Washington March’s historic significance: Part 2

The people of Eritrea have a sense of their own history.

The state of Eritrea is only 18 years old. Even under this repressive system, it continues to exert a fascination with its crimeless streets (leaving aside the state violation which has no parallel in history), with marine life of assortment of fishes along 1000 km cost line, with its remarkable art-deco buildings and lots of minerals with gold in Bisha (the Western Lowlands) being exploited by Canadian mine company. The Canadian company exemplifies Western Countries greed in propping up repressive regimes for profit motives.

Needless to say today Eritrea is in a tragic situation. All the familiar goals in life are snatched away from the people. Democratic institutions are abolished. The Eritrean youth, nicknamed “Warsay” are denied normal life of pursuing their education, a career of their choice and paid employment to help their ageing parents and build their own family by getting married and have children.

In spite of all that the people of Eritrea have not lost the sense of their own history. For a long time the youth have been duped and blackmailed into believing that Ethiopia with the help of USA would invade Eritrea. They are put on a permanent stand-by in the battle front line. However 9 years has already passed since December 2000 when peace was signed between President Isaias Afewerki and Prime Minster Meles Zenawi and no sign of a threat of invasion. The youth reluctantly tolerated these bondage partly because they were afraid to loose the hard won Eritrean Independence.

But for Isaias it is a mere ploy an excuse to control the youth so that they would not rebel against him. At first the people were not aware that Isaias is demonizing “Weyane” and USA as an escape goat for his own survival. But then it became too late for collective protest because he nibbed in the bud any association independent of the Government such as The Asmara University Students Union and the Eritrean Employers Federation (EEF) and consolidated his power by putting yes-men and opportunists in positions of responsibility. Like the president of the University students Union the chairman of EEF was also jailed and EEF was put under control.

Therefore, attacking Ethiopian Government and America has become a viable strategy of evoking fear and confusion on the people so that they become complacent of the pain and suffering they sustain. The recent interviews with foreign correspondents and TV-ERE has confirmed all these machinations.

The two outspoken roaming ambassador of the regime, Professor Gideon Abay and Sophia Tesfamariam are entrusted to promote this policy in the Diaspora.

During the London Mekete Rally, in February 2008 Gideon made USA and The United Kingdom his main focus of attack. He said everything against Eritrea is conceived in Britain, nourished in America and implemented in Ethiopia. This is an insult to the intelligence of the Diaspora living in Britain, a country which is giving sanctuaries to thousands of Eritrean who are victims of PFDJ human rights violations.

What kind of a moral cowardice and dishonesty the participants must have had to tolerate and remain silent when the country that provides them sanctuary is attacked in order to cover up and justify repression in Eritrea.

The Origin of the Eritrean Struggle:

The Eritrean struggle was long and bitter and a lot of sacrifices have been paid. The fact that it is characterized as “against all odds.” reflects the real life situation in that moment in time.

During the federation period every move by the government of Ethiopia conspired to make the people of Eritrea lose their rights. All the democratic institutions such as the political parties, trade unions, free press which the Eritrean people were already familiar with were banned. This was done in order to prevent democracy from spreading to the rest of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian feudal regime was concerned that Eritrea having its parliament, free press would be a bad example for the rest of the Ethiopian Empire. This the Emperor did with high level advisors such as John Spencer and Ullundorf who later became an advisor to the Emperor. To eradicate the concept of democracy the Emperor nibbed the Federal system in the bud.

In Alemeseged Tesfai’s book in Tigrinya titled “Federation between Eritrea and Ethiopia from Matenzo to Tedla 1951 -1955), there was a chapter which is titled, “Omar Kadi and the Demise of the Federal Council”. The Federal Council was formed by 5 Ethiopians and 5 Eritreans of whom the honourable Omer Kadi was one.

Blata Mohamed Omer Kadi – has left a written account of how the Federal Council was aborted. He said they went to Addis Ababa and stayed in a hotel from December 1952 to April 1953 to meet with the Emperor in order to start their work. They were not allowed audience with the Emperor and returned back to Eritrea empty handed. To make matters worse the Ethiopian Government formed the Eritrean Court and appointed judges without their knowledge or consultation. Omer Kadi wrote a long letter to Ali Redai, the chairman of the Eritrean Assembly saying that, “On the basis of Federal Act No.130 of 1953, it was the Federal Council which should organize the judicial system, the high court and the appointments of judges in Eritrea.” He wrote, “What has been done is illegal.” He expressed his opinion that bit by bit the federation is rendered useless. For doing the work he is appointed to do, Mohamed Omer Kadi was branded as an enemy of Ethiopia.

All protests, demonstrations were met by imprisonment, torture and other forms of human rights violations. What remains for the Eritrean politicians and activists in that moment in time is “the last of human freedom”- the courage to “choose one’s attitude or the next step in a given set of difficult circumstances?”

The only option the Eritrean politicians saw was the road to armed struggle. Many, Like Ibrahim Sultan and Woldeab Woldemariam, and many other went into exile instead of living in humiliation, with no freedom of expression, with no democratic institutions such as political parties, trade and student unions that protect their collective interests.

To be fair the people in that moment in time, happily or sadly, the decision of the federation by the UN was accepted by the Eritrean people as compromise and fait-a-compli. Therefore, in real terms it is the Ethiopian regime which had sown the seeds of rebellion in Eritrea. Today History is repeating itself; the PFDJ has taken the same path by abolishing all democratic institutions for which the people paid a lot of sacrifices. The long struggle even though it is expressed in nationalist terms is to empower the people by claiming the right to self-determination and put back in place all the democratic institution taken away by the Emperor. Such democratic ideals which are the bases of civility, peace and progress have been betrayed by Isaias. Isaias has become a leader defined by his unpopularity and an enemy of democracy. The reason why I have put my confidence at EGS is because it has a structure and a long term agenda to raise the level of consciousness of the population in the long journey to democracy. However, the PFDJ disinformation and control freak has given rise to all sorts of conspiracy theories some of the theories has the power of undermining or distorting the history of Eritrea like that of Yosief Gebrehiwot, Tekeste Negash and from the Ethiopian side Professor Daniel Kindee And others such as Ali Salem & Co. by belittling the challenges of today and focus on a secondary contradiction that can best be addressed once Eritrea becomes a democracy. (More of that on my next article).

When Saleh AA Younis wrote his article titled “The Spark, the Fire and The Torch” Yosief Gebrehiwet understood it as a “strained Justification.” On the contrary Saleh came with a dose of realism that was lacking in Yosief’s otherwise eloquent type of analysis. Yosief failed to capture the reasons that gave rise to revolutions and chose to blame the Eritrean people for romanticizing Ghedli, and deal with the subject out of its historical context. Younis just depicted the 30 years struggle in chronological orders or you may call it stages in the way it happened. He was not judgemental because it is presumptuous to judge in retrospective people who rose up to challenge repression.

During the election for American presidency the rap-star Jay-Z supported Obama throughout his presidential campaign, giving a series of fundraising concerts. Addressing the young black voters hitherto uninterested in elections he would go,

“Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama is running so we all can fly.”

Drawing an analogy with Saleh’s triangle theory, we find the American Civil rights movement expressed in three stages like that of Younus analysing Eritrea. The spark was the day the legendary Idris Awate shot the first shot in Adal. The spark in civil rights movement was a black woman, Rosa Park, who refused to sit at the back of the bus because she was black. This represents a spark in the civil rights movement in America. What followed then is the fire, the campaign of sit-ins, marches and other forms of struggle. A lot of sacrifices have been paid; many young blacks were lynched, people imprisoned and assassinated in the process. The torch is the election of America’s first black head of state.

Saleh Younus had drawn a comparison with other liberation fronts, because it is when compared to others movement that the Eritrean struggle could be appreciated. Compare it to the case of Congo. In the 60s the process of de-colonization in Congo triggered the biggest cold war confrontation on the continent as well as setting off the war of National Liberation in Neighbouring Angola. The Congo crises were finally resolved when a regime in favour of the West took over the mantle of Government. The socialist Patrice Lumumba was killed and a pro-West army officer named Joseph Mobutu Sese Seko emerged as the nation’s strong man. His corrupt and dictatorial regime, supported by the USA as a bulwark against communism represented the critical example to what extent the USA has gone in propping up African repressive regimes for three decades. Even today the people of Congo do not own their own natural resources. The people live in abject poverty while their diamonds is exploited by international corporations who had their own army and airfields to ship the diamonds out.

The Congo crises happened during the cold war. The Eritrean crises happened at the same historical epoch so the struggle is bound to be long and difficult. The entire Ethiopian army was trained and armed by the United States because Ethiopia became an ally and the corner stone of the American policy in the Horn. Yet again the USSR supplied the brutal dictator Mengustu Hailemariam with 5 billion US dollar worth of armaments to repel the Somalia invasion of Ethiopia and defeat the ELF and the EPLF in 1977-78.

It is against these odds that the independent of Eritrea is achieved. Unfortunately the “independent” of Eritrea that we treasured and paid huge sacrifices are not what we wished to be, it is being betrayed.

Today like yesterday there will be a spark or sparks before the people rise up into full rebellion or civil disobedience. My first article titled, “The Washington Freedom March is a spark of a sort” does not exclude many other sparks because the struggle for change is bound to be protracted.