Our Geographical Curse

After having been swearing to the world that he would obey the decisions of relevant international bodies and having been hiding behind lame excuses for not promptly implementing the ruling of the independent Commission, the perpetual liar Meles Zenawi (the Prime Minster of the Apartheid regime in Ethiopia) has surfaced exposing bare his true agenda and intensions and is back to his trademark game format of deception, evasion, provocation, threat of suicide (self destruction), regional unrest shamelessly threatening to capitalize on his misfortune like a disabled beggar counting on his misfortune and other’s sympathy for financial gains.

His latest action more than anything else reaffirms the fact that boarder was never the real issue and that Meles’ ultimate dream has for decades been and remains to be that of subjugating Eritrea and Eritreans and nothing will satisfy his hateful rabid desire short of subjugating Eritrea, not Badme, not Even Assab. Meles wont get a night’s sleep with a peaceful and prosperous Eritrea next door to him. If he had any doubts on Eritrea’s viability they should have perished after Eritrea proved again that it is able to quash a huge enemy with meager resource and maintain building its future even in the midst of a war. The commission’s decision was alas a reminder of the realization of Melese’s nightmare – The “Hope of Africa” - or as the Toronto Sun Peter Worthington who is one of the credible Canadian journalist friend of Eritrea puts it - a nascent Nation whose fast development was hindered by the insatiable neighbor, but remains to be the principal hope for Africa’s future, Indeed “Eritrea is still Africa's last best hope”!

The Eritrean electronic forums were replete of arguments on weather war with Woyane could have been avoided or limited. Many well meaning individuals strongly believed and argued that good intentions, logic, dialogue and international arbitrations could have kept Woyane’s invasion afar if, for instance, our government had decided to pull away from Badme before the escalation of the conflict and its culmination in the Algiers agreement. Some even went to the extent of technically siding with the invader by allowing a fertile ground or a “plain sheet of paper” for regurgitations of the enemy’s propaganda, blaming our government for the war, and, intensifying an irresponsible, damaging propaganda that resonates with and caters to our enemy. The Archives of asmarino.com and awate.com are the standing Evidences and reminders of this reckless self-destructive campaign of castrating our pride and self-esteem. In their shame full campaign, some suggested we give part of Assab to Woyane, some urged us to accept the deportation of our parents, brothers and sisters as a genuine security major by their financers and even down played the atrocities that was committed by the Woyane in the occupied territories, others insisted that the demarcation should not be on top of our priority list, some of them said Eritrea’s independence was a mistake after all. Who can forget the infamous Awate.come cartoon that portrayed our Warsay as crying babies who were snatched from their mothers arms while the Ethiopian opposition websites were portraying the poor Fenji-regach conscripts as “heroes who would dare to run over explosives in their thousands”. The impact of those irresponsible articles from Eritreans and perhaps from Ethiopians as well on our international political standing and the Army’s moral, I believe, was not insignificant.

The recent decision by Meles Zenawi to reject the work of experts in international law and arbitration that consumed millions of dollars and man-hours and to threaten war should be a definitive proof that we are dealing with a vengeful enemy who will not leave any stone unturned until he finds a way of subjugating Eritrea and Eritreans.

There should now be no argument about the intension of Meles. He tried to Gulp on Eritrea and chocked on it. Now what he is trying to do is to nibble on Eritrea slowly but surely implementing never ending arguments creating fertile ground for lingering condition of unrest, uncertainty, and poverty and shared misery in the region. We have been cursed to have geographical proximity to a miserable, envious and vengeful neighbor. “T’Qa Agam zboQolet QolQal ktnebE tnebr”

After the arbitration commission’s decision blew him off, Meles woke up to the fact that his dream of dominance of Eritrea is perishing and demarcation heralded the imminence of the realization of an Eritrea with well defined borders more than ever. To avoid this nightmare Meles began his trademark process with the hope that he could at least hamper the process. Meles was left with no choice but to expose his sinister ambition and defy the international law he so willingly signed.

We always wondered why the main spot of contention, Badme was not marked on the arbitrators’ decisions initial maps. In hind site this was the beginning of a process of deceit and must have been intentionally done upon Meles’ plea so that he could argue on the whereabouts of Badme and shamelessly congratulate his people to celebrate the results of the boarder ruling by dancing in the streets of Addis as well as put an impression on his life line, the donor community, that he will obey the ruling. Once he avoided the possible initial furry from his people and the dust started to settle down he slowly escalated the process of deception and evasion by using the lamest excuses like “the army of the STATE of Badme will fight Eritreans even if the Federal government accepts the decision”. This argument was definitely a step stone to his current standing of rejecting the decision on Badme.

This is indeed a sad day for Eritreans, Ethiopians and the world community whose memories of the disastrous war are still fresh. But more than anything else it is a reminder that we have a sleepless enemy in the south, which will continue to attempt to subjugate or at least weaken us either through overt invasion or covertly by propagating division among us. Weakening the moral of our youth and army including using our own people and electronic and print media. The concerted campaigns against Warsay, Sawa, can only be part and parcel of this evil campaign. Eritreans in possession of any form of political existence and media outlets should now use their capacity to fight the threat to our country and apply self-censorship in order to avoid being free rally stations for the enemy propaganda. Articles phrases or cartoons with messages and overtones ridiculing our army our Unity and sovereignty Should have no place at all in Eritrean websites that had so far missed the meaning of indiscrimination and free press reducing themselves to being “friendly fire cannons”. This is yet another period when Eritreans should stay vigilant and united in order to defend our nation at this critical moment. We are technically still in a state of war.

It is also high time for the international community to wake up to the real nature of Woyane and exert its tools that subdued major nations to obey the rules of law let alone a state that is perpetually on a life support dependent on the donor community.

Eritrea will prevail!

Petros Kaleab