Opinion
No one is demonizing Eritrea
By
Aug 17, 2007 - 11:46:26 AM

by Berhane M Tekeste**

One distinctive hallmark shared by all dictators and tyrants is that they dupe their subjects into believing that any criticism of their autocracy is tantamount to an attack on the entire nation and country. And the self-styled one-man, one-party totalitarian governmental authorities in Eritrea have adopted this tyrannical modus operandi to perfection: In Eritrea, the one-man tyrannical regime is equated to the entire nation and vice versa.
 
True to form, writer Ghidewon Abay Asmerom would like others to believe that the August 4 speech of US Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, James Swan, is tantamount to demonizing Eritrea and wants it to stop. This, in a shameless attempt to drum-up support for the tyrannical regime and to create the impression of a super power America going at a poor and tiny nation, Eritrea, simply because it can.
 
No one demonizes, demonized or has any reason at all to demonize the people and country of Eritrea or any other nation for that matter, hence there is nothing to stop here.  James Swan’s criticism was clearly directed, rightly so, at those that took it upon themselves by the barrel of the gun to act and speak on behalf of the people and country of Eritrea, the one-man, one-party totalitarian oligarchy of president Isaias Afewerki and his loyal cronies. At no time did Mr. Swan abuse the entire nation and country of Eritrea in any form or shape nor did he blame or hold the entire nation responsible for the totalitarian regime or its policies. A totalitarian regime is evil. People don’t demonize but expose evil. And that is exactly what Mr. Swan did.  Hence, to charge Mr. Swan with demonizing Eritrea for criticizing the tyrannical regime in Eritrea is yet another blatant attempt to defend the indefensible totalitarian rule.
 
Certainly, the deaths, atrocities, and destructions committed upon the people of Eritrea for 3 plus decades by successive various and varying Ethiopian regimes including the current one are part of our history and we will never forget it for there are live daily reminders of that. But we don’t dwell on it. We keep that in mind and move on.
 
Our country is not at war with Ethiopia. The last war ended 7 years ago and the border dispute has been conclusively resolved over 5 years ago. As a matter of fact, when asked what Ethiopia wants from Eritrea, the president of the land said “nothing’ and “we have no problem with Ethiopia” as recent as 3 months ago, without equivocation. And when asked if war between Eritrea and Ethiopia were inevitable, the president ruled that out categorically.
 
Politics has it and it is not at all uncommon for one country to harbor political dissidents of another country. But what purpose does Eritrea ruler’s obsessive preoccupation with Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan to the extent of making it the sole topic of the nation serve if it were not designed to deflect attention away from the ceaseless domestic calls for constitutional governance and to perpetuate its tyrannical one-man rule?
 
The politics of relations between nations is not a missionary work and politicians are not missionaries either. In discharging their responsibilities, politicians are guided primarily by their interests. Moral and morality, like fairness, justice, favoritism, bias, wishes and will of the people, or evenhandedness is at the bottom of their to-be-concerned-with list. Eritrea knows that first hand.
 
When the UN/US forced Eritrea to be ‘federated’ with Ethiopia in 1952, in my opinion UN occupation of Eritrea by proxy for Ethiopia because the UN didn’t act when Ethiopia later unilaterally dissolved the ‘federal act’, occupied Eritrea militarily and declared it to its 14th province, it had nothing to do with morale, morality, or the wishes and will of the people of Eritrea but every thing to do with US interests.  And no one else expressed this frankly but the then US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, who put this succinctly 55 years ago: “From the point of view of justice, the opinions of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interests of the United States in the Red Sea Basin and considerations of security and world peace make it necessary that the country (Eritrea) has to be linked with our ally, Ethiopia”, John Foster Dulles in 1952. Yet, while there is nothing wrong in exposing it, to bemoan US politicians’ lack of moral and morality is simply naïve.
 
There is no question that Ethiopia’s blatant defiance of the border ruling has no justification whatsoever. Unfortunately, the Algiers Peace Agreement is remarkably silent in terms of applying concrete and consequential punitive measures should either party renege on its clearly stated treaty obligations and simply refuses/fails to comply with the ruling of the boundary commission unconditionally, as is the case with Ethiopia.
 
Further, although the US is more or less the author of the agreement, there is nothing in the agreement that authorizes the US or any one else to start firing Tomahawk missiles at or to invade either party should it not abide by the border ruling. Even though the border ruling is there to stay without loosing a bit of its sanctity, by design or otherwise, it lacks specific enforcement mechanism. Both parties were certainly aware of this loophole when they signed the agreement. If they did not know that, they can only blame themselves.
 
I agree that the US as author of the peace agreement has failed to apply all the consequential pressures at its disposal to bring Ethiopia into compliance with the border ruling, but it is utterly preposterous to accuse the US of deliberately encouraging Ethiopia to defy the border ruling
 in order to perpetuate militarily hostilities in the Horn of Africa.
 
Writer Ghidewon Abay Asmerom quoted Mr. Swan to have told his Kalamazoo, MI, audience “We believe it is essential for the parties to discuss directly how to implement a workable boundary regime.” That is an intellectually dishonest quotation because it has been truncated. Following is the whole quotation “We believe it is essential for the parties to discuss directly how to implement a workable boundary regime, consistent with the decisions of the EEBC, and to address the fundamental issues that divide them.” Prior to that, Mr. Swan restated, “that The United States government fully supports the “final and binding” decisions of the EEBC and has consistently called on both parties to cooperate with the EEBC and meet their commitments in the Algiers Agreements.”
 
US position on the border issue is unambiguous. First, the US accepts the final and binding nature of the decisions of the EEBC. Second, the US calls for discussions as to how to bring about a workable boundary regime but does not stop at that as writer Asmerom would like us to believe. Mr. Swan stipulates that the ‘workable boundary regime’ must be “consistent with the decisions of the EEBC.” The key statement here is that whatever regime (call it alternative, secondary, tertiary or quaternary mechanism) is applied to demarcate the boundary it must be consistent with the decisions of the EEBC.  What is wrong with that? Why should Eritrea care about what mechanism and which people are used to demarcate the border as long as it is consistent with the final and binding decision of the EEBC? Why should we be wedded to one particular mechanism when there could be more than one way of achieving the same result: Consistency with the decision of the EEBC?
 
Let me now share with you the following words of wisdom regarding US-Eritrea relations spoken by an Eritrean-American professor, Dr. Tekie Fessehatzion, exactly two years ago this month, 7 August 2005, at the time when Eritrea expelled USAID:
 
Any intimation that citizens should not question Eritrea’s diplomacy is unacceptable. The idea that we, citizens and government alike, should march in lockstep on something as important as Eritrea’s relations with the US is a disservice to our country.
 
The people who manage Eritrea’s diplomacy are fallible human beings like the rest of us. They, too, can make mistakes, and when they do, those who think a mistake has been made should be allowed to speak up. To spare diplomats from constructive criticism because they represent Eritrea is shortsighted.
 
What is needed is an open debate, without recriminations and insinuations. Alternative voices in diplomacy as in other areas will only enrich our national discourse on what’s good for the country. Anyone who tries to silence even the most discordant voices among us cannot be doing the country any favor. Whether it is SamB or Tseggai Isaac, anyone who has something to say should have equal access to the debate platform.
 
However, whether we like it or not, the US, as Gebreselassie Mehrteab put it recently, holds the key on matters of war and peace in our region. To needlessly antagonize the US on this issue and that issue cannot be in our longterm interest. Anyone who thinks we can deal with the border issue in a manner consistent with the Hague decision but without the active involvement of the US is living in a different galaxy.
 
I agree with Tseggai Isaac that it’s not in our interest to antagonize the only superpower left, especially when we need Washington’s help on the border issue. Tilting at windmills has its charm in a Cervantes novel, but it surely is not a sign of wisdom. It is, if anything, akin to playing dice with our future. This is not a call for docility, but for a clear-headed common sense approach to diplomacy.
 
Those who think it is in our interest to tell the US to go and fly a kite should explain to the rest of us why we should heed their advice; and those who think it’s unwise should be left alone to make their case. Speaking for myself, and myself only, I suspect I have much less to learn from the former, and a lot more from the later.

**Author can be contacted at bmtekeste@yahoo.com

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