The history of urbanization in the highlands regions of Eritrea seems to be brief, though the distant past of the stele civilization of Axum and the nature of its settlement is yet to be researched. By any standard, what one learns from Asmera  and the other towns is their recent establishment. Uoldeleul, an Eritrean historian once pointed out that most Eritrean towns were a by product of the strategic fortresses built after the advance of the Italian colonial army. The actual physical sites and the proliferation of names that took forto (the Italian word for fortress) for a name, stretch from Massawa to Senafe, Mendefera and other places in the western lowlands.

The El Dorado the colonial Italians dreamed about did not materialize in Eritrea. Therefore, these cities and towns were unlike in some other parts of Africa like the Congo not built around lucrative mining and other rich resource locations. Their purpose was solely military, and the whatever industrial establishments and modernity that followed in the mid 1930s were again to serve primarily for the invasion of Ethiopia. According to the same historian, the thousands of askeri soldiers, who were entirely of peasant origin,  played a critical role in the urbanization of Eritrean towns. 

Their military role not discounting, they also served as transmitters of both Italian culture and tastes.  The  imposed apartheid system only allowed separate and marginal dwelling areas for the natives. Ghettos have therefore been part of the urban landscape in Eritrea.  The Italian colonial administration has often been rightly condemned for its racist policy and ghetto settlements by the generation that led the Fronts in Eritrea and other writers interested in the history of Eritrea. Yet, did these people behave differently and more humanely than the Fascist occupiers?  Their incessant propaganda against the ghetto dwellings not withstanding, what they did in practice may be even worse than what occurred in the past. 

Long after the forced eviction of slum dwellings have been considered a bad policy in the international community, the Eritrean authorities did not even require a decree or the consent of the residents of the premises. Neither did they prepare a better alternative. They brazenly obliterated the flimsy structures aware that no type of civil disobedience would result.  I wish the satellite has picked the image of the old slums for the world to see. I have read somewhere, that during the long armed struggle frustrated with the complete isolation of the conflict, the fighters only hope was for the satellites to witness the war . 

The irony is that this time, and these same people  passed a draconian measure on the urban dwellers confident that nobody will notice the deed. Let’s hope it does not remain so. Across the border, in Addis Abeba the city authorities were also enforcing a similar measure.  Unlike in Asmera and other towns in Eritrea, the ghetto dwellers of Addis, and the local press in Ethiopia were not silent. Addis authorities were therefore forced to carry it out gradually and with some apprehension. Some of the press in Addis was also sympathetic and championed their cause.

A few years back,  the Mugabe regime was ostracized by the rest of the world, when a satellite picture about the sizable flattening of the  slums in Harare was obtained. It seems this time the poor in Harare were fortunate. Internally, the demolition of the slums was not submissively accepted by the town dwellers in Harare. Fights with the police were very common even under Mugabe. Sadly, a similar outrage happened in Asmera, and other cities without any murmur from the capable and the fortunate elite in both Eritrea and abroad. Matters even get worse, when the United Nations Urban Environment appears to have not observed anything at all from the ever watchful satellite.

Google the Map of the city of Asmera around the former Forto Baldiseira, which has lately been demolished and is instead now occupying the propaganda ministry. The slope behind the massive building now shows only a patch of green areas, possibly a project of the government’s often lauded reforestation and afforestation program. I never knew the magnitude of the slums for sure, but I suspect there were hundreds of houses.  Built on uncontested lands and on the steep slope behind the fortress, which is cheaper to build, these houses must have been very precious to their owners. Particularly in the Asmera of the post independence period, when housing shortages started getting very acute.

Google again west of the regime’s prized Intercontinental Hotel, where the famous Kenyan novelist Ngugi, who often championed the cause of the underdogs in Nairobi attended a government conference in the late 90s. The regime, greedy for any land it wants to grab, and because it considers the place an eyesore to the affluent residents of the large complex built by the South Koreans across the airport road, and the potential customers of the Intercontinental Hotel, it bulldozed the shanty area.

Close to this hotel, undisclosed number of poorly constructed homes existed before. Some of the dwellers of these houses were very enterprising. Yet just before the so called Badume war, the regime forcefully evicted the inhabitants, and demolished the houses leaving the people to look for themselves. Their advantageous proximity to the meadows of Sembel, and Kushet seemed to have encouraged the victims to keep a two or three cow dairy farms. The same fate fell on their micro enterprises. This says a lot about the alleged support of the government for micro enterprises and its sham incubating environment.                            

A passionate and frequent writer at this same website, Paulos Tesfagiorgis has time and again made a positive narration of the student movements and their leaders in Ethiopia. His intention might be sincere, nonetheless, his often optimistic description of his generation and the prominent personalities does a disservice to the struggle against the current nefarious regime in our Eritrea, who more of less belonged to the same group.  Paulos’ biased essays on the student movement may on the surface appear inoffensive. I tend to disagree. 

With due respect, I ask Paulos to look at that episode from a fresh perspective. The campus political activities then were mostly nasty and full of bile. The militant students were scornful of others, who had a different political opinion, and were quick to call either their fellow students or members of the faculty as CIA agents and other names. Do any of us who recall reading about the ugly London meeting which Paulos chose to attend?  His account of the incident was not atypical. To me it resembles some of the student gatherings that were occasionally held at the former university of Haile Selassie in Addis. Paulos should not therefore be surprised. The political malaise in contemporary Eritrea, and for that matter in Ethiopia has a lot to do with the mind sets and political attitudes of the student movements that occurred before the downfall of Haile Selassie and during the Derg.  This did not bode well for when the same uncivil and angry students left for the bush to wage  a rebellion their intolerant and divisive politics were also repeated.

Not long ago, I abhorred those who condemned  our fathers for treason, and particularly the ones that hail from the highlands of Eritrea. In the context of the political circumstances at the time, the political role they played was complex and understandable.  This same group that glorifies itself for launching the ghedli likewise treats the thousands of hapless youngsters at home, who are brutally enslaved by the regime as gutless and depoliticized. I also thought this was foolish and untenable. For we might have negatively contributed to their current circumstances. Unlike Paulos, I do not have any hero to emulate. This might  appear bizarre to say it in a respected web site named after all after Awate. 

Once upon a time there was a semi-tabloid newspaper in Ethiopia during the former Emperor‘s days. Unlike the other official newspapers, which often featured the Emperor and his ministers, and were a bore, Police’ ena Ermejaw had a wide readership among the masses of the people in Addis. I confess to have occasionally read it. Those of you who only want to remember the ghedli newspapers such as Fitwerari, Mahta, and Sagem might laugh your head off, and are free to feel proud, and I do not give a hoot.

The stories in the police newspaper,  although often  inaccurate and unsubstantiated nonetheless were captivating. A story about a snake (zendo) that swallowed a child, and other oddities were frequently enclosed in the same newspaper. Decades after, I have forgotten most of the stuff except the one written by possibly a gendarme of the regime. Notice, I have purposely chosen the word gendarme, and not police. For I felt the gendarmes  are more of a political police than the ordinary police that deal with routine crimes. I do not recall neither the name nor the rank of the person but the short article he wrote around 1972 was very prophetic.

Addis Abeba has for several years been the scene of student disturbances largely attended by university and high school students. The vast majority of Addis dwellers were mostly indifferent to the activities of the hot headed students but the absolutist Imperial regime was very nervous, and had attempted either to quell or curtail the clashes within the school and campus compounds. Its media either ignored it or described the students as ungrateful to the generous accomplishments of the modernizing emperor.

What makes the short article by the writer in Police’ena Eremjaw unique was its attempt to challenge the radical student ideology.  Most the stuff has escaped my memory but I remember probably the most notable one. Refraining from simply defaming the student movements, the gendarme warned against the danger of the half backed Maoist ideology, that the students were touting, which he described as teraz neteq in Amharic. His caveat seemed to have fell into deaf ears for not only did the students finally espouse the Marxist ideology but were often bitterly  fighting each other for the allegedly correct Marxist/Maoist political line. 

The irony of the said article is when the writer’s fellows in uniform, who had been hostile to the students for quite sometime also converted into some Marxist variant. In the whole empire, Marxism of all types was in vogue, and the intra war between the armed left groups, and the Derg, and between the equally ferocious regime and its one time supporters in the cities remained endless for almost two decades with lethal consequences for the large public.

The squabbles between the different left groups had reached an absurd point. A case in point was for example how you write the word victory in Amharic. If an article or a slogan has the letter she in the word enashenfalen, it is associated with the Meison, the then left party allied with the Derg. On the other hand if the letter che is inserted instead, the EPRP was a suspect as its source.

Had the row remained limited between the this childish but hair splitting preoccupation it would have been benign but tens of thousands perished, when they resorted to armed violence. I occasionally remember the gendarme writer, and get concerned about his fate. Is it possible for him to have survived the incongruous civil war between all the left groups that also included the military government? I repeat again, I do not have a hero to champion, but unabashedly say I admire the gendarme writer.

The most memorable quote from the famous Communist Manifesto published close to the end of the end of the 19^th century was this statement “ the scepter of communism is haunting Europe.”  This had remained a wishful thinking for several decades during and after the death of Karl Marx except in the relatively less industrialized and backward Russia. During the Second World War, with the active and domineering role of the Soviet Union many satellite republics were established. Not soon after, a group of former leading communist giants chose not to remain silent, and penned scathing letters on the Marxist ideology, which I recall reading in the book Communism Is Dead.

It seems, after all this has transpired, the attraction towards communism would disappear in the rest of the world. In Asia and later in South America and Africa, it leased a new life, when many anti-colonial forces for complex historical reasons adopted the ideology. In the African continent, and particularly the Horn Africa the ideology found a fertile ground. Before the advent of globalization, like the old movies and songs of the west and other fashion goods, which arrive much later in the Third World, the Marxist ideology  also appeared late.

Clueless to the ravages that ensued from following the ideology in other parts of the world, the students at Addis Abeba  university and other schools in Ethiopia embraced it. The factors for the sorrow of the people in the Ethiopian Empire during the last two generations could be many, and need to be studied. The adverse role of the radical students at Addis Abeba university, and other schools can not be discounted. 

Mind you, most of the leading political actors were not members of harmless reading societies, but belonged to secretive political groups that were often intolerant not only to the Imperial regime but also to each other. They often resorted to character assassination and defamation even in the small world of the university campus. If the Imperial parliament they viciously attacked was corrupt and servile, their political cells were also not abodes of tolerance, and civil discourse. 

There is now a prevalent hypocrisy among many of our generation, and particularly the educated.  People now would condemn an act of forced seizure of airplanes, and would not hesitate to call it an act of terrorism. The fact is that many of the student militants that are still revered among many circles resorted to several hijacking acts in the 60s and the 70s. The word for it has always been “terrorism” then and now. I doubt if any amongst most of us would have a different definition for it now without making he/she a laughing stock. 

How can one separate the violent practices of  all the left groups, who soon left to lead armed rebellions from their campus behavior?  And how can one detach the repressive political systems established by them after the debacle of the Ethiopian empire? After they took power, these former radical/ rebels often supported took cruel measures such as collectivization, forced resettlement of people, nationalization of land, and massive military recruitment that is still causing havoc in the rural areas. What do you make of this former freedom fighters leaders in for instance Eritrea, who coddle trees more than human beings.  On the side of the asphalt roads that radiate out of Asmera to other towns, tens of thousands of seedlings have been planted with wire cages to protect them. The reforestation project done entirely with the enslaved youth is the darling of the regime and its supporters. 

In its recent report of the vegetation cover of our planet,  the United Nations Environment section  was very upbeat about the mangrove band detected around the Red Sea Coast of Eritrea. This mangrove growth is apparently the result of countless forced labor of the youth of Eritrea. The UN report seems to be oblivious to that. This same news was so scintillating that it even got some coverage at the Four Wind’s section of Awate.com. The temptation for some good news may be the cause for it. We should not forget however that the regime that exploits countless man hours of the enslaved youth to build wire cages around sibling trees allegedly for noble reasons is likewise using metal shipping containers to imprison numerous innocent people.