come on we in sweden now that he didn´t work like journalist i think you need to have some education
to call you self for that so stop spred the bad rumours that he is a journalis. If you say that show one sampel of a news papper that he did´t if not shout your mouth

Hello my dears friend and ppl...one question? who said that he was a JOURNALIST? Im a neighbor to hi him and whatt i know he has never work in a news papper in this contry or like a journalist the only thing that i know he was a CLEANER and he never educate to journalist so pleas stopp calling him for journalist

ThomaS c Mountain is the only western living in Eritrea and siding with the Eritrean government, every eritrean know that he is paid by the eritrean government to confuse westerners and to confuse diaspora Eritreans, his main job is to spread PFDJ propoganda.
Since no one believes a word of what the Eritrean regime says, they decided to try it with a white guy who can spread their lies, and thomas C has been liying for years now and has been cought in a lie many times, simple example is. the time he says he met Dawit is a big lie, Dawit Isac was in Sweden at that time, it means they never met. Another lie is we all know how popular setit newspapper was. I don't know why would someone degrade himself like that?? SAD SAD SAD! Like it or not Dawit Isac is our Eritrean Mandela and will remain Eritrean hero forever!

Shame on Thomas Mountain
Wednesday, 14 April 2010 14:33 Aaron Berhane .I didn’t think I would respond to Thomas C. Mr. Mountain’s article entitled, “Sweden’s Cause Celebre Dawit Issack: Hero or Zero?” published in Eritreacompass.com, a sister website of shabait.com(a website of the Ministry of Information).

Mr. Mountain is an unofficial spokesperson of the Eritrean government and he was actually hired by the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) to misinform the international community. I didn’t intend to raise this issue because most people know the truth anyway, but I decided to do so just in case Mr. Mountain’s article influences 0.00001% members of the international community. Those people deserve to know the truth if they are not aware of it yet.

Thomas C. Mountain, the so called “independent journalist,” acts as an expert on Eritrea. He has tried to discredit Eritrean journalists and organizations that advocate press freedom. Mr. Mountain criticised the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) for placing Dawit Issack’s name on the list of arrested journalists in the fall of 2000.

He said, “The Eritrean government claimed that Dawit Issak, along with a number of others listed in the RSF press release, were detained for going absent without leave (AWOL) from their military units and were not in prison but had been returned to their military commands.”

There is no truth in his statement at all. First of all, neither RSF nor WAN listed Dawit Issack’s name with the eight journalists who were arrested on October 14, 2000. As a matter of fact, Dawit Issack was not in Eritrea; he was in Sweden from May 2000 to April 2001. I was one of the editors who passed the name of the arrested journalists to the international community. I remember back then that what Thomas C. Mountain wrote about the arrested journalists was not true.

I was so anxious to meet this so called “independent journalist” and challenge him in person. I wanted to know his motive for lying so blatantly. And so I contacted one of my sources who used to work in one of the biggest hotels in Asmara. She told me that she knew him and she confirmed that he was not in Asmara but was actually living in the USA.

That shocked me. He denied that the journalists had been arrested and he had pretended that he was in Asmara while the incident of arrest took place.

It is then that I learned that he had been hired by the PFDJ not only to gather historical information about the border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, but also to become involved in the propaganda’s activities of PFDJ. And gradually, he became an unofficial spokesperson of the Eritrean government. He has given several interviews. And of course, he has been trained to lie.

This is a well-known fact. Mr.Mountain tried to undermine the publication of Setit newspaper. “This publication” he said, “was usually no more than 4-6 pages and contained mainly commentary and opinion pieces, little of what I would call ‘news stories’.”

I don’t think this kind of distorted information would surprise anyone. The newspaper’s pages were double the number of pages he mentioned, which is equivalent to the government-owned newspaper, Hadas Ertra. Its content was much richer—full of investigative reports, interviews, hot news and news analysis—way better than the government-owned newspaper.

The odd thing was what he said about the circulation of the newspaper. Mr. Mountain said, “The vendors we talked to said they usually sold two or three, maybe four copies of each issue...”

I am sure anybody who knew the truth about Eritrean independent newspapers would have laughed at this. Setit was the largest newspaper in Eritrea with a circulation of 40,000, published every Tuesday and Friday. About 500 children were involved in distributing the paper in Asmara alone, and they were made a living through the commissions they earned. It was very rare to see even fifty unsold copies returned. It always sold out.

On the contrary, Hadas Ertra which sometimes printed fewer pages than Setit, had a circulation of only 10,000. Half of its distributed copies were returned to the distributor unsold.

Mr. Mountain shamelessly declared, “…we wondered how, after up to seven years of publishing these papers, they were able to pay for their salaries, rent and publishing costs.”

Notice how he said ‘after up to seven years of publishing’? This is the person who pretended to know everything about the Eritrean press. But he didn’t even know when the independent press started—how long it had been in business, etc. He just wrote arbitrarily.

Setit was the first independent newspaper begun in Eritrea. It distributed its first issue in August 1997 but it was banned in September 2001. It didn’t last seven years, as Mr. Mountain claimed.

The sad thing is that his false statements didn’t end there. They just went on and on. He said that Dawit had never published an article anywhere. Mr. Mountain tried to portray Dawit as someone who fell into the field of journalism from nowhere. What Mr. Mountain doesn’t know is that Dawit Issack is a published writer.

When Simret and I co-founded Setit newspaper in December 1996 and launched the first copy in August 1997, we were looking for talented writers to expand our capacities. We learned about Dawit Issack’s talent and the book he had published. As a result, we invited him and Joshua to join us at the end of 1997. Both did so and became co-owners.

Dawit Issack is one of the finest writers I know, an excellent interviewer and a dedicated journalist who longed to see the seed of democracy flourishing in Eritrea just like it does in Sweden. No one can erase the tremendous contribution he made before he joined Setit or after. We and future generation will remember it long after Mr. Mountain goes.

The unofficial spokesperson of the Eritrean government, Thomas C. Mountain, continued to accuse the free press of taking financial contributions from the CIA. This is a complete fabrication. He also accused Dawit Issack and my colleagues of failing to file their tax returns.

“…the so called ‘free press’ in Eritrea had never filed the required tax and business statement covering their finances as required by Eritrean law, in some cases for up to seven years, something they all had been repeatedly warned to do by the Eritrean authorities,” he said.

Setit newspaper filed the required tax return every single year since its inception. But it remained in business for four years instead of seven, as the so called ‘independent journalist’ said.

However, Mr. Mountain doesn’t know any of this. He merely has to repeat what the PFDJ officials tell him. After all, he is an employee of PFDJ, and he intends to destroy the name of Dawit Issack, in particular, and Eritrean journalists in general.

Whether Mr. Mountain likes it or not, Dawit is a cause celebre in Sweden not only now but for generations to come.

Sweden’s Cause Celebre Dawit Issak; Hero or Zero?

Thomas C. Mountain
Asmara, Eritrea April 5, 2010

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders…Bruce Springsteen? All calling for the release of one Dawit Issak, in prison since 2001, who they describe as a political prisoner in one of the smallest, newest most environmentally challenged country’s in the world, Eritrea. Dawit Issak is an Eritrean with dual Swedish citizenry who is in prison in Eritrea for, according to Dawits supporters in Sweden and around the world, calling for democracy in Eritrea.

The Eritrean government says he is in prison for violating Eritrea’s National Security laws, ie., for, amongst other things, taking money from the CIA station chief in Asmara, Eritrea for activities that attempted to destabilize the country. As one of the very few western journalists who have actually met Dawit Issak, has followed his story for 9 years now and who lives in Eritrea, I hope this article might provide some accurate background to this controversy. I first heard of Dawit Issak in the fall of 2000 when he was listed as a “journalist” by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in a press release claiming he was arrested, along with a number of other “journalists” by the Eritrean authorities for calling for democracy in Eritrea in what was termed the “free press” in Eritrea.

This press release was widely circulated by human rights groups and was supported by various media and journalist organizations internationally. One major organization, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) released a condemnation of Eritrea for arresting Dawit et al based on this press release by RSF.To supply some perspective to the timing of the matter, in June of 2000, the Ethiopian army succeeded in invading Eritrea, causing, according to the Red Cross, some 1.4 million Eritrean refugees (over 1/3 of the population), destroying 80% of Eritrea’s agricultural production and killing and wounding many tens of thousands Eritreans defending their country.

The entire Eritrean society was mobilized to defeat this invasion, including a compulsory, nationwide national service military induction program.The Eritrean government claimed that Dawit Issak, along with a number of others listed in the RSF press release, were detained for going absent with out leave (AWOL) from their military units and were not in prison but had been returned to their military commands. I, amongst others, contacted the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) to find out their reaction to the claims made by the Eritrean authorities disputing the reasons for Dawit Isaak et al.’s detention and in short order received, much to my astonishment, a copy of a retraction and apology by the WAN on this matter, something I have yet to find another example of in the history of the WAN. The statement sent to me by the WAN’s president specifically recognized Eritrea’s right to require national service by its citizens and blamed RSF for providing WAN with inaccurate information on this matter. This all took place in the fall of 2000, a few short months after the Ethiopian invasion of Eritrea and a year before Dawit Issak would once again be featured in press releases by RSF and various human rights and journalist groups.

In July of 2001 I had an opportunity to actually meet Dawit Issak in Asmara in the Lobby of the Hamasien Hotel. Previous to this meeting I had seen copies of what I would call a “newsletter” being sold by newspaper vendors on Asmara’s streets published by Dawit Issak. This publication was usually no more than 4-6 pages and contained mainly commentary and opinion pieces, little of what i would call “news stories”.

The vendors we talked to said they usually sold two or three, maybe four copies of each issue and we didn’t find any distribution outside the main streets in central Asmara. The publications we saw, which included Dawit Issaks, all were pretty much the same in size and style. They contained very little if any advertising and we wondered how, after up to seven years of publishing these papers, they were able to pay for their salaries, rent and publishing costs. When I was introduced to Dawit Issac, one of the first questions I asked him was how was he managing to survive based on the limited distribution and size of his publication. His response was to stand up and walk away, causing me to wonder at his rudeness, for Eritreans in general are very polite people and to not even excuse oneself is quite unusual, to say the least. At the time I was in the midst of investigating the Ethiopian invasion of Eritrea and had little time to follow up on what was going on regarding what came to be known as the “free press” in Eritrea.

I next heard about Dawit Issak a few months later, a few days after the WTC attack on September 11, 2001 when I was forwarded a series of press releases, containing almost identical wording, from amongst other organizations, RSF, condemning the arrest of Dawit Issak, along with other “journalists” and government officials, by the Eritrean authorities, for calling for “democracy in Eritrea”. It quickly became apparent that a well planned and coordinated campaign was being launched internationally to pressure the Eritrean government to release all those it had taken into custody. This campaign was almost identical to that which had been aborted by the WAN retraction the previous year and immediately gained my full attention. Thus began a long attempt to find out what was actually going on regarding the international outcry over the imprisonment of Dawit Issak.

In the course of trying to contact the various newspaper, journalist and human rights groups to ask them a few questions on this matter, I was able to contact the spokesperson for the committee in Sweden set up to support Dawit Issak. This spokesperson confirmed much of what many of my sources inside Eritrea had said. First, that Dawit Issak had never been a journalist before returning to Eritrea after independence in 1991. He had no background in journalism and had never had an article published anywhere outside of Eritrea.Second, when I asked if the Swedish support group for Dawit Issak could provide me with any evidence that he was arrested for calling for “democracy in Eritrea”, did they actually have copies of Dawits papers that contained such calls, the spokesperson admitted that they didn’t have anything Dawit had actually published in Eritrea. They were unaware of the controversy that included Dawit Issak the previous year and had not heard of the retraction and apology issued by the WAN on this issue.Apparently they decided that I wasn’t on their side on this matter, began to question my motives and declined to answer any more of what were obviously uncomfortable questions from this writer.

This experience with the Swedish support group for Dawit Issac was actually one of the more positive ones for the other human rights, press and journalist organizations that had called for Dawit Issaks’ release, including the new leadership of the WAN, all refused to talk to me or respond to my written questions.I was able to confirm from contacts I had within these organizations, before these contacts were specifically warned to not talk to me anymore, was that no one in these organizations had copies of Dawits publications to back up their charges and that my contacts couldn’t actually find anyone who had ever even met Dawit Issak in person working for these organizations.

During my next visit to Asmara in 2004 I had a chance to do a little more research in this matter and talked to some friends and family members who worked for the various Eritrean government media. What seemed to be common knowledge, and Asmara and Eritrea as a whole is a very small town sort of place, meaning it is difficult to keep anything a secret for long, is that Dawit Issak was known to frequent the American Cultural Center, run by the USA Embassy in Asmara. He, and all the other so called “free press” in Eritrea had never filed the required tax and business statement covering their finances as required by Eritrean law, in some cases for up to 7 years, something they all had been repeatedly warned to do by the Eritrean authorities.

Dawit Issak in particular had no apparent means of support for his own and his publication, was seen with considerable sums of cash in his possession, often times after having visited the American Cultural Center. There were a number of other reports about Dawit Issak and other members of the so called “free press” in Eritrea, some of which were later confirmed by articles by an American journalist who had taught ”journalism classes” in Eritrea under contract to the US State Department and its affiliated organizations like the well known CIA front the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), (which RSF has also confirmed, is a major contributor to RSF.)Historically, the USA has been hostile to Eritrea.

There exists an implacable hatred for Eritrea by the US State Department/CIA, including a rabid opposition to even the idea of an independent Eritrea going back to the early 1950’s. I have spent the last decade or so uncovering a variety of activities designed to not only discredit Eritrea but to actually support an attempt to destroy and recolonize Eritrea by Ethiopia (see “US Behind Invasion of Eritrea” Antiwar.com, june 2000) by the powers that be in the US White House and in Langley, Virginia. What I don’t understand is how supposedly educated and politically aware activists in Sweden would be so easily convinced, without any solid evidence provided them, that Dawit Issak was some sort of hero. Based on the long, sordid, criminal history of the western powers in Africa one would think that political activists would be at least a little suspicious of any one supported so vociferously by the US State Department and their allies in the various western capitals.I hope this article may start some genuine, informed debate on whether Dawit Issak, cause celebre in Sweden, is a hero or zero.

For more information and background on this matter please feel free to contact me at thomascmountain@yahoo.com or call me in asmara, eritrea at 2911184822.

fascinating story, Free Dawit Isaak.