Note: text in blue is quotation from Lussier article or other reference as specified

September 1, is the day that the EPLF has decreed to be an Eritrean national holiday. This is the day in which the Eritrean struggle is supposed to have started, ignited by the 'heroic' Idris Awate.

Below is a discussion of the Idris Awate myth. This discussion is necessary for the following reasons:

• Because the manufactured Eritrean mythology of the EPLF is one of the causes of the conflict with Ethiopia. This mythology has elevated Eritrean nationalism to cult-level status. Groups (such as the Jehova Witnesses) who do not bow down before this state-sponsored quasi-religious cult are targeted for persecution.
  
  
• Because the Kunama people regard Eritrean Hero Idriss Awate as a mass murderer. During the period 1943-1949, the Kunama were subjected to repeated attacks by their neighbors. The British administration at the time used the ethnic clashes to further their divide-and-rule tactics. Their chief tool in this regard was Idris Awate.
  
  
• Because 3,000 of the 60,000 Kunama population lived inside Ethiopia prior to May 12, 1998. Now those that haven't fled the Eritrean invasion are under the heel of the EPLF.

The theme of this discussion is that a realistic foundation for Eritrean nationalism is a pre-requisite for peace in the Horn of Africa. There will not be mutually beneficial relations in the horn of Africa, as long as the Eritrean people are fed myths about how they are better than their neighbours, and how their military forces are so invincible that they deserve to be the local superpowers and kingmakers of the Horn of Africa.

Hamad Idris Awate: The man who carried out a campaign of genocide against the Kunama: 1941 - 1951

Hamad Idris Awate was a shifta (bandit) who preyed on the local inhabitants of southwestern Eritrea. The British administration (1942-1952) viewed him as a useful tool through which they were able to control the remote frontier areas along the Sudan -Ethiopia-Eritrea border regions. Hamad Idriss Awate's particular target were the Kunama people

Continued victimization of the Kunama 1961-1991

The EPLF was founded only in 1971. The first clandestine Eritrean organization was the ELM, which was mostly active abroad (it was formed in Port Sudan in 1958). The ELM decided to establish a presence in Eritrea, and they held meetings in Asmara in 1960. Separately, the ELF was established in Cairo in 1960.

In 1961, the Ethiopian government, reacting to the formation of the ELF and the ELM, began detaining people for questioning. Hamad Idris Awate was not a member of the ELF or ELM, but he was a well known troublemaker and therefore likely to be detained. He fled into the bush and clashed with a police unit sent to arrest him. A few months later he died in his sleep.

This is what the EPLF refers to when stating that they fought for 30 years. They have re-invented the actions of an old criminal in 1961 as the heroic launching of a 30-year armed struggle. In fact the EPLF was not founded until 1971. The Ethiopian government had only one brigade stationed in the whole of Eritrea until 1967. Such fighting as there was, took place between the Eritrean police forces and the Eritrean guerrillas..

Kunama Reaction to the Eritrean Nationalists
"The command in the first zone not only failed to put a stop to the traditional Beni Amer and Baria raids against the Kunama, but allowed its fighters to take part in them. The Kunama, among whom foreign missionaires had made deep inroads thus driving another wedge between them and their neighbours, sought Ethiopian protection. Barentu, the regional center, became a staging area for Ethiopian forces and Kunama men joined paramillitary units to fight the [Eritrean] nationalists."
-J. Markakis, 1987

Mythical Referendum

Even the highly partisan Eritrea supporter, Dr. Roy Pateman became suspicious of the referendum. In his book (Even the stones are burning) he writes of being stationed at Barentu (a largely Kunama area) to observe the referendum. He noted with surprise that the EPLF arrived with a duplicate set of ballots (there were two sets of ballots for each registered voter). This is a common trick by fraudulent political parties. They send the first set of ballots out to the public and throw it in the trash after the public has voted. Then the second set is filled in by the party operatives and submitted to the national election board. In elections, it is a big no-no to have more ballots than registered voters.

Mr. Pateman asked the EPLF about this (he was supposed to be an election monitor after all) and he was told that the extra set was simply in case some of the ballots got damaged. Mr. Pateman wrote in his book that this explanation would not be satisfactory from other election officials, but he trusted the EPLF, and therefore accepted their explanation.

So now we understand the election result. A community of approximately 60,000 Kunama, who were overwhelmingly against secession, and fought alongside the government throughout the Eritrean war, who were in the process of being disposessed of their land, who had been massacred by the Eritrean national hero Idris Awate; these people were supposed to have produced a 99.8% yes vote for the EPLF?

Recommendations for the EPLF:

1. Stop this artificial glorification of Hamad Idris Awate. Choose an alternative figure from Eritrea who deserves hero status and celebrate him/her instead. Continued state-mandated deification of Idriss Awate is simply going to further alienate the Kunama.

2. Stop persecuting the Kunama people. Let them administer themselves and choose their own destiny in a truly free and fair referendum. Stop settling EPLF loyalists on land belonging to the Kunama.

- Dagmawi