POLITICAL BACKGROUND
From the time the Irob people settled in their present land up to early 1800's they kept full autonomy from the central governments. However, they always recognized the nationhood of Ethiopia and pledged cautious allegiance to the highest leaders of the nation.
In the early 1800's one of the Irob leaders, Dej. Soubagadis Woldu became the strongest man in Agame and was competing to incorporate the whole of Tigray, including what now is known as Eritrea, under his rule. In fact, he succeeded and ruled the entire region from 1818 to 1831. The question of how to deal with the case of this ambitious rising leader raised some problem among Irob people and leaders. The dilemma was between acknowledging full recognition and authority to their hopeful brother and putting their autonomy in jeopardy or being an obstacle to his success by opposing him. Hasaballa, Soubagadis' tribe, and Adgadee-Are whose compatriot and leader, Belata Fessuh, had become adviser and right hand man of Soubagadis preferred not to oppose him. The leaders of Bouknaitee-Are in central Irob, instead, did not want to give-up their autonomy. Their determination to guard their autonomy and Soubagadis' ambitions was bound to lead to conflict.
Haneita Tsaru and Haneita Koumanit were the most prominent leaders of Bouknaitee-Are at the time; Haneita Tsaru being the top leader of the region. He was friend of Dej. Soubagadis and used to see him on and off. Haneita
Kumanit, instead, was suspicious of Soubagadis and therefore kept himself distant from him.
As Koumanit suspected, Soubagadis, in a very tricky way, arrested Tsairu and started a war. Suspicious Koumanit had been on guard and with his followers overpowered Soubagadis' warriors, arrested his chief of staff, and liberated Tsaru.
Soubagadis had to give up the venture of putting the Irobs under control by force. After some time he invited the leaders for a compromise and negotiated solution. The Irob leaders welcomed the invitation with three major preconditions one of which was the Irob autonomy. Soubagadis accepted them
all and both sides reached a compromised solution. I am not going into detail about the war or other aspects of the compromise. But it is worth mentioning that Soubagadis agreed not to interfere in internal matter of Irob and that the leaders elected by Irobs were going to be recognized by central governments. The Irob leaders, on their side, recognized his authority by promising to pay him symbolic taxes twice a year. This agreement had been respected until the fascist Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.
Before the Italian invasion of 1935 Irob was a self-governing region ruled by its elected leaders highest of who held the title 'Ona'. The last election in which Ona Desta Woldegiorgis and Ona Gebray Enday were candidates had been held just before the invasion. The Italian fascists ignored the results of the election and appointed their own man who ruled for about four years, i..e. until the end of Italian occupation.
When the country was liberated from the Italians and Emperor Haileselassie was reinstated the central government started to appoint Irob administrators. The first central government's appointee was short-lived Fetawrari Giday who was killed in a local conflict before he had established an office. This coincided with Woyane uprising of 1941. After Woyane movement had been put down Haileselassie's regime decreed disarmament of Tigray people and the region was put under strict control.
The second man that appointed by the central government to administer Irob was Kegne-Azmach Embaye, who partially, enforced in the Irob region the Haileselassie governments' policy of disarming the people of Tigray. After him Basha Bisau, who was of Irob origin but neither spoke the language nor resided there, was appointed. When Basha Bisau was, nominally, Mislene (local administrator), of Irob
a brilliant young Irob man who was employed in central government's bureaucracy in Mekele, capital of Tigray, asked on his own to be transferred into Alitena, Irob, to work there as a Vice-Mislene. He was the son of lastly elected Bouknaitee-Are leader, Ona Gebray, and his name was Woldu Gebray. This meant less salary and lower rank than the position he held, but he was determined to work for his people. In short period of time he became very popular, not only because he was fair and just but, above all, because he worked hard and efficiently to safeguard the so far surviving aspects of Irob autonomy. He successfully defended to his death the semi-autonomous woreda status of Irob.
Immediately after his death Irob was merged to the neighboring woredas of Gule-mekada and Sourouxo. It was deprived not only of its traditional autonomy and the right to elect its leaders but even of its woreda status until the current government re-instituted, at least, its woreda status.
Something we cannot bypass when we talk about political history of the Irob people is their participation in the anti-colonial struggle of the Ethiopian people. The Irob elders narrate that many Irobs participated in the wars fought against Ottoman expansionists, for example, in Gura'e; and in Adwa and other places against Italian colonialists. During the fascist invasion, especially, the Irob patriots lead by their indigenous leaders such as Dej. Ayele Sebhat and Dej. Kassa Sebhat, the son of Ras Sebhat fought the Italians from their base in Assimba.
During the years of struggle against the internal dictatorship, the Dergues' regime, the Irob people fought side by side with the Ethiopian opposition groups such as the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party (EPRP), the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) etc. By the way, none of the Eritrean movements advanced into the Irob region during those years or before..
Irob, despite its physical location by the border area, in essence, is a core part of Tigray. In fact, most Tigrayan leaders who played important roles in regional and national politics were fully or partly Irob descendants. Just to mention some randomly. Dej: Soubagadis, Emperor Yohannes IV, Itegie Denqnesh,
Ras Sebhat, Shum Agame Desta, Ras Araya, Dej. Hagos, Dej. Derso, Dej. Maru, Dej. Tedla Abaguben, Shum Agame Aregawi, Dej. Belay Weldiye, Dej. Kassa, Dej. Ayele, Dej. Gebreselassie, Dr. Tesfay Debessay etc.
The purpose of bringing the last paragraph to attention is not to go into any detail regarding the personalities mentioned or historical events related to them. But to emphasize that the Eritrean claim to which I will come afterwards in this paper has no historical foundation, when it comes to Irob peoples' socio-political association or historical background.
Concluding this part we can say that the political history of the Irob people encompasses two equally important aspects: defense of internal autonomy and respect for the unity and sovereignty of the Ethiopian nation.
THE ERITREAN INVASION
The Irob land was invaded at the end of last May. The invasion and the subsequent cruel treatment of the people have not received enough coverage especially by the news media. The first journalist who reported the invasion to the world is Voice of America (VOA) reporter Mimi Sebhatu, who happened to be in the area the day the Eritrean armed forces invaded the Irob land. Irob communities in Addis Ababa and North America issued some statements pointing out the atrocities the invaders committed, and still committing, against the Irob people and underlining that Irob has never been part of Eritrea in any
time in history. The most important account issued by an outsider is the one written by Dr. Anne Walters-Byare and circulated through the Internet. Other reports came out after that, include Mr. Wray Witten's report that embodies other Ethiopian territories under the Eritrean invaders, interviews done with the administrators of Irob-Worda, statement by Adigrat Catholic Church, etc. All of them revealed that the Irob peasants in the occupied areas are subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment from forced citizenship to expulsion
from their homes.
Imprisonment, harassment, beating and killings of unchallenging civilians including Priests, rape of women, desecration and looting of churches still continue. Eviction of residents from their homes, destruction of houses, and the transportation to Eritrea of precious wood with which the ceilings of Irob houses are made also continued. The rest of it is being used for cooking and warming purposes. Personal and community properties such as farming and terracing tools, construction materials, household goods have been stolen.
Health centers and schools are being ransacked. The EPLF government is also engaged in a systematic cultural destruction and stealing historical valuables.
The peasants are expelled without being allowed to take with them any of their household properties. Their domestic animals and beehives are left behind and are slaughtered and vandalized by the invading soldiers. Dispossessing people
of all their property is one of the worst violations of human rights mentioned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property".
The evictions have been ordered without any advanced notices, arrangements or provisions during the months of unusual rain and cold. The people who are thrown out from their homes are mostly the elderly, the disabled, women and
children that were left behind when able people left the area earlier to escape the war. The evicted people are suffering in the cold mountains without any shelter or food. The condition of those escaped to other areas is not much better.
The evicted women are having babies in the wild groves and the infirm are dying because of the hardship and they do not get the traditional religious funeral ceremonies. The funeral places are built in the lots around their churches; and the churches are under the control of the invaders who altered
the residences of the pastors and parochial schools into their lodgings.
Will Irob villages, which have been bedrock of a stable society, ever again be places people can resettle in? It seems very difficult. The invaders are not only looting whatever is available but also systematically eradicating all bases the Irob can rely on for future come back and placing land-mines everywhere in the villages.
The invaders prohibited the Irob peasants, during sowing season from planting making a prerequisite the acceptance of forced Eritrean citizenship and uprooted those who did not agreed to. Those who somehow managed to plant are
forbidden from harvesting what they grew. It is not difficult to foresee what the fate of these people will be.
All this, without any doubt, will make extremely difficult the rehabilitation of the displaced Irob peasants when, eventually, the invaders are out of the occupied areas.
As no international and neutral forces or journalists can get to the occupied areas, the full range of atrocities being committed by the Eritrean armed forces cannot be fully revealed. The sketchy information comes from those who managed to escape into Adigrat and other towns. All types of human rights
have been violated extensively and it is escalating. People who were amassed in Alitiena after being eradicated from other Irob villages were told, in the beginning of this month, October 98, to leave immediately. Unless pressure is brought to bear on the Eritrean invading forces, they will not desist from committing more violations against the inhabitants of the occupied Ethiopian
territories.
The aim of the Eritrean invaders seems to be to eradicate Irob and other invaded peoples for their expansionist objectives. The International Community in general, and the Ethiopian government in particular, should take urgent measures to stop the Eritrean government's madness. Humanitarian
Organizations, the Red Cross and other concerned agencies also should do whatever they can to help the displaced people who were dependent on food aid even before the invasion. The Eritrean government who instigated war against four neighbors during its existence of only five years must be stopped before it commits more barbarity.
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Eritrean Territorial Claim is Baseless