Some victims of the EPLF's secret party : Eritrean People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP)

1. Mehari Gheberemichael: A relatively young fellow and not a veteran by comparison. He joined the front in 1974.  He discovered that there was a secret party within the EPLF when he stumbled upon a document in a martyr’s pack (bishiklit). He was dumbfounded by the material and asked a friend who co-incidentally happened to be a party member. The party member told him everything and advised him not to talk to anyone about the issue and endanger his life.  The poor fellow could not safeguard the entire secret. He could have, like the story in the Greek legend, buried th never thought of digging a hole on the ground and buried the secret.  He didn’t: the burden was too much, and he committed suicide. This was the explanation I got from a friend who was in Filfil Selemuna at that time.

2. Arefaine Tesfahgabr: A youngster of the first Fitewrari generation, he served in Fah, the then capital of Isaias Afwerki, for about three years after which he was transferred as a radio communication officer in Filfil Selemuna under Asmerom Gherezghiher (Hawi Bichir), who is now a Major General. This guy was a sort of a mathematician that he could have even solved the enigma code used by the Nazis in World War II. As an operator he decoded all standard messages and was very smart in decoding enemy messages. By the time he was serving with Asmerom he had already known that there was a secret party and Asmerom was the regional chief. He received a coded message from Asmerom to be sent to Isayas. The message when decoded read: “It is good that we put the tin into the barrel.” The reply from Isayas was, “The tin takes a lot of water, and therefore we should wait until we talk about it.”  Arefaine was smart and solved it in no time: it concerned the entry of Estifanos Bruno to the secret party. Isaias was saying: Bruno drinks a lot and it is not advisable that he join the party now. In the long run, Arefaine could no longer hold the secret and confided to a friend the existence of the secret party. His friend was much worse and started hallucinating during his sleep and became sort of a lunatic. Finally he started blurting out the secrets told to him by Arefaine. After a few days Arefaine committed suicide; the guy who was hallucinating was later transferred to Sahel and no one ever heard about him.

3 Angesom of brigade 51 told his girl friend, Asheberet, about the presence of a 'party'. She in turn tells the 'secret' to a certain Woldu. At this point, the security network got hold of the matter and arrested the three. Angesom was tortured to death. To this day, all what the fighters know about Angesom is that he died a natural death.

Source EPLF an inside story (Teclai Ghebre-Mariam (Teclai Aden)