http://m.theatlantic.com...residents-plane/263553/
Until recently, the Eritrean Air Force had a single luxury airplane, an 1970s-era
American corporate turboprop. Thanks to a
brazen act of defiance, the plane is now in
Saudi Arabia. And its pilots, two high-
ranking Air Force officers, are attempting to
defect from a government that few people
seem to want to live under -- even,
apparently, among the upper-echelons of
its military.
Isaias Afewerki, the country's longtime
dictator and the architect of one of the
most oppressive states on earth, might
have to fly commercial the next time he has
to negotiate with his rivals in neighboring
Ethiopia, or to convince foreign leaders that
his government isn't aiding al Shabaab, the
al Qeada franchise that once ruled much of
Somalia.
On October 2, the pilots, who belong to an
air force with only 350 personnel (down
from 850 in 2002, according to the
International Institute for Security Studies),
flew the plane to Saudi Arabia, where they
were met with an F-15 escort before
landing outside Jizan. Within the week, an
Eritrean delegation, which -- according to
both translated Arabic media sources and
Meron Estefanos, a prominent Eritrean exile
activist and journalist -- included pilots and
a Major General in the Eritrean military,
landed in Jeddah and attempted to get
their plane and pilots back --
unsuccessfully, it would turn out, as the the
Saudis have already refused to relinquish the asylum seekers. Their defection is a hard-to-ignore demonstration of how
deeply dysfunctional and unpopular
Afewerki's regime has become. "These are
people considered loyal by the regime and
they have planned this and executed it right under the noses of their commanders,"
Estefanos told me. "Eritreans never used to
say anything against their government,
even only a few years ago."
Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.” ― Rashi