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Using an anachronistic definition for “terrorism”, the Canadian government has denied the asylum request of an Eritrean woman who had an affiliation with the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF.) This is a result of flawed reasoning—one that results in lumping Nelson Mandela and Ayman AlZawahri in the same category. The sixties, seventies and eighties witnessed tens of organizations the world over who were fighting for freedom, self-determination. There were many groups who gallantly fought communism, apartheid and tyranny. Many of those organizations were helped by the same governments that are now confusing them for terrorists when, at the time, they were aiding and abetting those groups to attain their goals. At the outset, we would like to thank Canada for its humanitarian foreign policy which has given shelter and aid to tens of thousands of immigrants--including Eritreans. Canada can deny entry to anyone its authorities do not approve of. Any country has the right to limit immigration and secure its borders- it can even opt to reincarnate the policies of Albania. Any country can replace its liberal immigration for xenophobic policies. What is not tolerable is trying to sully the history of nations. What is not tolerable is for a nation to insult the expensively curved history of other nations. Canada, or any other nation, does not have the right to insult the struggle of Eritreans for independence simply because it can. The Eritrean liberation struggle that raged for thirty years had the membership of millions of Eritreans in that period- many of them sacrificed their lives gallantly while fighting the occupiers, including communists from far and near. Other members, mostly civilians, were burned by the hundreds in their huts or bombed from the air. The Eritrean struggle was not a terrorist undertaking. What is terrorism? According to the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)—a partnership between the US Department of Homeland Security and the University of Maryland—terrorism is:
The threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious or social goal through fear, coercion or intimidation.
According to this definition, the Eritrean Liberation Front and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (and, for that matter, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, and every group that was fighting the Haile Selassie and Derg regimes) were using “illegal force”—and are, by definition, then terrorist groups. Go the START website (http://www.start.umd.edu/) and, using its advanced search features at http://209.232.239.37/gtd1/Default.aspx enter a date between 1961 and 1991 and type "Ethiopia" and you will find all the “terrorist” incidents that the ELF, EPLF, TPLF and EPRP were responsible for. START makes no distinction between ELF’s attack of Asmara and kidnapping of American technicians on September 12, 1975; EPLF’s bombing of a utility line in Hazhaz on February 12, 1990; or TPLF’s kidnapping of Belgian and Irish medical professionals on February 18, 1988. They are all terrorist "incidents" complete with event IDs. If “terrorism” is defined as using force and violence to attain a political, economic, religious or social goal, then the marvel is that START only lists half a dozen operations for ELF and EPLF. By that definition, there should be dozens if not hundreds of acts of “terrorism” that START has forgotten to document! And, by that definition, Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afwerki, headed "terrorist" organizations and should not be allowed to set foot in Canada. And, by that definition, Eritrea should not be recognized as an independent state since it is obviously the result of the work of terrorists. This is nonsense. A more meaningful definition of terrorism would be gleaned if the following questions are asked: --
(a) Was the threat of force, fear, coercion or intimidation used against innocent civilians or with indifference or negligence of its impact on innocent civilians? In this case, did the ELF or EPLF conduct military operations that deliberately targeted civilians and/or were indifferent about the impact of their operations on civilians? NO
(b) Was the target of the act practicing war crimes or indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians? In this case, were the governments of Haile Selassie and Mengistu of Ethiopia guilty of war crimes against the innocent people of Eritrea? YES AND YES. (c) Was the struggle against communism, occupation and tyranny illegitimate? NO. -
Going back to history to look at past struggles without context would redefine the whole meaning of freedom and liberty starting from George Washington to the French revolution to the downfall of the communist block. An honest research of the history of the Eritrean revolution would help the Canadian government (or any other government for that matter) understand that the Eritrean revolutionary organizations did not practice terrorism but were engaged in the revolutionary act of liberating a land and a people from the occupation forces of Ethiopia. The liberation fronts took extraordinary care to ensure that their operations did not target civilians. We are probably on the top ten enemy list of the Eritrean regime. However, last year, when the United States was considering placing Eritrea on the State Sponsor of Terror list, we were opposed to that step--and we registered our opposition--because that designation confuses the state with the individuals who control the apparatus of the state. (See our editorial Eritrea Does Not Sponsor Terrorism...) We were opposed to such designation because the people who suffer from such designation are never those who deserve it—but the innocent people who share the nationality of the designated state. In the case of Eritrea, the citizens terrorized by the oppressive regime would be victimized for being victims. We were opposed because we find the whole process of designating nations as “state sponsors of terrors” totally flawed: it victimizes a people for the mere crime of living in nations where they have no hand in running the affairs of their nation. The designations should target the un-elected regimes, and not the States that they control. We are opposed to Canada’s anachronistic definition of terrorism because it victimizes innocent people and it places on the same footing a genuine popular revolution, which started the movement to free millions of Eritreans from terrorists, with the practitioners of random terrorism. We hope the Canadian government will reconsider its decision which, it must know, is illogical and unsustainable. We hope all Eritreans, regardless of their political affiliation, will place love of their country and country folk over their party loyalty and will come to the aid of their compatriots. They must fight this unjust designation based on a shabbily administered information from an irresponsible website.
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