In Eritrea, many died for a meaningless war
Posted: 13 Jun 2023, 17:21
AS a child in the early years after Eritrea’s independence, Filmon Debru longed for the annual festivities celebrating the country’s newfound statehood, and the heroes who fought and died for it.
Parties, music and dancing lasted the entire month to commemorate Eritrea’s liberation from Ethiopian rule in May 1991, and its overwhelming support for independence in a UN-backed referendum two years later.
“There was true happiness... Everything seemed to be pointing upwards,” said the 37-year-old, who remembered “euphoria” as he sat on the shoulders of adults watching colourful parades roll by.
But he is no longer cheering as Eritrea marked its independence, which was formally declared on May 24, 1993.
The hope and possibility Filmon felt for his young country are gone, crushed by a regime so totalitarian and repressive that Eritrea is widely called “the North Korea of Africa”.
In the small and secretive one-party state, critics disappear into gulags and civilians are conscripted for life or forced into labour under an extreme policy of national service that has been likened to slavery. Elections have never been held and it has no free press, political opposition, or civil society.
A global pariah, the Red Sea nation has been sanctioned for meddling in regional conflicts, including most recently over abuses by its army in the Tigray war in Ethiopia. Hundreds of thousands of Eritreans desperate for jobs and freedom have fled the tiny country, including Filmon, who risked his life to leave behind the homeland he once so proudly loved.
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2 ... ngless-war
Parties, music and dancing lasted the entire month to commemorate Eritrea’s liberation from Ethiopian rule in May 1991, and its overwhelming support for independence in a UN-backed referendum two years later.
“There was true happiness... Everything seemed to be pointing upwards,” said the 37-year-old, who remembered “euphoria” as he sat on the shoulders of adults watching colourful parades roll by.
But he is no longer cheering as Eritrea marked its independence, which was formally declared on May 24, 1993.
The hope and possibility Filmon felt for his young country are gone, crushed by a regime so totalitarian and repressive that Eritrea is widely called “the North Korea of Africa”.
In the small and secretive one-party state, critics disappear into gulags and civilians are conscripted for life or forced into labour under an extreme policy of national service that has been likened to slavery. Elections have never been held and it has no free press, political opposition, or civil society.
A global pariah, the Red Sea nation has been sanctioned for meddling in regional conflicts, including most recently over abuses by its army in the Tigray war in Ethiopia. Hundreds of thousands of Eritreans desperate for jobs and freedom have fled the tiny country, including Filmon, who risked his life to leave behind the homeland he once so proudly loved.
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2 ... ngless-war
