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----- Weitergeleitete Nachricht von yared <yareds@bigpond.net.au> -----
   Datum: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 16:47:53 +1000
   Von: yared <yareds@bigpond.net.au>
Antwort an: yared <yareds@bigpond.net.au>
Betreff: WHAT IS THE ISSUE WITH KUNAMAS?
   An: VKP@baden-kunama.com

Hi Editor,

I am totally confused about the various articles written in this Kunama Website.
I may be wrong but I get the impression that it is purely anti-tigrynia
speakers, anti Shaebia, anti Isayas etc rather than dealing with issues that
Kunamas face.

I am Tigrinya speaking Eritrean and I am proud of it as you should be as a
Kunama. I also support the Eritrean government and that is my basic right.
For a start face the truth and give them the credit they deserve - Shaebia
brought Eritrea its independence, that is a fact, take it or leave it. When
push came to shove, the other groups were nowhere to be seen in the final hours
of the decisive battle. However, it does not mean I am in agreement with
everything they do. But am I to follow any opposition group just because I am
not happy with some of their policies? Does this warrant a revolution and
chaos? Nobody is perfect but it is time people grow up and see things in
context. The current Eritrea government has never had the chance to prove
itself because the country is still technically at war with Ethiopia. They are
simply doing their best when everyone else who could help (like myself) are
living overseas because of our personal interest. Who am I to complain when I
have not lifted a finger to contribute towards the nation? Anyone who calls for
a change of government before the Eritrea/Ethiopia boundary issue is resolved is
looking for chaos and these are the people who haven't got Eritrea's interest at
heart. They are simply looking for personal satisfaction.

Having said that, I would also be terribly concerned if there is a specific
government policy that deliberately denies Kunamas or any other nationality
their basic right. It is about time your contributors articulate the real
issues (so you can get the support of people like myself) rather than going
into rhetorical meaningless assault on everything the government does and on
every other nationalities of Eritrea.

Please tell me the real issues that affect Kunamas. I just want facts. What
has been happening in recent times and how you believe they could be solved. I
do not want stories of what happened 30 or 40 etc years ago. I am not here to
fight past battles. I will leave those to history.

Kind Regards
Yared

First of all, let us thank you, Mr. Yared, for your honesty and sincerity in declaring yourself to be “Tigrinya speaking Eritrean”, that you are “proud of it” and that you “also support the Eritrean government and that is your basic right”. Let us Kunama too, tell you that we are not only very proud of being Kunama, but that it is also our “basic right” to concern ourselves about our own ethnic, social, political, territorial and land property rights. Your question therefore, “WHAT IS THE ISSUE WITH KUNAMAS”, has been asked hundreds of times before, by people like you and our answers have always been that, since time immemorial, the Kunama ethnic-group has always suffered discrimination, oppression and all kinds of injustices, committed not only by the non-Kunama authorities, ruling in our land and upon our people, but also by the non-Kunama populations, residing and living in the Kunama land. Today, under the present PFDJ regime’s policy, such ethnic, social and territorial discrimination, oppression and all kinds of injustices against the Kunama people, have reached an unprecedented degree. We are therefore, just telling you all that it is time for us Kunama to look after ourselves.

If, as you yourself stated, Mr. Yared, you are “totally confused about the various articles in this Kunama Website”, as you “get the impression that it is purely anti-tigrynia speakers, anti Shaebia, anti Isayas etc rather than dealing with issues that Kunama face”, it is either because you absolutely do not know anything about the past and the present plights of the Kunama people, or you are a late-comer into the readership clients of “this Kunama Website”, which, for the last seven (7) years, has been dealing with the burning issues of the Kunama people’s ethnic, political, socio-cultural and territorial rights. If therefore, “the various articles in this Kunama website”, appear to you to be “purely anti-tigrynia speakers, anti Shaebia, anti Isayas etc”, it is because today it is the “Eritrean-Tigrian” ethnic component, it is the “Shaebia’s” regime and it is Mr. “Isayas’” dictatorial and discriminatory rule which have increasingly deteriorated and worsened the living conditions of the Kunama people who, having their land massively invaded, outnumbered and overpowered by numberless and violent-prone Eri-Tigrian settlers, are, for the first time, in their whole history, abandoning and fleeing their own native and ancestral land. If these are not the issues of a major concern, what other issues are

you, Mr. Yared, looking for, as justifiable reasons for our contributors to write those articles? By the way, what do you know, about the Kunama people, about their land, about their culture; about their past and present history, in order to understand their plights and give your “support?” Do you think that we Kunama really need the support of people like you, Mr. Yared, who though well-knowing and well-aware of the plights the whole of the Eritrean people are being faced with, because of the oppressive dictatorial rule of the “Shabia’s” regime, are yet blindly supporting and confessing to support it? You yourself do admit that people “like yourself are living overseas because of your personal interest”, but do please be honest with your own self, Sir, that you are “living overseas”, not so much “because of your personal interest”. as because and deep down, you totally disapprove of and are not at all happy with the Shabia regime’s dictatorial, very oppressive and very cruel rule. How could you then confess to be supporting a regime and a political system totally rejected and condemned by the entire international community? Is this not a shame for you, Sir, and for all those people like you, either not able to or not willing to see and accept the reality as it is? How could you all support a regime which has cold-bloodedly gunned-down those disabled war-veterans, asking for their own legitimate rights? How could you all support a regime which has imprisoned and is keeping incommunicado, all those heroes of the Eritrean 30-long years of liberation struggle? How could you all support a regime which is keeping the whole country and its people in prison? How could you dare declare such support? Shame on you all!

You, Mr. Yared, went on and on, describing what you believe to be the good sides of the Shabia’s regime, but why, do you think, are so many Eritreans today fleeing their country, risking their own lives, both from being shot at by the Shabia’s soldiers as well as challenging the Libyan desert and the Mediterranean sea? Would many of our fellow-Eritreans decide to face such dangers, if they were happy, as you are “living overseas”, with the policy of the Shabia’s regime?

Mr. Yared, we are really astounded by your myopic views and by your lack of discerning ability, between good and bad, in the policies of the regime you are supporting. Nevertheless you are asking us: “please tell me the real issues that affect Kunamas. I just want facts. What has been happening in recent times

and how you believe they could be solved. I do not want stories of what happened 30 or 40 years ago. I am not here to fight past battles. I will leave those to history”.

Since we understand that you are not able to see even “the real issues that affect” your own “tigrynia speakers”, we cannot expect that you could ever be able to see and understand those “issues” affecting the Kunama people. We are therefore saving ourselves time and energy in trying to satisfy your plea. We however, would wish to state that, if “stories of 30 or 40 years ago” are not there to teach us a lesson, we will always be struggling with the present days’ stories.

let us inform you that the www.baden-kunama.com and the VKP’s team, running it, are neither the www.mesel-biherat.com and its chief, Mr. Kornelios Adolay running it, nor do the two web-sites and their masters have any good connections and relations with each and therefore the VKP’s team is asking you to immediately stop sending it any news concerning Mr. Kornelios Adolay Osman and his personal web-site.

The following is an E-mail sent to the VKP’s office from a fellow-Eritrean in Asmara. Resp:-November 22, 2005

hi, this is your brother from asmara, i am not happy about your objecives concerning ethnic advocation. We are small people we need unity and integrity for our peace and community as a people your problem is complexity. you guys you need to evaluate your achivment and concider your future programmes.

Yours tegatalay”.

From the content of your E_mail though, the VKP’s team is unable to get much of your message and therefore, it is only responding to you, based on its own interpretation.

First of all, let us remind you that we do not expect anyone to be “happy” with all our aims and “objectives?”

Secondly, we “advocate” defending the ethnic, the cultural and the territorial rights of the existing different Eritrean nationalities in general and those of our Kunama people, in particular, simply because this had always been the traditional praxis which had kept, in peace and harmony, the multi-ethnic, the multi-lingual and the multi-cultural Eritrean society in the past, until the present PFDJ’s dictatorial regime came along to infringe upon those rights, thus creating divisions, hatred and havoc among those peacefully living populations. If this is our “advocacy” which makes you unhappy, dear brother Medhanie, then you are “happy” we the way the present Eritrean regime has turned the whole country and its people in a state of turmoil, with very unpredictable and ominous ethnic conflicts in the future. The “unity and integrity of our (Eritrean) communities” had always been “rock-solid”, until “nhnan elamanan” and “hade hizbi hade libbi” principles were introduced, applied and disintegrated that “solid rock”.

We do not quite understand what you mean by “your problem is complexity”. Are you saying that we are suffering from some kind of either inferiority or superiority “complex?” Let us assure you that nothing of that stuff is part of our character. We are just calling a “spade a spade” and challenging the present PFDJ’ regime as well people like you, Medhanie and others, to come to your senses and consider that the issue of the ethnic, cultural and territorial rights of the Eritrean various nationalities is just as old as those ethnic-groups themselves.

Your suggestion, Medhanie that we “guys need to evaluate our achievements and our future programs” is very welcome.

“Our achievements” are that we Kunama today have educationally grown mature enough and ethnically very conscious enough to claim for our cultural and territorial rights to be uncompromisingly implemented, promoted and defended just in the same and in an equal manner, like those of you Eri-Tigrians and of the other favoured Eritrean nationalities.

Finally, let us remind you, Medhanie and others, that no peace, no “unity and integrity of our communities” and no sovereignty and stability of our country are and can be guaranteed without first establishing, safeguarding and guaranteeing the ethnic, the cultural and the territorial rights of our different nationalities. Let the present quagmire of the PFDJ regime’s political system be of a vivid example to you all.

God bless you

The VKP risponds to „Ecuk@eritreanuk.org“ on its

„Crime on top of Crime“:

Respected ladies and gentlemen,

you are right to state that we are „a young organisation“, but to add that we are „established by the Weanes for the benefits of Weanes“ is not only a very preposterous assumption, but also an insult to the entire Movement of the Kunama people, struggling for their ethnic, cultural and territorial property rights. Your whole statement is very prejudicial, partly reflecting the minds of many of your ethnic-group's members who cannot digest that the Kunama today have risen up to fight for their legitimate rights, and partly because of your inability and unwillingness to look into your own affairs. Whether you like it or not, the Kunama struggle will continue till it reaches its objectives.

We believe you yourself do not seem to know who the Kunama people are, what their struggle is all about and who is struggling in one and who in another manner. You do not even know what you are talking about and whom you are addressing your message to.

If you, as you yourself state that „as you can read it in our web-site. Very few people are benefiting from the money that Weane outpouring to our organisation“, you should have been able to distinguish between the www.baden-kunama.com, run by the VKP's team and the Erit/Alliance.org, Kunama Index, run solely by Mr. Kornelios Adolay Osman, the present chairman of the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of the Eritrean Kunama (DMLEK).

Those members you claimed to be ours, „building Villas in Addis-Ababa and Mekele“, are not only not belonging to and not having anything to do with the organisation and the people you are addressing your „Crime on top of Crime“ to, but the very ones, against whom the VKP itself has been very vocal, calling for their immediate resignation, because of their homicidal crimes against their own fellow-Kunama people. To your own information, the www.baden-kunama.com is a Kunama site struggling for the ethnic, cultural and territorial rights of its Kunama people and therefore it is against all kinds of dictatorial forces, including the Kunama ones, which are out there not to struggle for their people but to protract not only their own personal interests and survival but also those of the PFDJ's regime of Mr. Isayas Afwerki. The VKP's team, as the responsible unit for the Kunama web-site, is deeply concerned, not only about those Kunama elements „building Villas in Addis-Ababa and Mekele“, but also about certain leaders of some Eritrean opposition organisations who, very secretly but surely are doing the same and using identical strategies to secure their lives. These, together with their supporters, who though very aware of such corrupt leaders and of their dealings, are reluctant to reveal and condemn, are to be equally condemned and discarded. You, Sir or Madame, are not any better than those elements condoning the dictatorial and oppressive regime of Mr. Isayas Afwerki, but have the guts to condemn the identical crimes committed by others. You lot have helped Mr. Isayas Afwerki and his rogue PFDJ's regime to grow into such dictatorial and cynical a ruler. We Kunama are struggling to dispel such evil-deeds and the repetition of such acts of negligence. You lot have not only allowed but also helped, Mr. Isayas Afwerki and his entire leadership crew, to grow into dictators and criminals, already during the Eritrean long liberation struggle years and, today too they are left to exercise and practise the same evil system, unhindered and undisturbed. Why do you not therefore, Sir/Madame, first turn yourself and your message to your own regime, which by now has killed not only five (5), but hundreds of thousands of your own people and is still continuing to do so? Why do you care about the Kunama plights, rather than first alleviate those of your own people, being evil-treated by one of their own members? Let us Kunama clean our own house in the way we know best. It is not you to provide us with the cleaning equipments which you yourself are in need of. You lot, do fight your own internal wars and let us Kunama too, fight our own internal wars. We would not like to dig out past stories, but Sir/Madame, you would have better not bring up the stories of the Kunama siding with the „Derg regime“ and that they fought against the „eritrean revolution“, as the dark stories of your own people in this regard, exceed those of any other Eritrean ethnic-group. The very traditionally unstable political behaviour of your people did very badly damage not only the past but it is damaging even the present story of Eritrea. The rogue PFDJ's regime of Mr. Isayas Afwerki would have long gone, if the majority of your people, did not keep supporting it, defining it to be their own government. „Nhnana elamanan“ (we and our objectives) types of language, are just as damaging as „we are now your masters“.

You, Sir/Madame, would have better also very carefully analyse matters, before jumping up to conclude that, „the people of Kunama was misled by you the so called educated, but EPLF had tried to its best to reverse the wrong perseption that the people had on the Eritrean freedom strugle, and EPLF won them“.

First of all, let us bluntly tell you that you have demonstrated to be one of the strongest suppoters of the present PFDJ's regime of the dictator, Mr. Isayas Afwerki and therefore all your assertions are to be assessed accordingly, as you are talking from a very stereotyped stand and using a very partisan language which already disqualifies you from making any objective criticism. Your further statement that „after the liberation of Eritrea the Government of Eritrea directed all its efforts towards the most disadvantaged areas. They built Schools, health centres, clinics, and hospital, and supply of clean water and supply roads“, are all based, if not on hearsay assumptions, on make-believe statements. It may even be true that „the Government of Eritrea has built“ a lot of amenities even in the Kunama land, but these were not and are not intended for the Kunama people, but principally for its Eritrean Tigrian ethnic-groups members, who today have stormed every town, every village and every countryside corner of the Kunama land. If the PFDJ's regime of Mr. Isayas Afwerki had intended to favour the Kunama people and develop the Kunama land for the Kunama people, it would not have today declared an open war agaisnt the Kunama people in their own native and ancestral land. Should you, Sir/Madame, be not properly informed on the Kunama people's conditions at the present times and under the present Shabia's regime, let us Kunama and other objective fellow-Eritreans tell you that, never in its long history, had the Kunama suffered so much, like in the last fourteen (14) years, under the EPLF/PFDJ's regime. If you, Sir/Madame, would like to have a vivid proof of what we are stating here, all you need do is to travel to the Kunama land and visit those „schools, health centres, clinics, and hospital, and supply of clean water and supply roads“, to see how many Kunama children are attending those „schools“; how many Kunama patients are being taken care of in those „health centres, clinics, and hospital“; how many Kunama houses and families are being provided with the „supply of clean water“ and how many „supply roads“ are being used to transport supplies to the needy Kunama people. All you see are the Eritrean Kebesa populations availing themselves of all those facilities. The Kunama are being not only ostracised in their own land, but they are being also continuously ejected from their homes, taken over by the new settlers, persecuted and forced to abandon their own homeland. That is the present picture of the Kunama people's conditions.

Whehter you, Sir/Madame, have seen with your own eyes, which we very much doubt, or just heard say that „developments (have been made) in areas such Karkasha, Dase (and not Dasse), Kolluku (and not Kuluku), Bimbilna (and not Bimbina), Delle (and not Adikeshi) and above all Barentu“, all those Kunama villages and localities have today been stormed by the continuous flood of the non-Kunama Eritreans, particularly by the Eritrean Tigrians, very aggressively showing their presence and imposing their political and cultural powers, upon the Kunama people. This is nothing less than a true new colonisation.

Which developments have therefore been made purely for the Kunama people, in their own native land? In the Kunama countryside, the regime has been forcing the Kunama to abandon their hamlets and small villages to gather and live in big villages, very contrary to the Kunama traditional way of life, characterised by residing in open and isolated areas of their vast and fertile land. The regime has been doing this in order to make room for its own ethnic-group's members. It is not therefore a secret that those „developments“, in the Kunama land, are purely for the Eritrean Tigrian settlers. On the other hand, the very fact that you yourself, Sir/Madame, just like your own folks, keep distorting the names of those Kunama villages,(e.g. Kuluku), or totally changing them, (e.g. Adikeshi instead of Delle), clearly proves how serious, you all are in trying to turn the Kunama land, into a Kebesa-like Eritrean Tigrian „Risti“, the personal land property.

As far as the events, prior to, during and after the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean wars are concerned, we Kunama deliberately leave them to you, Sir/Madame, to make a careful research and analysis and come up with an objective conclusion that our „organisation arrived to Barentu and its environs together with the weyane“ and we „have done nothing to save the assets and infrastructure of the Kunama people while it it is looted and destroyed by the weyanes in fron of (our) eyes“. Do remember that those „assets and infrastrucre“ did not belong to and had not been developed for the Kunama people. As for arriving in Eritrea „together with the weyanes“, did not one of your own Eri-Tigrian organisations too, do the same in Senafe „and in its environs?“ Why did you not spent a single word to this regard?

You, Sir/Madame, do not absolutely need to „beg us“, either „in the name of God“ or of any other entity, to stop working for our Kunama people. It is not you and people like you who should tell us what to do and what not to do, for and on behalf of our own Kunama people. We do not really know what you mean by stating that „it is enough what the worst you have done to the Kunama people during the Derg regime and yet do not add up your crime against the people“.

It was not you, Sir/Madame, but we Kunama ourselves who first made a careful research, came out with the news and revealed those crimes committed by the leadership of our own organisation, the DMLEK.

How many people, both Tigrians and others, did the EPLF and the ELF, in the Eritrean battle-fields, and the PFDJ's regime of Mr. Isayas Afwerki, during the last fourteen and more years of its reign of terror, detained, jailed, tortured and killed? Have you lot, even once, revealed those crimes? If you had done so, Mr. Isayas Afwerki would have not ever slaughtered either those poor twenty-five (25) war-disabled individuals, or committed the imprisonment and killings of innocent citizens in Addi-Abeito, Wia, the Dahlak Islands and in the numberless under-and-above-ground prison-cells, spread all over the country.

In conclusion, Sir/Madame, we Kunama do not absolutely accept that „your comments are constructive“ at all, but rather very distructive, as you yourself are not honest, sincere and courageous enough to see and condemn the crimes, being committed by your own people and against your own people and in front of your own eyes, but have the guts and the effontery to accuse us Kunama of not doing enough to stop the injustices and the crimes against our own people, committed by our own and your people too, which we Kunama ourselves have found them out and brought them to the daylight. We wish you too, did the same.

The VKP, the Kunama organisations and the Kunama people, would be much better off, if arrogant and totally unqualified people like you, Sir/Madame, would stop interfering in our own Kunama matters.

The VKP: (August 12, 2005).

Von: timnit feshahie [mailto:harerta@yahoo.com]
Gesendet: Samstag, 4. Juni 2005 22:54
An: vkp@baden-kunama.com
Betreff: article: May 17, 2005

There, you referred to a historical information regarding the "kebesa" which caught my attention. I am interested in understanding your statement which read:

"unlike the names of the three Kebesa regions which have their ties with their own past ethnic histories and traditional values."

Please, kindly share details regarding the relationship between the naming of the kebesa regions and the history of the ethnic group that resides there , Tigrigna.

thank you very much for your E-mail and request to us to “kindly share details regarding the relationship between the naming of the kebesa regions and the history of the ethnic group that resides there, Tigrigna”.

As you know, the VKP’s team is knowledgeable only of the Kunama ethnic-group, of its history, culture, cultural values and territorial affairs, but neither of the Eritrean Tigrian, nor of any other Eritrean ethnic-groups. Our knowledge, for instance of the Kebesa and of the “ethnic-group (Tigrian) residing there” is only limited but not yet superficial.

It is therefore of yours, as its member, the competence to share with us, on the deeper “details regarding the relationship between the naming of the kebesa regions and the history of” its inhabitants.

Let us share with you our knowledge that, “Akele and Guzai”, for instance, were two brothers from whom the name of “Akele-Guzai” has originated.

The VKP leaves to you harerta, and to the Eri-Tigrian intelligentsia, the knowledge of the history of the origins of the other two Kebesa regions of “Hamasien and of “Serae” to fathom and spread them out.

Von: Essaic Elyas [mailto:essaic.elyas@eritreanuk.org]
Gesendet: Sonntag, 10. April 2005 01:24
An: VKP@baden-kunama.com
Betreff: offer of peace

as you all know we eritreans historically we do not have differenses among ethnic groups. It is you the mentaly back ward group who are trading in the name of the inocent kunama people and creating unecessary suffering of your own ethnic group. so please, I beg you in the neme of God to abandan the ethnic based movement which you are runining it for your own individual benefit.

A certain Essaic Elyas sent, to the www.baden-kunama.com, the following E-mail message, comment and recommendation:

“as you all know we eritreans historically we do not have differences among ethnic groups. It is you the mentaly back ward group who are trading in the name of the inocent kunama people and creating unecessary suffering of your own ethnic group, so please, I beg you in the neme of God to abandan the ethnic based movement which you are runining it for your own individual benefit. God bless you”.

First of all, let us thank this gentleman, at least, for wishing us Kunama, “God’s bless”, but we have also our legitimate rights to point out, defend ourselves, take our stand and even retort that, Mr. Essaic Elyas is either innocently ignorant or cunningly smart to pretend not to know the “Good God’s” work which had ordered in Eritrea, nine different ethnic-groups, with nine different languages, cultures, cultural values and even with their own different territorial identities and geographical features, to come to live together. Why are we Eritreans then known as:

Afar, Baria/Nara, Bilin, Hadandawa/Hedareb (Beja), Kunama, Rashayda (Arab), Saho, Tigre (Beni-Amer/Mensah) and Tigrian, if these were not our own respective ethnic-groups and we were not their respective members? If we Eritreans did “not have differences among ethnic groups“, we would be today, in the PFDJ regime’s Tigrian language and saying, “hade hizbi hade libbi”, meaning “one people, one heart”.

Which historical sources is Mr. Essaic Elyas, referring himself to, to state that “we eritreans historically do not have differences among ethnic groups?” Does he at all, know who the Kunama and how their social, political, territorial and economic conditions are, in their own native land, at the present times? If he himself is ignorant enough not to know, not wanting to know and admit those “differences among our ethnic groups”, he should not include us and others and begin his assertions with “as you all know”, for we know what this gentleman does not. We know that those differences surely and truly exist and that is the reason why we have the Eritrean opposition forces, today struggling to bring about social equality. Our logic would therefore go that if there are no “ethnic differences among the Eritrean” populations, there are no and there should be no religious differences either, but the reality is that the present PFDJ’s regime is exercising a fierce oppression, based on ethnic as well as on religious differences and therefore those differences do exist.

Though we do not consider Mr. Essaic Elyas to be a “mentally back ward”, we would still retain him to be linguistically and politically immature, if not “demented”, as he cannot distinguish between “ethnic differences” and divisions, conflicts, discriminations and oppressions, based on “ethnic differences”. He could not even deny this, if he were objective enough and up-to-date, on the present PFDJ regime’s discriminatory and oppressive politics upon the Kunama and upon certain other Eritrean ethnic-groups. One could be as blind but one could still be able to hear the news, that Eritrea and the Eritrean people are suffering.

Another fact is that Mr. Essaic Elyas does not seem to be faithful even to his own assertions as he further clarifies: “it is you the mentaly back ward group who are trading in the name of the innocent Kunama and creating unecessay suffering of your own ethnic group”.

If this guy sustains that we Eritreans historically do not have differences among ethnic groups, how come that in this instance he is admitting that we, (the mentally backward group) are creating unnecessary suffering of “our own ethnic group?” Is there any “ethnic difference“ or not, in Eritrea? Yes indeed. Ethnic differences and discrimination and oppression, based on ethnic and religious differences, are the regime’s political codes.

Regarding his assertion that we are “trading in the name of the innocent Kunama people and creating unnecessary suffering of our own ethnic-group”, let us remind Mr. Essaic Elyas that it has always been the belief of people like him who, throughout the Eritrean history, have been considering the Kunama “innocence” as the Kunama “ignorance” and have therefore been taking advantage of such prejudicial categorisation to create and maintain the ethnic, the cultural and the territorial plights of the Kunama people in their homeland.

The beginning, the development and the on-going armed and political struggle of the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of the Eritrean Kunama (DMLEK), which, during its ten-year-struggle did sacrifice many lives of its Kunama combatants, cannot be looked at and described as “trading in the name of the innocent Kunama people”. This is an effrontery and an insult to the Kunama people themselves and to their struggle for their just causes, Mr. Essaic Elyas. A lot of Kunama people today are no more as “simple/innocent/ignorant”, as you have always retained, Sir. The Kunama today is very conscious of his/her own Kunama ethnicity, ethnic-difference and of his/her own ethnic and territorial identities. The Kunama today is not to be cheated with the usual adjectives like “innocent, ignorant, peaceful, peace-loving, conflict-avoiding” and the likes. The long and the many bitter discriminatory, oppressive and unjust treatments of our ethnic-group have taught us to wake up and be just as tough as you, Mr. Essaic Elyas, and as determined to struggle for our own ethnic, cultural and territorial rights. By the way, this is not the first time that the VKP’s team, has had to deal with you and with your unconsidered utterances, Mr. E. Elyas and therefore it would be a grace if people of your calibre were to remain in their own limited circles, so as not to cause unnecessary ethnic-based resentments, at the time when we Eritreans today are all out, trying to find peaceful accommodation of and cohabitation among our different ethnic-groups, in order to reach to form an Eritrean society based on our “national unity” in our “ethic diversity”. If you keep failing to understand such a blunt language, Mr. Essaic Elyas, you do not need to be concerned about the Kunama affairs and their struggles and sufferings. We Kunama ourselves know what we are saying and doing.

No matter how much you may plead: “so please, I beg you in the neme of God to abandan the ethnic based movements which you are runining it for your own individual benefit”, we Kunama believe that neither the lives of those DMLEK’s Kunama combatants, being continuously sacrificed, struggling against the PFDJ regime’s dictatorial and oppressive forces, nor the activities of many other Kunama, including the VKP’s team, voluntarily offering its full-time and carrying its financial burdens, in order to keep raising the Kunama people’s crying voices, in the cyber-world of the Internet, are not and should not be considered as “ethnic based movements which we are running for our own individual benefits”, but indeed for the benefits of our Kunama people.

If there are any benefits so far achieved, out of the “ethnic-based movements” we are conducting, let them particularly be for our Kunama people, and generally for all the Eritrean different ethnic-groups and for their members, both at home and abroad. Our national-based movement for our national rights for independence lasted for over thirty years and ended with it, but our ethnic, cultural and territorial rights are still denied and therefore they are yet to be achieved. Let Mr. Essaic Elyas and his likes, keep being parts of the present PFDJ regime’s dreamy conception of having achieved the Eritrean ethnic and socio-political equality and unity, but that in actual fact, they have created the worst kinds of ethnic, social, political and religious inequalities and of the national disunity of Eritrea.

1.- Von: Essaic Elyas [mailto:essaic.elyas@eritreanuk.org]
Gesendet: Samstag, 15. Januar 2005 01:14
An: VKP@baden-kunama.com

2.- Von: Essaic Elyas [mailto:essaic.elyas@eritreanuk.org]
Gesendet: Samstag, 15. Januar 2005 01:14
An: VKP@baden-kunama.com

with this same kind of greeting, you addressed us, the Kunama at www.baden-kunama.com and presumably, all the Kunama people, defining us as “kurkur weyane” (the puppies of weyane) and “hasus” (informants/spies).

Let us, first of all, tell you that, this same definition applies more to you Eri-Tigrian than to us, the Eritrean Kunama. The only difference is that you are unconsciously defining and insulting your own self, your own Tigrian brothers and sisters, your own fellow-ethnic-Tigrian members, your own Tigrian ethnicity, your own Tigrian language, your own Tigrian culture, your own Tigrian cultural heritage and value.

“Weyane”, as we Kunama understand is the name you, Eri-Tigrians, use to address, insult, belittle and denigrate your own Ethio-Tigrian-fellow-ethnic-group members. Shame on you.

It would be the same as if we Eritrean Kunama were to address (God forbid!), insult, belittle and denigrate our own Ethio-Kunama-fellow-ethnic-group members.

We Kunama have no ethnic, no linguistic, no cultural and no any other kind of kinship connections either with you, Eri-Tigrians or with the Ethio-Tigrians and therefore we are not to be drawn into the brotherly conflicts you have been raging and fuming among your own selves and against each other.

Since you, Mr. Essaic Elyas, do not go any deeper than just define us as “weyane’s puppies”, we too refrain ourselves from going any deeper to speculate what you mean and how you know us as such.

With your second greeting too, “hi hasus” (informants/spies), you do not explain either our connections with or our activities for the “weyane” and therefore we spare ourselves the time and the energy.

We just define you as a mentally “disturbed” person and therefore suggest and conclude you should see either a western psychiatrist or consult one of your Eri-Tigrian experts in matters of “kolle”.