"The Chamber of Commerce played a vital role in the organization and realization of Asmera Expo 69."
Asmera Chamber of Commerce, 1995

In the late 60s, the late Tekle Tesfazghi made a song called “Yeqenyeley Haftey”, thank you Sister which soon became very popular. One of the lines of the song was a lament about a phone date that went awry: "kusri selki hibki telemkeni." Statistically, access to telephones was surely insignificant for most of the inhabitants of Asmera except for the European residents and the Americans in the Kagnew Station.

Let alone in the 60s, even now access to phones, TV, and the Internet are extremely poor by sub Saharan-Africa standards. The song was probably imitating the amore Italian cartoons that were popular among Asmarinos attending Italian schools and their friends. Girls in Asmera, and most towns in Eritrea were strictly watched, if not chaperoned in those days. Neither the technology nor the cultural milieu was therefore present. Romance of this type must have been imagined.

The critical role of information technology and dependable phone infrastructure for the growth of any economy is now widely accepted – it is almost a cliché. Economies that are without such infrastructure are either limping economies or find themselves with restricted potential.

How did the economy of Eritrea in the sixties of do considering the poor availability of telecommunication?

It did well. Globalization's reach in the sixties was limited; and the fact that most of the factories light industries and the limited protection they enjoyed helped them.

We were nurtured believing that the Emperor's regime was purposely sabotaging the relatively advanced economy and infrastructure of Eritrea. Who amongst us has not heard about the shipment of steel poles to Ethiopia, and the refusal of the same government to the opening of a Volks Wagen factory at Dekemhare?

The validity of these and other assertions in the rumor mill have never been questioned- they are still accepted. Rumors were so rampant that Mamo Wudineh, a famous journalist and translator, was forced to write to counter the rumor. In the Letters to the Readers column of Yezareytu Ethiopia, an Amharic newspaper, there were a two or three paragraphs about this subject. Mamo Wudineh adamantly denied that any steel poles were moved to Ethiopia. This is incidentally from a person who loved Asmera, and its city services. These "incidents" may have happened or were simply apocryphal.

The sixties was not a decade to glamorize at all, for in Asmara, there were frequent whispers of War in the metahit, the lowland regions of Eritrea. The Eritrean elite of the period, and particularly those who had profession in the field of economics, choose to keep silent about Eritrea's economy; and their silence hurt the Eritrean economy. They either omit the period or write about it in the negative. Still, our economists repeat these "incidents" long after Eritrea emerged as sovereign state. In comparison, a few foreign writers have described the economy of Eritrea in the sixties' as a vibrant and growing economy. They attributed the down trend that occurred later in the mid seventies to the major droughts and growing insurgency.

In her book on Eritrea, Michella Wrong,  stated that "In Eritrea, history always comes tightly compressed..." and pointed out to the landmarks of the Italian settlers’ cemetery at Tseserat, the American Kagnew Station base adjacent to it, and what the locals call ‘The Tank Graveyard’. Wrong probably also wrote about the other two equally notable structures: the Medebar recycling facility and the Expo 69 complex located close to Kagnew Station on the road to the airport. In the historiography about Eritrea, the Medebar had been getting a disproportionate attention; while the relevance of the Expo 69 was completely ignored. This seems to have been done by design.

The feats about the "resourcefulness and inventiveness" of the EPLF in the Eritrean field were recounted by many people. Here is one among many: empty food cans would often be seen littered in the ELF controlled areas, while the more inventive EPLF converted the same empty cans to oil lamps and other things. The recycling activities of the resource-starved Sahel were often mentioned with the Medebar in Asmera. The Medebar was often written about together with the mieda "wonders" of the EPLF.

After the independence of Eritrea, many journalists and sympathizers of the EPLF made their stop at Medeber. In other parts of the Third World, informal sectors such as the Medebar would likely get the attention of either the serious writers on the economy or the adventurous. To my knowledge the EPLF, and the ELF for that matter, and the Eritrean elite have never published anything noteworthy about the Expo 69 and its impact on the economy. The intellectuals were also simply toeing the EPLF line. Yet this same Expo 69 a great economic experience long before it was became known as ‘the neighbor of the tank graveyard’. The Expo was a showplace to visit for most of Asmera’s residents- particularly the youngsters.

In the sixties, the average child in Asmera wore simple all-season clothes mostly made by Jeberti tailors. The tailors never forget to attach little pockets for keeping coins. Nowadays I am wondering what the tailors do to earn a living- thanks to globalization, new and used readymade clothes are in abundance. On the other hand, hundreds of their fellow Jeberti from Tigray and others were expelled, and this shortage has surely raised the prices.

The little coin pockets we had were often empty, and we almost never consumed anything at the Expo 69. The median income of most working parents working in factories or the public sector was around 60.00 Birr. We were not wise in money matters, unlike the youth of today’s Eritrea, who thanks to the abundant remittance money fro abroad, often carry a lot of money and are well versed in foreign exchange matters. Nonetheless they live in an "economy" that immensely relies on the economy of other countries.

When the Expo 69 opened for the public, it remained a major entertainment place for many of us. Although people were required to pay entrance fee, and there were several scores of Commandis to enforce it, the daring and wily youth were not deterred from entering without paying a fee. They jumped the fences, and enjoyed watching the industrial exhibitions, and the displayed medeber products. There were also several fat milk cows tethered in one corner, and their milk and cheese shelved in a kiosk. They were probably from the Ela Bered plantation. Milk and its byproducts were a luxury for most youngsters.

Cultural shows, and dwelling abodes for different ethnic groups were also exhibited. There were some wild animals on the show with a clear predominance of Baboons. The snakes handled by watchful Kunama and Tekrur handlers were the most popular. Some daring kids had their pictures taken with a snake coiled around them. There was also a competition and a prize for the best hidmo/agdos. For the average Asmera youth, who rarely ventures far from the soccer field of his neighborhood, the opportunity to see most of the factories, and cultures in that single compound was a wonderful experience.

Most of the youth had no knowledge of who organized the Expo. They had no clue of what a chamber of commerce is, and where it was located. But if you were to ask the average youngster about the location of the movie theaters in Asmera, almost all knew the answer. To top it all, a rock from the moon brought by the Apollo 11 was put in a glass case for people to gawk at. The major American presence at Kagnew Station may have entitled Asmera from among most sub Sahara cities for a glimpse of the rock. The show lasted for about a couple of weeks, but the memory from it has lasted longer - unless people want to "suppress" it purposely for political reasons.

Some of us had an inkling about the political disturbance, and the armed conflict in the lowlands. Student disturbances prior to 1969 were also common. The Expo 69 grounds, except for the wooden watchtower built on the west side, and the Commandis soldiers manning it seemed to be not affected by any major rebellion. The other watchtower located right behind the main gate, and the Gonder castle was there for the public to admire. In the same year, 1969, in the Eritrean lowlands, the Eritrean resistance had launched a reform at the famous Adobha meeting after going through a lot of crisis.

Information about the Expo 69 has almost deliberately been kept hidden, while most of the adults who experienced it are now getting old, and some have passed away. Some of those who are still alive and are ardent supporters of the regime often visit this same place now christened Expo Festival. This annual Expo Festival is a sad caricature of the Expo 69, where nothing but mostly imported electronic goods from the PFDJ companies, and poor quality buckets from Egypt are on the shelves, and also lots of dankera. Nowadays, curious searches for anything relevant about the Expo 69,  either for research or for other trivial reasons chances are the outcome will be poor.

Google for the Chamber of Commerce in Eritrea, what you will see is the one sentence quoted above that does not say much about the occasion. The Asmera Chamber of Commerce website of 1995 seems extremely shy to disclose anything important. It prefers to leave it vague. The Chamber under the current regime was mostly neglected, and was closed in the late 90s for a couple of years - Ato Kifle Zerom, its director frozen. The website is almost empty except for its chronology on the history of the Chamber and has been out of service for a while.

Google again, and you will find a more colorful website that features the year 2005-2006. This website was designed by a Dutch national married to an Eritrean wife who is a member of the regime controlled women's organization. The website has a list of many service oriented companies, their phone numbers and email addresses. The designer of the website mentions that he has been a frequent visitor to Eritrea, and has been affected by it. The website, according to him, was made for his beloved wife and for Eritrea.

The site does not mention anything about the Expo 69, save for its display of the logo, and a list of companies without showing a real effort to identify the real owners of the firms. What does this tell you about the regime that trashes the role of the chamber of commerce in a free enterprise economy and when the importance of a chamber of commerce is left for a foreign national in Europe?

It unmasks the monopolistic nature of the regime. The whole idea of talking about a chamber of commerce in Eritrea is absurd.

Asmall nondescript frame is visible hanging on the corridor walls of the Chamber. If you stare closely, you notice it is a graph about the economic performance of the then province of Eritrea. I forgot whether it was a bar or a line graph. The data shows an upward trend of trade and industrial production until almost the end of the 60s. It is an oddity? What would such an exhibit do in such a chamber managed or mismanaged by this regime? After all, the regime and its intellectuals have always been postulating that the 60s was a period of mostly political disturbance, and emasculation of the economy.

Did the ever watchful Big Brother of the PFDJ forget to pull the graph down from the wall? Or is it some bizarre act? I do not know now; but the graph has been there for most of the 90s. For a split second, I could not remember where I saw the graph before. The graph was probably a replica of an identical graph from the glossy brochures that the Asmera Chamber of Commerce of the Imperial regime distributed to St. Famaligia students and other dignitaries. I remember browsing through the brochure of one of the students, who worked as a receptionist and ticket vendor at the Expo 69 main gate. Besides this evidentiary document that questions the historiography of the fronts, the oral sources from the famous Medebar is another story.

A Los Angeles Times article of November 5, 2007, pointed out to me by a friend, has featured the Medebar. The Medebar, the paper stated, is now in crisis after surviving close to one hundred years. Access to "junk" and discarded materials has become acutely limited. What was true for the formal economy in Eritrea is now happening to the famous medeber. To make matters worse, recycling resource starved Medebar has also been in crisis as a result of losing its able bodied workers to the insatiable monster of the Isaias' national service. What the old folks at medeber recall is the times of a bygone era.

The septuagenarian workers told the reporter about the good old times of 40 years ago, when the economy was robust.  They recounted that in those years goods were exported to the Sudan, and Ethiopia. Who does not recall seeing the little stalls with the muscular men hammering and banging metals at the Expo 69? Access to discarded metals and junk may be solvable. Imagine arranging for a couple of old container ships, and cruise ships to dock at Massawa shores and get gutted. In a short period of time, thousands of tons of "trash" would suddenly be available for Medebar to last for possibly 10 years. It is nothing to be ashamed of, even India, with its growing information economy has been in the business of recycling for a long time. And the regime should not pretend otherwise-  we know that a while ago,  it accepted a shipment of thousands of sheep rejected by other countries for health reasons .

What can poor Medebar do without its young workers, and its extractor regime?

The regime that was the EPLF, and had the "fame" of converting empty cans into oil lamps had been doing macabre things lately. Its economy in tatters, and suffering from a huge trade deficit, it is in possession of hundreds of sea containers with nothing to fill them up with for export. The regime has lost its "imagination" when it started to use the containers to hold the uncounted number of political dissenters, religious minorities, and ordinary citizens.