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Goba
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Who is Saleh Gadi Johar? Why is he Arabist? [Forwarded}

Post by Goba » 09 Aug 2019, 18:59

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Written by Sophia Tesfamariam
Friday, 04 January 2008
Asmara Rose Responds to Saleh Gadi and the Awate Team

As I have said many times before, when the minority regime in Ethiopia led by Meles Zenawi finds himself in one of is self made political quagmires, he summons his mercenaries to divert attention away from his lawlessness and belligerence. One of his loyal lackeys, Saleh Gadi and his “Awate team” are out there once again parroting Meles Zenawi’s warped sense of justice and logic. As unbelievable as it seems, these clowns masquerading as Eritreans are now blackmailing Eritrea to relinquish sovereign Eritrean territories to Meles Zenawi in exchange for peace. Those of us who have followed Saleh Gadi and his team understand why he is desperate to keep Meles Zenawi at the helm in Ethiopia, he stands to loose not only his job as the minority regime’s primary information launderer, but also stands to loose his properties in Ethiopia which were released by Meles Zenawi in exchange for Gadi’s help in bringing down the Government of Eritrea and destroying Eritrea’ budding economic, political and social institutions.


Eritreans in the Diaspora have been victims of Saleh Gadi’s taunts and abuses for the last 10 years. He has been spewing insults and disseminating erroneous information about prominent Eritreans in the Diaspora who have rejected his hate filled campaigns against the Government of Eritrea and its people. I too have been the focus of Saleh Gadi and his team and he has authored several articles to provoke, insult and intimidate me and prevent me from expressing my views. I had long decided that he was not worth my time or energy but I believe my silence has emboldened him to breach all norms of acceptable behavior and language and have decided that there are enough people out there that have been hoodwinked by this evil amongst us and it is only fair that the readers know who Saleh Gadi is…


Since my intention is to respond to Saleh Gadi and his Awate team in a language only they can understand, and using terms only they can decipher, I will refer to the mercenary disgruntled runaway diplomats, national service defectors, members of terrorist groups, and all other treasonous face less, nameless individuals who have been parading as “human rights” and “democracy” advocates and as “journalists” as the Awate Flying Goats (AFG). The criminal and dishonest Saleh Gadi and his equally criminal AWG may have fooled some gullible Americans and served as easy tools for groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Sans Frontiers, but the Eritrean Diaspora rejected him outright from the moment he stepped foot in the United States carrying his hate filled baggage and ill willed agendas. Nobody was spared the wrath of Saleh Gadi and the AWG who set out to abuse their “freedom of expression” to fabricate reports about the State of Eritrea and present it as a pariah.


Over the years, Gadi and his AFG have given me various labels. From “The Virgin from Virginia” to “Asmara Rose” (as in “Tokyo Rose”), to “General Sophia”, to Sophia “Aideed” Tesfamariam (for supporting the people of Somalia in their struggle to liberate their country), to the “empty lady who says she is the great-great-grand-daughter of Zerai Deres’ brother”etc. etc. Had Gadi checked his facts, he would have know that Zerai Deress was my grandfather’s brother, but I suspect it was deliberate. In Saleh’s warped mind, like that of his boss Meles Zenawi, he believes he can twist, bend and even re-invent the truth. I have remained the obsession, focus and subject of his writings and that of the AWG for quite sometime. By writing under various pennames, producing personal information about my family and me and ridiculing me in public seemed to be their chosen method of intimidation and harrassment.


For the last couple of months, his site has focused on belittling, insulting, and denigrating my reputation and that of my family. I suppose that comes with the territory. It’s the price one pays for being in the public domain, for being outspoken and for being a woman in politics, in a world dominated by men. Saleh Gadi must know that I am not easily intimidated and have absolutely nothing to apologize for. I have not committed a single crime in my entire life, and have always stood for the rights, dreams and aspirations of the Eritrean people. I have no skeletons in my closet. I wonder if Saleh Gadi and his AWG can say the same about themselves. Well, we will soon find out.


I have been reading the many articles written about me by the AWG and this time I got the feeling that he was really seeking to get my attention, he ahs… so I am here, in the spirit of “Hizbawi Mekete”, to oblige and make him the subject of my piece for today. He probably felt slighted because I had written several times about the “big wigs” in the Eritrean Quislings League (Eritrea’s Chalabis) and he probably believed that he deserved a mention or two. I’ll see what I can do. It is time to confront Gadi in all his ugliness. But before I begin, for the readers that do not know Saleh Gadi, allow me to present a brief background and warn the reader that there is information here that is shocking as well as disgusting.


Eritreans in the Diaspora were introduced to Saleh Gadi while he was still living in Kuwait. His anti-Eritrea campaigns came to a head in 1999 during the Eritrea Ethiopia border conflict when the minority regime in Ethiopia decided to revoke his Ethiopian passport. Here is an excerpt from a frantic email he sent to an Eritrean forum on 16 August 1999:


“…At this moment, I have a termination letter from my employer in my hand, effective August 28,1999…and my job is almost lost. Daily penalties are accumulating on me and my daughter because of an expired residence permit. My family’s residence status is endangered because I sponsor my family as per the Kuwaiti law. Schools will start in a few weeks time and I could not register my kids. Why? Last year, the Ethiopian embassy cancelled my passport and the Eritrean embassy refused to give me…The Ethiopian Embassy revoked my Passport because I “participated on the referendum” (I was a member of the referendum committee in Kuwait); The Eritrean Embassy refused to issue me a passport because-- I think—because I am not a docile yes-man...”


I never understood why he was not angry at the minority regime in Ethiopia that had caused his misery in the first place. I also never understood why he was still carrying an Ethiopian passport in 1999, 8 years after Eritrea’s independence. As for being a docile yes man, it all depends on your interpretation, doesn’t it?


Somehow, Saleh Gadi managed to make it to the United States and was determined to make his presence known. 2000 began his 8 yearlong aggressive campaigns against the Government of Eritrea. Knowing full well that he would never set foot in Eritrea again, he set out to destroy the State of Eritrea, its government and its institutions. Establishing the Eritrean Independent Democratic Movement (EIDM) in cyberspace, on October 2000, and its offshoot the Eritrean Human Rights Advocacy Group (EHRAG) a short while later, he set out to blemish Eritrea’s international image. His stated motto was to bring down the Government of Eritrea and PFDJ, a goal he shared with the minority regime in Ethiopia and its handlers. Gadi had an ax to grind, but nobody ever imagined that he would go this far…at least I didn’t.


Saleh Gadi’s groups appeared in cyberspace in 2000, just months after the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia. He set out to give Meles Zenawi a “win” he could not achieve on the battlefield or the courts. It was at that time that the Eritrean Diaspora was introduced to groups mushrooming in cyberspace, calling themselves “human rights” and “democracy” advocates, and vying for the attention of the Eritrean Diaspora. It was evident from the beginning that their primary agenda was to disrupt its unity and prevent it from taking an active role in the development and security of Eritrea. Here is how a researcher described the proliferation of Eritrean “civic society” groups in cyberspace:


“…A cursory search on-line for all things Eritrean returns an overwhelming array of acronyms, each representing a group somewhere along the continuum of inception to disintegration. After the establishment of mission statements, by-laws, and listserves, many of these organizations seem to wither away rapidly. The Eritrean cyberworld is littered with the empty shells of well-intentioned ‘civic societies’ whose names are the only remaining reflection of the passion with which they were conceived…The ephemeral nature of Eritrean exile organizations demands that analyses of their activity and any assessment of their potential impacts be undertaken with caution. Most of these proliferating groups (or individuals masquerading as groups) exist only in the internet public sphere (see Bernal 2005; Conrad 2006) and rarely hold meetings or events in real time and space…”


Saleh Gadi had found his niche and using pretexts such as “reconciliation” and “dialogue”, he set out to provide disgruntled diplomats, defectors and traitors an open forum from which they launched an unprecedented vilification and defamation campaign against the Government of Eritrea.


Soon Saleh Gadi was everywhere churning out “breaking news” reports and articles about Eritrea and its leadership. Through EHRAG, he approached and disseminated his reports to groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even the US State Department. His “reports” and “Gedab news” items were filled with “letters”, “eye witness accounts” etc. etc. all designed to ridicule, insult, and undermine Eritrea and its budding institutions. His primary focus was on the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), now the People’s Front for Justice and Democracy (PFDJ) and the Government of Eritrea. Saleh remained true to his primary agenda, which he spelled out in a 17 July 2003 article in which he recalled the events that transpired in Kuwait. Saleh Gadi wrote:


“…I beat the Eritrean and the Ethiopian governments thanks to the UN and the USA who understand what human dignity is. And I swore in public, ‘Someone is going to pay for the tears of my children’….”


For Saleh Gadi, the people of Eritrea turned out to be his primary target.


Over the last 6 years, thanks to the attention and focus he put on me in his writings, Eritreans from all walks of life have been sending me “information” about Saleh Gadi, his past and his short tenure with the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). There was one particular email that got my attention. It was an email from an ELF fighter who knew Gadi well. The writer was angry with Gadi for his vile presentations of Sawa, the Eritrean Military Training Center, now the Warsai Yikaalo School and Vocational Training Center, and his unsubstantiated accusations against Eritrea’s Defense Forces. He was especially incensed over Gadi’s pretenses, his shameless attempts to present himself as being an advocate for women and children. After several meetings and discussions with my source, I have decided to share my findings with my readers and the Eritrean Diaspora who may not know who Saleh Gadi really is and how mentally tormented he is.


There is a saying in Tigrinya that goes something like this-seraqi mobae, baelu yilefalef-which literally translates to “the one who steals from the offertory tells on himself”. Saleh Gadi’s articles are self-centered and tortured representations, of very vivid descriptions of instances and times gone by. You even get the feeling that he is trying to re-write his history, as if we knew the real version. There are topics that have remained the stable on his site. They include “rape”, “detention and imprisonment” and “torture”. He introduced us to torture techniques and very graphic descriptions of rapes and violence against women and children. From doing my research on the man and his past, turns out they are subjects that he has first hand knowledge about. Allow me to share some of my findings.


In 1977, my source, a respected and high ranking ELF official went to Hagaz on assignment and stayed with Saleh Gadi during his brief stay there. At that time, Gadi was working at the ELF office which granted passes to people who wanted to go to Barentu and towns further south which required them passing through ELF controlled areas. It was not uncommon for peasants and others to stay over night at ELF camps as they waited for their passes to be processed. It was during this time that Gadi confessed to my source about raping a 13-year-old child in front of her mother. He said Saleh boasted about how he “struggled” all night to penetrate the young body. He told me that Gadi showed no remorse for what he had done…he appeared to be a repeat offender. Who is going to pay for the tears of that mother and child?


Eritrean culture, as in most African cultures, is very reserved and sexual issues are rarely discussed in open forums, so it was very unsettling to read Saleh Gadi’s very vivid and graphic reports with explicit and implicit sexual nuances. It was also not in the culture of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), where men and women worked and lived together as equals throughout the struggle. I never understood why he wanted to paint such an ugly picture of Eritrea’s freedom fighters and now Eritrea’s Defense Forces by accusing them of rape without ever producing any evidence. For some reason, Gadi never accused the ELF of perpetrating similar crimes. I have no reason to believe that abuse and rape was the prevailing culture within the ELF either, but as the next story will show, there were some individuals who abused their powers and enabled deviant behaviors amongst its cadres, such as Saleh Gadi.


Saleh Gadi’s site is where those who have abandoned their responsibilities to Eritrea, betrayed the trust of their comrades in arms, stolen from the people’s coffers and those who have committed crimes against the people of Eritrea seem to congregate. Whilst there are many stories of betrayals and crimes committed by Saleh Gadi, there is one that portrays him for the coward that he really is. Saleh Gadi’s betrayals go back to the days when he was in the ELF and stationed in Keren.


In 1975, there was an ELF operation targeting a prison in Keren. Saleh Gadi was chosen to guide the ELF combatants because he knew the area well as he was born and raised in Keren. He was not leading the operation but to guide the men when they entered the city at nightfall and help them as they conducted their assignments. On the night of the operation, as the combatants entered the city and made their way to the operation site, Gadi was no where to be found. The spineless coward that he was and still is, he had abandoned them and hid at home with his parents, leaving his comrades stranded. The sounds of gunfire engulfed Keren that night and many lost their lives, unable to make it out of the area. (The Tigrinya version of this story will be published soon so that Eritreans around the world can help us as we put together our own list of Saleh Gadi’s victims, so that he and his AFG groups can be brought to justice).

Gadi should have been court marshaled for abandoning his compatriots, but no punitive actions were taken against him because of his “relationship” with a high official in the ELF echelons. Gadi seems to gravitate towards powerful individuals and believes others are like him. That explains his constant accusations against those of us who refuse to be swayed by his tantrums. Several former ELF fighters have told me that they referred to Gadi as “Khewal” and had always suspected that he was a [deleted], their suspicions were confirmed when it was learnt that his “partner” had prevented him from being punished for abandoning his unit and causing the deaths of so many of his comrades. Who is going to pay for the tears of all those children who lost their fathers that day? Who is going to pay for the tears of those who lost their loved ones that day?


The relationship between Gadi and the high official of the ELF was further exposed in 1977 when that higher official lost his bid to become a leading Commander in an important operation. Higher echelons of the ELF believed his deviant sexual behavior, coupled by the prevailing lack of trust amongst his surrogates was a source of embarrassment for the ELF, a fact that can be corroborated by Abdella Idris, if he is still alive. I am not interested in Saleh Gadi’s sexuality, nor do I have any issues with [deleted], and I present this information only to illustrate Gadi’s inner torments, his self-hatred and his obvious heterosocial incompetence and that may explain his crude and arrogant behavior towards women.


There have been several inquiries about Saleh Gadi and his relationship with the Eritrean Islamic Jihad (EIJ). He has on more than one occasion provided them his forum, conducting interviews with their leadership and translating and posting their communiqués in which they boasted of killing Eritrean soldiers and destroying infrastructures. While Saleh Gadi and his team lashed out at the Government of Eritrea, exaggerated and fabricated claims of abuse and human rights violations, when it came to the Eritrean Islamic Jihad, they were conspicuously silent. It is now evident that Gadi knew his limitations and that if he attacked them as ferociously as he did the others, his secret would be exposed. Turns out, Saleh Gadi’s relationship with the EIJ was personal.


Anyway, let us move on, there is more to Gadi’s tormented and sordid history.


One of Gadi’s favorite topics is “detention and torture”. He has written volumes on this subject and has produced some very graphic reports on various torture techniques that he accuses the Government of Eritrea of using on detainees. For some odd reason, while presenting himself as an advocate for the abused, he remained silent on the tortures and abuses committed at Abu Garaib and Guantanamo Bay by US forces. He also was silent when the marauding Ethiopian army invaded Eritrea, raped and tortured young women, destroyed infrastructures and displaced thousands. What is interesting about the issue of torture and Gadi is that, it was the main reason why he fled from Eritrea and the ELF. Allow me to explain.


1977 was a difficult and volatile time within Jebha (ELF) and the emergence of the group known as Falul. It was at that time that the ELF decided to do an internal investigation into various allegations of the torture of inmates in ELF jails and detention centers, as it was the primary reason for the groups’ emergence. There had been reports of female inmates being tortured and raped by officials in the leadership, their Deputies and assistants. Saleh Gadi was one of the persons brought in to help with the investigations and interrogations. The same high-ranking official (now with the EIJ) that prevented him from being court marshaled in 1975 brought him in to be part of the investigation and interrogation team. Instead of alleviating the problems, the situation got worse and another investigation was ordered Melake Tekhle, when a battalion leader (wedi Asawurta) died of head wounds during an interrogation conducted by Saleh Gadi and an ELF fighter named Haile Woldeselassie.


Saleh Gadi and Haile Woldeselassie knew that they would be implicated in the murder of that battalion leader and more so they escaped from justice and fled. Not only did they flee from justice, they also stole properties and monies of the prisoners assigned to their unit. Haile defected to Ethiopia and Saleh went to Sudan. Upon his arrival in Ethiopia, Haile conducted interviews on Ethiopian television berating the Eritrean struggle. My source told me that on the third day of the interview, the interviewer asked Haile if there were any true and real tegadelti (Eritrean fighters) in Eritrea and Haile responded by saying that the only true tegadalay was Saleh Gadi. Talk about a warped mind.


While Saleh Gadi has written a lot about members of the EPLF and ELF and many others, he has never mentioned Haile Woldeselassie in his writings, why is that? He also only mentions the EIJ official alleged to be his lover only once in all these years…why is that? Seems Saleh Gadi has more skeletons in his closet then we could ever have imagined…More on Saleh Gadi, his relationship with the EIJ official, the identity of the EIJ official and his affiliation with Meles Zenawi’s minority regime coming soon.


Allow me to end with this with a comment from Saleh Gadi posted on Dehai, on 30 September 1999:


“…I will say to whoever is trying to destroy the Eritrean people, to give up because the task is a losing exercise. And to those who are working against peace and holding the whole region hostage I say, the war you are manufacturing will eat you before it eats your enemies. To those who entertain the idea of appointing a surrogate government in Eritrea, I say the job is the sole responsibility of the Eritrean people. I would also tell them to get their hands off Eritrean issues and mind their own business…”


That goes for Saleh Gadi and the Awate Flying Goats and their sponsors.


The rule of law must prevail over the law of the jungle!


Source: http://www.alenalki.com/index.php?Itemi ... &task=view

Goba
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Posts: 1611
Joined: 30 Aug 2012, 19:00

Re: Who is Saleh Gadi Johar? Why is he Arabist? [Forwarded}

Post by Goba » 09 Aug 2019, 19:06

This Arabist Saleh Gadi Johar, recently said,

"Tigrayan Muslims were the original Arabs who spoke Arabic language around Axum and Mekele"?

YAY
Member
Posts: 943
Joined: 21 Aug 2013, 11:51

Re: Who is Saleh Gadi Johar? Why is he Arabist? [Forwarded}

Post by YAY » 11 Aug 2019, 00:05

Dear Goba: Check this out if you can figure out what he means

Erlich Haggai's Ethiopia and the Middle East, 1994. https://zelalemkibret.files.wordpress.c ... erlich.pdf

Prophet Mohammed was born in c. 570 AD. He saw his revelations when he was c. 40, and started preaching Islam three years later, and died in c. 632 AD. That was the beginning of Islam. There was an Aksumite kingdom, but Tigraiy did not exist, at that time. So, I don't think one could really talk about first Muslms as Tigraiyans but only as Aksumites, or may be Habesha. Aksum kingdom and Tigraiy kingdom, or generally ancient Aksum and recent Tigraiy, are not interchangeable, I think.

Goba wrote:
09 Aug 2019, 19:06
This Arabist Saleh Gadi Johar, recently said,

"Tigrayan Muslims were the original Arabs who spoke Arabic language around Axum and Mekele"?

YAY
Member
Posts: 943
Joined: 21 Aug 2013, 11:51

Re: Who is Saleh Gadi Johar? Why is he Arabist? [Forwarded}

Post by YAY » 11 Aug 2019, 01:21

Dear Goba: Let us address the topic(s) of his discourse and see him generally as an Eritrean Muslim

His core message was: let us make Arabic an official language in Eritrea because half of the population needs it to be so. I did not find his reasoning appealing or convincing for two reasons. First, there is no official language(s) in Eritrea right now, and no one is denying Eritrean Arabs from using their language. No non-Arab Eritrean (Muslim or Christian) is denied the right of speaking, writing, reading, or teaching in Arabic. All language groups are considered to have equal rights to use and develop their, or any of the languages, and one of the major working languages of the Government is Arabic.

Second, his claim that Tigrinya is not a language as developed as Arabic is, and cannot fill the gap that one could intellectually get from Arabic, is not reasonable for his cause because someone (Dr. Beyan SaliH) has already translated the Quran into Tigrinya. https://www.scribd.com/document/7835559 ... Holy-Quran He must have had a good reason to do so. How was he able to fill in the intellectual gap? When he could not readily find a Tigrinya word for an Arabic concept, he adopted the Arabic word into Tigrinya.

In short, Tigrinya, like other languages, could and should be developed, if necessary, by loan words. It is unreasonable for SaleH Johar to imply that Tigrinya, as a language, could or should not be developed. His promotion of Arabic into an official language should not depend on whether Tigrinya is inferior or superior to Arabic.Tigrinya is not the official language of Eritrea, and no Eritrean is forced to drop his/her own mother tongue, or Arabic, and use only the Tigrinya language. No one forced SaleH Johar, for example, to speak in Tigrinya about the Arabic language but that was his choice for his own reason. Let every individual Eritrean, or community, have the freedom to use or not use Arabic, as it has traditionally been the case in Eritrea. That is just, and therefore, good.

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