“Born in 1945 in
Ali Ghidir near Tessenei where he completed his elementary
and middle school grades, Omar Jabir pursued his secondary
school classes in a boarding school in Port Sudan, and one year
in Khartoum. He completed grade 12 by 1962. During the later
part of 1960s and early 1970s, he was a university student in
Baghdad but could not obtain all of his medical credentials
mainly because of his decision not to become a member of the
Ba’ath Party in Iraq. As indicated below, he was one of the key
players in the student movement in the Middle East. In later
years, he served as a senior cadre of the ELF during the entire
1970s in the fields of student and youth affairs, information and
diplomacy. In 1982, he supported the ELF faction that staged a coup d’etat (for others known as “an uprising”) within the
organization. After liberation in 1991, he took another
controversial decision by going back to Eritrea while it was
under an exclusionist regime that banned all patriotic forces
that took part in the liberation struggle.” Woldeyesus Ammar
I had the privilage to meet and discuss with this wonderful
Eritrean father!

Rest in Peace Ustaz Omar Jabir & May God comfort his family
and friends. It breaks my heart that all these Eritreans who
spent their whole life for the independence of Eritrea are being
buried outside their country they loved so dearly! Really
painfull.

A Memorable Conversation With Omar Jabir In Melbourne
By Woldeyesus Ammar (August 4, 2005) FROM NHARNET.COM
(EPDP).

To my viewpoint, Omar Jabir Omar, a veteran ELF freedom
fighter now in Australia, represents, in one go, a combination of
many things in a contemporary Eritrean in exile – contemporary
here mainly meaning the generations that bore the brunt of national awakening and struggle for Eritrea’s national independence.

First: Omar Jabir is a good representative of the passionately
nationalist Eritrean youth of the 1960s and the 1970s who
studied in the Middle East and played a vital role in building the
Eritrean national liberation struggle – but, alas, only to be
betrayed wholesale in liberated Eritrea.

Second: He suitably symbolizes Eritrea’s leftist revolutionary
generation that worked under nascent (now defunct) Eritrean
parties of the left: LP or the Labour Party within the ELF, and
EPRP or the Eritrean People’s Revolutionary Party within the
EPLF.

Third: Omar Jabir is a good example of independent Eritrea’s
self-inflicted brain drain that unfolded as a result of a well
designed social engineering of Isayas Afeworki’s exclusionist
and evil policies commencing with his “Hashewiye Wudibat” of
20 June 1991 that eventually succeeded to keep at bay literally
all of Eritrea’s intellectuals, especially those with advanced
knowledge of and qualifications in the Arabic language.Fourth:

He symbolizes the failure of PFDJ’s Eritrea to reconcile
even with those who were willing to go an extra mile to make
reconciliation happen after 1991. (The listing of such
symbolisms of Omar and his generation with the situation of
contemporary Eritrea would prove endless.)

During June 2005, I had the opportunity of meeting several
times with Omar Jabir in Melbourne where he took residence
with his family since 1995.

He works for an employment agency while providing voluntary services as president of the 30,000-

strong Horn of Africa Community in Australia (refer to a
previous article in Nharnet, Awna, Alnahda and Farajat about
‘Eritreans in Faraway Australia’.)

In our chitchats, Omar and I talked on a variety of topics and
events of the past, the present and the future. In particular, we
enjoyed our exchange of ‘ancient’ notes about Eritrean student
militancy inside and outside the homeland. I noted to Omar
that I may write down for the benefit of other readers some
specified parts of our talk. And he, a trained journalist himself,
had no objection to whatever I wished to select for writing and
posting in Eritrean websites from the conversation that went
on and on – well spiced by his command of linguistic nuances in
Arabic, English, Tigre and Tigrinia. As many readers may recall,

Omar Jabir has been a constant contributor of articles in Arabic and English to the Eritrean

websites. His present-day stance regarding the regime in
Asmara, his ideas on democratisation, national unity,
reconciliation, and the basic requirements for coexistence and
stable future in Eritrea are well known to many people.
Therefore, I will not bore readers by trying to repeat them here.
Instead, I will concentrate on a few historical events and
experiences, some of them told in the form of anecdotes. But,
first a few notes about the man.

Omar Jabir: A short profile
Born in 1945 in Ali Ghidir near Tessenei where he completed his
elementary and middle school grades, Omar Jabir pursued his
secondary school classes in a boarding school in Port Sudan,
and one year in Khartoum. He completed grade 12 by 1962.
During the later part of 1960s and early 1970s, he was a
university student in Baghdad but could not obtain all of his
medical credentials mainly because of his decision not to
become a member of the Ba’ath Party in Iraq. As indicated
below, he was one of the key players in the student movement
in the Middle East. In later years, he served as a senior cadre of
the ELF during the entire 1970s in the fields of student and
youth affairs, information and diplomacy. In 1982, he
supported the ELF faction that staged a coup d’etat (for others
known as “an uprising”) within the organization. After liberation in 1991, he took another controversial decision by
going back to Eritrea while it was under an exclusionist regime
that banned all patriotic forces that took part in the liberation
struggle.
***
Interview with Omar Jabir
Question: Omar, I assume you started politics early in your life.
When was that and what particular events do you still
remember?
Answer: I started involvement in politics from my early teenage
years. In fact I was born in politics. My family and the small Ali
Ghidir community in general were among the strong cells of the
Independence Bloc and later on of the Eritrean Liberation
Movement (Haraka/ELM) and the Eritrean Liberation Front
(ELF). I was with the Haraka cells by 1959-60 in Port Sudan
where the movement was founded. I then switched to the ELF
when it became operational. At the age of 20, I already was a
member of the Revolutionary Command in Kassala when it was
formed and took charge of security matters. In fact I was one of
the ELF people in Kassala who arranged the fateful trip to Asmara for your classmates Seyoum Ogbamichael and
Woldedawit Temesghen in August 1965. They were assigned to
re-organize ELF cells in the Eritrean capital but, unfortunately,
they were betrayed by Mulugeta Gherghis, one of us in Kassala
who deserted soon after their departure and had them
apprehended by the Ethiopian authorities. By the end of that
year [1965], I went to Baghdad for higher studies. I was there
throughout the latter part of the 1960s and early 1970s as a
student leader.
Question: We know that the student union in Baghdad that you
chaired was instrumental in the formation in December 1968 of
the General Union of Eritrean Students (GUES). Who else was
with you in the leadership of GUES in the Middle East?
Answer: The student union in Baghdad was among the most
dynamic groups in the Middle East. Among my colleagues in the
leadership of the student movement from Baghdad Osman
Humed, Mohammed Ali Idris, Mohammed Sheikh Abdu Jelil and
Hassan Debesai. Union leaders from Cairo were Abdalla Omar
Nasser, Siraj Mussa Abdu, Omar M. Suleiman and others. From
Europe were Beshir Saeed, Woldu Kahsai, Idris Nur Hussein and
others. It was with the student unions in Damascus, Cairo and
in Europe that we formed the GUES.Question: What roles did GUES play in the nationalist struggle?
Answer: GUES became a full-fledged member of the
International Union of Students (IUS) in Prague and helped
introduce the Eritrean cause to international organizations of
the day. That was a very important achievement. The other role
effectively played by us in GUES was the national service. We all
were committed to spend one year serving in the field with the
ELF before completing our studies. Besides learning more for
themselves, the young service students carried with them
knowledge, enlightenment and many modern ideas to the
fighters and to the rural people inside Eritrea. It was through
that well thought national service that more and more new
blood was injected in the liberation struggle. GUES’s national
service programme was continued till 1977.
Question: And naturally GUES had its share of student martyrs.
Answer: Yes, the first GUES martyr was my elder brother Yahya
Jabir, a medical student from Europe who was martyred on 31
August 1973. That date was being annually marked as the
Eritrean Student Martyrs’ Day by GUES. Other students from
Europe who were martyred while on service included Fitsum
Ghebreselassie, Aregai Habtu, and Abdulgader Idris from
Khartoum University. Question: Did the Arab regimes of the day create interferences
in Eritrean student affairs during those years?
Answer: There were many interferences. For example, I was
barred for two years from entering Cairo by the authorities who
listened to framed up ELF-PLF allegations against the
mainstream GUES of the ELF (Revolutionary Council). The ELFPLF
headed by Osman Saleh Sabbe created their own GUES and
gave us hard time although their union did not have any
international dimension or weight. In later years, the Baathists
also formed their own Eritrean student union in Baghdad and
planted many hurdles against our organization.
Question: Can you recall any memorable event(s) that you
experienced during those student days?
Answer: Oh! yes, many interesting happenings, some of them
shocking. One experience was an extremely embarrassing and
shameful Munich meeting of Eritrean students and workers in
Europe in the summer of 1970. I was on a visit to Germany that
time and attended the meeting as observer. I vividly remember
the poisoned atmosphere at the meeting in which a recorded
speech of Woldeab Woldemariam was played. In it, Woldeab
spoke against the General Command of the ELF (Kiyada Ama). I was forced to present my speech in English because Arabic as
language was banned at the meeting. Idris Badume [presently
residing in Sweden] begged to speak in Arabic because his
mother tongue, Kunama, had no single listener at the meeting
and that he did not have strong command of any other
language except Arabic. The majority of the meeting
participants said no Arabic should be allowed at the meeting.
He thus chose to walkout of the meeting.
Another more embarrassing and quite incredible incident at the
same Munich meeting was the threat to kill. Some meeting
participants looked decided to kill Petros Kidane of Halhal!! The
blunt language used was, “You are from Halhal who are with
Kiyada Ama. Your people killed Kidane Kiflu and Woldai Ghidey
in Kassala. We will kill you today, and there will not be any
mercy!” We were afraid that he was in danger; his friends
helped him escape back to Berlin within hours of the threat. I
believed that they meant to kill him. It was shameful. GUES
members like Fitsum Ghebreselassie, who was chairing the
meeting, Aregai Habtu, Habte Tesfamariam, Embaye ….. and a
few others were insulted and attacked for being “stooges of
Kiyada Ama”. Herui Tedla Bairu also attended the Munich
meeting that can still be a measure of show how low national
awareness was among many Eritreans 30+ years ago. But
frankly speaking some of the participants could have done
better than what they actually did at that meeting of shame in Munich .The anti-ELF elements held their second meeting in
Nuremberg in August 1971 and supported the split of PLF from
the ELF.
Question: And what about left politics of students of that age?
Weren’t you part of the leftist movement?
Answer: Of course we were espousing leftist slogans of the day.
Many of us were co-opted into the Labour Party of the ELF. The
LP gradually took upper hand in Kiyada Ama and it was the
party that organized the First ELF Congress in 1971 and
formulated a national democratic programme. It is my
conviction that everything good that had been done in the ELF
was done by the LP. In its initial stage, the LP recruited and
trained the best cadres for the liberation struggle. However,
problems were created later on when the ELF leadership took
power both in the front and in the party; power struggle
between two ambitious politicians, Ibrahim Toteel and Abdalla
Idris, flared up. This was disastrous. Azien Yassin, who was the
LP Secretary General in 1976 was replaced because of the
power struggle in the front and this power struggle finally
weakened the ELF and contributed to its demise as a military
force.Question: Many thanks, Omar, for your comments about the
roles of GUES and LP in the growth of the ELF. Let me now ask
you about two issues that pop up in discussions among old ELF
comrades. These concern what we call the coup d’etat within
the ELF in 1982 that you supported and then your return to
Eritrea after liberation. What are your comments?
Answer: First about the event at Rasai. Was that event in 1982
a coup d’etat? I say ‘YES’, it was a coup d’etat. In fact, I wrote
this opinion in the ELF’ magazine, ‘The Revolution’,immediately
after that event took place. But was that coup d’etat antidemocratic
and was it conducted against a democratically
elected leadership? My response was and is ‘NO’ for the
following contextual reasons that connect it with the facts on
the ground at that period. In fact the coup d’etat was the last
resort taken to curb a series of wrongdoings and accumulation
of leadership errors that gradually suffocated the organization
to its deathbed. The Executive Committee (EC) that was elected
after the 1975 Second Congress of the ELF became an
absolutely autocratic power that froze the roles of other
institutions and bodies in the organization. This particular EC
refused [for three years] the holding of regular meetings of the
Revolutionary Council. The EC controlled the mass
organizations; created its own GUES and ignored the joint
historic memorandum of mass organizations that told
everything. Then came the collapse [in the hands of the EPLF/TPLF armies] and we crossed the border to the Sudan –
leadership divided and cadres pushing for change in the EC. But
how? Leading cadres were advocating the holding of an
emergency military conference that would exclude civilians and
ELF branches in the Middle East. The final blow was the
Sudanese action of confiscation of arms and then the threat of
taking everybody from Tahdai and Korokon to refugee camps.
The bottle was already broken – pieces left were just
remainders of a legendary ELF that was targeted not only by
EPLF and the Sudan but also betrayed by its leadership. I am
not saying that the 25 March [1982 event] was a saving step for
the whole organization but it was an initiative by one of those
scattered pieces.
Question: And the second issue – do you regret having returned
to Eritrea after 1991?
Answer: I never regret having gone to Asmara [after liberation].
To start with, I am an Eritrean citizen and going back home is a
natural step. Secondly, I went with a vision, principles and
values and came back with them all without any change!
Thirdly, I learned new experience, new facts and tangible
evidences about the theoretical concept I used to have about
EPLF. The fourth reason that I do not regret having gone to
Asmara is that I did not go to serve the regime but I went with
the idea of living as an ordinary Eritrean. My real dream was to settle in my village of origin and work in the family farm or to
have a library for the new generation.
Question: Now, let us envision about a future viable governing
party in Eritrea in the post-PFDJ period that can give Eritrea last
peace and stability. What forces can realize this hope?
Answer: I can say that the present opposition groups can play a
role in shaping such a party. In addition, the outcome of the
governing party (PFDJ) after the expected change will tell what
sort of a political formula we might have for Eritrea. To sum,
future developments and interaction between different forces
will decide the shape and content of such a party.
Thanks a lot.
End

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