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Vicissitudes of History and Human Rights – Ethiopia and Eritrea

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Vicissitudes of History and Human Rights – Ethiopia and Eritrea VICISSITUDES OF HISTORY AND HUMAN RIGHTS – ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA By Haggai Erlich* Human rights are a concept that can be interpreted in various ways. Yet it is universal in its very essence. It is about the centrality of man and his basic freedoms. Human rights are, therefore, supposed to be applied regardless of place and time. History, however, is and should be understood differently. It is about differences, about changes, about a-similarities, and the uniqueness of moments and places. All this is, of course, trivial. But, it is interesting to follow cases in point. The short analysis below can be presented analogically nearly elsewhere. Here is succinctly the story of the Horn of Africa. More precisely of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Today's Eritrea is nearly a synonym for the violation of human rights. It is being exposed as one of the worst countries in terms of liberties. It became a major exporter of refugees fleeing from what they describe as a most oppressive system. The Ethiopia of today fares comparatively much better. Though occasionally being exposed by various observers as still lagging much behind its claim to be a pluralist system, and though reports on the regime’s brutal measures still continue, Ethiopia is surely open to its own diversity and to its people. There are many more Ethiopians returning to their country from diaspora, visiting and investing there, than those who try to leave the country. Israel is the closest land-connected target for those trying to flee from East Africa. The illegal refugee community in Israel is made mostly of Eritreans, hardly Ethiopians. The Beta-Israel community (Jews who came from Ethiopia1) in Israel are of course a different story (with its own problems). Many of the Beta-Israel's second generation do visit their country of origin. They are often amazed at the poverty there, but also wonder at the pace of development and expanding freedoms. For a historian of the region in modern times all this is nearly absurd. A few decades ago Ethiopia was an ancient land of oppression, Eritrea was the new ray of hope.2 * Professor Emeritus, Tel-Aviv University, History of the Middle East and Africa. Winner of the Landau Prize in 2010. 1 The ancient Jewish community in Ethiopia was nicknamed Falasha by the locals. They referred to themselves as Beta-Israel, the House of Israel. See S. Kaplan, The Beta-Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia, From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century (1992). 2 The following article is based also on my relevant studies. See H. Erlich, The Struggle Over Eritrea, 1962 - 1978 (1983); H. Erlich, Ethiopia and The Challenge of 221 222 ISRAEL YEARBOOK ON HUMAN RIGHTS I. ETHIOPIA – FROM BIBLICAL LAW TO "RED TERROR" Eritrea was a part of Ethiopia which the Italian imperialists occupied in 1890 and ruled as their colony. The British took it in 1941, during WWII, and kept it to 1952. During these sixty two years of European rule, the locals developed like in most other colonized societies. Namely, they slowly adopted new ways of social and political organization. By 1952, when the UN had to decide about the future of Eritrea, there already existed there a number of political parties, workers' organizations, newspapers, and what can be defined as an active public. This was quite different from what happened in the rest of Ethiopia.3 Ethiopia's major modern experience in the twentieth century was rather the victory of traditional culture, structures and values. The Ethiopians defeated the Italians (the Battle of Adwa in 1896), entered the League of Nations as independent State (in 1923), and maintained their sovereignty with only a short exception of the Fascists' occupation (1936 – 1941). Their last emperor, Haile-Selassie, ruled the country to 1974. He did so with the same imperial, religiously-sanctioned absolutism as his medieval predecessors.4 Human rights, political structure, and civil society in twentieth century independent Ethiopia developed accordingly. The traditional legal code, the Fetha Nagast (“The wisdom of Kings”, compiled around mid-13th century by an Egyptian Copt, translated from Arabic into old Ethiopic (Ge`ez) and introduced to Ethiopia in around the mid-16th century), remained in effect to 1931. It was a collection of laws not much different from ancient biblical ones.5 The Ethiopian version, still applied in modern times, enabled the rulers to resort to all sorts of legal procedures and to inflict all sorts of horrible punishments. Before entering the League of Nations slavery was officially abolished, but in practice it persisted.6 In 1931, Haile-Selassie Independence (1986); H. Erlich, Ethiopia and the Middle East (1994); H. Erlich, Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan (2010). 3 See L. Ellingson, “The Emergence of Political Parties in Eritrea”, 18 J. African His. 261- 281 (1977). 4 For political biographies of Haile Selassie see A. Del Boca, The Negus, The Life and Death of the Last King of Kings [an English edition of his 1995 Italian, Il Negus, Vita e morte dell'ultimo Re de Re,] (2012); Asfa-Woseen Asserate, King of Kings, The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia (2015). 5 See Paulos Tzadua, “Fetha nagast”, in Encylopaedia Aethiopica vol. II, at 534 – 535 (S. Uhlig ed., 2005) (hereinafter “EAE”). 6 J. Allain, “Slavery and the League of Nations: Ethiopia as a Civilized Nation”, 8 J. Hist. Int’l L. 213–244 (2006). .
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