Mereja.Forum

" After Egypt’s failure to integrate Eritrea to its territories by the end of the second world war, due to Emperor Haile Selassie’s superior diplomatic skills, the then Egyptian Pan- Arab nationalistic President Nasser’s government turned to ethnic and religious subversion against Ethiopia. In 1955 Egypt began working for the instigation of an “Arab” revolution in the then autonomous Ethiopian province Eritrea, to that effect, hundreds of young Muslims from Eritrea were invited to Cairo to study and enjoy special benefits. Though, the Muslims from Eritrea were not native Arabic speakers they absorbed the spirit of the Arab revolution and adopted a modern Arab identity. Furthermore, these Eritreans Muslims were trained how to set up a modern guerrilla ‘liberation front’ and established the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in 1959 with the support of Egypt and an Algerian Islamic movement. Thereafter, the ELF launched an open anti-Ethiopian revolt in Eritrea in 1961, claiming and propagating a fake Arab Eritrean identity “The Arabism of the Eritrean People”.

To promote Eritrea’s liberation from Ethiopia, Nasser also helped local Eritrean Christian Tigrayans who resisted reunification with Ethiopia. In 1955, the prominent leader of Christian Tigrayans in Eritrea, WaldeAb WeldeMariam, was invited to broadcast daily anti-Ethiopian propaganda on Radio Cairo and the Nasserist regime and subsequent Egyptian governments remained the main pillar of support for the Eritrean separatist movement."