Eritrea: President Isaias’s aims in Sudan

Eritrea: President Isaias’s aims in Sudan

Date: 19/09/2023

Author: Martin Plaut

President Isaias has recently held talks with representatives of both sides in Sudan’s ‘war of the generals’ that erupted in April this year.

He met Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, generally referred to as Hemedti, in Asmara in January 2023. Then, a week ago, he met the Sudanese Democratic Bloc and other political parties allied with General Al-Burhan, leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Isaias clearly wants to portray himself as a mediator; a diplomat. But this ignores his long-term ambitions inside Sudan.

At one level the Eritrean role in Sudan is well known. Eritrean security forces operate across the country and are particularly strong in Khartoum and in Kassala. They are capable of not only spying on the large Eritrean exile community in Sudan, but can seize them and abduct them, if the need arises.

But the Eritrean President’s relationship with Sudan goes much deeper than that.

Isaias’s early Sudanese links

In his seminal work, Conversations with Eritrean Political Prisoners, Dan Connell explains how Isaias arrived in Sudan in September 1966 after leaving his university studies in Addis Ababa, to join the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). Haile ‘Dure’ Wond’ensae (today a political prisoner in Eritrea) came to meet him in the Sudanese town Kassala in December 1966.

Isaias immediately took Haile aside, telling him not to say a word to the ELF leadership about what they wanted to do. “This thing is completely opposed to what we were thinking, and we cannot talk about it here,” he said. So the two men went to a local restaurant and started plotting: their aim was a clandestine organisation within the ELF. “And we said, this is a very dangerous endeavor.”

From that tiny cell, of just three people (the third was Mussie Tesfamikael, who was killed in 1973) the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front was officially founded in 1977. Although Isaias was the real leader, he took control via the Eritrean People’s Revolutionary Party, which was the Marxist organisation directing the EPLF.

During its long years of fighting the Ethiopian government (as well as fighting a civil war with other Eritrean movements, including the ELF) Isaias ensured that it had a rear base from which to operate.

The EPLF had a safe house in Port Sudan and a massive supply depot in Port Sudan, which I visited when I went into the EPLF held areas of Eritrea in the 1980’s. Having strong relations with Sudan, and with Sudanese political leaders, has been part of Isaias’s strategy for the past fifty years.

Isaias and Sudan’s National Democratic Alliance

The National Democratic Alliance was formed in 1989 to oppose the regime of Omar Hassan al-Bashir after he seized power in a military coup on June 6, 1989.

It brought together a range of political parties (from the Democratic Unionist Party and the Umma party to the Sudanese Communist Party), ethnic parties like the Beja Congress and the trade unions.

It was formed to lead the popular struggle against the new dictatorship in Sudan and the fundamentalist regime of the National Islamic Front (NIF) that was the power behind the throne on which Omar al-Bashir sat.

The National Democratic Alliance was to resist, and then openly fight, the Omar al-Bashir government, and the Eritrean role in this struggle was described in detail by Ahmed Hassan in two lengthy articles in African Affairs, which can be found in full here and here.

Drawing on visits to Eritrea, in the period 1996–2003, Ahmed Hassan explained how President Isaias attempted to become involved in Sudanese affairs and finally tried to overthrow the Sudanese government.

Isaias accused the Sudanese Islamists of backing a Eritrean movement – Islamic Jihad. On 5 December 1994, Eritrea severed diplomatic relations with Sudan and subsequently invited the NDA to move its headquarters into the former Sudanese embassy in Asmara. 

As Ahmed Hassan explains, Omar al-Bashir was “viewed at that time by Eritrea, Ethiopia, and the U.S. as a destabilizing factor within the region posing serious threats with its adoption of a political Islamic agenda and the subsequent support to Islamic militants from Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. That period also marked honeymoon of the relations between the U.S. and the ‘new breed’ of African leaders represented by Isaias Afewerki, Meles Zenawi and Yoweri Museveni.”

In 1996 this led to a dramatic re-orientation of forces and the formation of the Sudan Alliances forces, which brought in elements of the Sudanese military, under Brigadier Abdel Aziz Khalid, former commander of the air defence force in Khartoum. A new alliances of forces came about including the southern Sudanese movement, the SPLA and the United States.

Abdel Aziz was able to see the new opportunities for introducing a new qualitative change to the political formula of the NDA. This was a direct result of contacts at three levels, with the Eritrean leadership, with SPLA/M, as well as from hints that were brought to him through the direct contacts of Dr. Taisier M. Ali with John Prendergast related to the potential support of the U.S to armed interventions by Northern Sudanese factions that could lead to the destabilization of the government in Khartoum.

HTTPS://AFRICANARGUMENTS.ORG/2009/10/THE-RISE-AND-FALL-OF-THE-SUDAN-ALLIANCE-FORCES-1/

Although the Sudanese military were now involved, according to Ahmed Hassan they had little appetite for an armed revolt against Omar al-Bashir and the Islamists.

“As far as the Northerners are concerned, they don’t have a mentality of rebels”, One Eritrean official was quoted as saying in, in frustration. “For a long time they were against armed struggle, saying that the regime would be overthrown by a popular uprising. Now they have changed, but they don’t know how to take up weapons”. That was definitely the role Eritrea decided to take in the mid-1990s. Teach them to fight and support them in their fight…The setup was complete, the Eritrean regional aspiration of having an allied movement in Khartoum, and the plans of the U.S. to escalate the efforts to destabilize and topple the NIF regime in Khartoum by opening new military fronts in the north, and the personal aspirations and agenda of the SAF leadership, all came together.

HTTPS://AFRICANARGUMENTS.ORG/2009/10/THE-RISE-AND-FALL-OF-THE-SUDAN-ALLIANCE-FORCES-1/

It was reported that the Americans came behind this alliance in an attempt to end Omar al-Bashir’s grip on the Sudanese state.

In 1996 the US government decided to send nearly $20 million of military equipment through the ‘front-line’ states of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda to help the Sudanese opposition overthrow the Khartoum regime. US officials denied that the military aid for the SPLA and the Sudanese Allied Forces (SAF), described as ‘non-lethal’ — including radios, uniforms, boots and tents — was targeted at Sudan. The Pentagon and CIA considered Sudan to be second only to Iran as a staging ground for international terrorism.

HTTPS://IRP.FAS.ORG/WORLD/PARA/SPLA.HTM

The Islamist regime of Omar al-Bashir was under a full-scale assault, according to Ahmed Hassan.

[T]he invasion of Sudan was set in motion, with direct involvement of the Ugandan forces in the South, the Ethiopian forces at the Blue Nile and in the South, and the Eritrean forces at the eastern front, in full support to the SPLA, SAF and the smaller NDA armed groups.

The Ethiopian army support for the SPLA and SAF involved cross border military assistance that permitted the SPLA to capture the border town of Kurmuk and Qessan, a town in Sudan’s Blue Nile region just across the border from Ethiopia in a surprise attack on Sunday January, 12 1997.

Simultaneously, SAF and the Tana Brigade of the SPLA, managed to capture the army garrisons at Yakuru, Babsheer and Menza in the northern Blue Nile area. In less than a week, the SPLA/SAF joint forces had advanced to within 30 km of the key eastern town of Damazin, site of the main hydroelectric dam which supplies Khartoum with most of its power. …

HTTPS://AFRICANARGUMENTS.ORG/2009/10/THE-RISE-AND-FALL-OF-THE-SUDAN-ALLIANCE-FORCES-1/

With the increased support of the U.S. and its allies within the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative, the advance of the SPLA and SAF seemed unstoppable.

The SAF leadership was intoxicated by its success, believing it was near victory. In March 1997 the leadership of SAF was giving the regime in Khartoum a maximum lifespan of 6-12 months before it collapsed as the forces led by General Abdel Aziz Khalid, threatened the city. (Dan Connell, “Sudan: In the Eye of the African Storm,’ Contributions in Black Studies, Vol. 15 (1997).)

Reprieve for al-Bashir and Sudan’s Islamists

But the overthrow of the al-Bashir regime was not to be. Divisions emerged within the Sudanese opposition and then – in May 1998 – a border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia erupted.

The delicate alliance of forces that had united Asmara, Addis Ababa, Kampala and Washington fell apart. President Isaias has more pressing concerns as his forces faced repeated Ethiopian offensives.

Out of fears to have to deal with new military front with Sudan while it was involved in the 1998-2000 conflict with Ethiopia, the Eritrean authorities immediately gave a clear signal to the NDA forces to slow down their operations. The roles drastically changed, from attacks and advance on the Sudan territories, to a new role of merely providing protection to the Eritrean borders against incursions from the Eritrean Islamic Jihad that was supported by the NIF as well as from any threats that could directly be posed by the Sudan government forces.

HTTPS://AFRICANARGUMENTS.ORG/2009/10/THE-RISE-AND-FALL-OF-THE-SUDAN-ALLIANCE-FORCES-2/

Then, on 11 September 2001, al-Qaeda attacked New York and brought down the twin towers, as well as crashing an aircraft into the Pentagon.

The world spun on its axis. The United States put aside all else and concentrated on eliminating Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, who had lived in Sudan until being expelled in 1996.

The implications for the Sudanese opposition was predictable: the US ended its dispute with Omar al-Bashir and reached out to the Sudanese government that it had been attempting to overthrow.

The collaboration between the CIA and the Sudanese Intelligence apparatus, that started in 2001, was culminated by a CIA decision, later on, to fly the chief of the Sudan Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Sallah Abdallah Gosh, for a secret meeting in Washington aimed at cementing cooperation against terrorism as was brought in the Los Angeles Post, on June 17, 2005. Khartoum had become “an indispensable part of CIA’s counterterrorism strategy.” That turn of events after the 9/11 of course resulted in devastating implications on the NDA in general and on SAF in particular.

HTTPS://AFRICANARGUMENTS.ORG/2009/10/THE-RISE-AND-FALL-OF-THE-SUDAN-ALLIANCE-FORCES-2/

The combination of 9/11 and the Ethiopian-Eritrean border war had blown apart the movement to overthrow the Sudanese regime. Omar al-Bashir and his Islamist government was safe – at least for the time being.

President Isaias left fuming

He had emerged on the wrong side of both conflicts. Isaias was forced to do a U turn.

In January 2000 Eritrea and Sudan officially restored diplomatic relations. The Sudanese embassy in the Eritrean capital was been handed back to the Khartoum government, having previously been occupied by the Sudanese National Democratic Alliance.

The only element that did not change was Isaias’s determination to plot and – when it was in his interest – to intervene in Sudan. As his meetings with Sudanese politicians in recent weeks indicate, it is an ambition that he has not abandoned.

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Why are clashes between Eritrean groups breaking out in Canada and across the globe?

Why are clashes between Eritrean groups breaking out in Canada and across the globe?

Published Sept. 7, 2023 8:43 p.m. ET

Why are clashes between Eritrean groups breaking out in Canada and across the globe?

By Alexandra Mae Jones

CTVNews.ca writer

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Long-standing tensions in the Eritrean diaspora in Canada and across the globe appear to have hit a breaking point recently, with violence sparking at several Eritrean-themed festivals between festival-goers and Eritrean protestors who say the events provide support and funds to a repressive regime.

The most recent clash between opposing Eritrean groups in Canada occurred Saturday in a northeast Calgary neighbourhood, with video footage showing men carrying long sticks and bats. Police reported some minor injuries.

The situation follows similar incidents that occurred at festivals in Toronto and Edmonton in August. Conflict has broken out during Eritrean festivals and events in other countries as well, including in Sweden and Germany. This Saturday, hundreds of Eritrean government supporters and opponents clashed violently in Tel Aviv, Israel, after which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for Eritrean migrants involved to be deported.

The festivals at the centre of many of the clashes bill themselves as cultural events, but protestors say they are organized by supporters of the Eritrean government and serve as propaganda machines to control the Eritrean diaspora in Canada and raise money for the state.

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Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after nearly three decades of guerilla fighting. Isaias Afwerki, who led the independence movement, has been in power since 1991, but officially became president and head of state thirty years ago.

The country, sometimes called the ‘North Korea of Africa’, has held no elections since then, and has no independent media. The regime has faced severe criticism for human rights abuses and oppressive practices such as indefinite military conscription and arbitrary detention.

But why are tensions boiling over in the Eritrean community in Canada and across the globe now?

REACHING A BREAKING POINT

The controversy surrounding these yearly Eritrean festivals held in the diaspora is far from new – according to Awet Weldemichael, a historian and professor at Queen’s University, Eritreans who fled the country to escape persecution and suffering have long been calling for these festivals to be cancelled due to their alleged political ties.

“The Eritrean ruling party holds festivals every summer around the world wherever Eritreans are,” Weldemichael told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview Wednesday, adding that it’s a “known fact” among the community that the festivals are linked to the government.

The Eritrean government has defended festivals held in the diaspora and expressed condemnation for those who have fled the country and spoken out against Eritrea, accusing them of being part of a Western plot to destabilize Eritrea.

“Complicity in attempts to disrupt decades-old Eritrean festivals using foreign thugs reflects abject failure of asylum scum,” Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel wrote in a message posted on social media on Aug. 4. He would later claim that “scum” was a typo, and that it was intended to be “asylum scam”.

He added in the Aug. 4 post that this “dysfunctional policy” only created more “solidarity of Diaspora with their homeland; &, loyalty to their government.”

There are around 31,000 Eritrean-born immigrants in Canada, according to the 2021 census, and more than 16,000 are recent immigrants who came between 2016 and 2021.

Festival-goers and organizers maintain that the festivals held in Canada and elsewhere are not political events, but simply chances for Eritrean immigrants to celebrate their culture and their history.

“This is something where we are gathering as Eritreans, it has nothing to do with our political identity,” Rora Asgodom, a long-time attendee of the Toronto festival, told CTV News Toronto in August.

“We share different views but these people believe that anything that shows we are patriotic to our country or proud of where we come from means that we support that.”

Some of the festivals have been occurring in the diaspora since before Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia, but their role has shifted over time as the regime’s influence grew stronger, Weldemichael said.

"They lost their pre-independence era significance and took on a different role, especially when the government turned repressive and authoritarian rule became the way in Eritrea.”

An Aug. 9 press release from Eritrea’s Ministry of Information praised the Toronto festival as a “graceful Eritrean community festival in Canada,” claiming that participants “underlined their commitment to increasing their continued involvement in national matters.”

Weldemichael noted that the protestors share the same culture as festival-goers, but feel these events are not ones they can feel welcome because they’re “for the regime that chased them out of their own country.

“Yes, there are cultural elements to it. But the centerpiece of these festivals are political propaganda, and (as a) fundraising avenue. And that's what these Eritreans are protesting,” Weldemichael said. “And are their methods right? Appropriate, legal? That's a different matter. But what they're protesting is not the celebration of Eritrean culture.”

Although tensions have existed for years surrounding these festivals, this year has seen a startling escalation into violence.

In early August, at least nine people were injured in a west-end Toronto park during a protest at an Eritrean festival. Although it started as peaceful chanting, violence soon broke out.

People in the park told CTV News Toronto that some tents were set on fire, and police said there were reports of a man with a knife.

Around a dozen people were hurt during an Eritrean-themed event on Aug. 20 in Edmonton, with both festival organizers and protesters claiming that violence was started by the other side.

Protesters wore light blue shirts featuring an olive branch – like that on the flag of Eritrea used in the 1950s. Michael Asfha, a protester from Winnipeg, told CTV News Edmonton that the current flag of Eritrea, which the festival had used, represents a “dictatorship.”

It’s hard to pinpoint one specific reason for why years of trauma and strain are boiling over into violence now, Weldemichael said.

“When you let a ball (roll) down a hill, you shouldn't be shocked when it hits the bottom, right? So that's the snowballing thing that has been going on for years.”

But one of the triggers behind this eruption of protests could be Eritrea’s military activity in the Tigray region in Ethiopia over the past few years, he said.

A HISTORY MARKED BY WAR, PERSECUTION AND SURVEILLANCE

Eritrea’s heavy militarization is one of the driving factors behind Eritreans fleeing the country, fearing the spectre of forced military conscription.

In 1998, Eritrea went to war with Ethiopia following a border dispute, a major armed conflict which cost both countries hundreds of millions and tens of thousands of lives.

“Since then, Eritrea has been on war footing and (under a) brutal dictatorship,” Weldemichael said. “And there has not been any demobilization of Eritrean forcefully conscripted men and women.”

Once conscripted into the military, citizens can be trapped for decades with very few options for discharge, a situation the United Nations Commission of Inquiry has referred to as “enslavement.”

“Many people see no future for themselves in such a system where there's unending military conscription and military service,” Weldemichael said. “The human rights violations that went hand in hand with this prolonged militarization became excessive and hard to bear. So many voted with their feet and fled the country.”

Although a peace agreement was reached in 2000 to officially end the war, tensions remained thick between the two countries, with differing ethnic and regional groups allying with or opposing one another on and off throughout the past few decades.

In November 2020, armed conflict broke out between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray regional state, led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The fighting that followed devastated the Tigray region, claiming thousands of lives and displacing millions.

“The Eritrean government was a leading actor on the side of the Ethiopian federal government and fighting the Tigrayan government, regional government within Ethiopia,” Weldemichael said.

Eritrean forces are among those who have been accused of enacting various human rights violations in Tigray, including gang-rapes, lootings and killings of civilians. Atrocities were reportedly committed on both sides of the conflict, but the bulk of the charges implicated Ethiopian government troops and their allies, with one report from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International accusing forces of committing “ethnic cleansing” against Tigrayans in western Tigray.

The role of the Eritrean military in this civil war in Ethiopia only created a wider division between Eritreans supportive of the regime and those who stand in opposition to the regime, Weldemichael explained.

“Many Eritreans opposed the war on multiple grounds. Number one, it was that mentality of war-making right and left that drove them from their country in the first place,” he said.

“Second, this is a war that was consuming a lot of Eritrean lives and resources. And three, it was dealing devastating blows and causing atrocities and humanitarian catastrophe in the Tigray region … with whom many Eritreans sympathized.”

A peace deal ended the bulk of the fighting in Tigray in November 2022, but Eritrean troops are still occupying some areas near the border. The Guardian reported in August that citizens in these areas are alleging intimidation and looting by troops is still continuing.

Seeing the Eritrean government flexing its military power at the expense of both its people and those in Tigray may have been the “last drop in the bucket” to cause frustrations to spill over in the Eritrean diaspora, Weldemichael said.

“While there has been long, legitimate grievances of Eritreans traumatized under the ruling party in Eritrea, and feeling very traumatized by their tormentors having festivals … then there is this aspect to it, that solidarity with Tigray,” he said.

PROTESTS UNFOLDING

The violent clash between opposing Eritrean groups that unfolded in Calgary last Saturday is the “largest violent event to happen in our city in recent memory,” Calgary police Chief Constable Mark Neufeld said Tuesday.

When police arrived on scene in the community of Falconridge, they found an estimated 150 people. A dozen people ended up in hospital, but no charges have been laid yet.

Some of the protests in other countries have escalated even further. More than 50 people were injured in Stockholm, Sweden, when opponents of the Eritrean government clashed with festival-goers, lighting tents and booths on fire. Around 100 people were detained.

Weldemichael said that the violence and vandalism seen in the recent clash between opposing Eritrean groups in Tel Aviv, Israel, was “absolutely unacceptable,” adding that he’s concerned about the consequences for Eritrean refugees who may be at risk in Eritrea if deported.

“Eritreans around the world are known by our hard work,” Weldemichael said. “My hope is that the most recent incidents of violence don't tar the reputation of this hard working, proud diaspora community.

“Cooler heads need to come forward, and calm the situation in their respective sides or in their respective camps. Each side needs to recognize the fact that not only do we share the same heritage, but also the same opportunities and challenges in Canada, and we share the same responsibilities as Canadians, to abide by the rule of law, to be considerate to each other and our neighbors, who may or may not be of Eritrean heritage.”

FAILING TO ADDRESS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

During an address to the Human Rights Council earlier this year, the United Nation’s deputy human rights chief warned that Eritrea has not shown any signs of addressing human rights violations that the UN, as well as other advocacy groups, have identified.

“The human rights situation in Eritrea remains dire and shows no sign of improvement,” Nada Al-Nashif stated. “It continues to be characterized by serious human rights violations, and our office continues to receive credible reports of torture, arbitrary detention, inhumane conditions of detention and forced disappearances, restrictions of the rights to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly.”

A 2021 UN human rights report that found Eritrean Defence Force troops attacked civilians and carried out executions in Ethiopia, but as of March 2023, Eritrea has not established mechanisms for accountability, Al-Nashif said.

According to the Human Rights Watch, Eritrea punishes the family members of those who seek to avoid military conscription.

In Sept. 2022, Canada issued a travel advisory telling citizens to be vigilant following an increase in Eritrean military action against Tigray, just months before the peace deal was struck. The United Nations also noted that Eritrea called upon thousands of reservists to fight as part of the country’s pattern of military conscription.

With files from the Associated Press

 

The Dangerous Journey of Bethlehem Tibebu in search of a better life in 🇦🇺

SBS-Amharic. 

 

Bethlehem Tibebu looks out from the Nauru detention centre in 2014. Credit: Bethlehem Tibebu

Detention to determination: Former Nauru detainee is now a ticket inspector on Melbourne Metro

Bethlehem Tibebu surmounted numerous challenges to build herself into what she is today. The young Ethiopian woman details her arduous journey from being an asylum-seeker to becoming a train inspector for Melbourne Metro.

 Bethlehem Tibebu

In her mid-20s, she was diagnosed with depression, high blood pressure and diabetes.

This happened after Ethiopian asylum-seeker Bethlehem Tibebu made an attempt to reach Australia from Indonesia in a small and overcrowded boat.

To borrow from the official Australian jargon, she was an "illegal maritime arrival".

The medical diagnosis that came in the aftermath of her arrival was a turning point for Ms Tibebu’s mental health and wellbeing.

In 2015, Ms Tibebu was transferred to an onshore detention centre in Brisbane for medical treatment, where she remained for two years, taking psychiatric, blood pressure and diabetes treatment.

She makes strong and serious claims about the treatment that asylum-seekers and refugees in detention like her have received.

The Australian government used our bodies as a human fence to send a strong message to other incoming asylum-seekers and stop their boats.

Bethlehem Tibebu

From strife to struggle

A bright accounting student at Ethiopia's Haramaya University, Ms Tibebu left her homeland due to the ethnic conflict there.

She received a scholarship to study in Indonesia.

Once there, she was suggested by her friends that there was "hope for a better future in Australia".

Ms Tibebu says she managed to escape strife but her struggle had just begun.

Choppy waters

in 2013, Ms Tibebu says she borrowed US$2,000 from her relatives living in the US to take the journey of a lifetime.

“Sailing from Indonesia to Australia by boat means taking a life-and-death decision,” says the former asylum-seeker, now a ticket inspector with Melbourne Metro.

After 10 years in Australia and offshore detention centres, life took its own course and Bethlehem became Betty, a woman who had survived some of life’s toughest journeys, literally and figuratively.

She recalls the arduous sea voyage that was not only a trip across geographies but also a transcendence in the journey of her own life.

Australia Asylum Seekers

In this photograph provided by the Department of Home Affairs, two launches from HMAS Launceston (not seen) intercept a boat believed to be carrying 72 suspected asylum seekers on 29 April 2009 near Bathurst Island in the Arafura Sea north of the Northern Territory. Credit: HO/AP/AAP Image

She turned a year older during life's toughest journey, a birthday hard to forget.

The wooden boat’s capacity was 15 passengers, 20 at most, Ms Tibebu recalls.

“But people smugglers forced 63 Somali and Sudanese nationals on it,” she tells SBS Amharic.

“I was the only Ethiopian national seated on a tiny, leaky boat full of people without life jackets.

Looking at the rise and fall of the waves and circling sharks was terrifying.

“Surviving that horror and being alive today feels like I was born again,” Ms Tibebu says.

She says the boat's passengers were promised "a comfortable big ship" by the people smugglers which would carry them to Australian shores in two days where they'd "all be able to seek asylum".

That never happened.

Rather, it took them six agonising days to reach Australia’s international maritime border.

To start with, the passengers protested against travelling by that small boat.

But they had been warned that if they didn’t jump on board, the Indonesian police would arrest them. The passengers panicked and boarded the boat as quickly as possible, she says.

The boat's driver lost direction as they sailed towards Australia, exacerbating the already dire circumstances the passengers were in.

Supplies onboard dwindled rapidly, leaving them in need of food and fuel.

The vessel began to crack and water seeped in, Ms Tibebu recalls.

Passengers were instructed to throw their clothes and luggage overboard to lighten the boat, further heightening their distress.

Fearing for their lives, they prayed fervently in their languages to Allah, God and whoever else they believed in, to save them from perishing in the ocean without a trace.

A woman in the ninth month of her pregnancy was also in the group "sailing for safer shores", intensifying everyone's concerns, Ms Tibebu adds.

Ms Tibebu says her physical and mental health deteriorated significantly during the journey.

She suffered from dehydration, hunger and most significantly, fear.

Ms Tibebu adds she remained disoriented after she found herself on Australian shores, looking up at the Australian Border Force (ABF) patrol boats while lying on the ground.

The ABF transported her and others to Darwin for five days for medical treatment.

From asylum-seeker to detainee

While recollecting her experience in this interview, Ms Tibebu's voice cracked, and she struggled to stop her tears.

The passengers of the boat had now become detainees.

“After resting and being medically examined in Darwin, an ABF representative asked me, ‘If you go to Nauru, you will get an education, and your case will be processed. Do you want to go to Nauru'," Ms Tibebu narrates.

"I had no idea what he was saying, but I said, ‘okay' ".

“Nine other women and I were then shipped to the Nauru Australian Immigration Detention Centre.

“We arrived on 16 November 2013. We were told four-to-six women will live in a tent during Nauru’s hottest season of the year,” she says.

Refugee Council of Australia.jpg

Tents accommodated asylum-seekers in offshore detention centres. Credit: Refugee Council of Australia.

Because of the hot weather, we could take a two-minute shower daily. Washing my hair and body in two minutes was not enough. So, I decided to cut my hair.

“We shared one pair of slippers while showering and going to the mess to eat," Ms Tibebu adds.

“I had one garment on my back, so I sewed my bed sheet by hand and made a dress,” she says detailing the prelude of her struggle to settle into Australia.

She also mentions detainees were allowed a 10-minute international call every 10 days.

"If we couldn’t reach our families over the phone, we had to wait another 10 days to get a chance to talk to them. Suppose I couldn’t get them on the phone again, bad luck. That was a painful experience in itself,” Ms Tibebu says.

'Treated with respect and dignity'

When SBS Amharic queried the Department of Home Affairs on the aforementioned living arrangements of Nauru detainees, a spokesperson said that the government of Nauru is responsible for the management of individuals under regional processing arrangements.

Consistent with the memorandum of understanding with Nauru, transitory persons are treated with respect and dignity and in accordance with human rights standards, with access to various services, including welfare, health and mental health services.

Department of Home Affairs

"Australia supports Nauru to implement regional processing arrangements by contracting specialist services providers, who deliver a broad range of services including welfare, health, transport, security, facilities management and reception services," the spokesperson stated in response to the queries.

"Transitory persons under regional processing were accommodated in a range of accommodation arrangements, including dormitory style or shared accommodation.

"All transitory persons residing in regional processing centres received clothing and footwear, personal care and hygiene items, which were renewed regularly, and weekly Individual Allowance Points to purchase various items through a canteen arrangement. Individuals residing in the community received a fortnightly income support payment to meet living expenses.

"Water preservation measures are used in regional processing centres from time to time, including reducing shower times," the response from Home Affairs added.

But an advocate for asylum-seekers' rights strongly disagrees.

 

Detention centre a 'hellhole'

In the words of Ian Rintoul, a founding member of the Refugee Action Coalition, "Nauru was a detention hellhole".

The mistreatment suffered on Nauru doesn't end when someone is transferred to Australia; people are scarred for life. It was heartbreaking to see how detention crushed Bethlehem's hopes and dreams.

Ian Rintoul, Refugee Action Coalition

"There were endless indignities.

"The restrictions on visiting became worse as the detention centres became more and more like prisons. There were sometimes overwhelming fears of being returned to Nauru," he tells SBS Amharic.

Mr Rintoul adds that it took a prolonged battle for Ms Tibebu to establish contact with her Orthodox Christian community.

"Bethlehem still has no future," he says.

She has been robbed of the best years of her life. And even after 10 years, the uncertainty hasn't ended. She is still being told she cannot settle permanently in Australia.

Ian Rintoul

He goes on to say that despite her experiences, Ms Tibebu has become "a fierce advocate" calling for freedom and permanent visas for all refugees and asylum-seekers who were sent offshore and also for an end to offshore detention.

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Bethlehem Tibebu speaking with the Australian media about the suffering of refugees in Melbourne on Refugee Day. Credit: Bethlehem Tibebu

Since offshore processing began on 13 August 2012, the Australian government has sent 4,183 people to Nauru or Papua New Guinea.

There is a slight discrepancy between this number provided by the Australian Border Force on 14 July 2019, and that (4,177 people) provided by the Department of Home Affairs in April 2019 to the Senate Estimates.

According to the Refugee Council of Australia, 3,127 people have been sent to Nauru or Papua New Guinea (PNG) since 19 July 2013, when the Australian government changed its policy so that those transferred offshore can never resettle in Australia.

Such people are called ‘transitory persons'.

Operation Sovereign Borders

Explaining the rationale behind the regional processing of transitory persons, the Home Affairs spokesperson says the government remains committed to it in Nauru as a key element of Operation Sovereign Borders, the name given by Australia to the procedures involved in protecting the country's maritime boundaries.

"Regional processing is an important measure to deter people smugglers from exploiting vulnerable persons from attempting irregular and dangerous maritime voyages, thereby reducing the risk of the loss of life at sea," the DHA spokesperson states.

The spokesperson also clarifies in no uncertain terms what the future may hold for such transitory persons.

Transitory persons do not have a settlement pathway in Australia and are encouraged to engage in third-country migration options.

Department of Home Affairs

"These include resettlement in the United States and New Zealand, private sponsorship in Canada, a voluntary return home or to another country in which they have a right of entry," the spokesperson adds.

Reacting to the news of the Nauru detention centre being vacated of detainees earlier this year, Ms Tibebu says, “I welcome the government announcement to bring the last refugee from Nauru to Australia, but I want the detention centre to be closed down permanently.”

Refugee sorrow

Ms Tibebu refers to the difficulty of opening up about such intensely personal experiences.

I had never experienced such suffering and tasted refugee sorrow for the first time.

“I was the only Ethiopian national who spoke Amharic and practised the Orthodox faith in the detention centre. I had no one to share my problems with," she says.

 

Due to my weak English, I wasn’t fully aware of why I was there and what was happening in the centre. I lived in fear and torment.

Ms Tibebu says the agony was too much for her and others to bear.

She even witnessed some detainees harm themselves.

“I saw an Iranian detainee burn himself to death before the officials,” she says.

“My tentmate, a Somali woman, who told me to look after her brother and sister when she is gone for good, set herself ablaze and burnt 75 per cent of her body,” Ms Tibebu adds.

Mothers are not lucky enough to give candy to their children in that place.

Taking life head on

While in Brisbane, Ms Tibebu started to build herself for the future.

She registered for online courses in disability support and childcare by trading cigarettes in the detention centre.

She even began to learn 10 English words daily from the security guards.

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Bethlehem Tibebu, pouring traditional Ethiopian coffee in her Melbourne home. Credit: B.Tibebu

I thought a few times about taking my own life, but I convinced myself I had four younger brothers to live for who needed my support and a country to think about.

“My body was imprisoned, not my mind. That’s why I was determined to live and learn,” Ms Tibebu tells SBS Amharic.

In 2017, she was released from the Brisbane detention centre.

Life in Melbourne Metro

After walking free, she was unsure where to go and what to do with her newfound freedom.

I was taken aback when I became free to leave the detention centre. ‘Where am I going? I asked myself.’ I have no family or relatives here.

“After I absorbed the reality, I thought of my family – my refugee brothers and sisters.

"Australia is a good country for its people, who are unaware of boat people and how much they are affected by its offshore immigration detention system. Such thoughts were coming to me,” Ms Tibebu says.

She used a mobile phone, switched on a TV, wore the clothes she liked and experienced the fear of using knives (as she hadn’t cooked for long) after four years.

Ms Tibebu started off with house cleaning jobs.

Once again, while struggling with my tears, I told myself that it does not matter if I have to clean people’s homes. I had decided to live, life no matter what.

Like many refugees before her, Ms Tibebu learned to adapt to the Australian way of life. She learnt to drive a car, look for work and study to improve her lifestyle.

In 2019, she moved from Brisbane to Melbourne.

“Many Ethiopians live in Melbourne. It feels like home,” she says with some satisfaction.

Now, I work as a ticket inspector at Melbourne Metro trains.

“I have many dreams,” Ms Tibebu says.

“I want to be a human rights activist – to be a voice for the people who have burned themselves to death, who have been robbed of their lives in detention centres, who are struggling to live by taking medication daily and suffering from poor mental health.

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Bethlehem Tibebu speaking at the refugee rally in Melbourne. Credit: Bethlehem Tibebu

“I want to work and study,” she adds.

Ms Tibebu wonders “why there is no African member in the Australian Parliament.”

“God willing, I want to be a member of parliament to contribute to a better refugee policy,” she says.

Ms Tibebu's visa status still remains unresolved. She continues her life in Australia on a Bridging visa and nurtures the hope of becoming a citizen one day.

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Published 30 August 2023 4:17pm

Updated 4 September 2023 9:11am

By Kassahun Seboqa Negewo, Ruchika Talwar

Source: SBS

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