Commentary:
State-Directed Ethnic Engineering in Eritrea

Ethiopian Internet Newsletter; April 11 1999

In the rush of protestations about the deportation of Eritreans from Ethiopia, the large-scale ethnic engineering project being undertaken by Eritrea has been overlooked. Of course, one should be concerned about deportees who were wrongfully deported. In fact, a bilateral commission should be formed to deal with all legitimate claims involving Ethiopians and Eritreans deported during the period 1991 to 1999. Those who still deny the vicious deportations of Ethiopians from Eritrea by the EPLF in 1991 are encouraged to read the New York Times articles which provide a glimpse of what went on.

But returning to Eritrea's internal ethnic engineering, it is revealing to compare the reception accorded to Eritreans deported from Ethiopia with the cold shoulder offered to the hundreds of thousands of Eritrean refugees who are living in misery in the Sudanese refugee camps and still waiting for a chance to return home.

Could the differing treatment be due to the fact that the deportees from Ethiopia are overwhelmingly Christian Tigrinya-speakers from the highlands while the Eritrean refugees in the Sudan are mainly Muslim, non-Tigrinya-speaking pastoralists from the lowlands of Eritrea?

Many observers have suggested that since the EPLF (the sole ruling party in Eritrea) is dominated by Tigrinya-speakers, its policies are explained by the desire to maintain a population balance in favor of the Tigrinya-speaking highlanders from which it draws its main suppport. Most of the refugees in the Sudan are generally assumed to favor the opposition ELF.

Certainly, the EPLFs policies of settling Tigrinya-speakers in the lowland areas, and its revision of the internal administrative boundaries of Eritrea can be viewed as an attempt to promote a homogenization of Eritrea centered on an expansion of Tigrinya-speakers into all parts of Eritrea.

The EPLF has been criticised in many quarters for its unrelenting campaign to forcibly incorporate the lowland areas of Eritrea into its tightly controlled administrative structure. As part of this campaign, the EPLF plans to change the demographic map of Eritrea. This is described below by the well-known EPLF admirer Roy Pateman:

"During this development, many nomads (mainly Muslim) will be deprived of their livelihood. Most of the settlers will be Christian. The government will then have comprehensively altered the demographic map of the country." (Society Magazine, Sept-Oct, 1996)

Ready and Willing...but still Waiting. (see attachment below)
As most people are aware, approximately 300,000 to 500,000 Eritrean refugees are still waiting in the Sudan for an opportunity to return home. Nearly all these refugees are Moslem pastoralists who used to live in the western lowlands of Eritrea.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) set up an office in Asmara to coordinate the return of these refugees. However, severe problems were encountered in dealing with the Eritrean government. The UNHCR personnel were constantly impeded from doing their work.

Finally in 1996, the UNHCR issued a public statement saying that there was no reason for the Eritrean refugees to remain in Sudan. The implication was clear - the only obstacle was the attitude of the Eritrean government.

The EPLF became angry at this public statement, and in response, the EPLF expelled the UNHCR from Eritrea!!! The refugees in Sudan were abandoned (except for a select group of EPLF supporters)

The Eritrean Newsletter's "Open Letter to the UNHCR" provides some background on this strange incident (see Eritrean Opposition Website).

It should be noted that in contrast to Eritrea, virtually all the Ethiopian refugees in the Sudan (numbering more than 100,000) have been repatriated to Ethiopia, with the final batch arriving in 1998 under a program coordinated with the UN.

Why is the EPLF refusing to bring the Eritrean refugees home? The following could be some of the reasons:

(1) They do not want Eritreans who are not supporters of the EPLF to flood back into the country.

(2) Lowland areas of Eritrea have been marked out for special development. This land used to belong to the refugees. Now it is being given to the (mainly Christian-Highlander) EPLF loyalists. (see Roy Pateman's bold prediction. Also see the article by Sandra Joireman which illustrates how Eritrea has ignored pastoral land rights. "Disregard Of Pastoralist Rights Will Cause Political Conflict In Eritrea")

(3) EPLF does not want to spend resources on these pastoralist refugees. EPLF appears to believe that it can force the refugees to remain in Sudan permanently. Issayas Afeworqi made public statements indicating this. (see ELF website)

Unfortunately, the EPLF has been ruthless in using its own people as hostages in order to get its way with aid donors. For the sake of the refugees, the UNHCR compromised with the EPLF and was allowed to re-open its office in Asmara recently.

However state-directed ethnic engineering has a poor record of success in other countries. It is unlikely to succeed in Eritrea. The EPLFs negative and discriminatory policy towards pastoralists is also likely to achieve nothing more than inciting hatred and divisiveness among Eritreans.

Already the EPLFs suppression of pastoralists rights has provoked a backlash as Africa Confidential reports:

"A Kunama-Baria organisation, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Setit and Gash (Eritrea's two western regions) has fought sporadically against the EPLF since 1993. "

Attachment:
Life and Peace Institute (Sweden): http://www.life-peace.org/hoa/has.htm

Ready and Willing...but still Waiting.
Four years after fundamental political changes in Eritrea, the majority of the nearly 400 000 Erirean refugees living in the Sudan have still not returned to their homeland. Nonetheless, the majority of them appear to be ready and willing to return. How can this seeming contradiction be explained?