1. travel
2. tourist destinations
3. africa

Vol. 22 No. 9
Wednesday,1st of April, 2015
Pages 8, Price 2.00 NFA
Tourism Sector Development: Workshop
ECSS Seminar in Cairo
Dr. Ahmed Dahli, Director of the
Eritrean Centre for Strategic Studies
(ECSS), hosted a seminar on Eritrea’s domestic and foreign policy
in Cairo. In attendance were Egyptian diplomats, intellectuals and researchers.
The briefings mainly focused on
Eritrean history during 1890 -1991,
and the crime that the super powers, especially the USA, committed
against the Eritrean people, as well
as the heroic resistance waged by
the people of Eritrea for independence involving huge sacrifices.
Dr. Ahmed Dahli went on to explain the war of aggression waged
against Eritrea through the instrumentality of the minority TPLF regime under the pretext of ‘border
conflict’ with a view to violating
Eritrean sovereignty and once again
place the nation under colonial subjugation, in addition to the multi-
The participants of the 6th Festival
of Higher Education Institutions explained that the festival would have
significant contribution in strengthening the competence of students.
They further said that they are
proud for the huge investment being
made on education by the Government aimed at producing competent
students, and that the extra-curricular
activities would have important contribution in sharing their experiences
and develop their sports activities.
Mr. Tekle Zerie, coordinator of
the festival, indicated that over 1200
students and around 10,000 spectators participated at the festival, and
that attests to the progress the Higher
Education Institutions are registering.
The festival which has been conducted from 26 to 29 March at the
Health College compound included
traditional and modern sports competitions, artistic performances,
pictorial exhibitions, general knowledge competitions, seminars as well
as other entertainment activities.
Strengthening Competence of Students
Human resources development
training by NUEW Gash Barka
The NUEW Gash Barka branch
provided training for 65 of its
members working in different subzones and administrative areas
aimed at upgrading their capacity,
Ms. Yihdega Yohannes, head of the
branch, indicated.
The training that has been provided by senior officials of the
zonal administration and the PFDJ
included the history of the armed
struggle for independence, the history of the Eritrean people, nation
and nationalism as well as psychological warfare and its impact.
Ms. Yihadega further expressed
that the training program has been
aimed at upgrading the overall capacity of women, and that similar
training programs would be organized in all sub-zones of the region.
She also called on the participants to transfer their knowledge
to fellow workmates, and that the
zonal administration would stand
alongside them in all their endeavors.
The participants on their part
commending for the training they
have been provided called for the
sustainability of the program.
faceted acts of conspiracy and the
smear campaign thereof.
In this connection, he pointed out
that such enemy conspiracy has ended up in utter failure thanks to the
resolute rebuff of the Eritrean people
and their committed leadership.
Highlighting the unjust UN sanctions resolution against Eritrea adopted in violation of the final and
binding Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) ruling on
border delimitation that the Council
itself had guaranteed, Dr. Ahmed
Dahli underlined the need for putting an end to such a resolution.
A workshop was conducted aimed
at strengthening the role of tourism
service provision institutions.
In a speech she delivered at the
workshop conducted on 27 March,
Ms. Lia Gebreab, Head of the Ministry of Tourism Central region branch,
said that the tourism resources that
include artifacts, historical sites, culture and traditions of the society as
well as religious festivities and festivals are public property, and as such
the role of the public is essential for
their development.
She further stated that the tradition
of hospitality of the Eritrean people
is one of its exemplary values, and
that tourists expect the right information and warm welcome. Ms. Lia
further called on the society to work
to that end.
Mr. Mohammed Idris, Director General of Tourism Services at
the MOT, indicated that the multifaceted infrastructure development
in the country attests to the bright
tourism development in Eritrea, and
called on the public in general and
the tourism service provision institutions in particular to become the
main actors.
In a related report, Maj. Gen.
Romodan Aweliai, Administrator
of the Central region, said that the
peace and serenity, cleanness, the
Art Deco buildings, etc, have significant contribution in the nation’s
development of tourism industry,
and called on all the stakeholders to
play due role and make due impact
on tourists.
The workshop participants on
their part called on the employees of
the tourism service provision institutions to master different languages,
become well aware of the situation
in the country and the world, besides
getting acquainted with the ancient
and historical sites in the country
in addition to paying due attention
about the information they are about
to provide.
Eritrean nationals residing in US express
readiness to back up national development programs
Eritrean nationals residing in the
cities of Oakland, Santa-Rosa and
Phoenix, USA, have expressed
readiness to back up national development programs and conduct
staunch resistance against external
conspiracies.
Eritrean intellectuals gave extensive briefings at the meeting conducted in Oakland on the historical
achievements of the Eritrean people
as well as their perseverance and the
on-going development programs in
the country after independence.
At the meeting conducted in
Santa-Rosa under the theme “The
Current Situation and Common
Understanding” briefings were
given as regards reinforcing resistance against anti-Eritrea enemy
agendas.
Likewise at the meeting conducted in Phoenix, Arizona, the participants expressed readiness to reinforce participation in development
programs in the Homeland.
In the course of the meeting information was provided regarding the new national identification
card.
Eritrea Profile, Wednesday 1st of April, 2015
Daniel Semere
Success and victory are first
born in the mind. No achievement
can be made without the mental
readiness of the achievers. Even
what most of us call as luck, cannot be used without a ready mind
which seize the opportunity when
and where it happens, hence the
saying ‘luck favors the prepared
mind.’ The point we are trying to
make here is that, nothing happens
without conviction first installed
within the mind.
Colonialism or oppression is
perhaps the best example where
this assertion has been proven
right. More familiarly, the exploitation that came to signify the prevailing world order is sustained
precisely because it’s been able
to be sustained in the mind, both
from the exploiters and exploited
point of view. A scholar once challenged students to think about how
Belgium, a country of relatively
small size and small population
could colonize one of the largest
countries in the world, Congo?
It is true, of course all colonial
experience had the same pattern,
especially in Africa, and that they
are essentially the same. However,
contemplating the above example
epitomizes the case in point in this
article that is the conviction in the
mind precedes any action.
The Belgian controlled the Congo with other colonial countries’
fighting power. The army with
which almost all colonizers used
to control other countries and expand their territory is comprised
of men from other colonies. It is
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a simple logic that these armies,
by strengthening the colonial base
of their colonizers were extending
their own colonization and oppression. To do these however the
colonizers had to first control the
minds of the colonized, without
which it is virtually impossible
to physically control the colonies.
Indeed asking a simple question
like, how many Belgians would
have been needed to control the
whole of Congo, would suffice to
make the point clear. No Belgian
would have been left in Belgium
had the case been like this.
Therefore, the techniques that
were employed in cementing and
indeed expanding colonialism,
in one way or the other had to
do with controlling the minds of
the colonized people. Traditional
leaders in Africa were made to be
accomplices to their people’s suppression while they themselves
were caged in an illusory idea of
the possession power. Soldiers
on the other hand were recruited
from the colonies with the temptation of acquiring a new status
whose price is, as a scholar puts
it, ‘reinforcing colonized people’s
chain of servitude’, where they
themselves belonged.
Hence from the onset the superstructure that was going to
make this system seem natural
was ceaselessly pursued, and it
worked. If colonialism was to
be defeated therefore it first and
foremost had to be defeated in
the mind. There had to be the belief that it is beatable. And as was
witnessed it is when such ideas
started to get hold in the mind of
the people that the foundation of
colonialism started to crumble.
Indeed colonialism started to
face a serious challenge to its existence, after the idea of the invincibility of the colonizers was
challenged by the colonized after
their experience in battle fields
alongside the colonizers during
the Second World War. The colonizer is a human with flesh and he
bleeds and dies. Its authority can
be challenged, as it is now conceivable that it can be defeated.
In his book Resistance to Italian Colonialism in Eritrea, it is
stated that the 1894 courageous
rebellion of Bahta Hagos to the
flagrant land appropriation by the
Italians, has served as precedence
to the resistances that follows in
the early years of the Italian colonialism. “The façade of the invincibility of the Italian colonialism
Control ing The Psyche
was laid bare” that led to series of
resistances to become “daily encounters.” The people have realized that colonialism is beatable.
If one looks at the Eritrean
armed struggle for independence,
the assertion that victory over
colonialism had to be won in the
mind. As an extension of previous
peaceful and violent resistances
to colonialism, the Eritrean armed
struggle took the mental readiness
and conviction that the task of
achieving independence through
the participation of an aware people can be done. Indeed except for
this quality, the pioneers of the
armed struggle cannot be compared with the colonizer’s armed
force at any level. However, the
conviction led to mass participation of the people of Eritrea voluntarily; and as has been witness
it proved to live up to the saying
‘nothing is stronger than the heart
of a volunteer.’ The course however, has not reached to its final
destination as much need to be
done to maintain progress and
avoid regression.
Colonialism has “ended” and
African countries are “independent”. But the real question of
utmost importance is that whether
the mind of the African people is
free. This is of the essence that
determines everything. Frantz
Fanon, for example, believes that
gaining independence through political arrangement failed to bring
about the freedom of the mind,
and hence served as a foundation of Neo-colonialism. Indeed
Fanon had written in one of his
earlier books that what a black
man wants to be is white. “This
pathological desire” one powerful analysis of this fanon’s assertion states, “is forced upon black
people by white civilization and
European culture. Colonialism,
slavery, and other means where
by the west dominates the rest of
the world have given rise to social
practices, discourses, and ideologies that attempt to justify oppression while establishing global
standard of values.” The analysis
further went on to give a simple
example that has been tacitly accepted and hence epitomizes this
underlying problem. “For example, ‘universal’ criteria of beauty
are based on white models: black
people can never conform to them
fully. Black people, then, abandon
themselves individually and collectively in quest of white acceptance. The quest is inherently and
ultimately futile; it results primarily solidifying deep and disturbing feelings of inferiority.”
It is precisely this feeling of
inferiority that has been hindering the solutions to most of our
fundamental problems in Africa
and elsewhere. Instead of having
the confidence that we are able
to solve most of our problem depending on ourselves, we rather
look the solution elsewhere, and
ironically from the very same
people who seek to sustain our
problem in the first place. In one
of her articles Acqua Djanie in
New African wrote “What is going on? Why have we turned into
a continent of beggars? Our leaders go abroad to beg for “aid”
to support the national budget
2
or else they can’t run our countries. They beg for loans, grants,
and experts to develop Africa. It
makes no sense, when you have
everything you need at home to
cook a good meal, to go begging
your neighbor for their food. You
may not be a good cook, but once
you have the ingredients, surely
you can only try?” The gist of the
paragraph is that without the conviction that we can do whatever
we want on our own, even having
a considerable resources cannot
change your status.
Djanie remarks that “Africa is
asking for help from the wrong
quarters.” Colonizers has for long
been benefiting from African resources more than Africans themselves. And what better way can
there be to maintain the status
quo than keeping the dependent
mentality and there by making it
vulnerable for manipulation. It
will not be hard to believe that
the world of interest that never
thought twice to deprive humans
their natural human rights in the
days of colonialism will be devising means and ways to control the
resources that had been crucial in
its development, at its disposal.
All the psychological warfare
and propaganda by these interests
conform to this basic endeavor of
domination.
All this arguments boil down to
the fact that the race for the mind
is still on the run. It is the ultimate
way of domination without which
any action is impossible. That’s
where the problem is and that’s
where the solution lies. Any other
way will only be in vain.
Eritrea Profile, Wednesday 1st of April, 2015
Withering The Deliberate
Disinformation On Eritrea
By: Ray Ja
ANOTHER week has brought
about another medley of far-fetched
rumors and outlandish claims regarding Eritrea. As discussed by
Shabait, the latest rumors (about
“ties” or visits between Eritrea and
Yemen’s Houthis) are part of a concerted effort to insinuate Eritrean
links with Iran.
Such rumors and the broader narrative on Eritrea display, in crystal
clear view, the poor state of reporting and understanding about Eritrea
and highlight many of the worst
habits of journalism, media, and
academia. More importantly however, the rumors underscore that
the focus, as ever, remains firmly
set upon “pinning down Eritrea.” Groundless rumors being tied to
Eritrea are not new, and there are
far too many to review here. Briefly,
the recent rumors are only the latest
in a long series of similar propaganda pronounced by rumor mongers
(often self-baptized as analysts or
regional experts) claiming that – in
a supreme suspension of all logic
– Eritrea hosts both Iranian and
Israeli military bases or installations. While the rumors are a sad
indictment of those who conjure up
and peddle them, another judgment
(ridicule or pity?) is reserved for
those who believe them.
But what of “pinning down Eritrea”? How or why does a country
like Eritrea – low-income, developing, African – merit such attention?
There are straightforward principles and dynamics at work here.
Empire seeks to eliminate Eritrea
because the country remains independent of Empire’s designs for the
continent, refuses to prostrate itself
before foreign, imperialist agendas,
and because Eritrea firmly and unconditionally believes that the primary beneficiaries of the country’s
resources must be Eritreans – not
foreign multinational corporations.
Empire’s methods targeting Eritrea involve not only resorting to
the aforementioned use of disinformation and propaganda, but also
the employment of, as described by
anti-imperialism luminaries such as
journalist John Pilger and British
MP George Galloway, the usual
crop of quislings, spies and colonial stooges. For Empire, there’s
an eternal search to find a stooge
or “local” face who will somehow
validate Empire’s previous exploit-
ative actions, present interventionist stance, or future colonialist ambitions.
Recall how, when Jomo Kenyatta was leading the struggle for
independence in Kenya, he was
denounced as a terrorist leader to
whom no one would speak, and
all sorts of tame, subservient tribal
chiefs were paraded one after the
other as possible alternatives with
whom Empire could negotiate. Or
recall how in Zimbabwe, when it
was Rhodesia, Empire tried everything to locate a colonial stooge
who would legitimize the racist
apartheid system. Remember Bishop Muzurewa? Empire paraded him
around the world, and Muzurewa
was their great, black hope. They
had grand visions that they would
install him in power and that, in
some sort of sordid reciprocity, he
would allow racist Empire to continue to call the shots and pull the
strings.
Regarding Eritrea, it takes hardly
any time and only a modicum of effort to discover Empire’s proposed
stooges and black-faced puppets.
And to add considerable insult to
substantial injury, in Orwellian,
1984-style, traffickers are paraded
heroes, liars pen “fact-based” reports, and human rights champions that claim to care about “poor,
vulnerable” Eritreans vociferously
demand sanctions and cheer at any
and all hardships occurring within
the country.
Ultimately, Eritrea remains a
unique (dangerous) example of viable social, health, and education
developments within a continent
long-ravaged by a multitude of
toxic elements. As a famous Oxfam
report once described the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua as “the
threat of a good example”, Eritrea’s independent path represents
a threat to the dogma that Africans
must be politically subservient, economically dependent, and firmly
shackled by the oppressive chains
of neocolonialism.
If Eritrea is permitted to succeed
and produce tangible, substantive
positive changes in the fortunes
of its people – within the context
of self-reliance – what happens
to Empire’s plan of domination
if other countries catch wind and
begin to follow suit? What happens to AFRICOM and Empire’s
carefully-laid plans to expand its
presence across the continent, so as
3
to devour it even quicker? Or the
rapacious international humanitarian and foreign aid industry…what
happens to its collection of lucrative
consultancies, “expert” programs,
expatriates living high off the hog,
sleek fleet of glossy 4x4s, and
NGOs scattered across the map?
What happens if Africans finally
realize – as Latin America has, after 500 years of subversion and
domination – that when it comes
to Empire, to aid, to foreign meddling, less is more?! No no! Such a
proposition is far too dangerous to
countenance, and even the smallest
spark of it must be extinguished as
soon as possible…lest it catch on
and lead to something far greater or
uncontrollable.
In this context, choke the country
with sanctions. Pass travel warnings
and scare off investors to “make the
economy scream.” Tacitly approve
a foreign military occupation, and
quietly support repeated acts of
military aggression.
As Eritrea continues to swim and
not sink, expect to see more disinformation.
Sources: www.tesfanews.com
Eritrean Scientist Wins Chinese Award
Habte-Michael Habtezion, an
Eritrean scientist completing his
Ph.D. in Fish Nutrition at one of
China’s preeminent aquaculture
universities has been named as one
China’s Outstanding International
student.
This award is given to only a
handful of the many thousands of
foreign students studying in China
and “Habtet” are the first Eritrean
student to be awarded such.
Habte, who upon graduation will
be highly sought after by both,
academia and the aquaculture industry, which has a dream to return
to his motherland Eritrea and be of
assistance the Eritrean start in the
aquaculture industry towards the
development of the tremendous
potential the Eritrean near shore
coastal waters has.
Eritrea has some of the best
conditions in the world for aquaculture, with some of the world’s
highest marine metabolism rates
due to the high water temperatures
and salinity levels. The near shore
coastal waters from Massawa to
Tio are fed by 5 highland origin
rivers. Which during the rainy sea-
lacks major storms such as hurricanes or typhoons which can wipe
out aquaculture infrastructure.
Eritrea’s near shore coastal waters include as much as 4,000
square kilometers of potential
aquaculture sites and in the future
could well become one of it not
the biggest contributors to Eritrea’s
economy.
To give you an example, a one
hectare square fish “cage” extending 10 meters deep can produce
up to 300 tons of fish in one year.
1,000 one hectare fish cages could
produce as much as 300,000 tons
of fish a year, and Eritrea has 4000
hectares of near shore coastal waters ideally suited for such use.
At last the government and communities should recognize and
support young Eritrean scientists
like Habteab who can contribute in
making Eritrea one of the world’s
leading aquaculture centers.
Panorama view of the sea water farm in Massawa, Eritrea
Thomas C.Mountain has been living and reporting from Eritrea since
2006. He can be reached when he
is away from the internet via mobile
phone at 291715665 or via email at
[email protected].
coastal waters rich in food for masons pump hundreds of thousands
that is food for algae and phytorine life. On top of this the Red Sea
of tons of silt in to the Red Sea silt
plankton,\ making the near shore
Disclamer: articles published in this column do not reflect the stance or opinion of the Eritrea Profile newspaper
Eritrea Profile, Wednesday 1st of April, 2015
ads
Vacancy Announcement
Bisha Mining Share Company PLC is inviting interested applicants for
the following positions.
1.
Human Resources Officer (1)
4
THE STATE OF ERITREA
EUROPEAN
MINISTRY OF JUSTICE
DEVELOPMENT
FUND
Duties and Responsibilities:
•
Explain company personnel policies, benefits, and procedures to employees
or job applicants.
•
Process, verifies and maintains documentation relating to personnel activities
such as staffing, recruitment, training, grievances, performance evaluations, and classifications.
•
Record data for each employee, including such information as addresses,
weekly earnings, absences, amount of sales or production, supervisory reports on performance, and dates of and reasons for terminations.
•
Process and review employment applications in order to evaluate qualifications or eligibility of applicants.
•
Answer questions regarding examinations, eligibility, salaries, benefits, and
other pertinent information.
•
Examine employee files to answer inquiries and provide information for personnel actions.
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Gather personnel records from other departments and/or employees.
•
Search employee files in order to obtain information for authorized persons
and organizations, such as credit bureaus and finance companies.
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Interview job applicants to obtain and verify information used to screen and
evaluate them.
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Request information from law enforcement officials, previous employers, and
other references in order to determine applicant’s employment acceptability.
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Compile and prepare reports and documents pertaining to personnel activities.
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Inform job applicants of their acceptance or rejection of employment.
•
Select applicants meeting specified job requirements and refer them to hiring
personnel.
•
Arrange for advertising or posting of job vacancies, and notify eligible workers of position availability.
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Provide assistance in administering employee benefit programs and worker’s
compensation plans.
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Administer and score applicant and employee aptitude, personality, and interest assessment instruments.
Profile: Qualifications and Experience
 Formal Education, Certifications or Equivalents:
•
BA. In Business management or Public Administration.
 Working Experience – Nature & Length :
•
Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures, managing files and records, designing forms, and other office procedures.
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Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, compensation and benefits, labour relations and negotiation.
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Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
 Leadership Experience – Nature & length of time :
•
None
 Other skills and abilities:
•
Knowledge of computers and information systems.
•
Effective spoken and written communication.
General Information and other requirements:
•Type of contract:
Indefinite period
•Place of Work:
Bisha
•Salary: As per Company salary scale.
•Additional requirement for Nationals:
•Having fulfilled his/her National Service obligation and provide evidence of release paper from
the Ministry of Defense.
•Present clearance paper from current/last employer.
•Testimonial documents to be attached (CV, work experience credentials, a copy of your National
Identity Card etc.).
•Only shortlisted applicants would be considered as potential candidates for an interview.
•Application documents will not be returned to sender.
•All applications should be sent through the post office.
•Deadline for application: 10 days from the day of publication in the Newspaper.
•Address: Please mail your applications to;
Bisha Mining Share Company
P. O. Box 4276 Asmara, Eritrea
•
Note to Eritrean applicants:
Please send a copy of your application to
Aliens Employment Permit Affairs,
P. O. Box 7940 Asmara, Eritrea
PROJECT “Support to the Community Courts in Eritrea
Works Contract for the Installation of Solar PV Stand Alone System
Publication reference EuropeAid/136-902/ID/WKS/ER
The Ministry of National Development, National Authorizing Office intends to award a:
Works contract for the Installation Solar PV Stand Alone System in Eritrea with financial
assistance from the European Development Fund 10thEDF. It must be certified by a recognized accreditation agency, ISO 9001:2008 or equivalent or be certified by the Ministry of
Energy and Mines of the State of Eritrea with licence of energy of category C or above.
The tender dossier is available at:
Mr. Abraham Mellakh
Imprest Administrator of the Project Support to the Community Courts in Eritrea.
Ministry of Justice of Eritrea,
Harnet Avenue n. 9, Office No 10,
Tele +291-1- 202930,202245
Asmara, Eritrea
Published on the Europe Aid website:
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/europeaid/online-services/index.cfm?do=publi.welcome.
The deadline for submission of tender is 3:00 pm local time on June 3rd 2015. Possible additional information or clarifications/questions shall be published on the EuropeAid
website:https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/europeaid/online-services/index.cfm?do=publi.welcome and Hadas Eritrea and Eritrean Profile Newspapers
Invitation For Bids (Ifb)
Eritrea
Fisheries Development Project
DSF-08060-ER on December 15, 2014
The Supply, Installation and Commissioning of Flake Ice Facilities and Accessories.
IFB No: MMR/FDP/ICB/G/0001/2015
1.
The Government of the State of Eritrea has received grant from IFAD toward the cost of Fisheries Development Project, and it intends to apply part of the proceed of
this credit to payments under the contract for the Procurement of :
Supply, Installation and Commissioning of Flake Ice Facilities and Accessories, IFB No: MMR/FDP/ICB/
G/0001/2015.
2.
Bidding will be conducted through the International Competitive Bidding (ICB) procedures specified in
IFAd’s Guideline, and is open to all bidders from Eligible Source Countries as defined in the Guidelines.
3.
Interested eligible bidders may obtain further information from The Ministry of Marine Resources – Fisheries Development Project, Asmara, Eritrea, Tel: 291-1-153960, Fax: 291-1-153961, Email: [email protected],
and inspect the bidding documents at the address given below, from 8:00-11:30 A.M. local time, Monday through
Friday.
4.
A complete set of Bidding Documents in the English language may be purchased by interested bidders on
the submission of a written application to the address below and upon payment of a none refundable fee ERN 1000.00
(one thousand Eritrean Nakfa only) or equivalent, starting Monday, April 6, 2015. Foreign bidders shall transfer
the cost of Bidding Documents in USD 65.00 (sixty five US dollars only) to dz bank ag., Frankfurt, P.O.Box 60265,
FRANKFURT, GERMANY, SWIFT: GENODEFF for credit to Account no. DE39500604000001030 736 of Bank of
Eritrea, SWIFT BOERERAI, Asmara, Eritrea, in favor of beneficiary, i.e. Marine Resources – Fisheries Development
Project for further credit to our Acct.No. Fisheries Development Project 120.122.0173 maintained with them being
cost of bidding documents for the supply, installation and commissioning of flake machine. If documents are required
to be sent by courier additional USD 65.00 (sixty five US dollars only) or equivalent shall be transferred to the above
account number.
5. Bids must be delivered to the address below on May 25, 2015 at or before 10:00 A.M. Local time (+3
GMT). Electronic bidding will not be permitted. Late bids will be rejected. Bids will be opened in the presence of the
bidders’ representatives who choose to attend at the address below at 10:15 A.M. local time on May 25, 2015. All
bids must be accompanied by a Bid Security of USD 3,500.00 (three thousand five hundred United States Dollars) or
equivalent in any other freely convertible currency.
The address referred to above is:
Ministry of Marine Resources – Fisheries Development Project
P.O.Box: 923
Street and Zip Code No: Hday 748-1
Floor-Room number: Dembe Sembel, Block “A”, Fourth Floor
City:
Asmara
Country:
Eritrea
Telephone:
291-1-153960
Facsimile number: 291-1-153961
Electronic mail address: [email protected] or [email protected]
ads
Eritrea Profile, Wednesday 1st of April, 2015
Internal Vacancy
Employees of Bisha Mining Share Company are invited to apply for the following
position;
Position:-ERT OFFICER
Required Number - 02
Duration of Contract:-Indefinite Period
Major Duties and responsibilities:•
Effective and efficient response to all incidents.
•
Ensure all equipment, plant associated with Emergency Response is in up to date, and in a serviceable state and is applicable for its intended use.
•
To comply with all SOP’s and work standards relating to Bisha Mining
•
Follow approved Bisha Mining Procedures during an Emergency until someone more Senior takes
over the Emergency
•
To assist with any reasonable task that is required of the employee.
•
Assist in updating the emergency plan for Bisha Mining.
•
Participate in regular fire drills on the Bisha Mine.
•
Ensure that all fire equipment and suppression equipment is checked regularly and is in a serviceable condition.
•
Successfully attend all training in terms of your function
•
Conduct and assist with Do firefighting training with all different departments for awareness.
•
Refilling and, replacing and registering of fire extinguishers in all offices, buildings and vehicles.
•
Ensure all mining vehicles suppression systems are installed and in working condition.
•
Installing, recharging and refilling the AFFF system.
•
Conduct prevention inspections; report all hazards to your section Supervisor.
•
Ensure all administration work relating to your job function is up to date and handed to your Supervisor
•
Promote a safe culture and lead with example
•
Work in close relationship with the Safety Officers and other departments, keeping abreast of any
new processes, procedures or hazards
•
Taking proper care of company property and in your possession
Profile: Qualifications and Experience
Formal Education, Certifications or Equivalents
Working Experience – Nature & Length
Leadership Experience – Nature & length of
time
Other skills and abilities
•
Grade 12 or equivalent
•
Emergency Qualifications will serve as
an advantage
•
Previous Firefighting experience and
other Emergency Responses.
•
N/A
•
Excellent English Language skills, both
written and verbal, Driver’s License, physically
fit, a team player and safety orientated.
General Information and other requirements
•
Place of Work: Bisha site.
•
Salary: As per Company salary scale.
•
Additional requirement for Nationals:
•
Having fulfilled his/her National Service obligation and provide evidence of release paper from the
Ministry of Defense.
•
Present clearance paper from current/last employer
•
Testimonial documents to be attached (CV, work experience credentials, a copy of your National
Identity Card etc.)
•
Only shortlisted applicants would be considered as potential candidates for an interview.
•
Application documents will not be returned back to sender and.
•
All applications should be sent through the post office
•
Deadline for application: 10 days from the day of publication in the Newspaper.
•
Address: Please mail your applications to;
Bisha Mining Share Company,
P. O. Box 4276 Asmara, Eritrea
Note to Eritrean applicants:
Please send a copy of your application to
Aliens Employment Affairs
P. O. Box 7940 Asmara, Eritrea
5
Rationalizing Lunacy: ...
continued form page 8
The key to final victory, Huntington wrote, was “forced-draft urbanization and modernization which rapidly
brings the country in question out of
the phase in which a rural revolutionary movement can hope to generate
sufficient strength to come to power.” By emptying out the countryside, the
U.S. could win the war in the cities. “The urban slum, which seems so
horrible to middle-class Americans,
often becomes for the poor peasant a
gateway to a new and better way of
life.” The language may be a tad antiseptic, but the point is clear enough:
the challenges of city life in a state of
utter immiseration would miraculously transform those same peasants into
go-getters more interested in making
a buck than in signing up for social
revolution.
Revisited decades later, claims once
made with a straight face by the likes
of Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington
-- action intellectuals of the very first
rank -- seem beyond preposterous. They insult our intelligence, leaving
us to wonder how such judgments or
the people who promoted them were
ever taken seriously.
How was it that during Vietnam bad
ideas exerted such a perverse influence? Why were those ideas so impervious to challenge? Why, in short,
was it so difficult for Americans to recognize bullshit for what it was?
Creating a Twenty-First-Century
Slow-Motion Vietnam
These questions are by no means
of mere historical interest. They are
no less relevant when applied to the
handiwork of the twenty-first-century
version of policy intellectuals, specializing in national insecurity, whose
bullshit underpins policies hardly more
coherent than those used to justify and
prosecute the Vietnam War. The present-day successors to Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington subscribe
to their own reigning verities. Chief
among them is this: that a phenomenon
called terrorism or Islamic radicalism,
inspired by a small group of fanatic
ideologues hidden away in various
quarters of the Greater Middle East,
poses an existential threat not simply
to America and its allies, but -- yes, it’s
still with us -- to the very idea of freedom itself. That assertion comes with
an essential corollary dusted off and
imported from the Cold War: the only
hope of avoiding this cataclysmic outcome is for the United States to vigorously resist the terrorist/Islamist threat
wherever it rears its ugly head.
At least since September 11, 2001,
and arguably for at least two decades
prior to that date, U.S. policymakers have taken these propositions for
granted. They have done so at least in
part because few of the policy intellectuals specializing in national insecurity
have bothered to question them.
Indeed, those specialists insulate
the state from having to address such
questions. Think of them as intellectuals devoted to averting genuine intellectual activity. More or less like
Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter
(or Dr. Strangelove), their function is
to perpetuate the ongoing enterprise.
The fact that the enterprise itself has
become utterly amorphous may actually facilitate such efforts. Once widely
known as the Global War on Terror, or
GWOT, it has been transformed into
the War with No Name. A little bit
like the famous Supreme Court opinion on pornography: we can’t define it,
we just know it when we see it, with
ISIS the latest manifestation to capture
Washington’s attention.
All that we can say for sure about
this nameless undertaking is that it
continues with no end in sight. It has
become a sort of slow-motion Vietnam, stimulating remarkably little
honest reflection regarding its course
thus far or prospects for the future. If
there is an actual Brains Trust at work
in Washington, it operates on autopilot. Today, the second- and thirdgeneration bastard offspring of RAND
that clutter northwest Washington
-- the Center for this, the Institute for
that -- spin their wheels debating latter
day equivalents of Strategic Hamlets,
with nary a thought given to more fundamental concerns.
What prompts these observations is
Ashton Carter’s return to the Pentagon
as President Obama’s fourth secretary
of defense. Carter himself is an action intellectual in the Bundy, Rostow,
Huntington mold, having made a career of rotating between positions at
Harvard and in “the Building.” He,
too, is a Yalie and a Rhodes scholar,
with a PhD. from Oxford. “Ash” -- in
Washington, a first-name-only identifier (“Henry,” “Zbig,” “Hillary”) signifies that you have truly arrived -- is
the author of books and articles galore,
including one op-ed co-written with
former Secretary of Defense William
Perry back in 2006 calling for preventive war against North Korea. Military action “undoubtedly carries risk,”
he bravely acknowledged at the time.
“But the risk of continuing inaction
in the face of North Korea’s race to
threaten this country would be greater” -- just the sort of logic periodically
trotted out by the likes of Herman
Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter.
As Carter has taken the Pentagon’s reins, he also has taken pains
to convey the impression of being a
big thinker. As one Wall Street Journal headlineenthused, “Ash Carter
Seeks Fresh Eyes on Global Threats.” That multiple global threats exist and
that America’s defense secretary has a
mandate to address each of them are,
of course, givens. His predecessor
Chuck Hagel (no Yale degree) was a
bit of a plodder. By way of contrast,
Carter has made clear his intention to
shake things up.
So on his second day in office, for
example, he dined with Kenneth Pollack, Michael O’Hanlon, and Robert Kagan, ranking national insecurity intellectuals and old Washington
hands one and all. Besides all being
employees of the Brookings Institu-
continued on page 7
Eritrea Profile, Wednesday 1st of April, 2015
Aron Hidru
Today’s excerpt is taken from
Kevin Hogan, Dave Lakhani,
Mollie Marti’s book entitled ‘The
12 Factors of Business Success:
Discover, Develop and Leverage Your Strengths’ (2008). The
book is very inspiring and I am
confident it will be helpful and
stimulating for the readers of this
column.
Success Actions That Work:
You need to act your way to success. You need to overwrite some
dominant bad habits.
You have formed a habit of
starting and not finishing things.
No matter how fired up you get
about the latest project, your old,
ingrained habits are as solid as
concrete. The biggest mistakes
people make are often in underestimating the amount of energy
that will be required when they
first start making changes.
Doing that which you are familiar with takes little new energy
and is rarely overridden by anything else. We’re used to doing
things a certain way and if we try
to change those comfortable old
routines, we feel nervous and out
of place.
In order to become comfortable
with a new habit of finishing, you
need to stick with it long enough
so that it becomes second nature.
That’s a lot easier said than done.
Remember, that’s how you got
comfortable where you are—even
if it’s not exactly where you want
to be.
You will increase your chances
for real and lasting change by
seeking out a mentor or working
with a coach. Most successfulpeople have coaches and mentors
to help them along the way because some things in the equation
of achievement simply meet with
a lot of inertia. These support
people can help make sure you
stick with it until you get to the
point where you don’t need that
extra boost each week.
A significant amount of action,
focus, and will is needed in order
to change old habits. The good
news is that once changed, like
cement, they become unconscious
and semipermanent.
Question: For how long do
you persist? I read that successful people never give up.
I’ve also read that sometimes
you shouldn’t beat your head
against the wall expecting a
different result (a definition of
insanity). If you’re not succeeding, how do you know when to
quit?
The advice does appear to be in
conflict. One person says persist
until you succeed. Another person
says to give up the sinking ship.
The point being that once you’ve
tried something and it doesn’t
work, it’s time to move on to
something that does. Your confusion is completely understandable, especially coming from the
point of frustration in which you
find yourself after hitting the proverbial brick wall.
The short answer is that you
quit when you stop believing in
what you are doing.
The longer answer is that you
have to carefully evaluate what
you’ve done to succeed. Chances
are high that you’ve done a lot
of busy work and talking but not
taken a lot of action. You have
to carefully decide if you are
not succeeding because something isn’t possible for you or if
you’ve not succeeded because
you haven’t put in the hard work
it takes to succeed. If you really
want to achieve something and
you haven’t tried every possible
avenue to success, then don’t give
up. If you’ve exhausted every
possibility available to you and
you are still not getting a result
and your belief is that you won’t,
it may be time to stop.
The other time to quit is when
the goal is rendered no longer
valid or useful. As you progress
through a series of goals you may
realize that one of your goals that
you’ve worked hard on was misguided. The time to stop is the
moment you recognize your error.
Don’t give it any more time or
effort. Put that energy towardanother more meaningful goal.
Perhaps an example from one
author’s personal history would
be helpful. Here is Kevin’s experience when submitting one of his
early books for publication:
I submitted the book The Psychology of Persuasion 247 times
to 247 different publishers before
it was accepted by Pelican Publishing.
Even then, it was obvious that
they barely believed the book
(and the author promoting the
book) would sell.
In retrospect, I couldn’t blame
any of the 247 publishers. They
Self-Discipline
6
had no logical reason to believe
the book would sell. None. I had
written two books. Both were
self-published with fewer than
1,000 sales each. That’s not much
of a track record.
One well-known publisher
clearly told me the book was poorly written and the subject matter
was marginal. Whew. Today, next
to ZigZiglar’sSee You at the Top,
I believe The Psychologyof Persuasion is Pelican’s best-selling
book. Internationally, approximately one million copies have
sold. There are a lot of books that
sell better, but the point is that the
book has done quite well.
So should I have quit and done
something else?
The answer didn’t exist within the track record. It was to be
found in personal drive. I had
predetermined that I would make
the book successful. I wanted the
book published, I wanted it to sell
well, and that meant I would go
above and beyond the call of any
duty to sell the book. I would do
radio shows in the middle of the
night, speak to groups as small as
five or six people, do book signings where only one or two or no
one showed up.
Because I had predetermined
that as my outcome, the book
would sell. I didn’t just know it
or get a feeling about it. I wasgoing to make it happen every day.
The work involved during the first
few years was overwhelming. But
I made it happen.
I persisted until I succeeded.
All of that said, I probably would
have suggested to 98 percent of
people I’ve coached that they
move along after about 100 rejections.
The book became symbolic of
me as a person and I wasn’t going
to have me thrown aside. I and my
book were going to succeed on
some level.
Success Actions That Work:
The answer to whether you continue to persist or choose to move
on really is a question rooted in
utility and decision making. If
you are going to go with the flow
and see how the world receives
you, then you probably should
quit when you feel you are not
being successful and move on to
something else.
On the other hand, if you have
Part II
a strong desire for success and
a personal passion for a project
with a potentially big payoff, then
stick to it. Make a sound plan, get
the job done, and do not let anyone stop you. Persist until you
succeed.
Question: What’s more important for success: perspiration or inspiration? I think it’s
more important to have a positive attitude than to simply be
a hard worker. Is there any research on this?
The conventional wisdom is
that a positive mental attitude is
the master key to success. Studies
about optimism show that optimistic people live longer, get better grades, and are healthier.
The reality is that people confuse optimism as it is studied in
science with a positive mental attitude.
Optimism means that you don’t
always believe it is your fault.
Optimism means that the bad
stuff doesn’t have to last forever.
Optimism means that problems
in one part of life don’t necessarilymean that everything has gone
wrong or will. As scientists look
at optimism and measure it, optimism is a useful outlook on life.
Attitude is important in all aspects of life. Attitudes are importantin persuasion and influence.
Attitudes matter. But if you were
looking to measure the things that
contribute to a successful life, a
positive attitude might only be a
small portion of those factors.
A positive attitude or a negative attitude is largely subjective
and the impact of either of those
attitudes on achievement will
vary from person to person. A lot
of people equate a good attitude
with a big smile or a happy outlook on life. Others equate a good
attitude with a visible face of determination. Others believe that a
good attitude is really a focused
attitude.
No matter what you think a positive attitude is, it often becomes
an end in itself and that can lead
to frustration and dissatisfaction.
When this happens, it tends to
cause the extinction of the goals
for which the person was cultivating a positive mental attitude.
Reality? You can have a lot of
different kinds of attitudes and
achieve or fail. Success is much
more closely tied to behavior than
it is to intention.
In my mind, I can still see the
guy sitting down and playing the
piano, his fingers moving over
the keys like a bird flapping her
wings. He just flew. The music
was complex and beautiful. You
never would have thought this
guy a pianist. And he was truly
amazing.
“How the heck do you do
that?”
“My Mom used to make me
practice an hour every day after
school.”
“For how long?”
“From the time I was four until
I graduated high school.”
“You really wanted to do that?”
“Not at first, not for a long time.
But then I did, yes. I started to
love it in junior high.”
Same with Lance Armstrong,
Kristy Yamaguchi, Carl Lewis,
Einstein, Edison, Curie, Bell, Mozart, The Beatles, Gates, Oprah,
and Trump. Same with everyone
who succeeds at anything. They
lived and worked many, many
days and years with no reward.
The reward came later.
Success Actions That Work:
Research shows that optimism is
important for success (and health).
In addition, a positive mental attitude can grease the wheels of
achievement and help you get
along with others who can help
you along the way to success.
You will be more successful
when you are nice to others. Studiesconsistently show that people
with pleasing personalities have
an easier time reaching success.
Not only are they more levelheaded in taking care of business,
but they also draw people to them
who are eager and willing to help.
Be polite and appreciative. Show
true interest in others and keep a
sense of humor.
But a positive attitude can’t be
an end in itself or you will not accomplish all that you are capable
of. If we had to choose, we would
pick perspiration over inspiration.
But you need and can have both.
In most cases, behavior precedes attitude. Behavior (action)
tends to generate passion for the
behavior itself. If you want to be
successful, do the things it takes
to be successful. A positive or inspired attitude will follow shortly
thereafter.
Eritrea Profile, Wednesday 1st of April, 2015
For anything to be recognized in
this world, it needs to have a unique
identity. It is for such a reason that
societies are recognized as diverse
from one another. Culture is a complex whole that includes knowledge,
belief, morals, customs and any other
capabilities and inabilities acquired
by the man as a member of society.
Culture makes a man a social being
and society makes him with the process of socialization.
Despite this fact, not everyone experiences the same type of socialization process. It is obvious that a poor
socialization process results in the
development of deviant behavior. In
our society, there is a strong socialization process but it doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone passes
through the same experience. Some one that is raised in isolation, for example, develops a certain
problem of taking responsibility and
accumulates within he/hers existence a cluster of fears and superficiality that with time form to be
obstacles that the individual fails to
overcome emotionally.
Such things make or break an individual when raised inside a society.
Cultures are typically divided
into two types: collectivist and individualist. Individualism stands for
a society in which the ties between
individuals are loose: everyone is
expected to look after one’s self
and one’s immediate family only.
Whereas collectivism refers to a
society in which people (from birth
onwards) are integrated into strong
cohesive groups that last throughout
people’s lifetimes and that provide
security in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. Individualist cultures,
such as those of the United States
and Western Europe, emphasize
personal achievement at the expense
of group goals, resulting in a strong
sense of competition. Collectivist
cultures, such as those of China, Korea, Japan and ours put family and
work group goals above individual
needs or desires.
In actuality our society is considered as one which is extra collectivist. As the saying goes “him
or her whom eats alone will die
alone”, much has been said about
the drawbacks of individualism by
our ancestors. In our society living
alone is considered as a taboo. It is
the hermit who naturally lives alone.
The news that a man died at home
and was found a week later could
be normal in highly individualistic
societies but in our society such a
story would be a very serious talking issue.
Many foreigners are always surprised by the compactness and cooperation that exists among Eritreans.
In his book “Eritrea Tourist Guide”
Robert Papstein quoted saying: “…
If you are looking for international
mass tourism, Eritrea is not the place
for you. But if you are looking to
visit a new country in which people
are happy to see you, willing to
share their culture and lives, there is
no place in Africa quite like Eritrea.
It is a traveler’s place rather than a
tourist destination…” We Eritreans are extremely polite
and courteous. Any child from birth
is taught a series of moral and cultural values that we should live by
till death. Guests should never be
surprised if anyone greeted them in
the street and asked where they were
from. That person is not a loony but
one who is the result of a collectivist
society and one whom the society as
a whole is very proud of.
Collectivism and individualism
deeply pervade cultures. People
simply take their culture’s stance for
granted. But both collectivist and
individualist cultures have their disadvantages. People in individualist
cultures are susceptible to loneliness
while people in collectivist cultures
can have a strong fear of rejection.
In our society it would be hard to
imagine how difficult it can be if you
don’t visit a relative or a neighbor in
its times of sorrow or joy. Not only
that person, but the society as an
entity wouldn’t accept such things.
Eritreans are living proof of the
proverb “a united society is hard to
penetrate,” and we have witnessed
this all throughout our history.
In a collectivist society, each person is encouraged to be an active
player in society, to do what is best
for the society as a whole rather than
his or herself. It is through such action
that the pro-active personality can be
developed, which enables you to become determinant enough to do up
to your potential to help and develop
the society which you belong to.
The supersession of individual
rights by those of families, communities, and the collective as a whole
is also another trait of such society.
It promotes unity, brotherhood, and
selflessness. In such society working
with others and cooperating is the
norm; everyone supports each other.
In the Eritrean society for instance,
if there is a marriage ceremony the
Das (the pavilion where the wedding
reception takes place) is erected by
neighbors and relatives. The youngsters take the whole work done on
their full hands: helping, hosting
and so many other things that need
“What Society
Makes Us”
to be done in order to accommodate
the guest is done by the youngsters.
This spirit, of assisting and helping
each other out, makes us a strongly
unified community.
Whereas in individualist societies the spirit of “I” highly prevails.
It promotes individual goals, initiative and achievement as everyone
looks for a reward for what he has
done in terms of either money or
prestige, hardly caring about the
conscientious satisfaction. In such
a case, individual rights are seen as
being the most important. It rules
attempt to ensure self-importance
and individualism. Independence
is valued; there is much less of
a drive to help other citizens or
communities than in collectivism. Unlike in the collectivist societies,
in individualist societies, relying or
being dependent on others is frequently seen as a shameful act and
people are encouraged to do things
on their own; to rely on themselves.
Being dependent doesn’t necessarily mean begging; it merely implies
lending a hand and helping out each
other.
All the traits of an individualist
society are strange for a collectivist
one, which is one of the reasons why
many of the elderly people from our
society never want to stay longer
when visiting European countries
or the US. They really miss the life
of being together, saying hello in the
streets and most of all (and especially for women) the beautiful coffee
ceremony of their own society, that
gathers family, neighbors and whoever looking for warmth and companionship.
In Eritrea the people’s strong solidarity and compactness is really reflected in the day-to-day activities
of the people. In fact, in the capital
city of Asmara the atmosphere that
reigns after working hours in the
evening is quite pleasant to see and
furthermore to be part of; as everyone usually goes downtown to visit
and chat over drinks with friends...
this scenario of people strolling
down the streets, laughing and chatting, adds up to the city’s beauty,
which, along the country’s favorable climate, makes Asmara one of
Africa’s most desirable and heartfelt
cities.
Attribution is the process of understanding the actions of others based
on limited information. Since the
process is inexact, large errors often
creep in. In individualistic cultures,
there is a strong bias towards attributing a person’s behavior to the characteristics of that person instead of
7
the situation that person is in. People
in collectivist cultures have also this
bias but to a much lesser degree. For
a foreigner from an individualistic
society, it is a strange thing to hear
a small kid providing detailed information of his neighbors’ names and
occupations… but here it wouldn’t
be a big issue. And neither would it
if you were to want to attend a ceremony of any kind but you don’t
know where the exact address was:
in such cases, someone in the area is
surely going to help you reach your
desired address. The same situation
would have been hopeless had you
been in an individualist society.
If we are to observe people’s personality trades, the stereotype of a
‘good person’ in collectivist cultures
is trustworthy, honest, generous, and
sensitive, all characteristics that are
helpful to people working in groups.
In contrast, a ‘good person’ in individualist cultures is more assertive
and strong, characteristics helpful
for competing. The idea of the ‘artis-
tic type’ or ‘bohemian’ is not usually
found in collectivist cultures. However, collectivist cultures usually
have a ‘community man’ concept
not present in individualist cultures. The fact remains that as humans
we turn out to be what the society
around us shapes us to become. An
Eritrean that grew outside of the
country, where the individualist culture is highly prominent, cannot and
will never ignore the traits of collectivism that Eritreans are known for,
if raised well in the family. That is
why Eritreans are well known for
their good quality cultural traits. Accordingly whoever, even a foreigner,
raised in a collective environment
will consequently reflect the collectivist personality?
Still, although the difference between the two streams it is very obvious, every society as a matter of
course needs to be respected for its
particular culture.
continued from page 5
gesting back in the 1960s that assumptions landing the United States in Vietnam should be reexamined.
In any event -- and to no one’s surprise -- the different look did not produce a different conclusion. Instead
of reversing the paradigm, Carter affirmed it: the existing U.S. approach
to dealing with ISIS is sound, he announced. It only needs a bit of tweaking -- just the result to give the Pollacks, O’Hanlons, and Kagans something to write about as they keep up
the chatter that substitutes for serious
debate.
Do we really need that chatter?
Does it enhance the quality of U.S.
policy? If policy/defense/action intellectuals fell silent would America be
less secure?
Let me propose an experiment. Put
them on furlough. Not permanently -just until the last of the winter snow finally melts in New England. Send them
back to Yale for reeducation. Let’s see
if we are able to make do without them
even for a month or two.
In the meantime, invite Iraq and
Afghanistan War vets to consider how
best to deal with ISIS. Turn the oped pages of major newspapers over
to high school social studies teachers.
Book English majors from the Big Ten
on the Sunday talk shows. Who knows
what tidbits of wisdom might turn up?
Filmon Ghebrehiwet
Rationalizing Lunacy: the...
tion, the three share the distinction
ofhaving supported the Iraq War back
in 2003 and calling for redoubling efforts against ISIS today. For assurances that the fundamental orientation
of U.S. policy is sound -- we just need
to try harder -- who better to consult
thanPollack, O’Hanlon,
and Kagan (any Kagan)?
Was Carter hoping to gain some
fresh insight from his dinner companions? Or was he letting Washington’s
clubby network of fellows, senior fellows, and distinguished fellows know
that, on his watch, the prevailing verities of national insecurity would remain sacrosanct? You decide.
Soon thereafter, Carter’s first trip
overseas provided another opportunity
to signal his intentions. In Kuwait, he
convened a war council of senior military and civilian officials to take stock
of the campaign against ISIS. In a daring departure from standard practice,
the new defense secretary prohibited
PowerPoint briefings. One participant
described the ensuing event as “a fivehour-long college seminar” -- candid
and freewheeling. “This is reversing
the paradigm,” one awed senior Pentagon official remarked. Carter was said
to be challenging his subordinates to
“look at this problem differently.”
Of course, Carter might have said,
“Let’s look at a different problem.”
That, however, was far too radical to
contemplate -- the equivalent of sug-
Andrew J. Bacevich,
TomDispatch.com
March 2015 Eritrea Profile, Wednesday 1st of April, 2015
8
Many a time important events in the global arena are not presented in their entirety in mainstream media as there is lack of context in most of the information they
cover. In response, this column sets out to question this trend by presenting diverse perspectives from as many sources as possible with the underlying aim of bringing
to fore context that is culturally, historically, politically and economically relevant to any given topic.
Rationalizing Lunacy: the Intel ectual As Servant Of The State By Andrew J. Bacevich
Policy intellectuals -- eggheads
presuming to instruct the mere mortals who actually run for office -- are
a blight on the republic. Like some
invasive species, they infest presentday Washington, where their presence strangles common sense and has
brought to the verge of extinction the
simple ability to perceive reality. A benign appearance -- well-dressed types
testifying before Congress, pontificating in print and on TV, or even filling
key positions in the executive branch
-- belies a malign impact. They are
like Asian carp let loose in the Great
Lakes.
It all began innocently enough. Back in 1933, with the country in the
throes of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first
imported a handful of eager academics to join the ranks of his New Deal. An unprecedented economic crisis
required some fresh thinking, FDR
believed. Whether the contributions
of this “Brains Trust” made a positive
impact or served to retard economic
recovery (or ended up being a wash)
remains a subject for debate even today. At the very least, however, the
arrival of Adolph Berle, Raymond
Moley, Rexford Tugwell, and others elevated Washington’s bourbonand-cigars social scene. As bona fide
members of the intelligentsia, they
possessed a sort of cachet.
Then came World War II, followed
in short order by the onset of the Cold
War. These events brought to Washington a second wave of deep thinkers,
their agenda now focused on “national
security.” This eminently elastic concept -- more properly, “national insecurity” -- encompassed just about anything related to preparing for, fighting,
or surviving wars, including economics, technology, weapons design,
decision-making, the structure of the
armed forces, and other matters said to
be of vital importance to the nation’s
survival. National insecurity became,
and remains today, the policy world’s
equivalent of the gift that just keeps on
giving.
People who specialized in thinking about national insecurity came
to be known as “defense intellectuals.” Pioneers in this endeavor back
in the 1950s were as likely to collect
their paychecks from think tanks like
the prototypical RAND Corporation as
from more traditional academic institutions. Their ranks included creepy
figures like Herman Kahn, who took
pride in “thinking about the unthinkable,” and Albert Wohlstetter, who tutored Washington in the complexities
of maintaining “the delicate balance of
terror.”
In this wonky world, the coin of
the realm has been and remains “policy relevance.” This means devising
products that convey a sense of novelty, while serving chiefly to perpetuate
the ongoing enterprise. The ultimate
example of a policy-relevant insight
is Dr. Strangelove’s discovery of a
“mineshaft gap” -- successor to the
“bomber gap” and the “missile gap”
that, in the 1950s, had found America
allegedly lagging behind the Soviets
in weaponry and desperately needing to catch up. Now, with a thermonuclear exchange about to destroy the
planet, the United States is once more
falling behind, Strangelove claims,
this time in digging underground
shelters enabling some small proportion of the population to survive.
In a single, brilliant stroke, Strangelove
posits a new raison d’être for the entire
national insecurity apparatus, thereby
ensuring that the game will continue more or less forever. A sequel to
Stanley Kubrick’s movie would have
shown General “Buck” Turgidson and
the other brass huddled in the War
Room, developing plans to close the
mineshaft gap as if nothing untoward
had occurred.
The Rise of the National Insecurity
State
Yet only in the 1960s, right around
the time that Dr. Strangelove first appeared in movie theaters, did policy
intellectuals really come into their
own. The press now referred to them
as “action intellectuals,” suggesting
energy and impatience. Action intellectuals were thinkers, but also doers,
members of a “large and growing body
of men who choose to leave their quiet
and secure niches on the university
campus and involve themselves instead in the perplexing problems that
face the nation,” as LIFE Magazineput
it in 1967. Among the most perplexing of those problems was what to do
about Vietnam, just the sort of challenge an action intellectual could sink
his teeth into.
Over the previous century-and-ahalf, the United States had gone to war
for many reasons, including greed,
fear, panic, righteous anger, and legitimate self-defense. On various occasions, each of these, alone or in com-
bination, had prompted Americans to
fight. Vietnam marked the first time
that the United States went to war, at
least in considerable part, in response
to a bunch of really dumb ideas floated
by ostensibly smart people occupying
positions of influence. More surprising still, action intellectuals persisted
in waging that war well past the point
where it had become self-evident,
even to members of Congress, that the
cause was a misbegotten one doomed
to end in failure.
In his fine new book American
Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our
National Identity, Christian Appy, a
historian who teaches at the University of Massachusetts, reminds us of
just how dumb those ideas were.
As Exhibit A, Professor Appy presents McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser first for President John F.
Kennedy and then for Lyndon Johnson. Bundy was a product of Groton and Yale, who famously became
the youngest-ever dean of Harvard’s
Faculty of Arts and Sciences, having
gained tenure there without even bothering to get a graduate degree.
For Exhibit B, there is Walt Whitman Rostow, Bundy’s successor as
national security adviser. Rostow was
another Yalie, earning his undergraduate degree there along with a PhD. While taking a break of sorts, he spent
two years at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. As a professor of economic history
at MIT, Rostow captured JFK’s attention with his modestly subtitled 1960
bookThe Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, which
offered a grand theory of development with ostensibly universal applicability. Kennedy brought Rostow
to Washington to test his theories of
“modernization” in places like Southeast Asia.
Finally, as Exhibit C, Appy briefly
discusses Professor Samuel P. Huntington’s contributions to the Vietnam
War. Huntington also attended Yale,
before earning his PhD at Harvard and
then returning to teach there, becoming one of the most renowned political scientists of the post-World War II
era.
What the three shared in common,
apart from a suspect education acquired in New Haven, was an unwavering commitment to the reigning verities of the Cold War. Foremost among
those verities was this: that a monolith
called Communism, controlled by a
small group of fanatic ideologues hidden behind the walls of the Kremlin,
posed an existential threat not simply to America and its allies, but to
the very idea of freedom itself. The
claim came with this essential corollary: the only hope of avoiding such
a cataclysmic outcome was for the
United States to vigorously resist the
Communist threat wherever it reared
its ugly head.
Buy those twin propositions and
you accept the imperative of the U.S.
preventing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. North Vietnam,
from absorbing the Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. South Vietnam, into a
single unified country; in other words,
that South Vietnam was a cause worth
fighting and dying for. Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington not only bought
that argument hook, line, and sinker,
but then exerted themselves mightily
to persuade others in Washington to
buy it as well.
Yet even as he was urging the
“Americanization” of the Vietnam
War in 1965, Bundy already entertained doubts about whether it was
winnable. But not to worry: even if
the effort ended in failure, he counseled President Johnson, “the policy
will be worth it.”
How so? “At a minimum,” Bundy
wrote, “it will damp down the charge
that we did not do all that we could
have done, and this charge will be
important in many countries, including our own.” If the United States
ultimately lost South Vietnam, at least
Americans would have died trying to
prevent that result -- and through some
perverted logic this, in the estimation
of Harvard’s youngest-ever dean, was
a redeeming prospect. The essential
point, Bundy believed, was to prevent
others from seeing the United States as
a “paper tiger.” To avoid a fight, even
a losing one, was to forfeit credibility. “Not to have it thought that when
we commit ourselves we really mean
no major risk” -- that was the problem
to be avoided at all cost.
Rostow outdid even Bundy in hawkishness. Apart from his relentless
advocacy of coercive bombing to influence North Vietnamese policymakers, Rostow was a chief architect of
something called the Strategic Hamlet
Program. The idea was to jumpstart
the Rostovian process of modernization by forcibly relocating Vietnamese
peasants from their ancestral villages
into armed camps where the Saigon
government would provide security,
education, medical care, and agricultural assistance. By winning hearts-
and-minds in this manner, the defeat of
the communist insurgency was sure to
follow, with the people of South Vietnam vaulted into the “age of high mass
consumption,” where Rostow believed
all humankind was destined to end up.
That was the theory. Reality differed somewhat. Actual Strategic
Hamlets were indistinguishable from
concentration camps. The government in Saigon proved too weak, too
incompetent, and too corrupt to hold
up its end of the bargain. Rather than
winning hearts-and-minds, the program induced alienation, even as it essentially destabilized peasant society. One result: an increasingly rootless
rural population flooded into South
Vietnam’s cities where there was little
work apart from servicing the needs
of the ever-growing U.S. military
population -- hardly the sort of activity
conducive to self-sustaining development.
Yet even when the Vietnam War
ended in complete and utter defeat,
Rostow still claimed vindication for
his theory. “We and the Southeast
Asians,” he wrote, had used the war
years “so well that there wasn’t the
panic [when Saigon fell] that there
would have been if we had failed to intervene.” Indeed, regionally Rostow
spied plenty of good news, all of it attributable to the American war.
”Since 1975 there has been a general
expansion of trade by the other countries of that region with Japan and the
West. In Thailand we have seen the
rise of a new class of entrepreneurs. Malaysia and Singapore have become
countries of diverse manufactured exports. We can see the emergence of a
much thicker layer of technocrats in
Indonesia.”
So there you have it. If you want
to know what 58,000 Americans (not
to mention vastly larger numbers of
Vietnamese) died for, it was to encourage entrepreneurship, exports, and the
emergence of technocrats elsewhere in
Southeast Asia.
Appy describes Professor Huntington as another action intellectual with
an unfailing facility for seeing the
upside of catastrophe. In Huntington’s view, the internal displacement
of South Vietnamese caused by the
excessive use of American firepower,
along with the failure of Rostow’s
Strategic Hamlets, was actually good
news. It promised, he insisted, to give
the Americans an edge over the insurgents.
continued on page 3
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