by Dan Connell
ASMARA — When thousands of fighters of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front rolled into this Eritrean capital atop captured Soviet tanks on May 24, jubilant citizens poured out of their houses to greet them. The crowds were so thick that they prevented the EPLF from catching panicked Ethiopian troops then fleeing out of the north side of Asmara.
"It was complete hysteria! Nobody bothered to lock doors or wear shoes. Every resident was in the streets. People were dancing a few metres away from the retreating Second Army as if they were in a dream", one Eritrean said afterward.
The people of Eritrea remain elated over the end of their 30-year war for independence. But the dancing is over, and the tortuous task of constructing Africa's newest nation-state out of the ashes of the continent's longest and most brutal armed conflict has begun in earnest.
The central priorities for the newly established Provisional Government of Eritrea are the creation of stable political structures and the reconstruction of the country's war- and drought-ravaged economy, senior officials say. They pledge an open political process and a regulated market economy. They also say they will dissolve the EPLF itself in 1993, after establishing constitutional government and convening national elections.
The task before the Eritrean nationalists is daunting. War and over a decade of chronic famine have left the Red Sea territory utterly devastated. Its antiquated infrastructure is in a shambles, its subsistence agriculture is reeling from a terrible drought, its limited light industry is largely destroyed, and more than 85% of its 3.2 million people, many of whom were displaced by the fighting, are now subsisting on international relief. Nevertheless, most Eritreans remain hopeful.
Big challenges
During a five-week tour, travelling by bus, flatbed truck, four-wheel drive vehicle and, occasionally, by foot, I interviewed scores of Eritrean officials, private citizens, local and foreign relief workers and visiting diplomats. The consensus is that the new government is off to a good start but that the challenges it faces are enormous. It is under heavy pressure to produce tangible results soon.
The most frequent comment of people on the streets is that they relish their new freedom to go wherever they like, whenever they choose. The EPLF has lifted the curfew here, in effect since the early 1970s, and abolished all travel restrictions within the country.
Walking the streets of this lovely, Italianate city, a visitor is immediately struck by the atmosphere of openness and joy, the orderliness of the city itself and the evident civic pride of its 460,000 inhabitants. No guns are visible, as all EPLF soldiers are required to leave their arms at the outskirts of the do not carry weapons.
However, there are constant reminders of the terrible costs of this long war. Nearly every family has lost at least one member to the fighting. Most have two, three or more children living abroad as refugees and exiles, and many are now only discovering whether their sons and daughters survived.
Sadia Omer was 10 when she was separated from her family during the battle for Nacfa in March 1977. When her parents fled to Sudan, Sadia was taken by the EPLF to a school hidden in their mountainous rear base area. Six years later she was assigned to a remote village in the western province of Barka to work as a teacher. Last month, on a brief leave from the EPLF, she found her mother in the border town of Karora, together with the three brothers and sisters born after she disappeared.
"I felt something very deep when I kissed my mother", she says. "I had forgotten them. All I knew was my learning and teaching. But when I saw them I had all these new feelings." Sadia says she will continue teaching for the next 18 months, but after the referendum, which she is certain will lead to Eritrea's full independence, she wants to return to school to study medicine.
Colonial rule
Eritrea was established as an Italian colony in 1890. After defeating Italian forces in East Africa in 1941, Britain governed Eritrea for a decade before it was federated to Ethiopia under United Nations auspices. The Eritreans launched their war for independence from Ethiopia in 1961 as the late emperor Haile Selassie moved to annex the territory. The US and Israel then backed Selassie in the war with Eritrean nationalists until 197 when a newly installed junta, known as the Derg, realigned Ethiopia with the Soviet Union.
Moscow poured over $10 billion in modern arms into Ethiopia, one of the world's poorest countries, but the escalation of the war only increased the destruction without altering its outcome. On May 24, the EPLF routed an Ethiopian force estimated to number 15,000 troops. Two days later, the Addis Ababa regime collapsed and a coalition of Ethiopian opposition groups under the banner of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front took power.
In July, the EPRDF declared its formal support for Eritrean demands for self-determination, agreeing to plans for a UN-supervised referendum on
Eritrea's future status within two years.
The new provisional government has moved decisively to establish its separate Eritrean identity. A visitor needs a special visa from the EPLF and must clear Eritrean immigration on the way into Asmara and Eritrean customs on the way out.
Blank spaces on many buildings testify to the fervour with which Eritreans erased any overt sign of an official Ethiopian presence, and many bars and restaurants have been hurriedly renamed. Downtown Asmara now sports a Denden Bar, a Freedom Pharmacy, and a Nacfa Restaurant to commemorate famous battle sites.
In their zeal to separate themselves from Ethiopia, Eritrean leaders country into the old post or telephone systems. Negotiations are going forward to open their own distinct lines of communication. Meanwhile, Eritrea remains cut off from the outside world except for a handful of satellite uplinks and hand-delivered mail. Though Ethiopian Airlines remains the main carrier to Asmara, its tickets are being sold at an office marked "Eritrean Airlines".
In October, the government opened elementary schools across Eritrea with a new curriculum taught in at least four of the country's nine local languages. Officials say they plan to allow students to study in their native language up to grade six. After this, the language of instruction for all will be English, a neutral choice in this ethnically diverse nation that will provide students with access to international publications, officials say.
Most Eritreans point to the early 1950s as the peak of their economic and political development. At that time, the territory had 1176 kilometres of asphalt roads, a 352-kilometre railway linking the Massawa port with the western towns of Agordat and Barentu, and more than 5000 commercial and industrial firms. Most towns had running water and electricity, and there were independent newspapers, several political parties and an independent trade union. All that changed under Ethiopian rule, residents say.
Little help
Today, most of the roads are in shreds from the constant stress of Ethiopian military traffic and the lack of any maintenance for over 15 years. Electricity is sporadic, most urban water systems leak up to half their load into the ground, and the railway has been completely dismantled. Ethiopian troops used the iron cross-ties and rails to build bunkers during the last phase of the war.
EPLF leaders concede that they are starting practically from scratch. "Our people are our main resource", says economic minister Haile Wold'ensai. "We have both a challenge and an opportunity. The problem in this transition period is that because of the issue of sovereignty, we cannot expect much help from the outside, but this was also true during the liberation struggle, and it did not prevent us from accomplishing our goals then."
The new government's first priority, according to Wold'Ensai, is to rebuild the country's war-damaged infrastructure. To this end, the entire EPLF army of 95,000 young men and women has been asked to serve another two years without pay. Recently, a compulsory "national service" was also announced, requiring all citizens between 18 and 40 to register. All those not gainfully employed or in school are liable for call-up for 12-18 months.
The government is targeting food security as a medium-range goal, but admits that this will be impossible to achieve without significant changes in the system of rain-fed agriculture. Meanwhile, it hopes to attract capital from abroad to regenerate Eritrea's industrial sector. Most formerly nationalised enterprises, with the exception of banks and insurance companies, will also be privatised as soon as possible, Wold'ensai says.
However, the Eritreans are having considerable difficulty in gaining on and the financial aid and investment that could go with it. The Sudanese, long-time supporters of the Eritreans, were the first to establish an official presence in Asmara. Egypt and Yemen have since followed suit, but formal ties with western countries are proving harder to come by.
A series of high level delegations from the US and the UK have been through Eritrea, but formal relations are still at talking stage, external affairs spokesperson Ahmed Baduri says. "We're patient, and we don't want any confrontations", he adds.
Eritrean insistence on being dealt with separately from Ethiopia is, however, generating some friction and some hard lessons in the whimsicality of international protocol. When the German ambassador to Ethiopia arrived unannounced and without an Eritrean "visa" at the Asmara airport, demanding to meet with high-ranking EPLF leaders, he was refused.
Eritrean official claim he then threatened to block European Community food aid. Unmoved, EPLF leaders protested to the German Foreign Ministry, which retaliated by issuing a travel advisory to German nationals, warning that Eritrea is unsafe to visit. The issue is yet unresolved, and neither side appears ready to back off.
The United Nations is proving the easiest international body for the Eritreans to deal with. The World Food Program was the first UN agency to set up operations here, followed by UNICEF and then UNHCR. In November, Trevor Page, the former coordinator of UN relief operations in Sudan, was appointed to manage all UN operations in Eritrea. In a sharp departure from normal protocol, Page reports directly to UN under-secretary James Jonah in New York, bypassing UN offices in Addis Ababa.
Self-rule
The Eritreans are pushing ahead with efforts to institutionalise new forms of self-rule. The model they propose calls for three co-equal branches of government: a popularly elected legislature, an executive selected by the legislators and an independent judiciary, according to Yemane Ghebre-ab, director of the government's Information Department.
In late October, judges at the national, provincial and district level were appointed for lengthy terms by the Justice Department. Elected people's assemblies have been functioning for over a decade at the village level, and provincial elections are planned soon, government officials say. However, executive positions at the provincial and national levels will remain under the direct control of EPLF until national elections are held after the 1993 referendum.
"This is part of a continuous process of educating our people to the practice of democracy and then turning over power to them", says Sebhat Efram, the commander of the EPLF army that captured Asmara. "The EPLF as a separate entity is already disintegrating. After the referendum, our mandate is finished, and the front will disappear."