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I am deeply honored to be given the opportunity to speak in front of this important festival and conference.

Friends, I cannot tell you anything about Eritrea that you do not already know. My perspective is as an outsider.

I will speak to you as a civil servant working with refugees in Sweden, I am employed at the center for Integration in the city of Gothenburg, where we have among others also the new coming refugees from Eritrea. I will speak as a social democrat, I am the chairperson of the International committee of the social democratic party in Gothenburg, I will speak also as a peace activist, I have been an active member of the Swedish Peace movement for all my life, and for many years worked for the international peace movement, as president of the International Peace Bureau based in Geneva, Switzerland.

I speak as an outsider. My knowledge on the current situation in Eritrea is based on working with the new-arrived  refugees from Eritrea, who comes to the Center for Integration run by the city council of Gothenburg. I have heard many witnesses of the brutality of the Eritrean regime, a brutality that made those youngsters risk their lives to escape and seek asylum far away from their motherland.

I have also colleagues at that office from Eritrea who have lived for many years in Sweden, now doing an excellent job to introduce and assist the newcomers, teaching and giving the necessary knowledge and advice about Sweden, Keleta Zehaie is one of those teachers, but there are also others.

But the most important knowledge comes out of the stories from the new-arrived refugees. Stories about cruelty, about being threatened to life, about torture.

Facts and information about the Eritrea they have left, the Eritrea that is still in their heart. Stories from destroyed life, stories of unbelievable suffering.

I know of course that I meet only those refugees from Eritrea who have been lucky enough to escape the military service or other means of cruelty of the regime in Eritrea, those who have been lucky enough not to get caught in refugee camps in Sudan or elsewhere without any chance to reach further, those who have been lucky enough to escape smugglers and refuge –exploiters in Libya or Egypt or Israel – also people with unbelievable cruelty, I meet only those who have been lucky enough not to drawn and die in the Mediterranean on their way to Europe, I meet only those who have found a safe haven in Europe and who have got a chance to restart their life.

All that I hear, all that I know shows that we need to do more, to give more people from Eritrea and elsewhere the chance to start a new life in Europe, to get education, to be able to work and be self supporting, to get their wounds healed…

And in order to keep Europe refugee-friendly, to fight back against Xenophobia explored by the right wing politicians, we must all unite, Eritreans, Germans, Swedes and we must be successful with integrating the new arrivers in jobs, schools, language training and all those fields that might irritate those who believe that refugees comes to Europe just to irritate…

In order to help in any way we can, we have formed a new organization I Gothenburg, an Eritrea-Sweden friendship association, which we call “Eritrea in our heart”. The idea is to inform about the situation in Eritrea, not only about the disastrous political situation, but also about positive memories, kultur, music, people… This organization is open for Eritreans but for all who are interested in Eritrea.

Friends, my perspective when I speak at this conference is the outsider, my images comes not only from the new arrived refugees but also from persons like Keleta Zehaie whom I have known since the struggle for independence, since the 1990 and before. Persons I trust. Persons who try to make me understand why the liberation of Eritrea was betrayed, how your right to form the new country Eritrea was stolen from you.

I understand that this conference, and previous conferences here in Frankfurt, serve the purpose to bring the country back to democracy, back to Human rights, back to peace, back to rule of law. And I support and second the slogan of this conference, a joint struggle, broad cooperation to reach those values that the liberation of Eritrea was all about.

Friends, I want to bring greetings to this conference from the social democratic party of Sweden, to its sister party, the Eritreans Peoples Democratic Party. Greetings from social democrats in Gothenburg, and greetings from the International secretary of Social Democratic Party in Stockholm Andrine Winter.

Can the social democratic Party of Sweden do more to support your struggle? I am open to hear your suggestions, and to bring any message from you to my party in Sweden, and do what I can do with my limited ability to increase the visibility of the situation in Eritrea, of the need for support and attention. I do think that cooperation between social democratic parties is essential.

A joint struggle, joining together progressive Eritreans who have a democratic and free Eritrea as their goal.

And a joint striuggle where social democrats from different countries support and give inspiration to each other

Friends, I have already told that I know a number of Eritreans living in Sweden, some I know already from the time of the struggle for indepence. Some who have remained friends through all those years.

But there are a number of Eritreans in Gothenburg, who have been transformed in a way I could not predict when we got to know each other and together celebrated the independent and free Eritrea in May 1991. I am of course talking about people who are supporters of Isaias Afwerki and his regime.

Frankly to say, I have failed to understand how people from Eritrea, who were strongly in favour of a free and independent Eritrea, and now are living in the democracy of Sweden, can accept and support the brutality and ruling of the regime. How can those Eritreans deny what is obvious, how can they deny facts, how can they ignore the witnesses that arrives at their doorsteps in Sweden every day.

Some of those deniers, some of the friends of the oppression, friends of the dictator, friends of the absence of law – I came to know them in my home city Gothenburg already when the liberation took place, I shared their joy and happiness for finally having reached independence for Eritrea. Those people have turned from being spokesmen of democracy and freedom, to be defender of un-democracy and lack of freedom, and frankly I cannot understand the transformation they have gone through. I have asked them to explain, but I have got no explanation!

I have through my professional life met many refugees from many countries, and there are always people who are selling their sole, who are making money from reporting back to the regime that made them be refugees.. People who use their refugee status to be criminals, to serve dictators. They exist in all groups, some are even sent to Euorpe with the purpose to be spies, refugee-spies.

But I know of no other group of refugees, who has a comparable situation, like those Eritreans who openly are supporting an oppressive regime, who even betray and work against the new arrived refugees.

Friends, the American pacifist and revolutionary, A J Muste (living between 1885 and 1967) once said that the problem after a war always is with the winner – who will learn him the lesson.

But history will catch up with Isaias Afwerki who according to a United Nation panel in 2015 (quote)“has imposed a reign of fear through systematic and extreme abuses of the population that may amount to crimes against humanity” (unquote)

What is going on in Eritrea under the current regime is not un-known for the outside world. There are enough reports, from UN Panel, from Amnesty International etc.

But still, it is much more attention given to other conflicts, other refugee-sending situations, like Syria, like Afghanistan. Libya, Turkey, Palestina-Istrael and other countries in trouble are much more on the media news than Eritrea. The war situation in those other countries are much easier to report in media, than a constant ongoing oppression like the one in Eritrea.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

You who know, you who are present at this festival and conference have an important task to tell the world, to tell concerned citizens, radicals in every country about the situation in your homeland. I know you do, I just want to encourage you to continue, telling the world.

Friends, I speak to you as an outsider, as a refugee worker in Gothenburg city, as a social democrat and as a peace activist.

I bring greetings from the peace movement in Gothenburg. I have since I was young been an activist in the Peace movement. I have been chairman of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society which is the biggest peace organization in Swden, and the oldest still existing peace organization I the world, started in 1882. And I was also for seven years the president of International Peace Bureau, an umbrella network for peace movements all over the world, with some 300 member organizations in more than 70 countries.

Peace is my life mission, already during my school years I came in contact with books and philosophies of well known peace activists. I want to tell you a little bit about my thinking peace and war, and struggle for freedom and democracy.

One of my heroes from I was a young school boy was Martin Luther King, the leader of the civil right movement in the United States of America. I red books, and I bought a record of his most well known speeches, and some of his speaches I learn by hart.

Martin Luther King was not only fighting for the right of equal treatment for the black community in the United states, the right to go to the same schools as the white majority. The right to sit on whatever seat you wanted in a public bus. This is what Martin Luther King is well known for.

But he also became a main voice against the United States war in Vietnam, a war against a freedom struggle in a small far away country where US was said to defend this country against communism. Martin Luther King saw, that the black youngsters was drafted for military service in the war, but did not get job or education at home because of the color of their skin. So why should they fight in a foreign war against other young people, who maybe also was drafted to serve in a warfare they did not feel themselves as part of. Maybe they were also without basic rights in their country. He started to question the war in Vietnam and other wars that were fought by the United States of America.

By reading about Martin Luther King I understood why the struggle for freedom, and the struggle for peace are two sides of the same coin, that peace cannot exist without freedom and freedom cannot exist without peace. Also, peace is equal to democracy, peace is equal to human rights.

The most self evident right for human beings is the right to live in Peace. Every nation on earth, every person want to live in peace. I think we can do that to a starting point for any discussion about any political issue

As many of the prominent leaders and spokesmen of the peace movement, I believe that there is a danger in the very use of violence, guns, arms, to achieve political goals. I am not denouncing the right for self defense, but we must talk much more about what is the result in the mind and head of those youngsters who are trained in use of violence and military means to achieve goals. This is of special danger when the individuals cannot fully understand or agree with the purpose of the use of violence.

In the world of today we see an increasing use of violence. Terrorist actions get a lot of attention. But also the general violence in the society are increasing in many countries, and especially in the united States,

Much of the interior violence in United States and other western countries are committed by former soldiers. Also in Sweden we know that some of the Swedish soldiers returning home from fighting in Afghanistan have been mentally sick from their experience as soldiers in a war far away that they don’t understand why it is fought. At home, after return, they have used violence, against their own family, wife and children. Young men who have destroyed their own life, and the life of their bellowed ones. This is also the case in other European countries, there is a clear the link between increasing domestic violence, and a growing number of wars that the European countries are taking part in.

Likewise, it comes many refugees to Europe and Sweden from war zones, who have also been part in war actions, and whatever good course it has had, it might also have damaged the mind and thinking and believes of those people. Some of the deadly violence in European countries are committed by refugees, who have been mentally ill from their experience from the war they have been part of.

We need to be aware of the high risk of using violence, and take part in violent action, because the human body and the human mind is peaceful, and can be damaged severely by the use of violence.

Because of this, it is important to train resistance without violence, to study and train the methods of non violent resistance. This is a whole science in itself, and those methods have been used in every situation where the people are involved in uproar, in struggle for freedom and democracy. Those methods include demonstrations and protests, vigils and more sophisticated methods to withdraw the support that every regime is depending on from its citizens, how brutal it may be.

Just one example . during the second world war Norway was occupied by the Germany, who wanted to introduce the Nazi ideology in the school curriculum in Norway. The teacher did not want to do that, but instead of simply refuse to give the lectures that the Nazis expected, which would automatically lead to imprisonment, maybe execution, they organized a mass-action with teachers all over the country writing letters and asking thousands of questions on how to do, what to tell, and it made the German rulers totally occupied for months to answer stupid questions, while the education continued as before. The teacher never refused to do – they just claimed they did not understand the orders, and kept on asking.

Mahatma Gandhi of India, said that there are no road to peace / peace is the road. If you want to live in peace, act in peace.

Friends. For 200 years Sweden stayed out of war. I want to give you a very quick introduction to Swedish history of peace. How was that possible? How could Sweden be transformed from a country that was involved in constant wars and conflicts with its neighboring countries for as long as Sweden existed as a united country, or at least from the 16^th century to the 19^th century.

But something changed in 1814., 200 years ago. Sweden was by that time a kingdom, with most of the power concentrated to one single person. In 1814, the king was very old, and without any children that could inherit the throne, so a young French man have been persuade to come to Sweden and be the new king, after the death of the old king. This Frenchmen was a military man, he has been a leading military in Napoleons army, and the people who persuade him to come to Sweden thought that his military merits was exactly what was needed for a Swedish King.

But when this man Jean Baptiste Bernadotte first time came to Sweden he understood that Sweden was a very poor country. There was no chance for Sweden to continue try to be a military superpower of Europe, to conquer other countries, or to build colonies. So this military man Jean Baptiste Bernadotte made peace agreements with the neighboring countries, and primarily with Denmark and Germany who have been the main enemies to Sweden. The last war was fought with Norway in 1814, a short war, which ended in a peace agreement the same year.

Sweden did no longer spend its taxation money on military build up.

Instead – the most important reform in Swedish history came in 1842 – a free school for all children. Sweden was still a poor country, but all Swedish boys and girls learned how to read and write.

Because of the poor circumstances that Sweden had, one million Swedes emigrated to United States between 1850 and 1950. The Swedish people in US did very well, because they had an advantage compared with the many other people from Europe that came during the same time – the poor emigrants from Sweden could read and write. Many of them returned to Sweden with money, started small factories or businesses. This was the start of Swedish industrialization.

Sweden managed to stay out of the two big European wars during the 20^th century, , the first world war and the second world war. And when most of Europe was in ruins was Swedish Industries intact, and could produce and sell.

This was the birth of the Swedish welfare system based on the policy that made Sweden stay out of wars: welfare instead of warfare.

Swedish policy of neutrality, also made it possible for Sweden to act as mediator in many conflicts, and has also been able to play an independent role by for example support the fight against apartheid in South Africa and the right for the Palestinian people, against the will of the superpowers. Sweden has for many years played an important role as an independent voice in the world for disarmament, against nuclear weapons, and for freedom from oppression, with the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme as one of the most well known spokesmen.

Friends, Eritrea has today a leadership based on military power. Military power can be used towards external enemies, and also to create and sustain external enemies. And a countries military can, as proved in today’s Eritrea, be used against its own people.

You managed 25 years ago to reach independence. The next goal is to reach freedom, democracy, peace and human rights.

I do wish you and the Eritrean Peoples Democratic Party every success in your joint struggle. I think you have seen enough of leadership based on military power. I hope you will be able to start building a new Eritrea soon, based on the values of freedom, democracy, peace, human rights.

And welfare instead of warfare!