[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 93 (Monday, July 18, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: July 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
CIVIC PRIDE BLOOMS IN ERITREA
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HON. DAN BURTON
of indiana
in the house of representatives
Monday, July 18, 1994
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I rise to salute the government
and people of Eritrea on the occasion of the first anniversary of their
independence. In only 1 year of freedom, Eritrea has become an island
of stability and a beacon of hope for Africa. Under the wise and humane
leadership of President Issaias Afwerki and the Government of Eritrea,
the Eritrean people are providing a shining example of what can be
accomplished through hard work, dedication, self-reliance, and the
pursuit of wise policies. Eritrea's freedom was hard-earned and hard-
fought. This milestone in the history of its people is truly a cause
for celebration.
I would also like to pay my respects to the departing Ambassador of
Eritrea, Hagos Ghebrehiwet. During his tenure in Washington, Hagos made
many friends and won the respect, admiration, and affection of all who
worked with him. He will be missed, but we wish him well in his new
assignment in Asmara along with Abebech, his wife, and their son,
Petros.
I commend to the attention of my colleagues an excellent article that
appeared recently in the Los Angeles Times about the miracle of
Eritrea, and an article from the Indianapolis Star about the
independence celebration of Indianapolis' Eritrean community.
[From the Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1994]
Civic Pride Blooms in Eritrea
(By David Lamb)
Asmara, Eritrea.--``Kefela,'' the American said as he left
the U.S. library on Alula Street for the last time, ``take
care of the books.'' With that the man was gone, joining the
exodus of Americans expelled by Ethiopia's Marxist government
from the northern province of Eritrea nearly 20 years ago.
No one would have dared imagine how seriously Kefela Kokobu
would take those words. For single-handedly, and at
considerable personal risk, Kefela ensured that an entire
generation of young Eritreans would be raised on Hemingway
instead of Mao, would have better access to Jefferson than to
Lenin.
Ethiopian officials raged at Kokobu upon finding shelves
devoted to O'Hara and Fitzgerald and a record cabinet
featuring music by the Boston Pops and the Harvard Glee Club;
they sent him the collected works of Communist authors by the
box load. Kokobu put three or four of the books on display to
appease the authorities and packed the rest away in storage.
Traces of the American presence in Eritrea disappeared fast
under the Marxist regime that overthrew Emperor Harle
Selassie: The U.S. Consulate was taken over by the Ethiopian
navy, and Kagnew Station, a U.S. army communications
facility, became a base for the murderous Ethiopian army. But
Kokobu's beloved American Library remained just a library--
indeed, Asmara's only public library--though operated under
the auspices of the local municipality, not the U.S.
Information Service.
``I wanted my people to be educated, and I did not believe
Mao and Lenin could provide that learning,'' said Kokobu, 55,
who dumbfounded the returning Americans last year by
escorting them through a spotless library where every volume
had been kept safe and even the list of overdue borrowed
books was up to date.
But if the Americans found Kokobu's diligence stunning,
they would soon learn that in Eritrea--which just celebrated
its first anniversary as Africa's newest country--the
extraordinary is commonplace. As one American diplomat put it
recently; ``Eritrea reminds me of what Israel must have felt
like in the '50s. There is an obsession with a single goal--
to make it work.''
The 3.5 million Eritreans, about evenly divided between
Muslims and Christians, are keenly aware after winning a 30-
year guerrilla war for independence that many people are
echoing the diplomat's sentiments. They smile and give a
knowing nod when told that what is happening here doesn't
seem very, well, African.
Across a continent where concern for shared well-being
often plays little role in national life, cities are
decaying, social services crumbling, political foundations
wobbling. But here in Eritrea's 7,000-foot-high capital, a
kind of new African model is emerging, and common people like
Habte Freizghy are helping create it.
``If I do not do my job right, if I do not show up for work
on time,'' he said, ``then Eritrea is worse off because of
me.'' Freizghy is a street sweeper and, together with a
legion of other elderly men who wield their brooms with
unusual energy, he has helped make Asmars an immaculate city.
His salary is $30 a month plus a daily ration of food.
No beggars are allowed in Asmara; they are sent to a
training and schooling center outside the city. Western
business people are stunned to learn that government
officials are punctual and do not accept bribes.
Out by the airport, where minefields have been cleared, men
and women work side by side tending rows of wheat--a rare
sight in Africa where farm labor is usually left to women. A
U.S. Embassy briefing packet for visitors contains this
notation under the heading Security Awareness: ``None.''
There is no fear of physical harm or crime anywhere in the
country, it says.
Eritrea's guerrilla army--30% of whose combat troops were
women--captured Asmara from Ethiopia and its Soviet advisers
in May, 1991. But even before the celebration died down,
Issaias Afewerki, then rebel leader and now president, had
one last request to make of the Eritrean People's Liberation
Front (EPLF): Return to the countryside as unpaid volunteers
for two years and build schools, repair roads, staff clinics,
terrace the hills for farming.
Though not without grumbling that they already had
sacrificed enough and been gone from their families too long,
the 95,000 soldiers obeyed.
``The odds were stacked against us during the war, and very
few thought we could succeed,'' said former combatant Yemane
Ghebreab, now a senior party official. ``But the EDLF united
the people because our leaders stayed inside the country.
They lived the same as the rest. They suffered like the rest.
And therefore they were sensitive to the sacrifice of the
people.''
During the colonial era, the ruling Italians built one of
Africa's most industrialized colonies in this outpost that
resembles the Badlands of South Dakota. There were factories,
railroads, citrus plantations. Eritrea became an important
export partner for the Middle East and southern Europe.
Britain took control of Eritrea in 1941. By 1952, Eritreans
expected to be granted independence, like other European
colonies. Instead, they were swallowed up by Ethiopia.
Regardless of ``the point of view of justice,'' U.S.
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told the United Nations
at the time, America's strategic interests dictated that
Eritrea ``be linked with out ally, Ethiopia.''
Treated by the Ethiopians as colonial subjects, denied
equal education and jobs, the Eritreans went to war in 1961,
first against the emperor, then against a cabal of violent
Communists. Never before had Africa seen such a resourceful,
self-reliant band of guerrillas take to the bush.
With virtually no outside backing, the EPLF and two other
rebel groups carved factories, schools and offices out of
rock caves. Solar panels cooled their bloodbank
refrigerators. Disposable hypodermic syringes were turned
into light switches, shards of shrapnel into scythes.
Soldiers moved at night and carried blackboards into the
trenches, to study by candlelight. But even when Ethiopia
adopted communism and the Soviet Union joined the war against
Eritrea, in the late 1970s, Western governments kept their
distance. The EPLF's rhetoric sounded like it had been
written in Albania.
``It's true that in the '60s and '70s we, as young
fighters, embraced the school of Marxism,'' said Kidane
Woldeyesus, head of the Americas section of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. ``But I think Africa in that era called for
that kind of radical thinking.
``Then came the Soviet intervention in '78. This MIGs tried
to wipe us out. I mean, really wipe us out! It gave us the
opportunity to rethink things. Since the '80s, we've clearly
stated that we were going to a multi-party, democratic
system.''
This year, having defeated black Africa's largest army and
won Ethiopia's blessing to secede, Eritrea observes its first
anniversary of independence--formally proclaimed on May 24,
1993--with a palpable self-esteem that brings thousands of
neatly dressed residents onto Liberation Boulevard each
evening to stroll under palm trees and sip espresso in cafes.
The Peace Corps is coming back, and U.S. firms are
exploring for oil and natural gas. The Ethiopian Airlines
office now houses Eritrea Airlines, though no such company
yet exists.
Daunting tasks remain, however. ``Observation alone will
tell you that 30 years of war brought devastating
suffering,'' said Saba Issays of the National Union of
Eritrean Women. Agriculture was crippled by the war, the
industrial sector destroyed. Per capita income is only $130 a
year.
But Eritreans have only to look across their borders at the
economic ruin, widespread wars, tribal animosity and official
corruption that torment Africa to know what the alternative
is. In few African countries could anyone say, as the Foreign
Ministry's Kidane did the other day, ``Being newcomers, we
have had the opportunity to learn from history.''
____
[From the Indianapolis Star, May 29, 1994]
Local Eritreans Mark Freedom of Their Homeland
(By James L. Patterson, Jr.)
Yonas Mengsteab knows a thing or two about courage.
Now 25, he fought for his country's independence from age
11 to 22. That was after he lost 14 members of his family to
the conflict at age 7.
Although he was shot in the abdomen and foot during
Eritrea's long bloody war to free itself from Ethiopian
dominance, Mengsteab's worries are mostly behind him now.
He's just happy that it's over and his country, Eritrea,
finally has its independence.
Mengsteab joined about 100 of his countrymen at Lawrence
Park on Saturday to celebrate Eritrean Independence Day,
which was Tuesday.
``I'm really happy that the war is over,'' he said. ``Now
we are free.''
Eritrea is a northeast African nation of 3.5 million,
bordered by the Red Sea, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. It was
colonized by Italy in 1890 and federated with Ethiopia in
1952.
In 1961, Eritrea, outnumbered 4-1, began its armed
struggle, which culminated in victory against the Ethiopian
army 30 years later.
The war cost 70,000 Eritrean lives and wounded hundreds of
thousands on both sides, said Tesfa Tesfaslase.
The 40-year-old native of Eritrea came to the United States
in 1987 as a political refugee, as did most who attended
Saturday's picnic.
A resident of Indianapolis the past five years, Tesfaslase
praised U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Indianapolis, for trying to
persuade the U.S. government to back his nation's struggle
for independence.
Many of the women at Saturday's gathering wore braids and
zuria, their native dress. After the Eritreans greeted each
other with kisses on each cheek, they enjoyed both native and
U.S. foods.
One offering from the Eritrean homeland was enjera, a spicy
staple made of chicken, hot chili, butter, onions, tomatoes
and eggs.
Later, with Eritrean music playing in the background, the
women served bread and freshly ground coffee.
It was a time not only for remembering about how far
Eritrea has come but also to be hopeful about its people's
future.
After the meal, the chairman of the Eritrean American
Community Association, Yemane Teklezghi, spoke in Tigrigna,
their native language, about the need to help rebuild his
war-torn country.
Teklezghi, a bilingual teacher for Indianapolis Public
Schools, will return to Eritrea this summer to gauge the
condition of its infrastructure.
The Rev. Rustom G. Michael, an Eritrean and pastor of the
Church of the Nazarene, 3101 E. 38th St., pleaded for people
to make donations to Eritrea because the war has destroyed so
many schools, churches and hospitals.
With a red, green and blue Eritrean flag flapping between
two posts under a park shelter, Menghistab G. Christos said
he was happy not only about his country's independence but
also about the educational achievements of Eritrean children
in the United States. Several others offered prayers of
thanksgiving.
``The opportunities for educating our children, that's the
most important thing,'' Christos said. And that is happening.
Christos' daughter, Eritrea Christos, and two others at the
celebration, Aklilu Tedla and Alem Seyoumare, are among
several young Eritreans who have attended or graduated from
Indiana colleges.
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