stat she presented during her first part of her presentation would make the uninformed person believe that Eritrea is now almost one inch below heaven. “Lots of roads are being built and who knows the gold may flow through these roads”, she jokingly said with a big grin on her face, almost sarcastically. Unfortunately her statistics were deliberately cooked and cherry picked with the intent of deceiving her attendees. Alas, her stats were refuted right on the spot, thanks to the quick thinking of one of the attendees who Googled online. I must give her credit though as she was so quick to admit that her graphic representation might have had some flaws. There was one picture in particular that she showed us that caught my attention. It is about a 3/4 storey building construction in Massawa, owned by Mussa Ali’s Construction Company, of course according to her. She boastfully confirmed that the builders were, indeed, national service conscripts who were happily doing their jobs. She further continued to say “when I mentioned to one of the builders that their ‘warsay yike’alos’ work is seen as wefri barnet ‘campaign of slavery’ by those in the Diaspora”, the worker replied to her “tell those who say that come to visit to the country and witness for themselves how our lives are being transformed from ex-farmers to electricians and brick layers…etc.” I was wondering how many conscripts it would take to build a 3/4 storey building as there are about 300,000 soldiers in Eritrea as per