Politics in the horn of africa is complex and filled with many ironies. Now, Eritrea's Foreign Minister is accusing the United Nations of "ignoring" Ethiopia's illegal occupation of the Badme region. It is weird that Eritrea is accusing others of violation of international law while it was accused of violating UN resolutions and single handedly destroying the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) a couple of years ago.
Anyhow, is Ethiopia occupying Badme? What about Eritrea?
Well, the story of Badme is more complex and it has more to do with domestic politics inside Ethiopia. For many Ethiopians (who saw Ethiopian troops defeat Eritrean army in 2000) they are disappointed that the topic of discussion has been watered-down to Badme. That is because, they basically expected Ethiopia to retake other territories occupied by Eritrea.
But alas!, to the surprise of many in 2002, Meles Zenawi gives up Assab port and the occupied Kunama lands to Eritrea! That was when many Ethiopians began to wonder if Meles Zenawi is really more Eritrean than Ethiopian! Zenawi's own TPLF party got split apart with Defense Minister Siye Abraha accusing Meles Zenawi of a crime against Ethiopia.
To save himself from more embarrassment inside Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi tried to hang on to the last Ethiopian terroritory left.... Badme. And, after all these years, he is still hanging on to it as we can all see today. So Badme is not just a boundary dispute issue, it is more about internal Ethiopian politics.
But what about Eritrea's occupation?
Well, the Asmara government is also violating the decision by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission by occupying many disputed territories, including the area around Bure and Kunama. Nobody expects Eritrea to give up Kunama land because for the Tigrigna speaking highlanders in Asmara, Kanama land is a commodity. For them, the Kunama people are not human beings. The Kunama land is the "breadbasket" of Eritrea. Many Tigrigna speaking (light skinned) Eritreans see the dark-skinned Kunama people as "Sub-humans" and slaves. That is why the Tigrigna speaking Eritreans have recently invaded "Gash-Barka" region to "civilize" the Kunama people.
[By the way, the Kunama people historically opposed the war for secession by EPLF since they considered themselves to be "Ethiopian." In fact, some Kunama elders labelled the famous rebel named AWATE, one of the so-called fathers of Eritrean liberation movement, as a "mercenary" who betrayed Africa for Italian colonizers.] So it is no wonder that many thousands of Kunamas have already crossed the "border" into Ethiopia to escape their slow genocide inside Eritrea.
It is still hard to fully explain the hatred that Tigrigna speaking Eritreans have for the black Kunama people. But this is not the first story of racism. Going back to accounts from the early 1960s, Let us not forget that some Eritrean elites were opposed to the federation of Eritrea with Ethiopia after Italy was defeated by the UK. After some Tigrigna speaking Eritreans visited southern Ethiopia, they were disgusted by the "uncivilized" natives of Illubabor and Kaffa. (
These regions were former provinces of southern Ethiopia, now incorporated into Oromia). The Eritreans shocked many Ethiopian authorities when they insulted local Oromos and other southern people as "savages." The highland and "educated" Eritreans asked how their much developed Asmara can exist in the same country with the uncivilized "Gallas" and backward southerners who live in mud huts. The Eritreans felt they were SUPERIOR from Ethiopians because Italy constructed some roads and some fancy building for them. Soon after that, in 1962, Emperor Haile Selassie suddenly broke the federation structure and made Eritrea a province. The stupid Eritreans forgot that Emperor Haile Selassie was half-"Galla" descent himself, even though he always tried to associate himself with the northern Orthodox people. There are many other examples of highland Eritrean racism toward Ethiopians, especially toward Kunamas.
So looking at all of this historical context and Eritrea's current occupation of several Ethiopian territories, one wonders why the topic of discussion is being switched to Badme when we should be talking about Ethiopia's Asseb and Kunama. Unfortunately, We have the half-Eritrean Meles Zenawi to thank for that!
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