Courtesy of an Ethiopian who recently posted on the Internet the words of Ben Franklin, I replay Franklin's words in its universal applicability to our quest for Assab.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Life

When the Eritrean struggle for liberation was on course, it wasn't uncommon to encounter persons of Eritrean birth who would persuasively impress: "we Ethiopians are tired of war and Eritrea should be independent for our peace." Many gullible thought they were sincere and later found out that the same people went heaven and earth to disfigure Ethiopia in image and in well being until the pitying audience melted in tears. They have bargained some success with this and so they consider it a sacred weapon. Even today many Eritreans command noticeable respect in high offices in Ethiopia and the games haven't changed an iota. The world of cyber media is no exception.

I asked a friend of mine if he would respond to some of the dissuasive inferences in the Internet against the need for claiming Assab. He replied, "why would I invite my enemy to discuss with me to tell me what I should doand what I should not?" He may have a point. However, I have chosen not to allow silence give consent.

Consulting

Aynalem and Kibralem: Ethiopia deserves more than contemptuous condolences. The counseling for inaction doesn't require the emergence of eleventh hour consultants to come out the closet after two years of refuge. I don't remember my father spending a great deal of ebullience to tell me to do nothing or to tell me to lay down my right so others can use it as a rug. I know no one else's father did this. I do admire your efforts to fill in the vacancies.

Violence

In both your inputs you have admitted that your arguments were structured to address an "endless war." While putting a legal claim on Assab isn't even a subset of violence, your implicit contention of peace that Ethiopia, not Eritrea, needs to worry about is quite appalling. Ethiopia needs peace and so does Eritrea. I found your inputs considerably dishonest in that you made peace an item to be paid for solely by Ethiopia. My God give you eternal peace and with it rational minds. For the record, Ethiopia needs to place a peaceful claim on Assab and that will suffice until the weight of time tips in her favor.

Apparently, unless one wants to mist it with manipulative influences, a legal claim on Assab by Ethiopia followed by desisting to use it until goal is met is more potent than the use of force to acquire it. If you don't agree then tell us why.

Economy

You both pointed at the period in Ethiopia that followed Eritrea's independence to assure us of safety and to show us that "economic growth is independent of port ownership." You even mentioned figures like 6% and 8% growth rates to have been achieved while ports were absent. The figures are good. I once heard a new automobile manufacturer advertised that it sold 100% of its product, but didn't mention that it manufactured only one car and the purchaser was the owner. The company didn't cheat. The figure did. So figures do lie and, sure, liars do figure. Ethiopia's per capita income was above two hundred at the time of Emperor Haileselassie's rule. It was slightly below two hundred when the Dergue was about to be ousted. Our portless nation now is deep under water at around one hundred dollars. Thanks for not calling the kettle black. Both war and being landlocked contributed to Ethiopia's near ruin state. Rejoice you wished it.

I don't want to allow you to swindle our docile psyche with an exhilarating mention of the stack of money and gold at the Swiss Bank. Stop defrauding us. Switzerland's is at a different wavelength than ours. So I will be specific as regards economy vs. port.

Shortly after Ethiopia was made to disown Assab and Massawa ports by those who "loved her," it started to use the ports against port service fees whose price tags were what a government in Asmara decided to be. At Assab the Asmara government began levying exorbitant charges on Ethiopia in the form of storage fee, landing fee etc. A little later, the bureaucracy to enter the port and pickup goods became cumbersome for Ethiopian truck drivers and businessmen. The port charges accentuated by a deliberately designed bureaucracy resulted in the increase of the price of a quintal of fertilizer by eleven birr more. One can simply imagine what an eleven birr increase for a quintal of fertilizer does to an Ethiopian peasant. When these payments are forced to be in the form of hard currency, it would simply mean the reign of a dark era in the already dim Ethiopia. Yes, our becoming landlocked has caused the deaths of many in the present drought.

Ownership

Assab and those who now call themselves "Eritreans" had never met before 1991. The only thing they had in common was that they were both Ethiopian. The chance that Italy controlled Assab and Eritrea at the same period doesn't mean Assab was more attached to Eritrea than it was to Ethiopia. No Eritrean had ever administered Assab before 1991 and Eritreans living in Assab at any time before 1991 were only less than two percent of the population. Assab was a part of Ethiopia outside the proper Bahre Negash (now Eritrea) domain before Italy took control of it in 1882, alleging an Italian called Guiseppe Sapeto bought it (rented it) from an Ethiopian Sultan "on behalf of" the Rubattino Steamship Company for the purpose of making it a coaling station for Italian shipping on the routs to the Orient. There were about one thousand Italians on average, many thousand Ethiopians from Wollo and none from Bahire Negash all through the period of the Italian occupation. The young Emperor Haileselassie, with all the marvel he was (may his soul rest in peace), claimed Assab from Italy in 1923. Italy, in principle, conceded to return Assab to Ethiopia. In 1928 it modified its approach and ceded it to Ethiopia and Ethiopia built a port city and an automobile road-link to Dessie. But it was after the conquest of Ethiopia by Italy in 1936 that the harbor was greatly improved. From 1936 to 1941 Italy integrated Ethiopia and Eritrea and, internally, combined Tigray with Eritrean highlands and Assab with Wollo. Italy declared Assab to be the main port of Ethiopia and with this colonialism ended.

Eritrea and Ethiopia were declared one country in 1952 by a United Nations decision following the aspirations of the residents of Eritrea and the historical facts. Ethiopia started to educate the residents of the region with specially designed speedy process because none of them were allowed to continue education beyond the fourth grade under Italian rule. Ethiopia built Assab as a port city of spectacular scene with picturesque buildings, a refinery plant, beach-side resorts, port facilities, Church, Mosque, hotels, Asphalt roads, clinics, gas stations etc. It also made it an autonomous region because it had no geographic, cultural or any reasonable proximity to the rest of Eritrea in the internal Ethiopian sense. When Eritrea became de facto independent by force in 1991, the Eritrean rebels forcefully controlled the Assab that was still far and away and a separate Ethiopian region from Eritrea. They have it under their arms to this day. It was forceful, it is illegal and it is cruel. This is why we Ethiopians emphatically and loudly say, "Assab is an Ethiopian port city and should be returned to its owner." It was Ethiopian before Italy came to the picture, It was Ethiopian under Italy and it was Ethiopian under Ethiopia. And there is nothing complex about this.

"Complex?"

I will now leave Kebralem here because, I believe, I have cleared his mist. All Kebralem had was one "we don't need war and so we should give up our right" duplicated in many pages. I wonder, Kebralem, if you opposed and pressured the government you now fawn on to give up Badime because it sacrificed tens of thousands of irreplaceable lives to regain a patch of land of no social benefit. To spare yourself of the illness of hypocrisy you have to state that you did pressure the government to give up that land for peace. We expect your response to this in your next letter. No omissions please.

Aynalem: the truth about Assab is hidden in what you have chosen to forget in your discussion. You said the issue about Assab is "complex" and will involve "tradeoffs." I suppose you have, for us, a sermon on conveyance as "complex" as New York's telephone exchange. Would you care to explain the "complexity" of it, in detail, that you so cleverly eluded to elucidate? Please also enumerate the "list of alternatives" you mentioned that Ethiopia has. The book of knowledge says "not true," Assab is Ethiopian in Eritrean hands. In a very tricky way, though, you said you "fall back to the Ethiopian government's decision to negotiate based on international law." This brings me to the funniest point of them all.

Law

You emphasized that it is for Ethiopia's long term interest for it to try to negotiate based on international law. In trying to understand "international law" I, for the first time, pictured what Dagmawi meant to hint in his recent article titled, "what prospects?"

We know that the high seas are outside the jurisdiction of any country. Therefore, we have equal rights to fish, to navigate, to swim etc. in the sea at Massawa. We share the eel, the octopus, the shark, the whale etc. by law. What is it that Ethiopia needs to negotiate based on this law? It is more like inferring to proceed to negotiate for the right to walk, to eat, to see, to smell etc. How many cycles of deception do we have to entertain before we intercept honesty? Wanting to negotiate based on international law is a prelude for another round of deception with terms like "free port" which is more like "free market" to mean one is free to purchase. Who would open a grocery and write a banner that reads, "dear customer, you are not free to shop in our grocery?" When we agree to negotiate for international law we have agreed for an insult to our intelligence and the informed world will laugh at us.

Independence

Does Sheabea's usurpation of Assab for the last nine years constitute legality? No. In the 1991 conference organized by the EPRDF to start a beginning, the Eritrean party that forcefully occupied Eritrea and Assab refused to join the conference as an Ethiopian entity and declared to attend the conference only as an observer and this is on public record. This renders the process for the independence of Eritrea and the things associated with it mere usurpation no different than a hijack.

There are procedures for all things. Only usurpation lacks procedures. The Eritrean independence wasn't brought to the public, wasn't discussed why, how and no legal or political procedures were adopted. One party simply forcefully imposed it. I don't mean to revisit the procedure for the purpose of returning Eritrea to Ethiopia, but the absence of it gives sufficient grounds to nullify any claims by Eritreans to demand ownership of Assab on grounds that they controlled it for the last nine years. The fact that can't be altered is that deception was the father of Eritrean independence; an independence still defended with lies and lies defended with blood.

Conclusion

In the movie "Nurenburg" a Jewish officer was obsessed with the reason why the SS officers of Nazi Germany killed six million Jews and millions of others with unmatched cruelty. After a course of painful pondering the young officer concluded, "Evil is the total absence of empathy."

Ethiopians are as loving and unsuspecting as they are beautiful people. They held Eritreans dear in both good and bad times. Sheabea Eritreans very well have known that the more than sixty million Ethiopians would be in a serious fix when they are deprived of their ports. And as if getting Ethiopians landlocked wasn't cruel enough, these people embarked on a looting spree in Ethiopia and plundered as much as their coffers chanced to hold.

One reason Eritrea keeps applying to be a member of the Arab league is not for the love of the Arab world. By joining the league Eritrea knows that it will avail itself the environment to get to team up with Djibouti, Somalia and the Sudan so as to be able to make Ethiopia a permanent prisoner of its mercy. Without even being a member of the Arab league Eritrea had many attempts to get Djibouti's collaboration to scale up port charges. At the center of the permanent unrest of the horn we have Eritrea and in Eritrea what we have is a total absence of empathy.