Eritrea never been part of Ethiopia, Kommersant dead wrong
15 April 2005, EDnews: In
a newsarticle entitled “Prepackaged War
// Eritrea
is getting ready for another war” that was posted today on the website of
“Kommersant, New Russia’s Independent Newspaper”, Leonid Gankin and Konstantin Lantratov, write
“Eritrea,
which had been an Italian colony for 50 years, became a part of Ethiopia after
Italy’s loss in World War II. But soon after the coup, Eritrea wanted to
separate. Addis-Ababa could not prevent that so Ethiopia became the first
country to recognize in May1993 the Eritrean independence. And the Eritrean
president said at that time soon the two brother countries should think about
reunification in the frame of union or confederation”. Knowingly or unknowingly
that is an egregious distortion of Eritrea’s well-documented and publicly
available geopolitical History.
Like all other African countries as we know them
today, Eritrea was first established by Italian Colonialism as a distinct
Nation State that was determined by distinct colonial treaties as a result of
the 19th Century colonial Scramble for Africa, in1890.
At the end of Colonialism, while former colonies
were disposed of as politically independent, self-governing Nations, Eritrea
was denied of that right. Instead and as if 50 years of Italian colonialism was
not enough, Eritrea was transferred to British Colonialism as a “protectorate”
in 1941 for another 10 years. At the end of British “military administration”
in 1952, the UN forced Eritrea to enter into a “federation” with Ethiopia for
10 years by resolution UNGA Res. 390A (v), at the end of which the people of
Eritrea would be given a chance to decide their own political fate via a
plebiscite.
Instead, in 1962, Ethiopia unilaterally voided and
annulled UN resolution 390 A (v), dissolved the “Federation”, forcibly annexed
Eritrea and declared it to its “14th province; similar to the way
Iraq attempted to annex Kuwait and declare it to its province, 1991,
Indonesia’s forceful annexation and declaration of East Timor (Portuguese
Colony) to its 27th province in 1976, and the persistent annexation
of Spanish West Sahara (Spanish Colony) first by Morroco and Mauritania, 1975,
and now under the sole occupation of the kingdom of Morocco.
Unless Kommersant and its columnists want to
justify and validate forceful annexation of a Nation State, which is highly improbable,
it is egregious and there is no basis, whatsoever for the statement “Eritrea,
which had been an Italian colony for 50 years, became a part of Ethiopia after
Italy’s loss in World War II”. By the same token too, it is nonsensical to
speak of “Eritrea wanting to separate” or “reunification” of the two countries
when they have never been part of each other unless the authors want to justify
and validate the forceful annexation of a Nation state by another State and
legitimize the so-established Grand State as one whole, which is seriously
doubtful because it won’t hold water.
Kommersant also misquoted what Eritrean president
said at the time. The president brought up the feasibility of ‘federation’ with
Ethiopia only as a concept, and there is nothing wrong with that because though
unlikely it is not impossible. But he never spoke of "reunification".
No one knows what was in the president's mind at the time and we don't claim clairvoyance either. But it is perfectly plausible that the president was making tactical remarks to dampen Ethiopia's pathological compulsive-possessive-obsession with Eritrea's seaports and congenital denial of geopolitical realities (irreversible) created by colonialism.
One can speak of Eritrea only from the day the term
Eritrea was first introduced to herald the establishment of a politically
distinct Nation State whose territorial sovereignty was secured by distinct
colonial treaties in1890 and as we know Eritrea today because neither Eritrea
nor Ethiopia as we know them today existed prior to the advent of “the scramble
for Africa”, hence colonialism.
Consequently and accordingly, Eritrea has never ever been part of
Ethiopia in any form or shape prior to and post colonialism and there is no history of Eritrea or Ethiopia as
we know them today prior to colonialism.
Tales about the history of Eritrea or Ethiopia
prior to the advent of colonialism have only anecdotal significance because no
African nation as we know it today existed then . At best, one can narrate the
history of pre-colonial Africa in general whereby there can’t be any talk about
countries or nation states for there were no polities then. The purpose of such
narration could only be to demonstrate the arbitrary nature of the colonial “scramble
for Africa” and the way how today’s African countries have been established and
not to establish or justify territorial claims retrospectively.
