Eritrea

By: David P. Johnson

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Eritrea

Eritrea is one of the world’s newest nations, and also one of its poorest. Small and drought-prone, it boasts few natural resources. But Eritrea’s Red Sea location has a rich cultural history, developed over centuries of migrations and trade, as well as a long history of warfare, fueled largely by the strategic interests of its neighbors and other foreign powers. Compared to other African countries, Eritrea has some of the oldest traditions of Islam and Christianity and one of the shortest experiences of European colonialism: less than fifty years under Italian rule. The region’s colonial borders, however, took on new significance as soon as Italy was removed from power and Eritrea was handed over to Ethiopia. In the face of Emperor Haile Selassie’s despotism, Eritrean nationalism developed quickly and endured through a roughly thirty-year war for independence, ending when Eritrea became Africa’s newest nation in 1993. Since then, the country has enjoyed a remarkable political consensus, and most agree that it is a society where ethnic distinctions matter less than differences in religion and lifestyle between the Christian agricultural highlands and the Islamic pastoral lowlands. Although during the war Eritrean “freedom fighters” never received much outside support, independent Eritrea soon became the darling of the international aid community, lauded for its honest government and economic pragmatism. A renewed conflict with Ethiopia that led to more than two years of fighting threw into doubt Eritrea’s future recovery.

From Ancient Trade to Colonial Domination

Eritrea

view larger image

The region now known as Eritrea has a long history of human habitation. Cave paintings in Akele Guzai and Sahel provinces date to 6000 B.C.E. Scholars believe Nilotic-speaking peoples from the forests of southern Sudan were the earliest inhabitants. They were followed by Cushitic-speaking pastoralists from the desert of northern Sudan and later—probably between 3,500 and 4,000 years ago—Semitic-speaking agriculturalists from the southern Arabian Peninsula (now Yemen). Around 2,500 years ago the arrival of the Semitic-speaking Sabeans, also from Arabia, linked the region to the Sabean’s Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade networks. These early Semitic immigrants also brought Judaism to the Horn of Africa.

Trade with Egypt, Meroe, and the Arabian Peninsula fostered the development of towns and centralized political authority. By the second century C.E.., the kingdom of Aksum dominated a stretch of territory reaching from its highland capital of the same name (now a town in Ethiopia) to the coast. The kingdom exported ivory, slaves, tortoise shell, and rhinoceros horn from the East African interior, and imported textiles, glass and metal goods, and wine. During the mid-fourth century C.E.., the Aksum royalty adopted Christianity. Ethiopian Orthodox (or Coptic) Christianity eventually became the dominant religion in the highlands, where most of the population practiced sedentary agriculture.

The population in the lowlands was sparser, and the arid conditions favored nomadic pastoralism. By 702 C.E.. Arab merchants had brought Islam to the Dahlak Islands, and from there it spread gradually along the coast and through the lowlands, establishing a cultural divide that still exists in Eritrea today. Culturally and spiritually, the coast increasingly looked toward the Arab world. Arabic was the language of scholarship and the window to the outside world. By the early nineteenth century, the Tigre, the dominant coastal group, had become entirely Muslim. The highlands, however, remained Coptic, one of the oldest organized Christian churches, which spread from Egypt in the first centuries C.E.. The mountain people, mostly Tigrinya, were largely settled agriculturalists.

By the sixteenth century foreign powers were jockeying for control over territory in the Horn of Africa. The Portuguese established the first trade posts, followed by the Ottoman Turks, who captured and fortified the port city of Massawa in 1557. For more than 300 years control over the territory now called Eritrea was caught up in the imperialistic ambitions of Egypt, Portugal, and later Great Britain and Italy, as well as the neighboring Ethiopian empire. As Europeans rushed to colonize Africa in the late nineteenth century, Italy, despite its previous lack of interest in establishing colonies on the continent, looked to the Horn. The Italian government sought to preempt other colonial powers from carving up all of Africa among them but also hoped to establish settler colonies for dispossessed Italian peasants and to find new markets for Italian goods.

In 1885 Italian troops occupied Massawa. Four years later they occupied Asmara, which had been ceded to them by the Ethiopian emperor Menelik in exchange for weapons. In 1890 Italy declared colonial control over “Eritrea”—a name taken from the Greek word for the Red Sea. It intended to take over the vast Ethiopian Empire as well, but its troops were soundly defeated by Emperor Menelik’s army in 1896. Eritrea’s borders, therefore, reflected not a preexisting political or cultural entity but only turn-of-the century military realities.

Italian Colonial Rule

Although many Italians did not support their country’s colonization campaign—which also included the occupation of Somalia and Libya—Mussolini would later call Eritrea “the heart of the new Roman Empire.” Establishing colonial rule over this part of the “empire” did not come easily, however. The colonial administration expropriated over one-fifth of Eritrea’s arable land between 1893 and 1895, in anticipation of massive Italian immigration to the colony. But an armed uprising involving hundreds of Eritreans in late 1894 required two months and thousands of Italian troops to put down, and forced the administration to scale back its plans for Italian resettlement. In 1903 the administration halted land expropriation altogether and began leasing seized lands back to the Eritrean peasantry, in part due to threats of further rebellion.

The Italian emigrants settled mostly in the fertile countryside of the highlands, where they relied on the labor of dispossessed peasants to produce a wide variety of export crops, or in Asmara, Massawa, and the port of Aseb (also known as Assab), where they established trade and manufacturing firms. By the early 1920s coffee, much of it produced on Eritrean peasant farms, had become the colony’s largest export. Other major exports included cotton, skins and hides, salt, tobacco, and fresh and canned foodstuffs. Eritrea also supplied Italy with wheat and other grains. Italy’s search for gold in Eritrea proved largely fruitless, apart from small quantities mined near Asmara. Although reserves of iron ore, lead, and white mica were also found around the capital, these were left largely unexploited. By contrast, Italy invested generously in infrastructure. By 1911 the small colony was spanned by 119 kilometers (approximately 74 miles) of railroads, including one line that twisted and tunneled through the mountainous region between Massawa and Asmara. While the railway as well as an extensive road system facilitated the transport of export crops, Italy never earned a profit from Eritrea, and in fact had to subsidize its colonial administration.

One of the Longest Wars in History

In 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia. For the next six years Eritrea served as Italian base for its East African military campaigns. Thousands of Italians took up residence in Asmara, and industrialization and infrastructure development accelerated. Thousands of conscripted Eritrean soldiers fought for the Italians. In 1941, however, the British demolished their East African defenses and occupied Eritrea. After the war, the British allowed the formation of Eritrean trade unions, publications, and political parties, all of which fostered a growing sense of national identity. For several years, however, Eritrea’s political status lay in limbo, as first the Allies and later the United Nations debated its future.

The Bombing of Eritrea.  A bird's-eye view of the aerodrome at Asmara, Eritrea, after an aerial assault from the Royal Air Force of the Middle East command during World War II.

( AP Images )

view larger image

At first most Eritrean Christians favored union with Ethiopia, and Orthodox priests often threatened to excommunicate anyone favoring independence. But Muslims, who feared domination by a Christian state, advocated independent statehood. The proindependence Muslim League was formed in 1946. The following year Woldeab Woldemariam, a labor activist and early advocate of Eritrean independence, helped launch the Christian-dominated Liberal Progressive Party. Bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians occurred repeatedly between 1946 and 1951.

After Haile Selassie heavily lobbied the United States and other leading UN members, the UN voted to federate Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1951. Over the next ten years Selassie’s regime tightened its grip on Eritrea. Factories in Asmara were dismantled and brought to Addis Ababa, pushing what was once one of the most industrialized colonies in Africa into poverty. Political dissent was suppressed as the Ethiopian government forced prominent Eritreans into exile, shut down newspapers, and banned trade unions and political parties. In 1958 the Eritrean flag was banned.

Ethiopian repression hit Eritrea’s urban and highland populations especially hard, and they responded accordingly. In 1958 underground unions staged a general strike in Asmara and Massawa, and students joined workers in massive protests against the loss of local autonomy. The Ethiopian government reacted immediately. Troops fired on protesters, wounding or killing more than 500. Throughout Eritrea, support for the national government evaporated, and Christians began joining the independence movement.

In 1960 Selassie declared Amharic, the language of Addis Ababa and Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the official language, and banned other languages from the schools. That same year, Eritrean leaders, including Edris Mohammed Adem, former president of the Eritrean Assembly, met secretly in Cairo to form the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), whose members represented a broad spectrum of society. In September 1961 Eritrean independence advocates battled with police on Mount Adal. Two months later an ELF military campaign in the west marked the beginning of a long and arduous war. Although at first they fought with antiquated Italian rifles, eventually the ELF troops developed into one of Africa’s most disciplined military forces. In 1965 the Front established four regional commands. In 1966 Eritrea’s future president, Isaias Afwerki, dropped out of the University of Addis Ababa and joined the ELF, and a Christian-dominated fifth zone was created in the highlands.

Foreign powers soon chose sides in the Eritrean independence struggle. Arab states, sympathetic to appeals by fellow Muslims, were the first to back the ELF, while Israel backed Selassie. Other major powers viewed the conflict in the context of the Cold War, which meant Selassie, a reliable anticommunist, received backing from the United States and Europe. His army became one of the largest and best equipped in Africa. Although the east bloc supported the ELF with rhetoric, it sent little material aid. Socialist countries did train small groups of ELF fighters, however. Afwerki and another leader, Ramadan M. Nur, went to China for training in 1967, and the following year other groups went to Cuba.

As the war intensified, Eritrean refugees streamed into Sudan. The Ethiopian military’s tactics of burning villages and killing their inhabitants, rather than intimidating the population into submission, only increased support for independence, even among Christian highlanders who had previously supported Addis Ababa. The ELF, meanwhile, focused on guerrilla tactics, such as blowing up bridges and hijacking airplanes.

Despite success in battle, the rebel movement faced serious internal divisions by the early 1970s. Afwerki and other highlanders eventually split from the Muslim-dominated ELF leadership and formed the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). The two groups were soon fighting on different fronts and periodically fought with each other. Although the ELF was initially Christian-dominated, it defined itself as a secular organization. Both groups professed Marxist principles and stated they were fighting not just for political independence but also for revolutionary goals, such as the nationalization of private property.

During the war, women received equality in areas controlled by the EPLF and child marriage was outlawed in 1978. Political and military setbacks ultimately weakened the ELF, and the EPLF emerged as the main independence force. Over the next several years, the Eritrean struggle survived in large part because of its success at mobilizing all possible resources, including popular support in the countryside. One-third of the fighters were women, for example, and they trained and fought alongside men. It also assured Muslim civilians that freedom of religion would be protected. Perhaps most importantly, the EPLF managed to provide the basic rural services that neither the Italians nor Ethiopians had bothered with: it opened 165 schools during the war, educating some 27,000 students. The EPLF also improved rural public health standards by creating a corps of mobile health teams and Italian-trained doctors and establishing a network of pharmacies, laboratories, and village clinics. Many of the facilities were built underground to avoid Ethiopian bomb attacks.

A large proportion of the EPLF’s budget for such programs came from abroad. Even before the war, large numbers of Eritreans had migrated to the Persian Gulf, Europe, and North America in search of employment, and now expatriate communities became a key source of monetary support for the rebel movement. Some observers estimate that Eritreans abroad sent back $20 million a month—up to 70 percent of their salaries, in some places—enabling the ELF and EPLF to sustain the war despite in-fighting, drought, military setbacks, and political isolation. The rebels also stole massive amounts of military supplies from the Ethiopian army.

The war’s geopolitical alliances changed in 1974, when Haile Selassie was overthrown in a military coup led by Mengistu Haile Mariam. Like the Eritrean rebel groups, the new Ethiopian regime, known as the Derg, claimed to be Marxist, but it was soon clear that the Derg was concerned less with equality and social change than with maintaining a strong central state. Still, the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba threw their support behind the new Ethiopian Red Army, which launched a massive campaign in 1978 that pushed the rebels northward and out of all the major cities. The Eritrean refugee population in Sudan swelled to 500,000 by 1981. The Ethiopian army under Mengistu purposely targeted food supplies in rebel areas— they burned crops and granaries and slaughtered livestock—so Eritrea was already vulnerable to famine by the time drought struck in 1984. Massive food aid shipments from the West arrived in Addis Ababa, but very little relief reached Eritrea.

In the late 1980s the Eritreans began to regain lost ground and won a number of key battles against the large but poorly trained and increasingly demoralized Ethiopian army. As the Soviet bloc itself began to crumble, the EPLF moderated its Marxist tone and began to collaborate with the growing rebel movements within Ethiopia, such as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), led by Meles Zenawi.

The last major battle of the independence struggle took place on May 19 1991. The Ethiopian army collapsed at Decamare, outside Asmara, and fled north toward Sudan in a disorganized rout. In the meantime, Ethiopian rebels were approaching Addis Ababa. With the Soviet Union in collapse, the Derg was doomed. On May 21 Mengistu fled into exile in Zimbabwe, and Zenawi took over as acting president. Recognizing that the EPRDF could not have triumphed without EPLF support, Zenawi agreed to Eritrean independence. Afwerki acted as Eritrea’s de facto head of state until a UN-supervised referendum on independence was held in 1993. Ninety-eight percent of the electorate voted yes, and independence was declared on May 24 1993. Afwerki was formally elected president soon afterward. Elections were tentatively scheduled for 2001 but did not in fact occur.

Independent Eritrea

With independence, Eritrea began to rebuild. The war had created a refugee population of at least 750,000, many of whom came streaming back from Sudan soon after the fighting ended. Seventy thousand veterans—many of whom had known no other life beyond the war—also had to be reincorporated into society. One of the government’s long-term goals was to rebuild Eritrea’s industrial base, but with drought a chronic threat and three-quarters of the country’s 2.7 million people dependent on outside food aid, intensifying agricultural production was an immediate priority—as was removal of the land mines still littering the countryside.

During its first years of independence, Eritrea won accolades for its honest government and determination to achieve self-sufficiency. The country has refused loans and aid packages with too many strings attached and has resolved to rebuild the destroyed Massawa-Asmara railroad using only Eritrean labor. The government recruited seventy-year-old former train engineers out of retirement to help restore steam engines from the 1930s. At the same time, Eritrea’s once-Marxist government leaders welcomed foreign investment in certain sectors, such as coastal tourism.

Some of the wartime objectives of the EPLF, now renamed People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PDJ), have become government objectives, such as education and legal equality for women, and rural primary health care. It has also pledged to protect religious freedom, though some smaller groups, notably the Jehovah’s Witnesses, have complained of persecution. Overall, the sense of national unity forged during the long war has translated into widespread popular support for the government, which at least initially was largely comprised of former fighters. Some outside observers, however, have criticized the PDJ’s authoritarian tendencies. The constitution passed in 1997 gave considerable power to the central government but also called for multiparty elections.

Eritrea has had tense relations with its neighbors in recent years. It broke diplomatic relations with Sudan in 1994 over concerns that it was cultivating Islamic Fundamentalism in border areas. This concern prompted the United States to supply both Eritrea and Ethiopia with military aid. For its part, Sudan has accused the Eritreans of supporting southern Sudanese rebels. In 1996 Eritrea skirmished briefly with both Djibouti over a contested border, and with Yemen over ownership of a collection of small Red Sea Islands.

Perhaps most seriously, armed conflict with Ethiopia erupted again in May 1998. The immediate cause of the fighting was again a disputed border, but tensions over trade issues had been building for months. When Eritrea became independent the two countries had agreed to share Ethiopia’s currency (the birr) and Eritrea’s port access. These cooperative relations began to deteriorate in 1997, especially after Eritrea introduced its own currency, the nafka. Despite efforts by the United States, the Organization of African Unity, and neighboring African countries to resolve the conflict diplomatically, both sides continued to arm themselves, insisting that nothing less than national sovereignty was at stake. More than 70,000 Ethiopians and Eritreans died in the thirty-month war over the border region, and hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced to flee the area. In December 2000 the UN negotiated a peace treaty to stop the fighting and sent peacekeeping troops to war-torn Eritrea. In April 2002 an international commission settled the border dispute between the two nations. Afwerki’s government currently faces the challenge of overcoming high illiteracy and unemployment rates as it seeks to rebuild an economy shattered by Ethiopian invasion.

See also Christianity, African: An Overview; Ethiopian Orthodox Church; Hunger and Famine; Islam in Africa; Languages, African: An Overview; Pastoralism; Scramble for Africa; United Nations in Africa.

processed xml | source xml