From: Solomon Bisrat (solomonbis@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Apr 07 2009 - 23:37:01 EDT
Dear Dehai editors;
It is repeatedly mentioned by those who write on Ethiopia-Eritrea that Ethiopia lost the ports of Massawa and Assab when Eritrea won independence in the early 1990s after a
30-year war. No! Ethiopia under the Woyane government kept using the services of the ports until it ignited the 1998 war on excuse of border conflict. Why is there no effort made to correct this information?
Djibouti is renting the ports at much higher cost followed by inefficient services, whereas Eritrea allowed the Woyane government to use the ports after independence, inspite of complaints by Port Authority employees about the actual versus billed cost for which Ethiopia gave us a kick in the mouth anyway. It always bothers me to see the statement repeated on practically every issue that is printed. If the news is pointing at "owning the ports" then, as far as I am concerned, that is wrong too because Ethiopia never peacefully owned them. Ethiopia illegally annexed Eritrea in 1961 and immediately its owners fought a 30 year war to place it back under their full control. The ports have always been Eritrean in our music, our soul, our sweat and blood.
Please correct the statment regardless of Ethiopias acceptance of the fact.