Red Sea Afars deserve Respect as Eritrean Citizens – Call for an Afar University at Asab

I have repeatedly supported the rightful stance of the Eritrean president, administration and people against the monstrous tyranny of Abyssinia (fallaciously re-baptized Ethiopia). And I am ready to do so in the future – anytime.

No state in the world has been so excruciatingly inhuman, racist and evil as the criminal and terrorist state of colonial Abyssinia – run by the successive (monarchical, pro-communist and pseudo-republican) Amhara and Tigray Monophysitic Abyssinian elites, who are all criminals for numerous intentional and deliberate genocides performed against several subjugated African nations.

One of the subjugated African nations that have been repeatedly terrorized in Abyssinia are the Afars; as it happens, a significant part of the Afars has been included in Eritrea, and others have been forced to accept a postcolonial Issa Somali rule within a false – totally colonial – state, Djibouti.

One could hope that, facing Abyssinia, the Eritrean leaders would deploy all efforts to gain the sympathy of this important minority of their country, the Afars. I republish here from a Kunama website the complaints of an Afar activist, concerning various problematic policies implemented in Eritrea at the detriment of the Afars.

I am absolutely convinced that greater respect for the Eritrean Afars´ Civil and Human Rights will only result in the utmost consolidation of the young Red Sea multicultural state – experiment.

And I want to believe that a great concern should be deployed in order to establish an institution in Asab that will only be a great honour and pride of Eritrea: the world´s first Afar University.

Worried Voices Of Red Sea Afar People

http://www.baden-kunama.com/ARTICLE/ARTICLE17.htm

Afar people played an increasingly important role for the Eritrean independence, since the arrival of Eritrean liberation front (E.L.F.) to the Afar region of Dankalia at the end of 1965. At this time, Afar people hosted their Eritrean brothers who came to their region.

Up on the establishment of Eritrean rebellion, many Afars joined the Eritrean liberation front and Afar people gave their lives in the noblest confrontation and battle. Though all Eritrean freedom fighters have known this, they don´t to accept the reality.

This was not the mere love of weapons and conflict. But it was the feeling that they have for their country and people. However, the hospitality changed to the distrustful attitude of the Eritrean fronts against the Afar. This attitude culminated in systematic alienation of the Afar from key positions. Most Eritreans don´t perceive Afar people as an Eritrean. This perception existed during the struggle, and it still is continued in both the Eritrean government´s and the opposition parties´ ideologies.

When I think about Afar people and the Eritrean front, two contradicting things come to my mind. The first point is that Afar people always believe in the co-existence and partnership of both Eritrean nations so that to establish strong and unitary Eritrea which believes in unity and diversity. The Afar people struggle together with all the oppressed nation and nationalities of Eritrea. On the other hand, our Eritrean brothers think or perceive the Afars as secessionist group, who don´t believe in Eritrean unity. Because of this misperception of the Eritrean rebellion group, the Afar ethnic group has always suffered discrimination, oppressions and all kinds of injustice committed by the successive Eritrean rulers.

For your surprise there is no an Eritrean writer, who described a single sentence about the role of Afar people for the Eritrean struggle. What they (Eritrean writers) like to mention about Afar people is a misnomer for their prestige. Imagine even the authors who should have been neutral aren´t ready to give the Afar people the credit that they deserve.

The Eritrean people in general and the Afar people in particular faced many problems during the Eritrean struggle for independence. As result of the armed conflict, the Afar people were forced to flee across the Red Sea. Most of the Afar villages which were found in the sea coast have suffered very severely both from armed conflict and drought. In 1977, the inhabitants of Barasoli fled from their home village one hundred miles to the east, across the Red Sea, to Khoka village, in the south of Hodeidah, in (the then North) Yemen.

During and after their journey, hundreds of elderly people, women, and children died because of diseases, tuberculosis, as well as of lack of proper food and sanitation. In 1978, the residents of Eddi village followed the footsteps of their neighbors of Barasoli to Khoka. These refugees stayed in the mentioned area of Yemen many years without the international community having noticed the event.

There is no Eritrean political front to have assisted these people in their difficulty at that time. Why did the Eritrean freedom fighters opt for keeping silence? Were these people not Eritrean or didn´t they face any hardship? The unhealthy perception of Eritrean fronts towards the Red Sea Afar people forced every Afar person to ask himself the question "Am I an Eritrean"? Why do Afars not have the same rights as the other Eritreans? Through the past years of conflict, thousands of Eritreans got refugee status and thousands of Eritrean youth got access to higher education. But, why the Red Sea Afar people are deprived of all these rights?

The other big point that all the Red Sea Afar people should take into consideration is that there is protracted strategy of denial of self-determination from the part of the Eritrean fronts in their effort to undermine the Afar significance in Eritrea. This happens despite the fact that the difficulty that the Afar people faced in the late 1970s was one of the world´s worst crises. However, the worried voices of the Afar people didn´t get any attention from the part of any Eritrean political front. This worried voices have been unnoticed and/or disregarded by all the Eritrean political fronts, the then E.P.L.F. and the P.F.DJ.

Since its establishment, the Eritrean liberation front calls itself as an advocator of Eritrean people. Many Eritreans benefit from socio-economic aspects, such as like refuge status, economic help, educational care, and even beyond that. How many Afars have benefited all these years from refugee status? In fact, not a single Red Sea Afar benefited.

The Red Sea Afar people have been disadvantaged through deliberate political and economical policies imposed by Eritrean rulers both during struggle for independence and after the independence. These policies helped keep Afar people in status of backwardness in all aspects of societal development. Any person who is displaced from his/her home has the right to seek asylum, guarantee against forcible return, freedom of movement, protection and assistance in securing basic economic, social and cultural rights. Unfortunately, the Red Sea Afar people didn´t benefit from all these internationally recognized rights.

At the initial stage of Eritrean struggle, successive rulers of the Eritrean rebellion exerted high effort to marginalize the Afar people from advancing economically and politically. In fact, all human beings, whatever their race, ethnic origin religion, language, or any other statuses, are equally entitled to the fundamental rights without discrimination. However, the Red Sea Afar People have been deprived of all these rights. The motive behind this deprivation was to keep the Red Sea Afar people impotent, defenseless, illiterate, and causeless, and in the process to control the Afar coastline.

During the struggle for independence, the Eritrean political fronts had been offered assistance in the form of scholarships either from the ´Arab world´ or the Western countries. How many Afars have been offered scholarships by the various fronts and how many have been trained through all these years of conflict? In general, the Afars never benefited from any scholarship like that.

The scholarships offered by ´Arab countries´ were allocated to lowland Muslims Tigre while the scholarships granted by Western countries were given to the Hamasen Tigrinya. The Red Sea Afar people didn´t benefit from the scholarships granted to the Eritrean people indiscriminately.

I can refer to a recent event regarding scholarship. The incumbent state of Eritrea which is dominated by Hamasen highlanders Tigrinya is still receiving grants and scholarships from all parts of the world. Among the countries offering grants and scholarships for Eritrean youth is Yemen. In the first years of Eritrea´s independence, Yemen granted Eritrea 30 scholarships annually. The Eritrean authorities turned all 30 scholarships to Hamasen children and denied a single scholarship to other Eritrean nations. However, all these Hamasen highlanders Tigrinya students failed to continue their studies in Sana´a University, and returned home.

What would be wrong if the Eritrean authorities had offered a certain number of those scholarships to Afar students who were inhabited in Yemen? In fact, the Afar people through all the past years of conflict didn´t get any viable access to higher education.

Keeping the Afar people backward in all aspects of socio-economic development is protracted conspiracy in the ideology of all Eritrean rulers. Let us see what happened recently in Eritrea. Currently there are seven colleges and one university in Eritrea. But, there is no university or college in the Afar region of Dankalia. I am sure that every Eritrean citizen is well aware of this fact; it is not a surprise that the Eritrean citizens don´t have a positive predisposition toward the Afar people.

P.F.D.J have shaped a strategy to build prisons in Dankalia of Afar Region; this can only help perpetuate the troubles of the Afar people. The opposition parties also deny the right of self-determination to the Afar people in order to undermine the role of the Afars in Eritrea´s politics. In today´s Eritrea, all Afar villages are swallowed by non Afar EritreanS, especially Hamasen Tigrinya speaking people who are imposing their cultural values and political power upon the Afar people.

I think it will be good for the entire Eritrean people if all Eritrean nations stand together and respect the rights, the origin, the beliefs and the culture of one another, so that that we be finally able to build a democratic and strong Eritrea, where all the Eritrean citizens will be equal.

Note

Picture:

The Sultan of Tadjoura Abdoulaker Moumat Houmed (center) hosted U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Richard W. Hunt (left), commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, at his home near Tadjoura, Djibouti, May 18, 2006, for a ceremonial exchange of gifts. The visit marked the first formal interaction between Americans and the tribal leader of the Afar people. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Roger S. Duncan

http://www.defendamerica.mil/archive/2006-05/20060525pm2.html