People should commemorate Eritrea’s fight for freedom

Weldemichael is a graduate student in African studies.

By Awet T. Weldemichael

Thursday, May 24, 2001 marked an important day for people who
fought and are still fighting injustices. Ten years ago, Eritrean
independence fighters accomplished the liberation of Eritrea from
Ethiopian colonialism. Eight years ago, Eritreans confirmed their
whole-hearted support of the fighters’ success when they
voted for official independence. Last week’s celebration not
only marks Eritrea’s independence but also symbolizes that
justice is destined to eventually prevail.

Located along the African side of the Red Sea, Eritrea borders
what today are Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti in northeast Africa or
what is commonly called the Horn of Africa.

In 1890, at the peak of the “scramble for Africa”
(the process whereby European imperialists divided the continent
into respective colonies), Italy finished carving Eritrea. Although
there was a long history of migrations up until the 16th century
that created relationships between the various groups inhabiting
Eritrea, it was the integrating forces of a growing capitalist
economy, forced conscription into the Italian colonial forces, and
Italian racist policies that made Eritreans increasingly identify
with one another as a people.

Italy’s entrance into World War II brought Eritreans their
first chance for national emancipation. Great Britain promised
Eritreans the realization of their “national
aspiration” in return for their collaboration with the Allies
to defeat the Axis Powers, which included the Italians.

Eritrean soldiers in the Italian colonial army responded
positively, facilitating the defeat of the Italians in 1941 and
their smooth takeover of Eritrea by British forces. But the British
did not keep their promise. Instead of their own nation, Eritreans
experienced British colonialism throughout the war as well as
afterward.

After the second World War, its convenient location along a
vital and shorter route between the Mediterranean Sea and the
Indian Ocean, facing the oil reserves in the Middle East, and its
latitudinal positioning far from the poles gave Eritrea an
unprecedented strategic value in the context of growing Cold War
tensions.

Eritrea’s fate was further complicated by the Ethiopian
government’s claim to Eritrea for “historical”
and “security” reasons as well as Ethiopia’s
alleged right to access to the Red Sea. The rift among Eritrean
politicians (by and large engineered by Ethiopia and the British)
and their overall naivete of the dynamics of Cold War politics
conveniently played into the hands of the Ethiopian Empire.

The Soviet Union’s alarming expansionism was countered by
the U.S. “Containment” policy. The latter was geared to
firmly secure strategic spots on the globe, attempting to
continually and persistently press the Soviet Union to adjust its
foreign policy. U.S. foreign policy was revised in this light and
previous American advocacy for the respect of people’s right
to self-determination was solemnly dismissed as naive.

The United States, and later Great Britain as well, could not
afford to take the chance that a free Eritrea would align with the
U.S.S.R. Meanwhile, Ethiopia wanted to annex Eritrea and was
explicitly offering a deal with the United States whereby Ethiopia
would grant unlimited use of its territory, particularly Eritrea,
in return for U.S. support of Ethiopia’s claim to
Eritrea.

Thus, Ethiopia conspired with the United States to deny the
Eritrean people the freedom to decide their future. Ultimately, the
United Nations general assembly decided to “federate”
Eritrea with Ethiopia, an act that went into effect in 1952.

Nevertheless, the federal arrangement was lopsided from the
outset. Although Eritrea was supposedly autonomous under the
federal arrangement, Ethiopia did not respect its autonomy as it
openly eroded Eritrean pillars. The erosion eventually culminated
in the abolition of the federation and incorporation of Eritrea
into Ethiopia as a province.

The international community’s failure to speak out against
the violations of the Eritrean people’s rights left Eritreans
with no alternatives other than to take their destiny into their
own hands. They started an armed struggle in 1961. In no time,
independence fighters picked up guerrilla tactics and a
full-fledged war raged.

U.S.- and Israel-supported Ethiopia responded with repression,
terror and intimidation of innocent Eritrean civilians. The
Ethiopian army punished Eritreans in the countryside for its losses
to the guerrillas. With an attempt to “drain the water to
kill the fish,” villages were burned down and the villagers
were either killed summarily (gathered and murdered in mosques or
churches) or left to burn with their houses as Ethiopian soldiers
surrounded the villages to make sure no one escaped the blaze.

Ethiopian inability to quell the rebellion garnered intense
hatred of Eritreans. Soldiers were ordered to symbolically destroy
Eritrean roots by stabbing pregnant women with long bayonets and
pulling fetuses out of mothers’ wombs. Small children were
also thrown in the air and made to fall onto bayonets or any sharp
item capable of killing them.

In 1974 a group of young and radical army officers called the
Derg overthrew the government of Emperor Haile Sellassie. The
military, however, proved unable to quickly consolidate its power
in the Ethiopian capital and reestablish government authority in
larger parts of the country. Taking advantage of this weakness
between 1974 and 1978, the Eritrean liberation movements launched
successful offensives and controlled the entire Eritrean territory
with the exception of the capital and four other cities.

The new Ethiopian leaders continued the barbarous legacy of
their predecessors to maintain their control of the cities. Young
Eritreans were tortured to death and thrown in the streets en masse
for every city dweller to see.

The Ethiopian military leadership quickly assumed an ideological
orientation that attracted the Soviet Union. With massive Soviet
supplies of arms under his belt, Mengistu Haile Mariam, the new
military dictator of Ethiopia, launched gigantic offensives that
succeeded in dislodging the Eritrean fighters from their positions
and pushing them to the northern extreme of Eritrea.

The war and parallel repression continued for another 13 years.
Eritrean outcries to the international community repeatedly fell on
deaf ears. Thus, Eritreans had to make do alone under the harshest
oppression until the independence fighters’ successful
military campaigns reversed the set backs of the late 1970s and
early 1980s. They finally defeated the Ethiopian army in Eritrea on
May 24, 1991.

At the same time, the Eritrean elite and commando units
spearheaded the entry of the Ethiopian opposition forces into the
Ethiopian capital with the total collapse of the Ethiopian
dictatorship.

May 24, 1991 heralded the silencing of the artillery in one of
the longest-fought wars on the African continent. It also marks an
end to repression and brought the opportunity for the Eritrean
people to decide their future without intimidation and terror.

In 1993, in an internationally-supervised referendum, the
Eritrean people voted for independence with an overwhelming
majority of 99.8 percent of the vote. On May 24, 1993, Eritrea
finally gained official independence against all odds and lit the
torch of hope for freedom and peace for oppressed peoples in the
region and around the world at large.

As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Eritrea’s hard-won
liberation and eighth anniversary of official independence, we call
upon all peoples who have carried and are still carrying the brunt
of war and repression to rejoice. Even the worst brutality has its
limits ““ crusades for justice and peace can never be
defeated.