Word: afewerki
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...requisite niceties aside, it was not the friendliest audience that Issaias Afewerki faced as he addressed his partners in Ethiopia's new power elite last week. Many of the others oppose his plan for Eritrean independence, preferring to keep the coastal province firmly within Ethiopia. Issaias had a message for them. "Forget history," he told the conference in Addis Ababa. "Men make history, and we have made an independent Eritrea...
...trying to persuade him that the country would not unravel if he stepped down, the Eritreans said they were willing to postpone their independence vote, perhaps for several years. But once victory was secured, they wasted no time asserting their secessionist agenda. In a press conference last week, Issaias Afewerki, leader of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, stated baldly, "Eritrea is not part of Ethiopia." He added that his group would administer the province until a vote on Eritrea's status is held, a plebiscite the front is convinced will endorse secession...
...comrades, identifiable by their bright green uniforms, lie dead in no-man's-land. An exchange of automatic-weapons fire echoes through the valley. Moments later, two Soviet-built Ethiopian MiGs roar overhead in search of the rebels' camouflaged artillery and tank emplacements. Sipping tea in his command bunker, Afewerki Melke, a field commander of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, turns to his visitors and says, "Why we're here is simple. All we want is our land...
That was only one of a dozen failed Ethiopian assaults during November. "It's a pity to see the way they waste men," observes a rebel fighter. Ethiopian casualties in the battle numbered 200 killed or wounded and four captured. The rebels refuse to discuss their losses. Says Afewerki: "When you attack, you lose men, and when you defend, you also lose men." The E.P.L.F. leadership is confident, as are Western intelligence analysts, that the sputtering government drive, like the seven other major offensives launched by Mengistu's army since 1977, will fail to crack rebel lines around Nacfa...