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Part 1

The damaging and destructive implications of the PFDJ regime’s land distribution and administrative policies, in the “Gash-Barka region”:

The VKP/KAM’s team has repeatedly pointed out that the nomenclature itself of “Gash-Barka,” to refer to the lands of the Baria/Nara, of the Beni-Amer and of the Kunama populations, is not only very inappropriate, but also a sinisterly intended and conjured out name, by the colonisers of Eritrea and kept alive during the long reign of the Emperor Haile-Sillasie of Ethiopia, to conceal the land property rights of those populations. The “Gash” and the “Barka” are the two rivers, flowing respectively, through the land of the Kunama and of the Beni-Amer populations. Though the Beni-Amer may call their river “Barka,” we Kunama call our river “Sona” and the name “Gash” is given to the same river, by the Sudanese, as this enters their territory. The names “Gash-Barka,” to mean that part of the western Eritrean lowland, had therefore been very inappropriately imposed by the past rulers of Eritrea. Why in fact, refer to an entire and vast region, inhabited by three ethnically and culturally distinct populations, with the simple names of two rivers? Why had not been and are not called, with the names of their rivers, but instead with their own historico-traditional names, the three highland (Kebesa) regions of Akele-Guzai, Hamasien and Serae? Why should the land inhabited by a single ethnic-group, Tigrian, be called with three different names, but the land belonging to and homing three different folk-groups, is called after the names of rivers and despite the existing names, given to those homelands and used by the natives? We therefore do strongly object to those names.

This policy of an uninterrupted and absolute colonisation, of a forceful and continuous imposition of a foreign culture and of the heaviest oppression, exercised upon the region and upon its native populations, has reached its zenith, with the ascension, to the throne of the independent Eritrea, of the EPLF/PFDJ’s regime of Ato Isaias Afwerki. Even today, the entire western Eritrean lowland (Metahit,) is not only being still called and referred to with its colonial and inappropriate names, but also geographically and administratively further disfigured, by being partitioned and associated with other regions with which traditionally, it has never shared common borders. The names “Gash-Laalai/Gash Tahatai,” are not only new and foreign names given to the Kunama, to the Baia/Nara and to the Beni-Amer lands, but also administrative divisions, conjured out by the regime, to enable the Eritrean-Tigrians of the Hamasien and of the Serae regions, to claim for the land property rights in the “Gash-Barka region.”

This is exactly what is today taking place in the land of the Baria/Nara, of the Beni-Amer and of the Kunama populations. Today, the Eritrean-Tigrian populations in the western Eritrean lowland (Metahit,) are said to outnumber the native Beni-Amer, Baria/Nara and the Kunama populations, by three-to-one (3 to 1) ratio and have been occupying the most fertile parts of the two regions, forcefully ejecting the native populations and treating them them as aliens, though in their own native homelands. If, on the other hand, one were to reverse the comparison between the Eritrean-Tigrians in the “Gash-Barka regione) and the Baria/Nara, the Beni-Amer and Kunama people, living in the highland regions of Akele-Guzai, Hamasien and Serae, the ration would be one-hundred/one-thousand Tigrians-to-three Baria/Nara, Beni-Amer and the Kunama put together. Besides, no one of the Eritrean-Tigrians in their three regions would ever consider tolerating the mere presence of the populations of the Metahit, let alone sharing their land property rights with those foreigners. Surely, the Eritrean-Tigrian in Eritrea, is not only ethnically the major component of the Eritrean multi-national society, but presently, it holds also the political, the social, the military and the economic power and monopoly, in its own hands, though it has to be bluntly stated that it is very badly and unjustly administering it. The land policy of “Meriet Mengsti,” of the PFDJ regime’s, “State Land” of the British and “Terreno Demaniale” of the Italian times, can be said to have been promulgated mainly in favour of and is being very opportunistically and widely utilised by the Eritrean-Tigrians, particularly in the “Gash-Barka region.” Generally speaking, the populations of the “Metahit” have been abandoning their homelands since the times of the Emperor Haile-Sillasie, of the Dergue regime of the Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam and ever since the EPLF/PFDJ’s regime of Ato Isaias Afwerki has been reigning in Eritrea, with an iron fist and for the last seventeen years. The very cosmetic policy of the repatriation of the Eritrean refugees from The Sudan, the PFDJ’s regime had initially tried to conduct, together with the international humanitarian organisations, in the late 1990s, had the aim of resettling those returnees only in the “Gash-Barka region,” particularly in the Kunama land. Most of those returnees were Eritrean-Tigrians, for whom the “Gash-Barka region,” particularly the Kunama land, was “the newfound land” and many of them did settle and are living there, up to these very days, whereas, some members of the Baria/Nara and of the Bein-Amer populations, who had also returned to Eritrea, hoping to be resettled in their own native and ancestral homelands, but were instead forced to settle in the Kunama land, did gradually flee back to The Sudan. This very clearly shows which kinds of the Eritrean ethnic-compositions have been living as a refugees, in The Sudan, for the last 40-50 years. Let us not be misguided by the recent mass flow of the Eritrean refugees in The Sudan as well as in Ethiopia, who, very surprisingly are mostly Eritrean-Tigrians, disappointed by the dictatorial and brutal rule of their own kinds, (of Ato Isaias Afwerki and of his general.) Today, the PFDJ regime’s generals themselves are said to be very actively and financially involved in the flow of the Eritrean-Tigrians.

Another group of the Eritrean-Tigrians who are being treated favourably, following the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean war, are those who are very wrongly defined as “Internally Displaced People” (IDP.) Those Eritrean-Tigrian populations had been forced to abandon the south-eastern parts, of the Eritrean and Ethiopian border areas, (Kunama areas,) where they were living, after they too had, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, forcibly ejected the Kunama native populations from those areas, but, escaping the war, instead of going back to where they had originated from, (from the Tigrian highland regions,) were, with the help of the regime itself, resettled in the internal parts of the Kunama land and given all the help and facilities reserved to the proper “internally displaced people” (those Kunama of the 1940s and 1950s.) Today, many of those Eritrean-Tigrian populations have become permanent residents in the Kunama land, thus further increasing their number and presence, aggressively and unjustly competing in the acquisition of the Kunama land and creating more resentments in the local native Kunama populations. Such kinds of unpopular policies, infringing on the property rights of the ethnic lands, are often the major causes, breeding outbreaks of ethnic violence, very similar to those today engulfing Kenya. The PFDJ regime’s social, political, economic and administrative policies of favouring certain Eritrean nationalities and marginalising others, are and can only be breeding deep resentments among those ethnic-nationalities, like the Kunama, whose lands are very systematically being invaded, used, misused and exploited. Outbreaks of ethnic violence may take time to grow, but they always explode at a certain time and this is what Eritrea and we Eritreans should be very watchful of. It is in fact, very unjust and unfair that the vastest regions in Eritrea, included in the nomenclature of “Gash-Barka region,” the home of different nationalities as well as housing the most demographically varied society, is and should be given, not only geographically generic and neutral names, but also administratively considered as one entity, ruled by a single administrator, (Eritrean-Tigrian,) supported by the whole of his own kinds civil servants, military personnel, construction companies and a single budget, allocated for that entire region and population with its multi-national, multi-cultural and multi-façade traditional life-style. This is oppression at its highest.

The inappropriate names given, the unjust administrative principle of squeezing together the native and ancestral territories of three different ethnic-groups (Baria/Nara, the Beni-Amer and the Kunama,) and appointing non-native individuals: (Mustafa Nurhussein, Kahsay Gebrehiwet,) as the administrators to rule in those territories and upon their populations is not only inappropriate and unjust, but also very insulting and offensive to the cultures, traditions and even to the intelligence of those populations. The PFDJ’s regime of Ato Isaias Afwerki has to very seriously consider such social injustices which are the real breeders of the ethnic hatreds, conflicts and violence. Unless the Eritrean-Tigrian ethnic component as whole, is directly or indirectly approving such unjust land policies of the present PFDJ’s regime and taking advantage of them, it should take into account the fact that conscious or unconscious negligence, in not condemning and not rising against and openly opposing such domination and oppression drives of their ruler, upon the ethnic territories and upon the populations of the “Gash-Barka region,” is just as guilty as that of the regime, eventually leading those populations, (God forbid,) to bear, the Eritrean-Tigrians, heavy grudges comparable to those facing today, the ruling Kikuyu populations in Kenya. In Africa, the ethnic, the cultural and the territorial identities are extremely sensitive and surpass all the national identities and values. Le us not provoke them.

The VKP/KAM: (January 29, 2008.)