Eritrea:
Daily, Badme worth the unrest over the border decision?
24 Jan 2005
Daily, I search and read about Eritrea, although I am a US
citizen by birth. Having lived in Eritrea for a short while, I have a very warm
feeling for its people and a great sadness for their plight. For years even
before independence from colonial rule was achieved I have watched and studied.
Your website is greatly appreciated. Perhaps you or your readers can answer.
I know that Badme was a catalyst for war, but I do not understand
what it is about it that makes it so valuable as to have committed the deaths of
so many, the continuing unrest over the boundary determination of the commission,
and the financial drain etc.
Is it that Badme was never sufficient reason for the actions
that took place, but that it excused an Ethiopian attempt to secure a seaport
as some have said? And from that, a failure to secure, at least Badme, is to
lose face and moral justification for the war?
Is it that Badme has a strategic geographical advantage,
mineral resources, cultural absolutes, or agricultural value? What of these
does it possess, if any?
I envision Badme as a schoolyard where two extremely poor
schoolboys are fighting over the only football...and the football is so damaged
as to be unusable. I want to grab both by their shirt collars, throw away the
torn football and send them both back to their mothers with a swift kick in the
pants. I also envision those boys would have the same hurt pride, desire for
vengeance and unreasoning animosity towards each other. In this same
"vision" I could compare the two boys much like Yassar Arafat and
Ariel Sharon...that peace will not descend upon their peoples until they both
are gone and their pride and justice in having
fought is extinguished. But I am not the school yard monitor nor kin to either
of the two.
What answers can you give me? I fear that, like much of the
rest of the
world, I will become so disheartened as to no longer care.
Kenneth Brahmer
Unlimited, high
