Technology Transfer in Eritrea - Institute for African Development

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construction workers to build the infrastructure roads and railways in preparation for the invasion of Ethiopia. This inadvertently developed a large Eritrean working class. Post-Italian history brought with it a politicization of the Eritrean communities and planted a sea of deep discord. After the British defeated the Italians in 1941, the next ten years of British Military Administration set the framework for Eritrea’s political system. Eritrean political parties, trade unions and professional organizations began to emerge. After Italy’s defeat in the Second World War, the victors (Britain, USA, France and the former U. S. S. R.) met to decide the fate of former Italian colonies. While they agreed on the disposition of Sudan and Libya, they could not agree on the fate of Eritrea. The decision was transferred to the UN and Eritrean politics became caught up in international and regional rivalries. The Federation Like the 4-power commission, the UN was also unable to decide. The General Assembly resolved to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia for 10 years. The history of the Federation was the history of Eritrea’s destruction. Ethiopia began a system abrogation of the federal arrangement almost immediately. From 1952 onwards, political parties and trade unions were dissolved and newspapers were suspended. An Ethiopian army was stationed in Asmara and they, along with the police, were used to intimidate Eritrean nationalists. In 1956, the two Eritrean official languages (Tigrigna and Arabic) were replaced by the Ethiopian language (Amharic) as the official language of Eritrea. In 1958, the Eritrean flag was replaced by the Ethiopian flag. In 1962, Eritrea was annexed to Ethiopia by force and became a province. All of these events were greeted by an international blanket of silence. This was due largely because of Ethiopia’s links to the west in general and the US in particular. The US policy in the Horn of Africa was driven by cold war imperatives. There were US intelligence-gathering base in Asmara (Eritrea’s capital) and military agreements with Ethiopia. As superpower allegiances shifted, billions of dollars in heavy arms flowed to corrupt autocrats like Ethiopia’s Selassie, Somalia’s Barre and Sudan’s Nimeri. This helped sink the region into a morass of war, poverty and horrific famine. The Struggle for Freedom 2
In 1961, Eritreans launched an armed struggle. Between 1961 and 1977, the US trained the Ethiopian army. From 1977 until 1991, Soviets and Cubans advised and armed the Ethiopian military junta. Moscow displaced Washington in Addis Ababa in 1977, and the US, distrustful of the Eritrean movement’s independent-left politics, shifted to a policy of soviet containment. This involved arming pro-western states surrounding Ethiopia while ignoring the continued fighting in Eritrea. Former Deputy- Secretary of State for African Affairs, Chester Crocker, justified this policy as being the pursuit of “negative strategic interests.” The conspiracy of silence continued through the fiercest fighting. While most African countries had the support of one superpower or another during their struggle for freedom, Eritrea had nothing. Self-reliance was, therefore, not a philosophical or ideological exercise but a matter of survival. Because of the size of the Ethiopian army and sophistication of its armaments, every Eritrean had to be mobilized. Women’s constituted one-third of the Eritrean army and served in all ranks. Their participation in the struggle was a logical necessity. Consequences of War After independence, the dreadful effect of the prolonged war was plain to see. Eritrea was left with devastated rural and urban economies; the infrastructure--villages, towns, cities, ports and highways were ruined; industries were dysfunctional; the education system, the health services were in shambles and the treasury was looted. On the human dimension, approximately one million people were internally or externally displaced; 90% of the 500-600,000 people residing in the Sudan as refugees needed comprehensive assistance to return; at least 65,000 fighters were killed in the war, and more than 12,000 returned disabled; an estimated 100,000 civilians also died in the war. The government also had the responsibility to support a large army (100,000 strong) and a large population of orphans. It is against these and many other circumstances then that the challenges of nation creation and nation building began simultaneously. The one blessing is that Eritreans did not inherit a bureaucratic government structure. This fact allowed them to construct a government of their own design unencumbered by huge foreign debts or dubious loyalties. 3
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Technology Transfer in Eritrea - Institute for African Development

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