Geography Foils Government of Eritrea

The Government of Eritrea, which has a long history of exhausting every bad idea before grudgingly accepting the good one, is on to its next bad idea: making peace with Ethiopia by bypassing the Ethiopia that borders it: Tigray Region.

But this time, geography is conspiring against it. Whether an Eritrean’s motivation is family reunion, trade or tourism, the part of Ethiopia he or she is most likely to visit is: Tigray. For similar reasons, the Ethiopian most likely to visit Eritrea is: Tigrayan.

Amazingly, this glaring and obvious fact seems to have totally surprised the Government of Eritrea. And, in its brooding state, it is expressing its dissatisfaction with this obvious fact of life by having the media it controls (Eri-TV, Dimtsi Hafash, Hadas Ertra, Eritrean Profile) barely cover or not cover at all events that show this very inconvenient fact.

Examples:

1. The celebrations that accompanied the crossing of the Mereb bridge (connecting Adi Quala, Eritrea to Rama, Tigray) were barely covered.

2. The huge traffic jam created in Mekele from Eritreans visit Tigray State capital: not covered.

3. Eritreans reaction to visiting Mekele, Tigray: not covered.

4. Eritreans visits to Ahmed Alnegashi shrine in Negash, Tigray: barely covered.

Why? Because Tigrayans and Eritrean highlanders continue to remind the world they have the same heritage. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) continues to remind the world its revolution and that of Eritrea fought together, bled together to defeat the tyrannic Mengistu Hailemariam and his Derg from power. Because the TPLF, which we were told was done, buried deep under, continues to be in power and its constituents raising the Region’s flag, which is almost identical to the organization’s flag.

As is the custom with PFDJ, it will eventually do the right thing. But the custom with PFDJ is it first has to exhaust every bad idea.

This was the case with its decision to refuse to engage Ethiopia for 14 long years insisting on demarcation-before-dialogue AND NO LAND SWAPS (AS EEBC allowed it to) when now, that’s exactly what it will do, as hinted by Ethiopian PM Abiye Ahmed.

This was the case with its dispute with Djibouti: everybody begged it to acknowledge its dispute with the country and seek mediation and preferably enter into direct dialog with it and now, 10 years later, it did just that.

This was the case with Somalia: everybody told it to recognize the government that was the outcome of the Djibouti Peace Process of 2008. which it loudly rejected. This was a year before it was sanctioned and now, ten years later, it is doing what it could have done then.

What the people know:it has had 27 uninterrupted years of making poor decisions and the results have been poor: one of the poorest countries in the world (bottom 10 in UNDP HDI), a country without constitution, with no people’s sovereignty (an autocracy), a land with no rule of law, no justice; a State which has exiled 14% of its population. Even when it gets good results, it is the result of poor decision; thus attributable to factors completely outside its control, ie, luck.

In short, it needs help. Help as in: shown the exit from position of power. Unfortunately for the people of Eritrea, the Government is also so delusional it actually not only thinks it makes good decisions, but that consistently makes good decisions. In fact, to hear its triumphant tone, it has been vindicated. Or, as the president of the country often says, “we never make a mistake.”

For those of you who don’t want to wait for ten years to know what is happening between Eritreans and Tigrayans right now, here are some videos:

(1) Zalambesa border opening