Message on the Commemoration of First September 2025 

Ambassador Andebrhan Welde Giorgis 
 

The first bullet fired by Hamid Idris Awate and his partisans reverberated throughout Eritrea. It is the 64^th  anniversary of this momentous historic event that we commemorate with great pride today, the First of September 2025. The launching of the armed resistance laid the foundation for the war of national liberation, marking a qualitative transformation of the struggle for independence. The armed struggle traversed 30 hard years of ups and downs, advances and reversals, and achieved a historic victory that brought into being an independent sovereign State of Eritrea.

Sovereign independence has, however, not brought about freedom, justice and prosperity. It has not fulfilled the aspirations of the people for a constitutional order, democratic governance,  socioeconomic development and cultural renaissance. The dictatorial regime that grabbed power has failed to promote human security, improve the standard of living of the people or enhance the human condition. It has failed to establish an accountable and transparent constitutional government that respects the rule of law; represents the wishes of the people; administers justice; guarantees freedom; and achieves prosperity. 

Post-independence, especially during the last twenty-five (25) years, the rule of law has been trampled underfoot and the rule of man imposed. The capricious rule of man has perpetrated severe domestic oppression, harsh repression and brutal suppression of dissent. Instead of building and expanding schools, universities, hospitals, cultural centres, sports facilities, etc., there proliferated prisons and penal detention centres. The rural areas have been depleted of their population while our neglected cities and idle ports lie in ruins.

The regime has deliberately perpetrated backwardness, ignorance and poverty and driven  mass exodus. Its policies and practices have caused the decline of the population and the disruption of the demographic composition of Eritrean society. In brief, the regime has dragged Eritrea backwards in all aspects of national life to the lowest rungs of the development ladder among the nations of the world. 

All the development programmes and projects launched, foreign investments initiated, and policy instruments devised during the first half of the 1990s following independence were thwarted one by one and pushed out. Eritrean public capital has been deployed in mafia style ventures and investments in the name of individuals for the development of other countries. 

Within the framework of a malevolent economic policy, the regime has imposed a system of rationing to secure pervasive societal control and create artificial shortages to preoccupy the people with daily survival. A dysfunctional coupon economy unable to provide basic needs and essential social services, such as foodstuffs, water, healthcare, education, energy, electricity, transport and communications, has caused extreme poverty. Demolitions and the ban on the maintenance, reparation, renovation and construction of houses for over twenty years have created an acute shortage of housing, aggravating the suffering of the people.

The abandonment of the infrastructure of nation building, state construction and economic development laid down during the last years of the armed struggle led to the emergence of a mafia-like regime that lacks normal government structure, functional institutions and an economic policy that promotes economic development. Trampling the Constitution of Eritrea   underfoot has resulted in the establishment of the predatory rule of man. 

In the setting of a lawless administration characterised by arbitrary arrests, indefinite detention, limitless national service defying its legal terms, extreme poverty, general unemployment, etc., has driven mass exodus. Many Eritreans in the diaspora have lost their compass, fallen victim to the regime’s divisive policies and the sectarian machinations of hostile foreign forces, and reduced to reciprocal squabbling and recriminations. 

As we commemorate the 64^th anniversary of the armed struggle for national liberation with great pride, we must renew and intensify our effort to establish a transparent and accountable national government and constitutional governance to realise the original objectives of the armed struggle for which tens of thousands of our heroic martyrs gave their lives.

Eritrea’s revival and rise requires the establishment of constitutional governance based on the rule of law that safeguards the basic rights and freedoms of the people; builds human capital through modern science, technology and knowhow; manages public finance, national assets and natural resources in an accountable and transparent manner in the service of the people and the country; pursues socioeconomic development; improves the livelihood of the people; ensures human security; safeguards freedom; administers justice. 

As we proudly commemorate the auspicious occasion of September First today, we must firmly oppose the declared threat of foreign aggression and strive to realise the aspirations of our people for the rule of law, constitutional governance, freedom, justice, human security and prosperity in an independent sovereign State of Eritrea. 

Long live September First, the harbinger of an independent sovereign State of Eritrea! 

Eternal glory to our heroic martyrs! 

God bless Eritrea and the Eritrean people!