The government of Canada -- or rather our ministries of both foreign affairs and immigration -- have denied a visa to the foreign minister of Eritrea on grounds that he participated in Eritrea's war of liberation against the tyrannical Marxist regime of Ethiopia that ended 17 years ago.

Foreign Minister Osman Saleh was denied a visa to visit Canada's large Eritrean community because (according to a letter delivered to Eritrea's ambassador in Nairobi, Kenya, from the Canadian counsellor): "You were a member of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) between 1979 and 1991 ... a group that engaged in the subversion of a government by force."

The letter added: "Canadian federal court jurisprudence confirms that membership in a group that attempts to subvert even a despotic government is sufficient to render inadmissibility."

Holy mackerel! It was a war that the EPLF was fighting -- and won in 1991, gaining independence and sovereignty in 1993. It is now a member of the African Union. (Eritrea had been an Italian African colony and after World War II the UN made Ethiopia its "guardian").

It was a war the Tigryan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) also fought -- and won -- against Ethiopia's homicidal regime of Col. Hariam Mengistu. The TPLF leader, Meles Zenawi, is now Ethiopia's PM - and presumably would also be denied a visa to Canada for "subverting" an existing government.

Most of the countries of Africa, at one time or another, overthrew the previous existing government by coup or force.

By the standards applied to the Eritrean foreign minister, Canada should deny a visa to Nelson Mandela because he was a member of the African National Congress (ANC) seeking to subvert the white apartheid government of South Africa. Today Mandela is an honorary Canadian citizen.

With what seemed a sigh of relief, a Canadian foreign ministry spokesman said the visa decision was not theirs, but the immigration department's.

An immigration spokesman acknowledged she knew of the Eritrean case, but "I can't speak to specific cases" (privacy and all that). As far as she was concerned, the case stands. She said the only one who could give permission to speak about the case would be the prime minister.

Eritrea's ambassador to Canada, Ahfrom Berhame, is puzzled and appalled at the Canadian decision. He said foreign minister Salah meets all the qualifications to be accepted, and to call the EPLF a "subversive organization" makes no sense, since it comprises the core of the Eritrean government today.

"We have always had good relations with Canada," he said.

"Canadian businesses operate in Eritrea. Your soldiers were peacekeepers after the 1998 border war with Ethiopia. In the war of liberation, my wife was a fighter. I was a fighter. We were all EPLF. Why is Canada doing this?"

The Eritrean government is indignant, and its foreign ministry noted that some nations were "slow" to take cold war references to African rebels off their old terrorist lists -- as U.S. lawmakers recently did by removing the "terrorist" designation for Nelson Mandela.

Their foreign ministry called it "an unheard act from a country that enjoys full diplomatic ties with Eritrea (that) would, in itself, construe an embarrassing aberration in diplomatic conduct. What makes it more horrendous is, however, the reasons ... given to explain their provocative act."

In condemning what it called "this hostile act," Eritrea wonders if it is "sheer ignorance by a junior government official, or a deliberate desire by the government of Canada to desecrate Eritrea's legitimate struggle against colonial occupation that exacted more than 60,000 of our best sons and daughters?"

One hopes it is the former. At very least an apology seems in order -- unless Canada knows something about foreign minister Saleh that no one else does.

More on Eritrea from PETER WORTHINGTON

Eritrean president may not be a fun guy, but he's ...
As unique as his country

By PETER WORTHINGTON -- Toronto Sun

In some ways, the world's most interesting "leader" today is 53-year-old Isaias Afewerki, president of the UN's newest independent state, Eritrea.

He is as unique as his country, unlike other heads of state.

When I met him in early December in Asmara, he was obviously more interested in working than talking. The BBC had been waiting weeks for an interview, but somehow I jumped the queue. In journalism, as in love or war, you sometimes don't ask why, but just take advantage of opportunity.

At around six-foot-two, Isaias is good looking, doesn't stand on ceremony, dislikes neckties, is not surrounded by bodyguards or flunkies and has little patience with small talk. He is courteous, soft-spoken, exudes confidence and gives the impression that his every waking moment is devoted to solving his country's problems.

I doubt if he's much fun, or has much fun. But that's a guess.
Asmara's main street, formerly Haile Selassie Ave., now Independence Ave. -- Peter Worthington, SUN

Until he became president after the defeat of the Ethiopian army, Isaias was a guerrilla war leader who at age 20 dropped out of engineering at university in Addis Ababa to fight. He joined the ELF (Eritrean Liberation Front) and was soon dismayed at the religious, ethnic and clan rivalries that hindered unified action.

Disillusioned, he broke away to help form the Marxist-oriented EPLF (Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front) which stressed organization, unity, central command, discipline and wouldn't tolerate internal feuds or ethnic/religious favouritism.

As a battlefield strategist Isaias (as he's known to every Eritrean) was brilliant. His "protracted war" strategy for fighting the Soviets and Cubans when they threw their might in with Ethiopia, was a result of studying guerrilla war in Mao Tse-tung's China. It was the EPLF which literally destroyed the most powerful army in Africa and won independence for Eritrea.

Extraordinarily, Isaias comfortably made the transition to peace. "In a liberation war you have one major obstacle ... (while) in peace you face challenges from all directions and their magnitude is tremendous," he's been quoted as saying.

Even though he's now in a new war with Ethiopia, he's led Eritrea into becoming the most peaceful, harmonious, least corrupt country in Africa where ethnic, religious and cultural disputes are muted. Clan and religious loyalties have been channelled into Eritrean nationalism.

Whether this will last, is debatable (some diplomats are sure he'll eventually fail). But at the moment Eritrea, perched on the Red Sea bordering Sudan and Ethiopia, is the hope of Africa as far as developing a pluralistic, democratic, law-abiding society free from the curse of Africa -- endemic corruption and tribal violence.

I met Isaias after I had travelled the disputed border areas where an Ethiopian army of about 200,000 is facing a battle-tested army of Eritrean "fighters" -- men and women.

Articulate, he seems to have clearly defined positions on every issue and is without false vanity (no pictures or photographs of the president adorn government offices or posters -- rare modesty for Africa).

He seems to view the border war with Ethiopia mostly as an irritant that diverts him from concentrating on social and economic problems and moving closer to democratic ideals.

"Ethiopia's actions are motivated by politics," he said. "Settling where the border is or isn't is simple, and doesn't need a war. It was defined by the Italians years ago and is accepted internationally. The border is not the issue."

At issue is the neighbouring province of Tigre, which once wanted independence "but when the Mengistu regime was collapsing, Tigreans (led by their leader Meles Zinawi) saw opportunity and marched on Addis and took control." Meles is now Ethiopia's prime minister and Tigreans are said to control all important ministries.

Whatever the reasons for the war, they have "backfired." The Ethiopian army of peasant conscripts has no stomach for tangling again with Eritrea which cleaned their clock last time.

Isaias thinks Ethiopia's "ethnic cleansing," the forcible deportation of Ethiopians with Eritrean links, is so harsh and unfair that some see a revival of an attitude they thought was finished when Mengistu was overthrown.

"In fact, Meles and the Tigreans are continuing the empire-building policies of Haile Selassie and Mengistu, and they'll fail," Isaias says, adding that he'd like international adjudication but refuses to withdraw fighters from what he considers Eritrean territory.

Isaias is animated when he talks about the dangers of foreign aid, and thinks aid programs can be a device whereby donor countries can influence and manipulate recipient countries and make them dependent. With aid comes corruption.

"There've been enough examples to show this, even though there may be some misguided goodwill in aid programs. We welcome help, but we must be responsible to ourselves, and not to foreign agencies."

He also notes that huge loans mean huge debts to repay.
Isaias Afewerki: President of Eritrea

Ironically, the EPLF's original Marxist doctrine has given way to pragmatism, realism, recognition of human nature.

Isaias has admitted: "Ideals I entertained 20 years ago don't work. There are things you can't do because of human nature. Experience makes me more realistic."

He's disillusioned with all "isms" which he feels lead to disappointment. "Once you become obsessed with trying to live up to certain idealistic doctrines, you close your mind to new ideas and new methods ... You lose flexibility."

He's also noted that while still committed to improving living standards, it's more difficult than he once believed.

"It's impossible to make a poor man rich by simply wishing it," he once told journalist Dan Connell. "What must be done is give (the poor man) opportunity to do something for himself."

The miracle of Isaias is that he escaped Marxist dogma. He shocked his Marxist colleagues during the war when Lenin was being quoted to support an argument, and Isaias quietly interjected: "Maybe Lenin was wrong" -- unthinkable heresy to communists.

When Eritrea joined the Organization of African Unity (OAU), instead of conventional platitudes, Isaias lambasted the organization for only attacking European colonialism, never doing much to help Africa, for lavish spending, for holding innumerable costly and useless meetings, for ignoring the curse of Africa which, along with endemic corruption, is tribalism or "ethnicity."

"It wasn't diplomatic, but it sure was refreshing!" said one diplomat. And true.

The only time during our interview Isaias allowed himself a smile was at the end when I said I knew how to increase the amount of money foreigners spend in Eritrea, with no risk of losing control.

"Oh?" he said, mildly curious. "How?"

"By allowing credit cards. People with credit cards spend more than they should because it doesn't seem like money." (With frustratingly few exceptions, Eritrea does not take credit cards).

He frowned: "We have other things that take priority ... "

"You don't have to do anything -- just tell the banks. They'll do it. Banks rule the world anyway."

Isaias smiled. A nice smile. He should do it more often.

 December 27, 1998

Needless war engulfs a unique African oasis

... but hope for democracy, stability and security still alive
By PETER WORTHINGTON -- Toronto Sun

In Africa, a continent racked with wars, revolutions and repression and increasingly regarded as an economic and social basket case, there is one country that is reversing the trend and today is the democratic hope of the continent.

It is Eritrea, the newest African state and UN member, about the size of England (or Florida) with a population roughly that of Toronto (3.5 million), situated on the Red Sea, above the Horn of Africa, bordered by Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

Not many know much about Eritrea; even fewer care.

It's too bad, because Eritrea is unique in Africa, if not the developing world. It got full independence in 1993 after winning a 30-year struggle against Ethiopian dominance that turned into a full-scale war when emperor Haile Selassie was assassinated in 1974 after a military coup led by a homicidal Marxist, Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam.

Prior to World War II, Eritrea had been an Italian colony since the 1880s, then under British control when the Brits clobbered the Italians in 1941. The UN ruled in 1952 that Ethiopia should have "trusteeship" over an autonomous Eritrea. Ten years later Ethiopia forcibly annexed Eritrea -- igniting the struggle for independence.

That's a capsulized history of events.
Deja vu ... Memories of a decade ago, our man Worthington revisits Eritrea, Africa's newest state and UN member. Below, Peter strikes a pose for democracy on his last visit.

But not the real story.

Independent since 1993, Eritrea is once again at war with Ethiopia, which claims ownership of some of Eritrea's border.

It seems nutty to outsiders -- and to Eritreans -- but wars often start for goofy reasons -- witness a murder in Sarajevo in 1914.

The present war aside, Eritrea is so unusual that experienced observers -- diplomats, aid workers, journalists -- have difficulty accepting that what they see is real and can last.

Since it won independence at a cost of some 250,000 lives, Eritrea has confounded experts and reversed a trend in Africa that has been depressingly and persistently gloomy since the first country (Ghana) achieved independence from British colonial rule in 1956.

I've just returned from Eritrea, seeing the war zones, consulting diplomats, aid workers, Ethiopians, President Isaias Afewerki, and ordinary people. As one who has reported from a score of African countries over the past 40 years, I've no hesitation saying that Eritrea is unlike anything I've encountered in Africa.

After his first visit to the capital of Asmara, journalist Frans van der Houdt, with 14 years of covering Africa for a Dutch news agency, remarked: "I'd just about given up on Africa as hopeless, until seeing this country. Now I have renewed hope."

Aside from the trauma and potential harm of another war (which Eritrea would surely win if it became serious) what makes Eritrea so special is how it is adjusting to peace and taking a moral lead in Africa. Consider:

Asmara is the most civilized city in Africa, despite Eritrea being one of the poorest countries. In 1993 the World Bank figured the average annual income was $75-$150, and life expectancy was age 50. There is no begging, little crime, streets are clean and safe.

Asmara is a pretty Italian-style city of 400,000 with a palm-lined main street, sidewalk cafes, espresso machines and no building higher than seven storeys.

Eritrea has no political prisoners (itself an oddity), there is no corruption in high places, no government limousines, bribery is unknown, all the "leaders" live modestly -- some without pay.

Eritrea refuses to accept unlimited foreign aid, which it feels is corrupting; it won't accept big loans (which have to be repaid with interest), thus refusing to mortgage itself to international banks. Religious aid is accepted only if it's secular.

It is the most "multicultural" and ethnically diverse country in Africa, with eight distinct and esoteric language groups (Nara, Tigrinya, Bilien, Kunama, Afar, Saho and others you also never heard of). It's equally divided between Christian and Muslim with some Animism, yet is a secular state where all passionately, selflessly, proudly, confidently endorse their "Eritrean" identity.

An internal revolution has been won for women, who have mostly achieved equality from traditional feudalism where culturally they were regarded as "chattel." The law now gives women full equality with rights of land ownership, choosing mates and making their own decisions on divorce. Arranged child marriages (age nine or 10) are forbidden, and husbands must share property with wives and kids. The horror of genital mutilation (euphemistically called female circumcision and infibulation) is ending for women.

There is national service for everyone between 18 and 45, men and women. On the frontlines today in the disputed border areas where an estimated 200,000 Ethiopian soldiers are poised, women and their AK-47s are with men in the trenches -- only this time without the Afro hairdos and shorts that distinguished them in the liberation war.

Today hairstyles vary and all wear camouflage uniforms.

How women have blended into the army, where they're all still proudly called "fighters" rather than soldiers, is unprecedented (and something the damn fools who run the Canadian army might study and learn from).

The last thing Africa -- and Ethiopia and Eritrea -- needs is another war. Yet that's what has happened -- another unknown war, like its 30-year struggle, during which Canada supported the dreadful Mengistu regime with aid and branded Eritreans fighting for independence as "rebels" (as the CBC liked to call them).

If it weren't so unpleasant, the present "war" over apparently barren and empty land would have overtones of the great novel Scoop by Evelyn Waugh, which was inspired by Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. However it's become sinister, what with Ethiopia "ethnically cleansing" itself of some 40,000 Eritreans who lived and worked in Ethiopia, some of them for all their lives.

Last spring Ethiopia's parliament in essence declared war and bombed Asmara, while Eritrea retaliated without formally declaring war. Through it all, Eritrea has so far remained something of a paragon of patience, resolve and even democracy, while bloodying Ethiopia's nose.

Unlike other African countries, Eritrea spends little on the trappings of power. President Isaias is informal, preferring open-neck shirts and occasionally having a drink in a local bar across the street from his modest presidential offices. (People recall that when the Congo's controversial and brutal President Laurent Kabila visited Eritrea, Isaias suggested a drink and much to the horror of Kabila's bodyguards and perhaps Kabila himself, Isaias took him across the street to a bar)
HEROES ... The guerrillas of the past leave a lasting impression to this day in this so-called war.

All over Eritrea roads are being repaired, new roads and houses built. Education is a priority, with English mandatory ("knowing English is a passport to the world," a teacher told me in 1988). Asmara's main street, Independence Avenue (renamed from Haile Selassie Avenue), has been turned into a mall with only taxis and buses allowed. Curiously, it must have more photo shops, bars and public pay phones than any other African city.

Starvation has been replaced with flourishing markets. To a Westerner, the country is astonishingly inexpensive. Credit cards are not used, except in one hotel, which is a problem if the tourist trade expands as Eritreans hope. In short Eritrea is an oasis of hope for democracy, stability, security.

My interest in Eritrea dates back to 1988 when I was with the barefoot guerrilla army of the EPLF (Eritrean People's Liberation Front) along with Toronto's Rob Roy, doing a TV documentary on that war and the Ethiopian famine.

We had the privilege -- luck -- of being the only Western journalists who witnessed the EPLF rout of an Ethiopian corps in the war's most decisive battle, now immortalized in Eritrean folklore as the Battle of Afabet. Some 20,000 Ethiopian soldiers were killed -- one third of the total Ethiopian army in Eritrea.

Afabet rates as one of history's decisive battles; the biggest battle in Africa since the British 8th Army routed Field Marshal Rommel's Afrika Corps at el Alamein in World War II. To Eritreans today, Afabet rates as the Battle of Kursk does to Russians, when Hitler's tank army was destroyed and the tide of war changed.

Roy and I saw and photographed 10,000 bedraggled Ethiopian prisoners. We also found stacks of bags of Canadian flour, a "gift of the Canadian people" to the starving of Ethiopians, in the kitchens of the Ethiopian army. Gallon cans of cooking oil from the U.S. and Europe supposedly for starving refugees, were also in army kitchens and village stores.

Afabet was the pivotal battle of the war. For miles, the mountain road and desert plains were littered with the charred remains of Soviet armour, trucks, guns. Ethiopian dead littered the scenery, desiccating in the dry heat.
A "gift of the Canadian people" supposedly donated to starving refugees.

Being with these guerrillas left a lasting impression.

Movement was mostly at night, sleeping in caves and hollowed mountains to avoid Ethiopian airstrikes. The EPLF had constructed a 1,000-bed hospital inside a mountain, complete with dental and plastic surgery, operating theatres (every type of operation except heart surgery) and labs that produced penicillin and medical drugs according to world standards.

The Eritreans established a hidden factory that churned out plastic sandals for the "fighters," 30% of whom were women. (The EPLF refused to call themselves "soldiers" because that implied a permanent occupation.) Women went into battle with men, some as platoon leaders and both killed and were killed alongside men.

The "liberation war" was fought without military aid from the U.S. or Soviet Union, or any country. Eritrean weapons all were captured from the Soviet/Cuban/East German-supplied Ethiopians. At Afabet, as at other battles, captured Soviet tanks and artillery were turned around and used immediately against the Ethiopians which boasted the largest, best-equipped modern army in Africa. Three Soviet military advisers were captured at Afabet.

The Ethiopians were driven from Eritrea in 1991 and Mengistu sought asylum in Zimbabwe, courtesy of his ideological soulmate, Robert Mugabe, who is in the process of screwing up Zimbabwe. Mengistu resides in that country today.

The feat of 3.5 million Eritreans thrashing a country of 58 million, using the enemy's own weapons, remains remarkable and unprecedented -- the first successful "war of liberation" in Africa against an African oppressor rather than a colonial power.

Ethiopia has always been revered as the only country in Africa that escaped European colonization. Until he was murdered, Haile Selassie was regarded (wrongly) by Westerners (as well as by Jamaican Rastafarians) as something of a deity when, in fact, he was a feudal imperialist.

That was then, this is now.

Eritrea deserves better than another war, and deserves support and encouragement -- which it is not getting, and has never received from Canada or the U.S. which have always opted to back Ethiopia. Maybe this will change.

 Monday, December 28, 1998

Menace of foreign aid

Effective relief needed for poverty-stricken countries
By PETER WORTHINGTON -- Toronto Sun

What makes Eritrea - that coastal country on the Red Sea next to Ethiopia -- the most unusual in Africa, if not the world, is that it doesn't like foreign aid.

Unusual, too, in that while it's the world's newest independent state (1993) and one of Africa's poorest countries, it's also the safest, least corrupt, most self-reliant. This, despite being engaged in a border dispute with Ethiopia, whom it defeated in war and won independence from a decade ago.

Compare Eritrea to, say, South Africa, arguably the most dangerous country in Africa: As far as crime and internal violence are concerned, Eritrea is tranquility. It has nothing, yet it has everything; its citizens like one another.
Women make up 30% of the Eritrean army -- in the front line with men, even commanding platoons. Inset, a woman soldier has a "V" for victory tattooed on her arm. Photos by Peter Worthington, SUN

Due to its wartime experiences when it was abandoned by most of the outside world, Eritrea has developed a spirit of confidence and self-reliance that some interpret as neo-arrogance and friendly paranoia. They listen to advice, but decide for themselves.

Through Isaias Afewerki, its wartime leader and now president, Eritrea has taken a lead in Africa with regards to foreign aid and women's rights which other countries, and not only African ones, could benefit by studying.

Eritrea believes foreign aid breeds both corruption and dependency. Although poor (in 1993 the World Bank figured the annual average Eritrean income was less than $150), Eritrea accepts foreign aid only under certain circumstances.

It sees how foreign aid in some countries has been used to keep dictatorial, repressive regimes in power; how it thwarts social and political change. The power structure of foreign aid programs often sets the agenda for recipient countries. When people (and states) become dependent on aid, they stop helping themselves.

To offset what it sees as dangerous and seductive programs, Eritrea insists that foreign aid be administered by Eritreans and not by foreigners. It does not want independent operators deciding how things should be done, but wants Eritreans responsible. The providers of funds are expected to work through Eritreans.

CORRUPTION PERSONIFIED

This is fine, providing there are competent, honest Eritreans doing the planning and administering. Back in the '70s, Western aid givers considered it patronizing and demeaning to dictate how aid should be spent. What the world got as a result was Tanzania, the prototype for abundant, wasteful, misused and useless aid programs. Today Tanzania is a basket case of lethargy and poverty, despite being the largest recipient of aid.

Kenya too, is corruption personified with pot-holed streets beneath skyscrapers and millions of foreign-aid dollars.

There's a message here for Canada, whose philosophy on foreign aid, as reflected by CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) is to scatter $2.5 billion among 143 countries (50 in Africa) and regions world-wide. Some get more than others (Eritrea gets a puny $3 million, Ethiopia around $27 million).

The Netherlands, on the other hand, targets some $3 billion US in aid to poor countries it feels will benefit most -- 78 countries down from 119 last year -- 18 of which are in Africa.

Canada should also focus programs more. Why Canadian aid goes to impossible regimes like Angola, Zimbabwe, Congo, Sudan, Cuba, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma) and China, to mention a few, defies logic. Why not concentrate it on countries where there's movement towards human values we respect?

Why not divert the $19 million we waste in Afghanistan, and the $26 million to Indonesia, Burkina Faso's $16 million, Zimbabwe's $12 million, all of which achieve nothing, and concentrate on helping countries that will use it wisely? Eritrea, the hope of Africa, the Caribbean, certain Asian countries? But no, that's not the Canadian way.

When Eritrea accepted European Union aid to (re)build the 130-km highway from Asmara to the vital coastal port of Massawa, to the astonishment of the providers only 70% of the allotted budget was needed. The remaining 30% was put to other uses -- repairing other roads and building houses.

Europeans had factored in bribes, waste and kickbacks in their funding, not realizing that (as yet) there is no corruption in high places and Eritrean decision-makers don't siphon off funds to Swiss bank accounts.

By law, NGOs (non-government organizations) and other development agencies wishing to help Eritrea -- and boy, the country is needy -- must file financial reports proving that only 10% of the money spent in Eritrea goes for administration costs.

Eritrea is determined to avoid the lavish lifestyles traditional for some aid agencies -- no fancy cars, no big houses, no exorbitant salaries for locals.

Too often, when aid agencies pay salaries to local administrators that are higher than the local rate, it means that the best and brightest prefer to work for aid agencies rather than for the government and the country.

In Eritrea, aid agencies must only pay the local rate, and if the agency isn't big enough to function on 10% of its budget, it can look for clients elsewhere. Small aid agencies are encouraged to rely on local representatives, and to periodically visit to ensure that funding is being efficiently used. Money is saved all around.

DELICATE BALANCE

Even though it's been an independent state only since 1993 and is dirt poor with enormous needs, Eritrea has already quietly asked certain agencies and individuals to leave.

Also, Eritrea bans religious aid groups from funding projects in the name of their religion. There is such a delicate balance of ethnic and religious groups, that it won't risk religious aid tilting the balance. All aid and involvement has to be secular -- no foreign religious group can finance projects for their believers -- only secular projects that are non-denominational or non-ethnic.

In its 30-year struggle against Ethiopian imperialism, various Eritrean "liberation" movements got little outside help. (Ethiopia illegally annexed Eritrea in 1961 after the UN made Eritrea a protectorate of Ethiopia, rather as South Africa was given responsibility for South West Africa, now Namibia.)

The victorious EPLF (Eritrean People's Liberation Front) eventually replaced the rival ELF (Eritrean Liberation Front) and its weaponry was all captured from the Ethiopians. During the famine of the '80s it got little humanitarian food aid, other than some from church groups, Oxfam and Scandinavia.

The EPLF started out as a Marxist-style organization and evolved into a social-democratic self-reliance. It set up its own relief agency which was remarkably resourceful and effective.

Absurdity of war

'Why anyone would fight over that goat and camel-ridden area defies logic'
By PETER WORTHINGTON -- Toronto Sun

At first glance, the "war" underway in Africa over exactly where the border is between Eritrea and Ethiopia, is more mindful of the novel Scoop than it is of Stalingrad.

Yet it's serious enough to jeopardize the future of both countries -- one, barely 3.5 million people, the other 58 million.

I've just returned from Eritrea where I visited the "front" (four main flash points along a 1,000-km border) and the war seems even more absurd and unnecessary when you see the barren, subsistence nature of the land --especially in the roadless west.

Eritrea won a 30-year "liberation" war by defeating the massive, modern Soviet/Cuban-backed Ethiopian army of Marxist Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, and gained admittance to the UN as an independent "nation" in 1993.

Sandwiched between Sudan and Ethiopia on the Red Sea, north of Djibouti, Eritrea's sea ports are boycotted by Ethiopia which, at this writing, has deported 40,000 Ethiopians of Eritrean heritage ("ethnic cleansing" with a vengeance). It has an estimated 200,000 troops massed on the frontier, where periodic raids and shelling occur.
Badland ... The desolate and barren border village of Badema, where the "war" with Ethiopia began when "occupied" by Ethiopians. Photos by Peter Worthington, SUN

Eritrea's President Isaias Afewerki, its wartime guerrilla leader, thinks the border dispute is phony, and that the Addis regime seeks to survive ethnic unrest at home by conjuring up an external enemy. Western diplomats are bemused at the pettiness of the dispute, and tend to belittle its seriousness.

Regardless, the "war" puts a crimp in Eritrea's plans to become the first true democracy in Africa, free of corruption, eliminating the curse of tribalism or ethnic feuding, self-reliant, not dependent on foreign aid, moving towards diverse political parties, at peace and harmony with neighbours. The "war" is a chicken bone in the throat of social and economic progress.

During the war against Mengistu, the EPLF (Eritrean People's Liberation Front) was allied with the neighbouring province's TPLF (Tigrean People's Liberation Front). Both initially sought independence from Ethiopia. Tigre is half the size of Eritrea (which is roughly the size of Florida) and has twice Eritrea's 3.5 million population.

As the war progressed, and it became clear that Eritrean "fighters" were far superior to, and more motivated than the demoralized Ethiopian army, despite enormous amounts of Soviet weaponry, the TPLF command shifted from seeking independence to hungering to take over Ethiopia when Mengistu fell.

Eritrea consistently wanted only its own freedom.

When the collapse came, the Tigrean army moved on Addis Ababa and today TPLF leader Meles Zenawi is prime minister of Ethiopia; Tigreans are said to be running virtually every important Ethiopian department. Resentment seethes among traditional Amharic and Oromo people. To some, Tigrean rule is mindful of the dictatorships of Emperor Haile Selassie and the homicidal Col. Mengistu.

During the war the TPLF "administered" (to use the word loosely) some border areas now under dispute, especially in the west where new Ethiopian maps show the forlorn town of Badema to be on the Tigre side of the border. Maps, dating from Italian rule a century ago, show Badema on the Eritrean side.

I've been to Badema and why anyone would fight over that goat and camel-ridden area defies logic. (Areas north and east are lush with agricultural potential and get the most rainfall).

The present war erupted last May when a delegation of seven Eritrean officers bound for border discussions in Badema, then occupied by Ethiopians, were stopped outside town by Ethiopian soldiers and shot on the spot. So much for a flag of truce.

To Eritrea this was not ambush but assassination. Reaction was swift. At every border hot point the Eritrean army moved forward, chased the Ethiopian army out, and took up defensive positions inside Ethiopia to protect what they regarded as the legitimate border.

Last June Ethiopian planes attacked and bombed the airport at Asmara (one plane was shot down). Barely 50 minutes later Eritrean war planes retaliated and bombed the Ethiopian airfield at Makale -- destroying (they claim) eight bomb-laden Ethiopian planes and an airliner, as well as a school hit by accident.

The Ethiopian parliament declared war.

A war of words accompanied Ethiopian reprisals. Ethiopia began arresting people of Eritrean heritage at night, confiscating their property and imprisoning and deporting them to Eritrea. Prime Minister Zenawi defended the right to expel any foreign national: "If we say 'Go' because we do not like the colour of your eyes, they have to leave."

Michael Mussie, 52, dapper Ethiopian-born general manager of Ashante Goldfields Co. was dragged from his Addis home at 4 a.m. and with only the clothes he was wearing was jailed and later dumped at the border. His villa and his five cars were confiscated because he had Eritrean parents. Ironically, he still travels on his Ethiopian passport.

RELUCTANT TO PROTEST

"What Ethiopia is doing is a disgrace and violation of every legality, but even more disgraceful is the international community turning its eyes away," says Mussie. "For shame on them."

UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson has condemned Ethiopia's version of "ethnic cleansing," but the rest of the world has been reluctant to protest -- including Canada and the U.S.

Put politely, Ethiopian propaganda is fantasy. It claims that the pilot of the downed plane in the bombing run was dragged through the streets of Asmara and stoned -- total fabrication. It also claims bombing Asmara was retaliation for Eritrea's "premeditated" bombing of a school and that Eritrea imprisoned 600 Ethiopians for phony security reasons. It charges rape, torture and killings.
The children of Badema.

Eritrea has acknowledged it accidentally bombed a school, but the Ethiopian consul in Asmara has admitted that only 14 of 57 Ethiopians initially arrested in Asmara were held for security reasons. In fact, Asmara is filled with Ethiopians who've chosen to stay. They talk freely and seem unconcerned.

Today, parts of the frontier are lined with trenches, bunkers, tanks, cannons and soldiers. Badema is seven or eight hours drive across impossible country, while three hours down a paved road southeast of Asmara is Zelambassa, a disputed border town which Ethiopia claims has been "completely destroyed," its people having fled after rapes and atrocities by Eritreans.

I visited Zelambassa, which isn't much of a town, ate in a bar, visited a couple of the town's several hotels, and perused the small shops typical of the area. Townsfolk lived relatively normally, despite some damaged buildings.

In truth, apart from many camouflaged women "fighters," the "front" reminded me of the Korean war -- bunkers, patrols, shelling, dawn-dusk stand-to's.

Although the BBC, Red Cross, Voice of America and UN bodies have investigated and refuted Ethiopian accusations of wide-scale Eritrean atrocities, as well as verified Ethiopia's "ethnic cleansing" policy, the international community has remained curiously mute. Diplomats are reluctant to rock boats.

Few media go to see for themselves.

Canada has well-informed diplomatic and aid representatives in Asmara, but Ottawa seems neither to ask for, nor listen to their advice.

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