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Eritreans in Faraway
Australia
By Woldeyesus Ammar (June 30, 2005)
In the old good days when Eritreans were not yet afflicted by the virus
of exile, Oceania or Downunder or Australia, as it is commonly known,
was considered as a faraway fairy-tale land beyond the reach of any
Eritrean. The only compatriot I knew who went that far by 1971 was
Mensura Abdalla Baho from my hometown, Keren, who settled there with her
husband of Australian nationality. I thought that would be about it
except, of course, a few isolated cases like her relatives or a few
friends for whom she would naturally become a “pull factor”, as the
jargon in migration studies would have it.
Nearly 35 years later, Ph.D. holder Mensura Abdalla Baho is still there,
but not as the only ‘Aussie’ of Eritrean origin. There are approximately
5,000 Eritreans – rather, Australians of Eritrean origin - in a
country/continent that takes tiresomely long flight time to reach it
from our part of the world. But once you are there, it turns out to be
nearer home, with some homelike social environment.
A Sampling of Eritreans
in Australia
Guess the identity and quality of those who had to join Mensura in
Australia in the course of the past few decades? They are some of
Eritrea’s great patriots, their families, the widows of our heroic
martyrs and their orphans, who, in a just world, should have been among
the most welcome citizens Eritrea after liberation. Of course that could
not be the case due to well-documented reasons that all of us by now
know.
During the 1980s, a trickle of asylum seekers opted to go to that
distant land when the prospects of rebuilding the ELF (i.e. its various
factions) faced continued setbacks. In spite of the regrettable
situation of the political atmosphere of their organizations, most of
the veteran freedom fighters, their families and the families of many
martyrs of the liberation struggle had no choice but to remain in the
vicinities of Eritrea, mainly in the Sudan. A few luckier ones stayed
around the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf region – always waiting with
the hope of returning home after liberation.
Come 1991, independence arrived but empty-handed. The hope of returning
home received its first brutal blows when the new regime unceremoniously
announced its “Hashewiye Wudibat” decree. People waited
with disbelief. No one wanted to accept as fact that a new ‘Eritrean’
government was not welcoming its rival comrades in the struggle days and
old caseloads of refugees.
After 1992 and well before the referendum, all hopes for return and
reconciliation faded and old liberation fighters tried to reorganize
resistance in exile. But Eritrea had its share of small breed of
optimists who still wished to give the benefit of the doubt to Isayas
and his regime and returned home as ‘individuals’. In the long last,
many of them (except a few, including Amna Melekin and Dr. Mohammed
Qusmala, who are unnecessarily taking long time to drop PFDJ) had to
admit that they were wrong to expect free participation and
accommodation in PFDJ’s Eritrea. And no surprise that it was after
Eritrea’s liberation and during the past 14 years that a large majority
of Eritreans were exiled to Australia. Also it is not surprising to find
the majority of them to be of Jebha origin. Their social composition and
origin also has its own explanation. By the time those Eritreans in the
Sudan, North African countries and the Middle East despaired of going
home, the ground for seeking asylum in Europe or North America was
already saturated. Australia was the available third country for
resettlement of Eritrean refugees from Cairo, Khartoum and the rest of
the Middle East region. (The plight of our refugees in the Middle East
and North Africa regions up to Australia is being researched by Hassan
Ibrahim Ennati, who is doing his Ph.D. project on that subject. Hassan
is a courageous Eritrean in Melbourne who lost his eyesight during a
surgical operation but has not lost his determination to live and pursue
his studies in order to succeed in life against all difficulties.)
During the latest visit to Australia as part of ELF-RC delegation, we
had the honour of visiting some of those distinguished families in their
Melbourne homes. Many other patriots of long standing in the struggle
were met either at intervals of meetings or at pre-arranged tea parties.
The short listing below, consisting of families and persons visited or
met during our visit in Melbourne is hoped to give an example of the
kind of people exiled to Australia – and the names will for sure ring in
the ears of many Nharnet.com readers:
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Sons and daughters of Martyr Omar Ezaz.
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Widow and children of Martyr Mahmoud Hassab.
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Widow and children of Martyr Idris Hangala.
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Widow and children of Martyr Mahmoud M. Saleh, ‘Hanjemenji’.
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Widow and children of Martyr Yemane G/Michael ‘Baria’ (abo
Segen).
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Widow and children of Martyr Michael Ghaber.
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Widow and children of Martyr Saleh Ahmed Eyay.
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Widow and children of Martyr Azien S. Yassin.
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ELM/Haraka and ELF founding member Adem Melekin and
family.
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ELF founding member Mohammed Saeed Antata and family etc.
The list would be inexhaustible, even if
limited only to the most senior leaders and cadres in the liberation
struggle. Equally long would be the list of families of fighters
languishing in PFDJ prisons or those whose whereabouts are little knew:
think of Ghenet and her son Ghilay, who were exiled to Australia years
after the kidnap by the Asmara regime in 1992 of Woldemariam
Bahlibi, an ELF-RC leadership member, or take families of fighters
like Suleiman Adem Suleiman, an ELF leader, whose family is in
exile until the expected return back home.
I am tempted to add more names, and beg the pardon of readers, if it is
getting boring. Do you recall that the EPRDF government of Ethiopia,
under pressure from PFDJ, shut down ELF-RC offices in that country in
1994 and imprisoned nearly 30 ELF-RC leadership cadres? In 1995-96,
international humanitarian organizations approached and convinced a
number of countries including Australia to give shelter to those persons
whose lives were at risk because of PFDJ demanded for their extradition
from Addis to Asmara. Eventually, 12 of them were given asylum in
Australia, among them Haile Ghebru, the current ELF-RC representative in
that continent, who shares the town of Brisbane with other known cadres
like Michael ‘Wedi Qeshi’, Tsegai Tesfai and many other old comrades.
And who else is not in Australia? I met in Melbourne Abdalla Saeed ‘Elaj’,
Saleh Jimjam,….. Woldeyesus ‘Manjos’, and many, many of old
Jebha’s manjosat, including the indomitable Haileyesus Ghebray
Meles who, alongside a few others, can be considered as the real face of
reconciliation and unity among Melbourne’s relatively divided Eritreans.
Also former Kassala’s ‘UNESCO’ high school teaching staff like Memhir
Gheremedhin Tsegay and Istaz Mohammed Omar of Perth are exiled to
Australia with many of their former students, some of them now holding
Ph.Ds ...e.g. Dr. Berhan Ahmed, Dr. Salah Ibrahim, Dr. Salah Asenai and
others.
But Australia is not hosting only ELF/Jebha members. Also former EPLF/Shaebia
members who rejected the regime since 2001 are residing in Australia,
among them Makonnen Woldu, whom I knew as a militant schoolmate in
Asmara 41 years ago. Former senior government official, Tekeste Habtu,
who served as Mahmoud Sherifo’s close assistant till early 2001, is also
in Melbourne, and now actively contributing in the strengthening of the
opposition camp represented by the umbrella alliance, EDA. And whether
Amna Melekin joins them soon or not, their number is likely to show fast
and steady increase. To wit: the former PFDJ Consul in Australia, Teclu
Ogbamichael of Ashera (my village!), is also now in the opposition camp
entrenched in Australia, as has been the case with Eritrea’s former
ambassador to China, Mohammed Nur Ahmed (who, by the way, was head of
International Relations of the ELF-RC in the early 1990s before he opted
to be among those giving benefit of the doubt to Eritrea’s new
government.)
The majority of Eritreans in Australia live in Melbourne (circa
3,000-4,000), with another estimated 800-1,000 residing in Perth, in
Western Australia. Other smaller groups live in Adelaide, Brisbane,
Canberra and Sydney.
Eri-Community Centres in
Australia
Our compatriots in Australia have community centres in a number of
cities. In some cases, those in the opposition camp and supporters of
the regime co-exist and are managing it fairly well - a good example
being the small community in Brisbane. Melbourne, with the largest
number of Eritreans, has not been successful in maintaining minimum
unity at least at the community level. The PFDJ side had split taking
only a minority of the community members. This happened reportedly
because of irresponsible steps taken by the Eritrean Embassy in
Canberra. The Embassy, which is not anyway needed for economic or any
other good reason, maintains a consulate in Melbourne, whose sole
function is to harass people for illegal extraction of money from its
victims. Naturally, its victims succumb to all those abuses solely for
the purpose of visiting home at times of exigencies and social
obligations.
The incumbent president of the largest Eritrean community in the
opposition camp is Dr. Berhan Ahmed, who took the chair from his
predecessor Omar Jaber. We may recall that Eritreans in Australia have
in recent years demonstrated a progressively growing militancy in
opposing the Asmara regime and in support of the Eritrean opposition.
This is a duty they have done, and should continue to do, as a
contribution to our struggle for change and democratization in Eritrea.
On the other hand, one can rightly expect our compatriots in Australia
to rise up, as Australian citizens, to stop the Eritrean embassy
from its exploitative activities and harassments against free citizens.
There is a need to raise a legal action, to the extend of demanding
closure of the that meaningless embassy in Canberra together with its
security surveillance and intimidation unit in Melbourne. Both are
already identified as sources of hatred and disunity among Australians
of Eritrean origin. Any asylum seeker who arrives in Australia through
the right channel is entitled to receive citizenship at the end of two
years and almost all Eritreans have been granted citizenship. Thus, the
case of our refugees in Australia is quite different from the situation
of other Eritreans in the Diaspora.
Eritreans in the Horn’s
Community Network
An interesting development in Australia is the ability of Eritreans,
Ethiopians, Somalis and Sudanese to have created in 1999 a joint
community centre for the whole of the Horn of Africa. The Eritrean Omar
Jaber, now the president of the Horn of Africa Community Network,
believes that this was a step towards creating mutual understanding and
reconciliation among all the peoples of the region.
At the initial period, there were reservations between the Somalis and
Ethiopians, among the Ethiopians themselves (Oromos Vs others) and among
the Sudanese (North Vs South). With time, all have come to accept one
another and the joint leadership of this expanded Community is doing
quite well. The Network estimates the total number of people originating
from the Horn of Africa at about 30,000 – e.g. about 10,000 Ethiopians,
about 9,000 Somalis, about 6,000 Sudanese and about 5,000 Eritreans.
The Horn of Africa Community Network has training and skill-upgrading
programmes for youth and the elderly; makes efforts to find them
suitable jobs; organizes joint cultural events as well as sports
programmes. It even publishes a periodical entitled
Ambassador
which contains articles in Amharic, Arabic, English, Oromiya,
Somali, Tigrinia and other languages. The Horn of Africa Community
Network in Melbourne, which is served by volunteers from all the
involved communities, is encouraged and funded by the local authorities
of Victoria State. It is indeed a welcome initiative worth imitation by
Horn of Africa communities in other parts of the world.
Awna, Farajat, Al Nahda
and Voice of Eritrea
Horn of African Community Network’s Ambassador is not the only
media outlet for our people in Australia. Melbourne is also the location
for three steadily maturing websites run by young Eritreans who are
devoting their free time to keep people informed in Australia and other
parts of the world. Some of the young webmasters admitted that, in the
initial period, they were less objective in their writings and postings.
The aim was to see their websites visited by as many people as possible
and to achieve this any “hot and sensitive” material was posted. They
say that this is no more the case for their websites. “We are part of
the political struggle with our own evaluations of he situation and
political inclinations, yet we are determined to serve the best interest
of all Eritreans by providing objective news reports and responsible
analysis”, some of the webmasters confided to me. I felt like trusting
them without, however, taking for granted the claims of all three of
being ‘independent’ of any political partisanship. One can point out at
this juncture that the lingering unfortunate thing about most Eritrean
websites is that they do not translate their postings to other
languages. Because of this, many of important messages fail to reach to
all interested readers and political actors.
Awna, run by inspired young men like Ahmed M. Ali and Abdulwahab Jeme,
was named after the 1 December 1970 massacre of largest number of
civilians in the village of Ona/Awna 34 years ago.
The other website, Farajat, was named, according to Munir Karrar,
after the following anecdote: a few months before the collapse of the
Ethiopian army in Eritrea, a person wearing the semblance of
semi-lunatic (‘oro derwishai’) and living in one of the Eritrean
towns started proclaiming in public “farajat! farajat!” The
repeated word can translate something like this: “May the dawn come
soon!!” or “May these bad days be over soon!!” Soon after that,
Mengistu’s Dergue collapsed and Isayas Afeworki’s PFDJ came to power. In
recent years, the same ‘derwishai’ again started shouting in
public: “farajat! farajat!” It is said that the ‘semi-lunatic
person was apprehended by the PFDJ regime and threatened to never again
shout that ominous phrase of his!! But Munir Karrar and colleagues in
Melbourne wished to be a voice of that derwihsai and all what his
shouting stood for, and thus called their website Farajat!
The third website in Melbourne is Al Nahda (Renaissance) which is
not much different in meaning than Farajat, as much as it implied
change, the future. Al Nahda is run by Ali Shiya who is
assisted by people like Amal, a promising young lady in the opposition,
and hopefully a future journalist. Amal is the daughter of old/new
Jebha’s Suleiman Adem Suleiman.
Also in the field of information, the Eritrean community in Melbourne
is served by a weekly radio programme – The Voice of Eritrea -
managed by Berhan Ismail, another energetic young man who is fluent in
many languages, including Arabic, English, Tigre and Tigrinia, and
consciously working towards creating harmony among all of Eritrea’s
mosaic of linguistic, ethnic and confessional groups represented in
Australia.
Melbourne – an Extension
of Keren or Kassala?
By the way, almost all of Eritrea’s ethnic and linguistic groups are
represented in Australia’s Melbourne – some with a few families, others
in greater numbers. I met some persons who claimed that Melbourne
reminds one of Keren. (In some aspects yes: in my case, it indeed
reminded me of many nostalgic events of the past when I met in Melbourne
my 958-60 school headmaster, Mohammed Ahmed Idris Nor, and the families
of teachers and education inspectors in Senhit in the 50-60s, like
Inspector Beshir and Sheikh Saadadin of my childhood!).
May be Mensura Baho and Amna Melekin played roles of being effective
“pull factors” for Kerenites. But, seriously, it is not Keren but
Kassala that comes to one’s mend in Melbourne. A good part of the
community in Melbourne can remind one of Kassala and everyone who had
stayed there with his family as a freedom fighter or a refugee for quite
a big part of his/her life. Naturally, and as in Kassala, the vast
majority of Eritgreans in Melbourne communicate with each other in
Arabic. I securely say the vast majority because those below the age of
30-35, who should constitute up to 70-75% of the community, and who grew
up in the Sudan or the rest of the Middle East can communicate well only
in Arabic. And this is in many cases without distinction of ethnic
identity or religion.
Unlike in Kassala, though, opportunities for higher education are
available in Australia. Equally readily available are job opportunities
for Eritreans in Australia than is the case elsewhere these days.
Because of that, many of the youth easily get tempted to discontinue
pursuing higher studies and join Australia’s workforce.
Full Political
Participation!!
Also in Australia, as elsewhere, many Eritreans are not participating in
politics as card-holding and fee-paying members of the Eritrean
political organizations. On the other hand, any Australian adult citizen
is expected to cast ballot in all local and national elections. Anyone
who fails to respond to this call to duty is penalized with a specified
fine. And, at least because of this, I was told, almost all Australians
of Eritrean origin cast votes in every election! This should be the only
place where Eritreans are showing full participation in politics these
days and since 1991!!
It was also rumoured that most of them vote for the Australian Labour
Party, as the majority of Americans of Eritrean origin would vote for,
or at least sympathize with, the Democratic Party. Many Eritreans in
Australia have reportedly become members of the political parties. For
example, Omar Jaber is member of the Labour Party (not to be confused
with Jebha’s LP - kidding) and Dr. Berhan Ahmed, himself a devoted
environmentalist, is member of the Australian Green Party.
Well, well, for now this much should be enough about Australians of
Eritrean origin most of whom are, at this moment in time, still
expressing the wish of one day packing and returning home for good. But
who does not express that wish? Throughout history, almost all migrants
and refugees vowed to go back home when the right moment struke. But the
right time hardly strikes as wished. ... Anyway, and in our case, let’s
keep hoping that it will be exceptionally different for us the 1.2
million Eritreans - according to Mahmoud Sherifo’s statistics - now
found scattered everywhere in the world, and many more still joining our
ranks from the country supposed to be our permanent home.
Regards.
W. Ammar
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