You may remember how Patrick Jilkes, the BBC's expert on the Horn of Africa, was telling the world about Ethiopia's military plans to take Mendefera and pin the Eritrean forces in the central front. You may have seen the map of Eritrea with arrows pointing from Shambuko to Zalambessa indicating the sweeping pincer movement the Ethiopian military was going to make. I was so exasperated with a friend who bought into the scenario that I retorted, "The Weyanes are not in command of the Desert Storm forces." Eritreans who know the landscape in the Areza-Mendefera road were scoffing at the suggestion that the Ethiopians would be able to climb the steep mountains.

The BBC reporters were so convinced of Eritrea's militarily doom that the only pictures they thought apporpriate to incude in their online stories were of Eritrean refugees or/and praying Eritreans. One picture of an Eritrean in prayer had the caption, "Eritreans have much to pray for from Algiers." Their correspondent in Addis Abeba when Ethiopia was making its donkey-accompanied blitzkrieg is a fellow named Peter Biles. He is a roving reporters who, a few months back, was in the Indo-Pakistani border to report just as authoritatively about the 50 year old problem of the Kashmir. I don't think he knows that much about the Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict because I heard him dismiss all other theories about its cause as rubbish in favour of his own idea that the war started because Eritrea got jealous of Tigray becoming an industrial competitor. Aren't correspondents supposed just to report on what they see and hear? Increasingly, and with BBC reporters in particular, you hear them becoming overnight experts and making sweeping statements about issues they are hardly qualified on. A couple of times, I heard Peter Biles relay to the BBC what the Ethiopians were claiming and then comment that their claims were, in general, credible. He was in Addis Abeba when the Ethiopians claimed that they destroyed a force of eight Eritrean divisions. Later he was among the reporters that were taken to Shambuko and shown about 15 Eritrean bodies to prove that claim. Among the journalists in that tour with him was Mimi Sibhatu, a reporter for Amharic program of the Voice of America, and an Ethiopian at that. But even she admitted that she saw no evidence of any fighting let alone one that can cause a destruction of that scale. In fact, when General Tsadkan, the Chief of Staff of the Weyane armed forces, was asked by skeptical reporters the question, "How do you explain that journalists who have gone to the western front and central fronts didn't see any evidence of big fighting and resistance of the enemy? No dead bodies......?" his reply was, "Well, as far as my information goes the journalists who have been taken to the central or western fronts have seen a lot of dead bodies. That is the information I have. Even in the central front, that is the information I have. I think the Office of the Government Spokesperson could arrange for you, and anybody who is interested to see dead bodies, to go and see." In other words, he lied. How is it then that Peter Biles found Ethiopian claims to be credible when their Chief of Staff had to tell such a bare-faced lie? I can't help getting uneashy about the BBC when I compare Peter Biles' assertions about the credibility of Weyane claims with the report by Simon Robinson which appeared in the Internet edition of Time Europe.
http://www.time.com/time/europe/webonly/africa/2000/06/eritrea.html

The other day, I was listening to the BBC radio on the Internet when Alex Last reported about the dozens of bodies in the Dedda valley just north of Barentu and claims by Eritrean commanders that about 2500 Ethiopians were killed in the battle for Barentu. An hour later, the BBC reported on about 1500 Eritrean POWs in Tigray. One of their correspondent was dispatched there to see for herself and she spoke of how disillusioned they were with the war. A BBC story later reported that Ethiopia was holding 100,000 (one hundred thousand) Eritrean POWs. I can't imagine how anyone can type 100,000, comma and all, for 1500. It can't be a typo. And when some Eritreans protested to the BBC, the figure was corrected, and the editors, instead of admitting their error, feigned ignorance and wondered where the 100,000 came from. They even asked for the URL to their own story. They could have, if they wanted to find out the truth, checked when the file was last modified to find out that a correction was indeed made.

Today, the big news is the capture of Tessenei and the rout of about 15,000 Ethiopian soldiers. Eritrea reported about 700 Ethiopians killed in the fighting, hundreds taken prisoner and seven tanks captured. About 600 Ethiopian soldiers are reported to have fled to the Sudan. And Eritrean forces are chasing the remnants who fled towards Goluj. The scale of the disaster for Ethiopia, not only in human and material terms but more importantly, psychologically, is such that it has silenced the gloating not only the Office of the Spokesperson but most Ethiopian discussion groups as well. It remains to be seen how it will influence the talks going in Algiers. But the BBC had to downplay it with a counter story. Their reporter in Tigray went to Adi Grat to interview about 50 Eritrean deserters being held there. About 600 Ethiopians had deserted from the Ethiopian army in peace time. The 50 Eritreans, we are told, did in the heat of the ferocious battles of the last month. It isn't the BBC reporting about the horrors of war that bothers me but what the journalist wanted to make of it. Here is what she says:

<< Many in Eritrea believe their army to be invincible. But the soldiers who fled the fierce fighting on the central front last month tell a different story. One deserter described a scene of horror reminiscent of the first world war. He said Eritrean positions have been pounded relentlessly for 30 hours. At the end of it, the trenches fell. Soldiers fleeing the frontline told him, "if you want to save your life, run." As the soldiers run, the wounded were left behind. One man said, "there was no time to take the wounded with us." Another fifty year old said he deserted because he simply did not believe in this war between the former allies. "If you are going to fight," he said, "you have to fight willingly." The fifty or so deserters are being held under guard at a disused school just outside of the border town of AdiGrat. They may, of course, have been saying what they thought what the Ethiopian authorities wanted to hear. But they gave the impression of being sincere. And they were not ashamed to say they deserted. The presense of this handful of men in Adigrat is hardly proof of a mass flight from the ranks of the Eritrean army. But their views may hint a wider discontent not only with the conduct of the war, but also with Eritrea's political leadership. >>

What anyone should have found incredible is that only fifty Eritrean soldiers deserted. The way our soldiers in the front lines conducted themselves with such bravery and calm in the face of staggering military setbacks is amazing. Imagine being in Zalambessa and hearing that the Badme trenches have been breached, that Barentu had fallen, that hundreds of thousands of Eritrean civilians were fleeing towards Keren and that the Ethiopians were thinking of taking Mendefera. Only fifty Eritreans deserted and a BBC correspondent speculates that "their views may hint a wider discontent not only with the conduct of the war, but also with Eritrea's political leadership." Give me a break!

warsay