Word: eritrean
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That may be wishful thinking. Ever since 1890, when Italy officially colonized the province, Eritreans have considered themselves more advanced than Ethiopians. Eritrean rebels began fighting for independence in 1961 and since then have done an impressive job of providing health care, education and other services to rural areas under their control. Ethiopia's dilemma, however, is acute: without Eritrea, the nation of 53 million has no access...
Much can happen in two years. In pursuing its separatist aims, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, which Issaias heads, must not antagonize the newly installed government in Addis Ababa, which replaced Mengistu Haile Mariam, the dictator who was deposed in May. Nor can the front afford to alienate the international community on which it depends for famine relief and economic...
...itself from a rebel army to a civilian government that can resuscitate a region devastated by 30 years of war, a land where fields are barren and industries are still. Otherwise the leadership risks a split in the unity that has brought the independence movement this far. As an Eritrean civil servant put it, "We have our independence. That's good. Now, where are the jobs...
Already civilian workers are grumbling about Issaias' decision to keep his 95,000-strong army intact to work in the fields and factories and on reconstruction projects. "Great," says an Eritrean bureaucrat. "The volunteer army goes in, and the salaried civilians...
Although the E.P.L.F. has promised to allow the rest of Ethiopia free access to the Eritrean port of Assab, which normally handles 70% of Ethiopia's trade, about the only thing now moving through it is food. A Shell Oil installation, which is under the front's control, is sending only 10% of the usual fuel supply to the rest of Ethiopia. Says a Western businessman at the port: "There is the definite feeling of a squeeze play here." Wary of the Eritreans, Ethiopian producers of coffee, the country's biggest export, are not sending their goods to Assab...