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Source:- http://www.chicagotribune.com SHIMEBA REFUGEE CAMP, Ethiopia - Refugees fear sharing same fate as Kunta Kinte

'Roots' mini-series, cop shows and rebel threats deter Eritreans from moving to U.S.

SHIMEBA REFUGEE CAMP, Ethiopia - A strange thing happened here recently on the long and twisting refugee trail to America.

More than 4,000 war-displaced pastoralists belonging to Eritrea's Kunama tribe, some of them languishing in this malarial holding camp for years, received a golden offer that the world's 9 million other refugees only dream of: free resettlement in the land of riches and liberty, the United States. Yet, to the bewilderment of aid workers, the overwhelming majority of Kunamas answered with a resounding, "No thanks."

"People don't want to be sold as slaves in America," refugee Dawit Feliche, 30, explained matter-of-factly in his dank camp hut. Sensing skepticism, he added gravely, "And they don't want to be killed by your police."

Or at least that's the message emanating from a makeshift video parlor operated in Shimelba camp by local rebels.

In one of the more surreal cases of a liberation movement intimidating refugees, the insurgents -- a tiny Eritrean group that depends on the camp for recruits and war taxes -- have been replaying old episodes of "Roots," the fabled 1970s mini-series about the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, to convince the unworldly Kunamas that whipping posts and shackles await them in America.

Kunta Kinte, the series' hapless 18th Century protagonist, was on many refugees' lips during a recent visit to the remote camp. So were anxious questions about the ultraviolent cop shows that rebels were screening to impress the tribe with U.S. police brutality.

The result: By last week, barely 700 Kunamas, a disappointing fraction of the thousands of grizzled herders who have fled persecution in neighboring Eritrea, were packing up their sandals and flying off to new lives in U.S. towns and cities.

"It's pretty standard to run into interference from rebels in Africa," said David Murphy of the International Rescue Committee, an aid group working in Shimelba camp. "But this is something else. It's just bizarre."

A stolen opportunity

And, for many Kunamas, tragic. Most of the refugees duped by the rebels' Hollywood fare won't get a second chance to seek haven in the U.S., immigration experts said.

The doleful saga of the Kunamas began seven years ago, United Nations sources say, after Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a fierce border war that killed at least 70,000 people.

Though they are Eritreans, the independent-minded Kunamas backed the Ethiopians in that conflict -- a decision that exposed the 100,000-strong tribe to brutal crackdowns in their homeland. Eritrean security forces began arresting the largely illiterate pastoralists for sedition. Some Kunamas were shot. And by late 2000, the frightened herders were pushing their bony cows and camels across minefields into Ethiopia, where about 4,200 have been stuck in desolate camps ever since -- one of the hundreds of displaced populations in Africa.

Then, in 2005, the Kunamas won the equivalent of the global refugee jackpot: The UN successfully nominated the oppressed minority for resettlement to the United States.

The U.S. takes in more refugees than any other nation -- about 41,000 worldwide in the last year alone. But hosting entire populations, such as the famous "Lost Boys" of Sudan, has become exceedingly rare.

"We got our first surprise when three-quarters of the eligible Kunamas didn't even apply," marveled a UN refugee worker who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the news media. "We had people walking 50 kilometers [31 miles] to tell us they didn't want to go to America. That was new."

Indeed, the Kunamas' broad rejection of U.S. generosity has made them minor celebrities within aid circles in Africa.

Reasons besides fear

Most refugee workers have pegged the tribe's reluctance to leave Africa to romantic notions, particularly a deep attachment to the land. And many older people in Shimelba, who still cook their meals on the ground and are unfamiliar with the operation of a doorknob, did seem unwilling to stray too far from their nomad's paradise of white thorns and red earth.

"I will stay," said Tuqua Kena, 76, an elder in a dingy robe whose herd of 15 cows died of unknown sicknesses in the camp. "I have heard good things about America. But it is too cold."

But even a brief walk through the camp's rain-sodden alleys revealed a different sort of chill blowing through refugees' huts.

'Roots' mini-series, cop shows and rebel threats deter Eritreans from moving to U.S.

REFUGEE CAMP, Ethiopia - In separate interviews, more than a half-dozen frightened Kunamas detailed a crude but effective intimidation campaign being waged against U.S. resettlement by the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of the Eritrean Kunama, an obscure rebel group opposing the rule of Eritrea.

Several factions of the insurgents, numbering a few hundred guerrillas, are using the camp as a recruiting pool, the refugees said. The rebels also were exacting a weekly tax of one Ethiopian birr -- or about 11 cents -- from each adult in the camp.

"They show the Kunta Kinte videos, and tell people that's going to happen to them," said a refugee who was too frightened to share his name. "They spread stupid stories. They tell the villagers that white people in America want to take the Kunamas' organs."

Such rumors are backed up with late-night visits by rebel enforcers who first cajole then threaten to beat those who had signed up for resettlement, all of the refugees said.

"Only the most educated among us are still committed to going," said a Kunama teacher who also asked not to be identified. "All of our old people don't know any better. They accept everything the rebels say."

The teacher sat forlornly in his hut, dressed in clean, hand-washed shirt and polished shoes as if already waiting to board his flight to Florida or Nevada -- two of the destinations slated for Kunama refugees. He claimed refugee officials knew about the rebel bullying, but chose to keep quiet for political reasons.

Ethiopia has long supported DMLEK in its battle against its arch-enemy Eritrea, Western diplomats say, just as Eritrea funds rebels fighting against Ethiopia. A UN worker did not dispute the teacher's charge.

Rebel denies accusations

In mud-smeared Shimelba, a rebel representative seemed unnerved when confronted with the accusations.

"The movies are for entertainment," said Usman Saleh, a skinny insurgent clad in a T-shirt stenciled with the phrase "Together in Harmony." "There is no pressure. What you are saying is impossible."

Yet it isn't, as most aid workers know. From Darfur to Lebanon, refugees have been coerced to stay put by local militias who have needed them for cannon fodder. During Sudan's recent north-south civil war, rebels even forced refugees to settle near their bases at gunpoint, soso as to skim their food aid.

On the hardscrabble plains of northern Ethiopia, the barrier to leaving wasn't that dramatic.

It was a grass-roofed hut that showed bloody American videos on a generator-powered television. The Kunamas who chose to ignore them arrive in America this week.

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