Eritrea: The struggle was feminine
Written by IS’HAQ MODIBBO KAWU, who was in Eritrea
I nicknamed the road from Asmara to the Red Sea port town of Masawa, as Eritrea’s Hell Highway. If I knew that was the way it was, I probably won’t have done the trip! At the end of 2007, Media Trust held its retreat at Obudu Cattle Ranch in Cross Rivers State. Nothing prepared us for the frightening ride up hill to reach what turned out to be a most beautiful resort.
However, the steep ride up a winding road and with deep ravines on both sides of the road, felt much more like a punishment, than a relaxed setting for the serious business of exploring ways to improve our work. I covered my face with a newspaper for the near half hour of climb up the near-1,600 metres. But the Asmara to Masawa trip was something else! It lasted over two hours and we were on the edge of deeply scary mountains, or descending sharply towards the precipice for all of those hours. The ravines here can literally swallow the whole world for all I can see, and I was truly frightened and sick and angry at the same time!
I had a new biography of Muhammad Ali with me, and recalling the earlier experience at Obudu, I pretended to be reading. But the Obudu nightmare ended within half an hour. This one went on and on, and after a while, fear and panic overtook me, and like a broken record repeating a grove, I found myself repeatedly reading the same line, over and over again!
It is obvious that this landscape is woven into the DNA of my Eritrean hosts. Matewus, the Ministry of Information minder, was asking me to come out of the vehicle to take pictures of the fabulous scenes of his country. On the other hand, Haregu Johannes, my driver, said she does the trip every week, and assured me she could drive literally, with her eyes closed (I didn’t accept the offer to try!) and besides, these were scenes of the guerilla warfare that she participated in from the age of twelve, against the Ethiopians! I was too lost in my worry about the possibility that we could just tumble over and end up some 2,500 meters at the foot of the ravine! I come from a very flat country, I told them, and this was just a nightmare. Haregu was worried about me; she tried to assure me and repeatedly said in Tigrinya, that I should trust her. I held on firmly to the seat and was permanently pressing an imaginary brake through the journey.
But the woman’s coolness and very hardy life, reflected for me, the realities of the life she has lived, along with hundreds of other Eritrean women! Twenty-six per cent of all the guerilla fighters were women. Haregu Johannes is 39 years old, and a mother of four children (two boys and 2 girls). She is a driver in the presidential protocol division, and is as smallish as most Eritrean women tend to be. She joined the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) at the age of thirteen. Her story was typical: Ethiopian soldiers came on a reprisal raid and ended up killing her parents and brother. So they became the recruiting sergeants for the guerilla movement, because like a host of other young people, boys and girls, she had no choice but to join the war of liberation.
It was the same story for Teberh Teklezgi who is forty years old now. Her father was arrested and tortured for two years. She was ten years old at the time and even at that age, she felt the right thing was to join the struggle to liberate Eritrea. Sophia Sallah is 39 years old, and has remained a soldier, employed in the Eritrean Ministry of Defence. She also joined the EPLF as a very young girl, and remembers that the Ethiopian army had killed 70 people in Asmara, and in the process, they wiped out a neighbouring family. She was terrified of Ethiopian soldiers and her entire family migrated from Asmara to Sabur, in the Red Sea region. Thereafter, she was taken to Dekamhare and then to Sahl, while still very young. She did six months of military training, the same length of training which Haregu also got. On her part, Teberh trained for three months and each became a member of the guerilla units of the EPLF.
Sophia assured me that the women fighters were the strongest detachment of the guerilla units, and the men found confidence because of the determination of the women fighters. Haregu said the motivation to fight was strong, however they got a better understanding of the reason, because they were taught that they were fighting 100 years of colonialism: Ottoman, Italian British and Ethiopian under Emperor Haile Salassie, and then Mengistu Haile Mariam. Besides, Haregu added that at home, even before she joined the movement, they would listen to the broadcasts of the EPLF and those used to inspire them. Women fighters trained as nurses, operators, drivers and mechanics, while several also took part in the war as leaders.
Sophia Sallah said there were seven big battles against the Ethiopians. She took part in battles no 3, 4, 5 and 6, after which she was wounded in her chest and abdomen and her arm was broken. Teberh Teklezgi was in various battles for five years, and was eventually wounded in her stomach, leg and hand. She could no longer bear arms after the injuries, and was subsequently given first aid training by the EPLF. But she had seen action in Nakfa and Sahel. In the Nakfa front, there were several scenes of operation, such as Denden and one named as Volleyball, a front where Eritreans were about twenty metres from their Ethiopian adversaries and they would lob hand grenades back and forth at each other. She saw battle on 25 different fronts. The last battle that Haregu took part in was at Ghinda, where she was injured by an Ethiopian air sortie. She showed me the injury on her right knee. They were out there for a total of ten days, without food or water, but the column eventually marched into a liberated Asmara in 1991.
At the heart of the liberation struggle were sacrifice and martyrdom. The Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki told me that a small country like his lost 65,000 people in the liberation war, and such statistics come closer home, with fighters like Sophia who lost her four brothers in the war. I ask just how she felt about the loss. She answered that they joined the fight for independence, and so when they died, she felt that she would also die in a subsequent battle, but her nation will be free. “Because of my brothers’ death and the death of other fighters, we became independent”, she added, almost defiantly. “The main thing is that our people live peacefully and are not afraid of anything now”. Sophia Sallah has stayed on as a soldier, working in the Ministry of Defence, and she saw action again during the 1998-2000 war with Ethiopia. As we finally entered Masawa, just by the water front, Haregu pointed to a particular spot and told me almost in passing, that two of her children were killed there by the Ethiopians. It was a shocking revelation, but one which this graceful Eritrean lady took in her strides, as we drove on to the Red Sea Hotel, where we passed the night.
I was curious about the problems that could arise in the setting of women and men, facing danger together and yet remaining profoundly human. What were the attitudes to sex? Were there problems of sexual exploitation of women fighters by the men? Of course, the EPLF was well known for its discipline. Haregu Johannes told me that they fought together with the men in the day and studied and shared sleeping quarters in the night. Sexual discipline was very strictly enforced, and if fighters fell in love, they were given permission to marry. Teberh Teklezgi also underlined the fact that men and women shared the difficulties of war together; they trusted each other; forged close comradely and family relationships, and the ambience was therefore one that discouraged sexual indiscipline.
But each of the women that I met has children today. Haregu has four, while Teberh has a six year old daughter. One of Haregu’s children lives with the auntie in Toronto, Canada and the second son is away for a year at Sawa, to undergo military training and national service. I met Sylvana, whose 16th birthday I attended, and Mical, who is eleven. These lovely kids share a room with their mother inside the Denden Military barrack in Asmara. I think they represent the future of Eritrea, and in a profound sense, they are the justification for all the sacrifices made to attain independence. At age 11, Sylvana had appeared in a book published in Norway about children from around the world. She is a very talented child, who speaks very good English; while her mother is locked into only Tigrinya. She is a star child who wants to be a doctor, and was actually the one who prepared the coffee that we drank at their very modest one room residence in the barrack, on her birthday. She also dances very well, showing so much dexterity in traditional Tigrinya dances and other African dances. Same goes for 11 year old Mical; she is in the seventh grade, enjoys speaking her much accented English, and has a warm and friendly smile, all the time!
I paid for a goat for the family when we stopped over to have lunch at Ghinda and all but forget about it; but on the day that I visited for Sylvana’s 16th birthday, I was given the honour of giving the goat a name. I didn’t hesitate to call it Abuja! Two days later, Mical came to visit with me at the hotel, and narrated just how naughty Abuja had been, the previous day, she urinated on her cup! We subsequently went out together to see the carnival parade, take pictures of street scenes and ended up having dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Mical even recorded a video message on my camera, for my children in Nigeria, who she hoped would come and see Asmara someday soon. In all these outings, she just never seemed able to stop smiling so infectiously!
Well, I am writing these lines on May 24th, which is Independence Day in Eritrea. At 2 o’ clock this afternoon, we will be going to the Asmara stadium, scene of the finale of celebrations marking 18 years of freedom. Sylvana will be in the front row, dancing amongst several other teenagers, to celebrate her nation’s freedom. Opportunities are opening for Sylvana and Mical and members of their generation, which their parents did not know. Haregu Johannes is a very proud mother, and you could see the spark in her eyes, when I converse with her children in the English language, or when they prepare to engage in one social activity or the other. The sacrifices she made, along with other women fighters have certainly not been in vain. Sylvana and Mical are worthy inheritors of a tradition, and they seem so ready to carry things forward in a very positive manner for their parents, themselves and their country.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Eritrea: The struggle was feminine
Eritrea: The struggle was feminine
Written by IS’HAQ MODIBBO KAWU, who was in Eritrea
I nicknamed the road from Asmara to the Red Sea port town of Masawa, as Eritrea’s Hell Highway. If I knew that was the way it was, I probably won’t have done the trip! At the end of 2007, Media Trust held its retreat at Obudu Cattle Ranch in Cross Rivers State. Nothing prepared us for the frightening ride up hill to reach what turned out to be a most beautiful resort.
However, the steep ride up a winding road and with deep ravines on both sides of the road, felt much more like a punishment, than a relaxed setting for the serious business of exploring ways to improve our work. I covered my face with a newspaper for the near half hour of climb up the near-1,600 metres. But the Asmara to Masawa trip was something else! It lasted over two hours and we were on the edge of deeply scary mountains, or descending sharply towards the precipice for all of those hours. The ravines here can literally swallow the whole world for all I can see, and I was truly frightened and sick and angry at the same time!
I had a new biography of Muhammad Ali with me, and recalling the earlier experience at Obudu, I pretended to be reading. But the Obudu nightmare ended within half an hour. This one went on and on, and after a while, fear and panic overtook me, and like a broken record repeating a grove, I found myself repeatedly reading the same line, over and over again!
It is obvious that this landscape is woven into the DNA of my Eritrean hosts. Matewus, the Ministry of Information minder, was asking me to come out of the vehicle to take pictures of the fabulous scenes of his country. On the other hand, Haregu Johannes, my driver, said she does the trip every week, and assured me she could drive literally, with her eyes closed (I didn’t accept the offer to try!) and besides, these were scenes of the guerilla warfare that she participated in from the age of twelve, against the Ethiopians! I was too lost in my worry about the possibility that we could just tumble over and end up some 2,500 meters at the foot of the ravine! I come from a very flat country, I told them, and this was just a nightmare. Haregu was worried about me; she tried to assure me and repeatedly said in Tigrinya, that I should trust her. I held on firmly to the seat and was permanently pressing an imaginary brake through the journey.
But the woman’s coolness and very hardy life, reflected for me, the realities of the life she has lived, along with hundreds of other Eritrean women! Twenty-six per cent of all the guerilla fighters were women. Haregu Johannes is 39 years old, and a mother of four children (two boys and 2 girls). She is a driver in the presidential protocol division, and is as smallish as most Eritrean women tend to be. She joined the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) at the age of thirteen. Her story was typical: Ethiopian soldiers came on a reprisal raid and ended up killing her parents and brother. So they became the recruiting sergeants for the guerilla movement, because like a host of other young people, boys and girls, she had no choice but to join the war of liberation.
It was the same story for Teberh Teklezgi who is forty years old now. Her father was arrested and tortured for two years. She was ten years old at the time and even at that age, she felt the right thing was to join the struggle to liberate Eritrea. Sophia Sallah is 39 years old, and has remained a soldier, employed in the Eritrean Ministry of Defence. She also joined the EPLF as a very young girl, and remembers that the Ethiopian army had killed 70 people in Asmara, and in the process, they wiped out a neighbouring family. She was terrified of Ethiopian soldiers and her entire family migrated from Asmara to Sabur, in the Red Sea region. Thereafter, she was taken to Dekamhare and then to Sahl, while still very young. She did six months of military training, the same length of training which Haregu also got. On her part, Teberh trained for three months and each became a member of the guerilla units of the EPLF.
Sophia assured me that the women fighters were the strongest detachment of the guerilla units, and the men found confidence because of the determination of the women fighters. Haregu said the motivation to fight was strong, however they got a better understanding of the reason, because they were taught that they were fighting 100 years of colonialism: Ottoman, Italian British and Ethiopian under Emperor Haile Salassie, and then Mengistu Haile Mariam. Besides, Haregu added that at home, even before she joined the movement, they would listen to the broadcasts of the EPLF and those used to inspire them. Women fighters trained as nurses, operators, drivers and mechanics, while several also took part in the war as leaders.
Sophia Sallah said there were seven big battles against the Ethiopians. She took part in battles no 3, 4, 5 and 6, after which she was wounded in her chest and abdomen and her arm was broken. Teberh Teklezgi was in various battles for five years, and was eventually wounded in her stomach, leg and hand. She could no longer bear arms after the injuries, and was subsequently given first aid training by the EPLF. But she had seen action in Nakfa and Sahel. In the Nakfa front, there were several scenes of operation, such as Denden and one named as Volleyball, a front where Eritreans were about twenty metres from their Ethiopian adversaries and they would lob hand grenades back and forth at each other. She saw battle on 25 different fronts. The last battle that Haregu took part in was at Ghinda, where she was injured by an Ethiopian air sortie. She showed me the injury on her right knee. They were out there for a total of ten days, without food or water, but the column eventually marched into a liberated Asmara in 1991.
At the heart of the liberation struggle were sacrifice and martyrdom. The Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki told me that a small country like his lost 65,000 people in the liberation war, and such statistics come closer home, with fighters like Sophia who lost her four brothers in the war. I ask just how she felt about the loss. She answered that they joined the fight for independence, and so when they died, she felt that she would also die in a subsequent battle, but her nation will be free. “Because of my brothers’ death and the death of other fighters, we became independent”, she added, almost defiantly. “The main thing is that our people live peacefully and are not afraid of anything now”. Sophia Sallah has stayed on as a soldier, working in the Ministry of Defence, and she saw action again during the 1998-2000 war with Ethiopia. As we finally entered Masawa, just by the water front, Haregu pointed to a particular spot and told me almost in passing, that two of her children were killed there by the Ethiopians. It was a shocking revelation, but one which this graceful Eritrean lady took in her strides, as we drove on to the Red Sea Hotel, where we passed the night.
I was curious about the problems that could arise in the setting of women and men, facing danger together and yet remaining profoundly human. What were the attitudes to sex? Were there problems of sexual exploitation of women fighters by the men? Of course, the EPLF was well known for its discipline. Haregu Johannes told me that they fought together with the men in the day and studied and shared sleeping quarters in the night. Sexual discipline was very strictly enforced, and if fighters fell in love, they were given permission to marry. Teberh Teklezgi also underlined the fact that men and women shared the difficulties of war together; they trusted each other; forged close comradely and family relationships, and the ambience was therefore one that discouraged sexual indiscipline.
But each of the women that I met has children today. Haregu has four, while Teberh has a six year old daughter. One of Haregu’s children lives with the auntie in Toronto, Canada and the second son is away for a year at Sawa, to undergo military training and national service. I met Sylvana, whose 16th birthday I attended, and Mical, who is eleven. These lovely kids share a room with their mother inside the Denden Military barrack in Asmara. I think they represent the future of Eritrea, and in a profound sense, they are the justification for all the sacrifices made to attain independence. At age 11, Sylvana had appeared in a book published in Norway about children from around the world. She is a very talented child, who speaks very good English; while her mother is locked into only Tigrinya. She is a star child who wants to be a doctor, and was actually the one who prepared the coffee that we drank at their very modest one room residence in the barrack, on her birthday. She also dances very well, showing so much dexterity in traditional Tigrinya dances and other African dances. Same goes for 11 year old Mical; she is in the seventh grade, enjoys speaking her much accented English, and has a warm and friendly smile, all the time!
I paid for a goat for the family when we stopped over to have lunch at Ghinda and all but forget about it; but on the day that I visited for Sylvana’s 16th birthday, I was given the honour of giving the goat a name. I didn’t hesitate to call it Abuja! Two days later, Mical came to visit with me at the hotel, and narrated just how naughty Abuja had been, the previous day, she urinated on her cup! We subsequently went out together to see the carnival parade, take pictures of street scenes and ended up having dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Mical even recorded a video message on my camera, for my children in Nigeria, who she hoped would come and see Asmara someday soon. In all these outings, she just never seemed able to stop smiling so infectiously!
Well, I am writing these lines on May 24th, which is Independence Day in Eritrea. At 2 o’ clock this afternoon, we will be going to the Asmara stadium, scene of the finale of celebrations marking 18 years of freedom. Sylvana will be in the front row, dancing amongst several other teenagers, to celebrate her nation’s freedom. Opportunities are opening for Sylvana and Mical and members of their generation, which their parents did not know. Haregu Johannes is a very proud mother, and you could see the spark in her eyes, when I converse with her children in the English language, or when they prepare to engage in one social activity or the other. The sacrifices she made, along with other women fighters have certainly not been in vain. Sylvana and Mical are worthy inheritors of a tradition, and they seem so ready to carry things forward in a very positive manner for their parents, themselves and their country.
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