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The Cloning of Badme

Written by Abeba Isahac

Saturday, 24 November 2007

I wonder how many can remember, way back, when the woyane were sulking and brooding over the final judgment that had come from the Hague, and when their allies and friends of the western world had, as a consolation present, and also in order to rescue the situation, had offered to build for the woyane, a replica of Badme; if not one even more modern and more beautiful than the existing Eritrean one.

Although so much has changed and happened since then, I wonder how many of us remember those brief phenomenal times when the woyane allies then, unlike today, had actually wanted to help resolve and expedite the demarcation process. Whatever happened to that offer!

Why I am asking this, is because of the repeated lame excuses we have been getting from the woyane as well as from their handlers, and most recently from Jendayi Frazer, the reason, among countless other reasons, behind the need for a dialogue with Eritrea, before demarcation can take place. There is apparently this fear and worry they seem to repeat ad-nauseam about people having to move, to be separated, or leaving behind sentimental values, such as the land, churches and ancestral graves, after the demarcation has been put in place on the ground. This they say is the reason behind the need for a dialogue before demarcation.

For a group of people who have unceremoniously deported thousands of Eritreans in the middle of the night, some of whom knew no other home than Ethiopia, without having the decency to even give them a chance to put on some clothes over their backs, and at that, separating husband from wife and children from their parents; and for the same group to have dug out the bones of Eritrean martyrs from their graves, just for the fun of strewing them as an in-your face gesture, and then went to bomb a church, for such type of evil people to speak about human rights and sentimental values, is, to say the least, extraordinary and beyond comprehension.

The Eritreans who were deported were being displaced too, while at the same time they were robbed of their livelihood and lifelong, and sometimes of generations of earnings and investments. They were forced to start their lives all over again from scratch. Until today families remain separated and for some their whereabouts is unknown. Rumors have it that the woyane just abandoned some of the Eritrean children to fend for themselves in the streets – to turn them into beggars. These are the group of people who speak about separation and loss as though they cared.

Another thing I remember is a program that had started in 2003 when hunger and famine had become rampant in Ethiopia. They had set up a program in which to start resettling 2.2 million Ethiopian farmers from overcrowded, low-yield agricultural areas, to a lesser populated and more fertile land. According to reports, the scheme was part of the government's plan to solve recurring hunger problems and increase agricultural production. It is reported that in 2003, during the pilot phase of the program, more than 150,000 Ethiopians were moved from their ancestral homes to foreign areas, leaving behind undoubtedly many sentimentally valued objects such as is being claimed of the Badme squatters.

If the woyane leader did not bat an eye about resettling all those people, then what is his worry about a fewer others leaving a land that does not even belong to them? We have to agree here that those people that the woyane and Jendayi Frazer are worried about are not rightful heirs of the land that they sit on, and that the rightful owners had been made to live in make shift places waiting for the courts to decide for them. Now that the international court has spoken, it seems to me that the Eritreans which had been forced out of their homes should go back to their land; and the squatters should leave to where ever they came from. It is also not a secret that some of the Badme settlers are recent comers i.e since the verdict was out. Either let their allies from the international community build them a new Badme, as they had promised, or resettle them somewhere else as many thousands of other Ethiopians have been forced to do. What is so special about the squatters who live in Badme, anyway?

So Jendayi Frazer need not have asked Bolton to lie before the Security Council on behalf of the woyane. This woman does not seem to have much understanding about the whole situation and she has been making blunder after blunder to the shame of those who sent her to represent them. She even never quite understood the meaning of the words ex acquo et bono which were key words in how the judgment was going to come out. We have all learned of its meaning since the agreement was signed between the two nations in the year 2000. But Jendayi Frazer shamelessly went around from interview to interview misleading people of its true meaning. I guess she only knew what the woyane leader had told her it meant, and probably he too had no idea of its meaning. These two are birds of the same feather.

To come back to our main topic, what is this all about people being separated and moved? It would be nice if the woyane and their handlers could be more specific and let us know what is so special about the squatters in Badme and why they should not be moved in order to accommodate the rightful owners of the land. Has Jendayi Frazer ever thought about the internally displaced Eritreans, or is she only concerned about the Badme squatters? And then, whatever happened to the construction of a new Badme? Have the woyane friends changed their mind? If they care so much as to ask Eritrea to let go of land from her already tiny nation, why don’t they just go ahead and build a new Badme for their friends where Ethiopia has the space to spare. As far as land is concerned, there is plenty in Ethiopia, whereas Eritrea cannot afford to give anything of hers.

So where does the problem lie in this vastly fertile land endowed country called Ethiopia, which, with the right leadership and friends, should have been able to feed Africa instead of forever claiming hunger and living on handouts from foreign nations, becoming entrapped in their debt and having to become their pawn, and in the process shaming their people as well as their neighborhood.

The anticipated answer is of course “well, we had to resettle 2.2 million mal nourished or hungry people – it was an emergency” But the question is not why they were resettled, but rather the question is, what is the difference between them and the Badme squatters? In other words, moving has not so far hurt anyone, and sentimentality has no place here, but being internally displaced and losing your land and home has hurt many Eritreans and they need to reclaim their lands and home as soon as possible. That too is an emergency!

The international community has to understand that Eritrea does not occupy Ethiopian land, while the opposite is true of the woyane who illegally occupy sovereign undisputed Eritrean land in addition to Badme. This is not a time to feel sorry for occupiers, but rather for those whose homes and land has been forcefully and illegally taken away from them and left them to live in make shift places. Why, if Jendayi Frazer really came as an unbiased observer, does she not take into consideration the displaced Eritreans who are waiting to go home? What did she accomplish by going through the back door, just to see the area, and as a result came to the conclusion that a change of administration was needed in Eritrea which she falsely labeled as a terrorist nation just because a red carpet was not rolled out for her anticipated arrival in Asmara. She never saw the internally displaced Eritreans but had the guts to try and overturn and reverse the EEBC’s final decision.

We have repeatedly tried to draw the attention of the international community to this fact umpteen times, but for some sinister and devious reasons, it always seems to fall on deaf ears. So we ask it again. Why have the internally displaced Eritreans been forgotten? And more importantly, why are they being threatened by yet another war before the consequences of the last war have even started to wear off?

With truth as her only weapon, Eritrea will ultimately prevail