History of Eritrea
Dated to over 1 million years old, it is the oldest skeletal find of its kind and provides a link between hominids and the earliest anatomically modern humans.
[6] According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the ensuing Neolithic era from the family's proposed urheimat ("original homeland") in the Nile Valley.
[12] According to Peter Behrens (1981) and Marianne Bechaus-Gerst (2000), linguistic evidence indicates that the C-Group and Kerma peoples spoke Afro-Asiatic languages of the Berber and Cushitic branches, respectively.
Qohaito, often identified as the town Koloe in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea,[16] as well as Matara were important ancient D'mt kingdom cities in southern Eritrea.
[21] Stuart Munro-Hay cites the Muslim historian Abu Ja'far al-Khwarazmi/Kharazmi (who wrote before 833) as stating that the capital of "the kingdom of Habash" was Jarma (hypothetically from Ge'ez girma, "remarkable, revered").
Other dated inscriptions are used to determine a floruit for GDRT (interpreted as representing a Ge'ez name such as Gadarat, Gedur, or Gedara) around the beginning of the 3rd century.
[37] Beginning in the 12th century, however, the Ethiopian Zagwe and Solomonid dynasties held control to a fluctuating extent over the entire plateau and the Red Sea coast of Eritrea.
Uccialli) signed the same year, King Menelik of Shewa, a southern Ethiopian kingdom, recognized the Italian occupation of his rivals' lands of Bogos, Hamasien, Akkele Guzay, and Serae in exchange for guarantees of financial assistance and continuing access to European arms and ammunition.
His subsequent victory over his rival kings and enthronement as Emperor Menelek II (r. 1889–1913) made the treaty formally binding upon the entire territory.
Additionally, the Italian Eritrea administration opened a number of factories, which produced buttons, cooking oil, pasta, construction materials, packing meat, tobacco, hide and other household commodities.
The main objective of this italo-Eritrean party was Eritrea freedom, but they had a pre-condition that stated that before independence the country should be governed by Italy for at least 15 years (as with Italian Somalia).
During the immediate postwar years, the British proposed that Eritrea be divided along religious lines, with the Muslim population joining Sudan and the Christians Ethiopia.
There are only two main Christian-Muslim conflicts reported in Asmara, Eritrea (the Ethiopians supported by the Unionist Party played a big role in it), one was in 1946 where Sudanese Defence Forces were involved, and the other was in February 1950.
[citation needed] An active Muslim League local leader, from Mai Derese, Bashai Nessredin Saeed was killed by the Unionist Shifta while praying, on February 20.
According to an account of the incident written by Mufti Sheikh Ibrahim Al Mukhtar, at 07:30 in the evening of a Monday that date 5 shifta came and fired several bullets at him while he was praying.
[citation needed] This way the riots, which the Ethiopian Liaison Officer played a big role to ignite, was brought to an end by the wise religious leaders and elders of both sides.
Nevertheless the strategic interest of the United States in the Red Sea basin and the considerations of security and world peace make it necessary that the country has to be linked with our ally Ethiopia.
Other scholars, including the former Attorney-General of Ethiopia, Bereket Habte Selassie, contend that, "religious tensions here and there...were exploited by the British, [but] most Eritreans (Christians and Moslems) were united in their goal of freedom and independence.
As a result of a long history of a strong landowning peasantry and the virtual absence of serfdom in most parts of Eritrea, the bulk of Eritreans had developed a distinct sense of cultural identity and superiority vis-à-vis Ethiopians.
Finally, in 1962 Haile Selassie pressured the Eritrean Assembly to abolish the Federation and join the Imperial Ethiopian fold, much to the dismay of those in Eritrea who favored a more liberal political order.
The ELM, under the leadership of the Eritrean Hamid Idris Awate, engaged in clandestine political activities intended to cultivate resistance to the centralizing policies of the imperial Ethiopian state.
In 1961 the ELF's political character was vague, but radical Arab states such as Syria and Iraq saw Eritrea as a predominantly Muslim region struggling to escape Ethiopian oppression and imperial domination.
Although he doled out offices, money, and titles mainly to Christian highlanders in the hope of co-opting would-be Eritrean opponents in early 1967, the imperial secret police of Ethiopia also set up a wide network of informants in Eritrea and conducted disappearances, intimidations and assassinations among the same populace driving several prominent political figures into exile.
Internal disputes over strategy and tactics eventually led to the ELF's fragmentation and the founding in 1972 of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF).
However, that same year a massive airlift of Soviet arms to Ethiopia enabled the Ethiopian Army to regain the initiative and forced the EPLF to retreat to the bush.
Heritage Foundation Africa expert Michael Johns wrote that "there are some modestly encouraging signs that the front intends to abandon Mengistu's autocratic practices.
While Jehovah's Witnesses are politically neutral, peaceful and obey the laws and pay taxes, they are rounded up and imprisoned simply for their Christian faith.
[70] The Eritrean government has banned female genital mutilation (FGM), saying the practice was painful and put women at risk of life-threatening health problems.
[72] Due to his frustration with the stalemated peace process with Ethiopia, the President of Eritrea Isaias Afewerki wrote a series of Eleven Letters to the UN Security Council and Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
[78] In September 2018, President Isaias Afwerki and Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, signed a historic peace agreement between the two countries.
