24 May, 2020
The 29th Anniversary of the Eritrean Independence
By: Ali Mohammed Saleh Shum ( A former Eritrean Diplomat) I would like to extend my apology for the belated English version which appears some days later for technical difficulties.
This year, the celebration of the glorious Independence Day coincided with the blessed Eid Al-Fitr holiday, hence I have taken this opportunity to extend my congratulations and blessings to the Eritrean ladies and gentlemen Muslim followers who are living throughout the world, asking ALLAH to return our country to us whilst we enjoy wellness and blessings.” Happy Eid Al-fitr”.
I am also pleased to extend my warm and heartily congratulations to the sons and daughters of the Eritrean people at homeland and abroad in the occasion of our dearest festival of our country’s independence day. In this day the Eritrean people achieved and won historical event after paying tremendous sacrifices in 30 years of bloodshed, despite the superiority of the Ethiopian Army in number of men and arms and in spite of the huge weapons, arms, artillery and other support that the Ethiopians received from the eastern and western worlds. That was because the will and determination of the Eritrean people were more powerful than all obstacles.
No doubt the Eritrean people suffered costly human and material loses, scarifying 100,000 martyr heroes and huge number of wounded heroes during the liberation war.
Due to the fact that the Ethiopian army practiced (policy of the scorched land) against the Eritrean people in the rural areas aiming to isolate the revolution far from the people, hundreds of villages were burned and destroyed. To mention some but not limited to I can name the villages of Ad Abrihim – Umm Hajar – Aouna – Baskadira – Aylet – Qinda – Hirgigo – Um Beirmi – Sheieb – Waki Zaqir Arafaly- Agordat – Andy Badeel – Ady Gabru – Corbelli, etc. However, the Eritrean people stood firm and steady against all these crimes and continued supporting their revolution.
The Eritrean revolution, with its various factions, confronted the enemy and incurred him heavy losses on various fronts, in addition to the bold (Fidaeen) operations that were carried out in Asmara and other Eritrean cities, forcing the enemy to take defensive position.
On the political level, the revolution managed to break the media isolation , this enabled to move at the regional and international levels, explain the nature of the conflict and request military and material aids. Some Arab countries that had relationship with the Eritrean revolution played effective role in convincing some countries about the fairness of the Eritrean issue and provided support, and indeed that aid had paid off.
The discussion of the Eritrean revolution cannot be summarized in several lines, but rather requires volumes of books .We had been hearing and inspiring about the Algerian revolution, the Vietnamese revolution, and the achieved victories in various media outlets that played a great role in conveying these achievements.
Although the Eritrean revolution had been suffering from a media blackout, but despite this blockage and the enemy’s superiority in number and equipment and with modest capabilities of the revolution, it managed to achieve unprecedented championships and created a tangible reality that had been difficult to overcome. Eritrean independence did not come easily, it was a result of heroic sacrifices that no pen can explain properly.
It is unfortunate that this great historical achievement of the Eritrean people had become a mirage as a result of the practices of the ruling junta in Eritrea. Eritrea should have been among the developing countries in its economy and in the renaissance of its people at various levels. Eritrea possesses great economic potential in addition to its vital geographical location, and best of this its people who enjoy vitality, toil and production, but had no opportunity to innovate this in his country.
In addition to the great potential that Eritrea owns, the people had experience in commercial agriculture, animal wealth, fishing practice and tourism ethics and the country possesses mineral wealth such as potash gold silver and salt. .Some studies confirmed presence of petrol in Eritrea. For tourism Eritrea possess four seasons in one time in its different areas.
Eritrea owns old basic infrastructure since the Italian colonization era and its capital Asmara was named ‘BICOLA ROMA” by those colonizers.
During the Self Determination and Federation Era, Eritrea had been attracting investors from different countries besides he remaining Italian businessmen and firms, There had been Ethiopians, Yemenis, Somalis, Indians, few Jews and some from the Arab countries such as Saudi Arab and Egypt. Eritrea had been exporting cotton, frankincense, leather, and fruits, as there were tanneries plants. There was buttons factory extracted off special trees in Keren city known as “Shishita”, while most of the factories were in Asmara, such as beer, beverage and various garment factories.
Even in the transportation sector Eritrea was superior to its neighboring countries where it had the “first hanged cable cart” (TELEFIRIK) line and railway line before it appeared in Cairo.
In the cultural side, there were a number of cinema halls in Asmara and some in other cities of the country namely Impero – Dante – Odeon, a police music band and a theater group in Asmara that graduated and featured major artists such as El Amin Abdel Latif and Othman Abdel Rahim.
In this occasion I appeal to the sons and daughters of the Eritrean people at home and abroad to work to save their country from this ruling junta and neglect when some elements call and promote regional, tribal, and religious differences, because the Eritrean people are by nature one people and those elements are trying to exercise a policy of “divide and rule”.
A united spirit of solidarity is the only guarantee that will defeat the policies of division and dispersion, so that our nation Eritrea will be safe and prosper with all promising and developing countries after getting rid of this devil Junta.
God the Almighty willing we will celebrate the coming year to honor our martyrs, our wounded living freedom fighters and strugglers who had performed well, and we will perpetuate their honorable national roles.
