Prime Minster Meles Zenawi On Record About Ethiopians Deported From
Eritrea In 1991
In 1991, soon after Eritrea won militarily the thirty-year war of struggle, about 100,000 Ethiopians are believed to have left Eritrea. Ethiopia, in retrospect, is accusing Eritrea for deporting that many Ethiopians in 1991. The issue was raised at the time. But, as you can read from the interview given below, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia is defending Eritrea for the action it took at the time.
Journalist:
The Prime Minister:
First, it is necessary to address the question of who the people that the Provisional Government of Eritrea, as a matter of policy, had identified as people who should to leave the country are. First in the list are members of the so-called Revolutionary Army including 40,000 prisoners of war in the vicinity of Asmara alone, and quite a few other soldiers and militias stationed in other Eritrean towns. Second in the list were members of the intelligence unit and the Ethiopian Workers’ Party. The third group is the so-called displaced Ethiopians.
The so-called displaced Ethiopians are people who left Tigray and moved into Eritrea when Tigray was liberated in 1981. These people were people of different character. Some of these were civil servants who were working for the Dergue [The Ethiopian Revolutionary Military Governemnt]. They moved to Eritrea saying that they can not work for the Dergue any more and thus can not collect their salaries while they were in Tigray. However, these were limited in number. On the other hand, there were what the Dergue used to call the peopleUs militia and members of the Ethiopian Workers’ Party who were responsible for intelligence. This group left Tigray when the Dergue was wiped out from Tigray for fear of "persecution and imprisonment." Thus, most of the so-called displaced people were members of the army, intelligence and the Ethiopian Workers’ Party. The fact that these people had to leave Eritrea was preset as a policy by the Eritrean Provisional Government. When these people were staying in Eritrea, they were employees and members of the Tigray Regional Administration that the Dergue had formed within Eritrea.
Many people may not know, but, after the Dergue left Tigray, the so-called Tigray Administration unit was in Eritrea monitoring what was going in Tigray. It was also from Asmara that the Dergue was monitoring the movement of the Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front (EPRDF) and occasionally sending insurgents from Eritrea to set explosives and espionage in order to sabotage the EPRDF’s activities. Most of the so-called displaced Ethiopians were deployed from Asmara for this purpose. However, there are also innocent civil servants P teachers, doctors and so on, who left. Some among these left, saying that they would not receive salaries since the Dergue had left.
On the third level, let me say the fourth, there were groups who were not employees of the Government, but were involved in kidnapping. These groups include like the notorious TG group known as the Tesfaye Gebre Kidan group. It was set as a policy that these groups had to leave the country. Other than this, the Provisional Government of Eritrea, had told civil servant to leave the country if it cannot place them in jobs or they cannot find jobs on their own.
As we all know, after the Port of Massawa was closed, food and other supply to Asmara and surrounding used to come by air. Therefore, the situation in Amara was very critical. Factories were closed. When the Dergue left the city, there was a serious shortage of food. At the time, the number of people who were told to leave was about 100,000. There was a possibility of starvation if these people did not leave. As you all know, the price of one quintal of the staple food had reached 800-1000 Birr. And this is even after some improvement. Therefore, unless they left immediately, they would not get food and that they would die of hunger. This was one of the reasons that they were told to leave immediately.
The process of leaving was very hectic creating other problems. The reason why they were told to leave as fast as they did was because there was food problem. They would starve to death if they did not. The Eritrean Provisional government did not want to take the political repercussion that coould result from this. They did not want to be blamed of starving them to death. It was with this in mind that they let them out as fast as possible.
The second factor that has to be considered in relation to this is the emotion of anger of the people in the area. These were people who were participants in the crimes committed. There were times when a feeling of retaliation was expressed by some who lost relatives. The Government had the belief that "these people had to leave before they were exposed to danger and the situation goes out of hand."
On our part, we were not organized to accept these many people in a short period of time. In Tigray, there was no enough food even for the resident let alone for 100,000 more. There was no enough shelter. We needed time to organize. The position of Provisional Government of Eritrea was that, it did not have the time and the resource and that the alternative was letting them starve to death. That was a responsibility, which it did not want to take because the political blame is more than it can handle.
The second problem that evolved relates to the way the transportation procedure was conducted. The policy of the Eritrean Government was that people leaving the country can sell their properties, or take them with them if they have their own means of transportation. However, if they were to use Eritrean public transportation, they had to use the bus. If a bus were to carry 40 to 50 people, it would not have space for items consisting of chairs, beds and luggage for more than three families. Because of this reason, it was outlined that people carry small items on the bus and sell the rest. From a policy point of view, selling may sound right, but it may have a problem of implementation. There were not enough people to buy. There was no money to buy with and there was no time. Because of anticipated starvation and fear of retaliation, there were some people who could not sell in such a short time.
There were others who were forced to sell at a low price. Furthermore, they were not allowed more than 1,000 Birr. "Issuance certificate of claim to be cashed at some future time" was considered. The reason given for this was that, "at this time, factories and banks have not started operation because, there is no money." At a time when there was no money, it was not possible to take out more than 1,000 Birr. When banks and factories start operation and the financial situation of the country improves, they can claim the remaining balance either by going to Asmara, or in Addis Ababa from an authorized agent that the Eritrean Provisional Government creates. And for certain, the Government did not have any money. Whatever was there was being transferred here. This was state of the condition.
Along with this, we think that there are people who are unaffected by the policy that left simply because they panicked. We also believe that the cases of these people have to be considered separately. We discussed this with the Provisional Eritrean Government. The response that we received from that government is that "individuals who left because of the spur of the moment can come back and live in Eritrea if they want to after their cases are considered individually." This was the situation for those that the policy does not apply. Another thing that has to be considered in line with this is the question of what role those people who were forced to leave had played.
For certain, there were members of the Dergues’s rounding up group. If we claim that crime was committed in Eritrea, it was conducted with the help of these people. Putting aside the spirit of peace and understanding, there are many members who were legally responsible for the crime they committed. There were private soldiers with televisions. I do not think that a private soldier can buy television with the salary he was getting. There are also officers, who had property that they can never have for the salaries that they were getting. But because the spirit is a spirit of reconciliation and understanding, "it has been set as a policy that individuals would not be charged simply because they participated in a mission unless that they had really committed crime." It is with this legal perspective that the ownership of property has to be considered. Crimes committed also may vary. But, in a military crime a who soldiers burns down the house of a peasant because he had an order from his commander cannot be set free. There is no precedence to this anywhere. HitlerUs soldiers were not set free because they had orders from their generals. Military crime is a military crime. "I did it under the order of my commander" is not a justification for committing crime. If we were to go legally, there is justification for reviewing each individual soldier’s case. However, this does not create an atmosphere of reconciliation that is needed. Because of the acceptance by the Provisional Government of Eritrea that "for the sake of the generations to come, we should focus on the major issues and ignore the minor ones", we have to view the whole issue from that perspective. The property of the displaced also has to be considered from this perspective. We cannot see it in isolation of this.