Exposing the Delusional May 24, 2026 Speech of Authoritarian Leader Isaias Afwerki

31/05/2026 18:35 PM

Exposing the Delusional May 24, 2026 Speech
of Authoritarian Leader Isaias Afwerki

by Dr. Negassi Hadgu

Exposing the Delusional May 24 Speech of Authoritarian Leader Isaias Afwerki.
By Dr. Negassi Hadgu
Date: 26 May 2026

On May 24, 2026, as we Eritreans marked 35 years of hard-won independence, a day once celebrated with pride but now mourned as a symbol of national destruction, the authoritarian Isaias Afwerki emerged from his stronghold in Adi-Halo to deliver his annual keynote address. What followed was not a sober reflection on the state of the Eritrean nation, nor a vision for its future. It was a staggering display of psychological projection and political deflection, an attempt by an authoritarian leader desperate to mask his regime’s failures.

While Eritrea suffers economic collapse and mass exodus, Isaias lectured the world on the United States' national debt, Donald Trump's "MAGA" doctrine, the drug trade in Venezuela, and the nuclear program of Iran. In one particularly absurd moment, he condemned the global system for its "exploitative financial mechanisms rooted in usury, plunder, and deception," and demanded that globally, "Human beings must fairly own their economic resources and the produce of their work."

Hearing these words from the mouth of the man who has systematically dismantled the Eritrean state and shattered the Eritrean family is profoundly hypocritical. It reveals the core survival mechanism of his 35 years of terror rule: the fabrication of a non-existent external enemy.

The Myth of the External Enemy

For three and a half decades, authoritarian Isaias Afwerki has kept his grip on power by constantly pointing Eritreans toward the horizon. He wants the Eritrean people to look at Washington, at the CIA, at the “unipolar world order,” at global imperialists, and at neighboring states. He desperately needs us to believe that Eritrea is under relentless siege from foreign powers.

Why? Because an authoritarian without an external enemy is an authoritarian without an excuse.

While he complains about “exploitative financial mechanisms” in the global order, he has imposed on Eritrea a domestic rule of fear. It is the regime of Isaias Afwerki, not foreign imperialists, that has emptied our villages and forced millions of our children to grow up without fathers through indefinite military conscription camps. It is his junta that has imprisoned our brightest patriots without trial [1]. And it is his apparatus that enslaves our youth through indefinite national service, condemned by the UN as crimes against humanity [2], crushes civil liberties, destroys the education system, and drives hundreds of thousands of our citizens into harrowing exile across the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea [3].

He speaks of a “new global order founded upon fairness and justice” while presiding over a lawless state that has no functioning constitution, no parliament, no independent judiciary, no predictable administration, and not even a single governmental structure sustained by law [4]. For 35 years, he has ruled Eritrea as a self-declared “provisional” authority; this is an assertion that, in itself, is a global anomaly of authoritarian endurance. His speech was not leadership; it was a smokescreen, designed to conceal the systematic destruction he is actively committing against his own people.

The Desecration of the Martyrs

But perhaps the most tragic and offensive moment of his Independence Day address was its conclusion. After a meandering hour of geopolitical rambling, he closed with the sacred phrase: “Eternal Glory to our Martyrs.”

It is profoundly sad and sickening to watch the architect of Eritrea’s institutional collapse use the memory of those he has betrayed to mask his governance. Why does authoritarian Isaias Afwerki invoke the martyrs? Because the martyrs are dead.

He uses our fallen heroes as silent idols. He praises them because they do not have mouths to speak against his atrocities. He glorifies them because they do not have eyes to see the ruined, emptied, and terrorized nation built on top of their bones.

The martyrs sacrificed their lives for a sovereign republic of justice, liberty, and dignity. If those martyrs could open their eyes today and witness the youth forced into exile, the grieving mothers, and the patriots rotting in the dungeons of Eiraeiro [1], they would weep. If they had voices, they would be the first to condemn this regime.

Tyrant Isaias Afwerki knows this. That is why he only respects the dead. Any living patriot who dares to demand the very ideals the martyrs fought for is swiftly branded a traitor and disappeared.

He worships the dead so he can continue to destroy the living.

Conclusion: The Real Enemy Is From Within

The Eritrean people must reject the delusions broadcast from Adi-Halo on May 24. We must strip away the myth of the external enemy. We are not being destroyed by the global financial system, by Western hegemony, or by shifting geopolitical alliances.

We are being destroyed from within.

The greatest threat to the survival, sovereignty, and statehood of Eritrea is the authoritarian regime of Isaias Afwerki. Until we unite as one body to remove this domestic crisis, our villages will continue to empty, and our youth will continue to perish in foreign lands.

Let us honor our martyrs not as silent idols manipulated by an authoritarian, but as the guiding conscience of our struggle. To truly grant them “Eternal Glory,” we must finish the work they started: tear down the rule of fear, eradicate the autocratic apparatus, and build the constitutional, democratic republic for which they paid the ultimate price.

Victory and glory to the Eritrean people.

God bless Eritrea and its people.

Dr. Negassi Hadgu
26 May 2026
A fellow Eritrean committed to the establishment of a united, constitutional, and democratic Eritrea in which every citizen enjoys justice, liberty, and the full measure of human rights.

References & Supporting Documentation

1. Amnesty International (2021): Eritrea: 20 Years of Incommunicado Detention. Details the September 2001 crackdown, the disappearance of the G-15 political reformers, independent journalists, and the conditions of secret prisons such as Eiraeiro.

2. United Nations Human Rights Council (2015/2016): Report of the detailed findings of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea (A/HRC/32/CRP.1). Documents that Eritrea's indefinite national service, arbitrary detention, and torture constitute crimes against humanity.

3. UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees): Global Trends Reports tracking the hundreds of thousands of Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers fleeing indefinite conscription and systemic rights abuses.

4. Human Rights Watch (Annual Reports): Eritrea Country Profiles. Documents the total absence of a legislature, independent judiciary, independent press, and the failure to implement the 1997 Constitution.

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ቃል ፕረዚደንት ኢሳይያስ ኣፈወርቂ ኣብ ጽምብል በዓል መበል 35 ዓመት ናጽነት | President Isaias Afwerki speech on May 24, 2026

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