Beginning in 1961, Eritreans waged a 30-year long war of liberation against Ethiopia�s occupation army and, having paid a heavy price, achieved victory in 1991.  Concurrent with this, Eritrea�s liberation movement, like most revolutions, experienced a costly civil war that exacted its own toll on Eritreans and prolonged the war of liberation.  

Between mid-October and mid-November of 1971, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) conducted its first national congress.  Some of the resolutions of the congress related to the challenges to the authority of the Front that were posed by some former members of its leadership, the emerging PLF, and revolts in Gash, Denkalia and the Eritrean highlands. Most were reported by Syrian radio, transcripts of which we are providing below.   To put the resolutions in context, we are providing the major incidents which occurred preceding or following the congress of the ELF, namely:

�         1965 is remembered with a lot of pain for that was when the Eritrean struggle went through a cruel experience of civil war: the liquidation of the Eritrean Liberation Movement�s army at Ela TsaEda;

�         1967 is also a sad year for it was the year when Ethiopian airplanes and infantry combed huge parts of Eritrea forcing tens of thousands of refugees to flee their homes and settle in refugee camps in the Sudan (where most of them, almost 12 years after Eritrea�s independence, they still reside);

�         1970: In April, an ELF combatant walked into a restaurant-bar in Asmara and shot to death three retired civil servants and three other people.  On November 21 of the same year, ELF elements ambushed an Ethiopian army convoy on the Asmara-Keren road and opened fire. Among the dead was General Teshome Ergetu, the commander of the 2^nd Division of the Ethiopian occupation army.  The 2nd Division was beefed up and, together with the Special Forces known as Commandos, the security forces increased to around 20,000 men.  Enlisting of local militia units known as Banda increased and the unsuspecting farmers became the occupation army�s tools in promoting inter-Eritrean conflicts. They were offered incentives to follow and kill the combatants of the Eritrean liberation fronts, then referred to by the Ethiopian occupation as �wenbedie�. Many fell prey to the money, titles and other petty rewards.  

�         1970-71 was when the fragmentation of the Eritrean Liberation Front started (a fragmentation that still continues to this date.)  As a result of the war of attrition, thousands of patriotic fighters died.  It is during this period that the villages of Ona and Besekdira were burned and over one thousand of their inhabitants killed.  The early seventies saw the worst part of the recurring civil wars; hundreds of combatants from the different factions perished.  In January 1971, the emperor appointed a new Governor-General, Lt. Gen. Debebe Hailemariam. The Ethiopian Government declared martial law and a state of emergency in Eritrea. Curfew was imposed and roadblocks were installed on all access roads to cities and towns. This accelerated an already heavy flow of refugees to the Sudan.  Later in 1971, Ethiopian forces were becoming successful as ELF problems heightened.  The Front's internal friction began to dictate its activities.  That helped Lt. Gen. Debebe Hailemariam�s forces to roam around in many parts of the country unchallenged. 

The Eritrean politics of that time was executed by an acquired right: revolutionary legitimacy. That "right" and that practice was the cause of many malpractices and consequences of the past.  Regretfully, this �revolutionary legitimacy� continues to haunt the practice of all Eritrean political organizations and Eritreans continue to suffer from revolutionary-era leadership that does not recognize the people as the supreme powers of their destiny. 

The following document is a transcript of an Arabic broadcast that was aired over thirty years ago from Damascus.  The Awate Team believes that many of those who were actively involved in the Eritrean struggle for liberation of that time are still around; many others remember the incidents of the period. Considering the above-described context, please continue to read the resolutions that were passed by the ELF at the time.  Join us on a trip back down Memory Lane.

SWB                    ME/3866/B/1                16 December 1971

Eritrean Liberation Front Congress Resolutions

Damascus home service �Voice of the Eritrean Resolution� programme in Arabic 20.15 GMT 13.12.71

Text of ELF congress resolutions:

The ELF's first national congress, which was held in a liberated area of the country from 14th October to 12th November 1971, has issued its resolutions regarding domestic and foreign matters. The resolutions deal with the revolution's basic issues in the homeland and put the revolution's relationships with the revolutionary and socialist states and parties in the Arab countries and the rest of the world in their proper perspective.

We will present the political resolutions in this programme. In the next programme we will present the organizational resolutions.

The resolutions concerning the internal situation:

The position regarding the popular liberation forces:

The first congress of the ELF, which convened in the field from 14^th October to 12^th November 1971, after studying and analysing the political, military and organizational facts which accompanied the emergence of the popular liberation forces, has arrived at the following conclusions:

1. It affirms that the experiment of the Eritrean revolution is represented in the fact that the Eritrean arena can tolerate only one revolution led by one organization with a single command.
2. It condemns the political command � the so-called secretariat general � and the military command as well as the political line of the so-called popular liberation forces regarding national unity.
3. It addresses a sincere appeal to the soldiers of the so-called popular liberation forces and the masses following the same line to adhere to the programmes and resolutions which have been issued by the first national congress and which represent the correct formula for national unity.
4. The command which has emerged from the national congress should set a suitable time limit for these soldiers to return and rally under the banner of the front.
5. The Front�s command undertakes to accept these soldiers as revolutionary fighters in the Front�s ranks during this period.
6. The command stemming from the congress shall have full powers to take military measures to ensure the unity of the organization and the unity of the revolution, should these soldiers refuse to rally under the Front�s banner before the fixed time expires.

The position regarding the four members of the former general command:

The ELF'S first national congress, taking into consideration the role adopted by the four members of the former general command in the Barea sector in obstructing the convening of the national congress and taking note of their representation of the ,counter-revolution command position and their defence of its interests, has decided:

1. To condemn the four members of the former general command for their hostile position regarding the national congress and to denounce the statement issued by them on 25th September 1971.
2. To commend the vigilance of the sector's soldiers who repudiated the plot of the four members and attended the first general national congress.

The problem of the armed villages in the Eritrean heights:

The first general national congress, taking into consideration the political and military situation in the Eritrean heights, being aware of the imperialist and Ethiopian colonialist schemes designed to instigate the masses in these areas to clash militarily with the revolution forces, and observing the absence of organized political action among these masses, has decided:

1. To organize concentrated political action among the inhabitants of the Eritrean heights. This action will be undertaken by the most competent fighters. Its purpose will be to explain the front's programme to the masses and to refute and lay bare the lies and allegations of the colonialist enemy.
2. To organize military action to accompany and complete the political action, taking into consideration the area's political, economic and military conditions.

The problem of the armed villages in the Gash area:

The first national congress of the ELF, taking into consideration the developments of the (Kunama) problem and its dimensions and the Ethiopian enemy's arming of the citizens, as well as the problems which have arisen in the area during the past years and the Ethiopian enemy's schemes to recruit the (Banda) against the revolution, has decided:

1. To reject any solution to this problem which depends on violence. As an alternative, it suggests organized political action in these areas and the assertion of the national unity of the Eritrean people.
2. To call the armed villages to adhere to the Front's programme and to liquidate the subservient elements which are linked with colonialism.

[As broadcast] The problem of (Denkalia):

The first national congress of the ELF, after discussing the developments and results of (Denkalia) and after studying the role of the elements which participated in deepening the problem, has decided:

1. To denounce the command of the popular liberation forces represented by the counter-revolution for its role in creating and complicating the problem and the political and military results of the command's unpatriotic and un-revolutionary behaviour.
2. To assert the internal unity of the Eritrean people, to preserve the unity of the Eritrean soil, and to reject the schemes of world imperialism and Ethiopian reaction designed to disrupt the unity of the Eritrean homeland.
3. To organize programmed political action in the area and to mobilize the masses revolutionarily and nationally.
4. To issue a general amnesty for a fixed time concerning the fighters who have submitted and surrendered to the enemy, so that they may return to the ranks of the revolution, and to liquidate the elements whose treason and conspiratorial links with the enemy have been established.

The problem of the commandos:

The first general national congress of the ELF, taking into consideration the position of the Eritrean commando forces which are being used by the Ethiopian enemy in his aggressive war against the Eritrean people, and observing that the bureaucratic military command of the commando forces is bound by interest with Ethiopian colonial ism and world imperialism, has decided:

1. To condemn the bureaucratic command of the commando forces which safeguards the interests of the Eritrean people's enemies as well as the mercenary elements present among these forces.
2. To organize military action among these forces to expose the schemes of world imperialism and reaction designed to create civil war in Eritrea, schemes which are similar to the designs of US imperialism in Vietnam.

Brothers, in the next programme we will present the rest of this report.

Note: Damascus radio (in Arabic 20.15 GMT) on 13th December said the delegation representing the revolutionary council of the ELF, led by ldris Muhammad Adam, the council chairman, which arrived in Damascus on 11^th  December was expected to tour Arab and African countries.