A teacher considers his Eritrean students after the slaughter of young soldiers
by Jeffrey Shannon
I came to Eritrea three years ago to teach English in a village secondary school. When a border war with Ethiopia erupted into full-scale war I joined 85 other Peace Corps volunteers and planeloads of expats in the evacuation. When I returned three months ago to Asmara, the capital, I thought many of my students had become soldiers, possibly some of the estimated 60,000 Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers who have died in the fighting during the past year.
Recently, I met a Boston Globe reporter and photographer who asked me about the war. I tried to explain the conflict, the extraordinary unity and resolve of the Eritrean fighters, local attitudes about freedom of the press, the international community, diplomacy, death, and the culture. These conversations were, at once enlightening, often frustrating and emotionally wrenching. But these discussions led me to want to see at close range this war that was killing the youth of this nation. And so I asked the journalists if I could go with them to the Tserona Front, a small piece of land along the border of these two countries that has become a legendary slaughtering field.
Our guide and interpreter was Hagos, who arrived late and insisted that we join him for espresso downtown before leaving the city. Our driver, Tekle, drove us in a Toyota Landcruiser from Asmara to Dekemhare, a tent city of 3,000 new deportees. From there, we continued toward Tserona.
Hagos remained quiet during the ride through Dekemhare, as I talked with the journalists. When Tekle stopped, Hagos called to notify a military commander that the journalists were coming. Though we thought we were close to the front, the mountain road seemed endless. As we rattled over rock and mud, I heard someone call out in English.
"Mr. Jeff! Mr. Jeff!" The driver slowed the Landcruiser as the young fighter ran up to my window. "It's me, Solomon! I was your student last year in English!"
Yes, I remembered Solomon. We chatted briefly, and as the Landcruiser took off again my heart sank: Yes, my students were indeed on the front. I wondered if I would see more. And how many were dead.
I grew impatient until I saw three vultures perched on trees along the side of the road, their bald heads turning to the horizons around them-as thought searching for the war dead, I thought.
An oppressive silence fell over us.
We passed small hilltops riddled with stone-lined bunkers, then began to see soldiers squatting on the hillsides, some hanging their wash to dry on acacia bushes. When we pulled up to one end of a large earth-works, a fighter asked with some indifference for our authorization papers, pointed out the quickest way to the front, and walked away.
The earthworks extended in a horse-shoe shape, the red earth piled up about three meters high. Sparse vegetation had sprouted on these earthworks following the recent rains. We heard the sharp report of rifles-practice, Hagos assured us-and then a smell hit me, a smell of death, binding me up in a shroud of iron, smothering, and invasive. Four months after the Battle of Tserona has been cleaned up, the odor of death continued.
Two soldiers were standing near one of many burnt-out tanks, looking down over the other side of the massive earthworks. The Boston photographer tried to fit them into the picture, but they kept pointing down, covering their mouths and noses with their handkerchiefs. We climbed up next to them.
It was a body, blackened and desiccated from the harsh sun. The Ethiopian uniform was still very much intact and the corpse was lying face down against the red earthworks. The soldiers pointed again and there was another. But this one was lying face up, looking into the sun, refusing anonymity. His eyes were open, staring sockets. His dark skin was stretched by the sun. I stared down at him and tried to consider the life that had come before his death: Hopes and dreams, family and friends, when he imagined he could escape this wretched war.
At that moment, he was no longer Ethiopian or Eritrean. Just a citizen of a small country in Africa, a soldier who died. Did he know the reason for this war?
When I looked up, the two soldiers were still staring down. Their eyebrows were knitted in consternation over their blue checked handkerchiefs. Could they picture themselves here? It was as though the cloths they held over their mouths were protection from more than only the smell of death.
The fighters are known as Warsay, those who follow the tradition. Most of them looked like they were between 19 and 30 years old-the newer generation of Warsay. They mixed easily, however, with their elders who had fought during the 17-year Liberation struggle, living in trenches for 17 years before expelling the Ethiopian army, once considered the largest in Africa. The Warsay wore fatigues, sweat suits, and t-shirts and walked with a casual, friendly air, as they would on the streets of Asmara. They welcomed the three of us. I spoke in my own special brand of Tigrinya, and greeted each of them with a knock of shoulders, the exchange of greetings of peace, and quick examinations of one another-locating each other on the map, by the names of villages and of mutual friends. As we found common villages, I started asking about former students: Asmerom, Ghebrekristos, Yonas, and many others? No, they said, and I felt relief. Maybe none of them had gone to war.
The camp was small, a lean-to or two here and there, and an occasional campfire where lunches were being cooked. Kalashnikovs were stood up in groups, jerrycans and personal bags of clothing in between.
The fighters sat in small groups, talking quietly, sometimes breaking into laughter. The sense of normalcy was disconcerting, blended with the smell of death and the occasional explosion ripping through the middle distance. One group was playing a game of checkers on a piece of cardboard, moving Coca-Cola bottle caps as the pieces.
They spoke openly with the journalists, and quickly got down to the business of interviewing. Tsegaye was a natural spokesperson for the group, although all of them were quick to interrupt and contradict his narratives.
They were unanimous in their opinions: The Ethiopian government had started this war, their own government had negotiated with complete sincerity, but were convinced that Ethiopia would never allow a U.N. demarcation of the disputed border. They knew their history, the dates of all colonial treaties, and they could draw exact lines on the map of their small nation. They knew every inch of their nation and they had spent 30 years fighting to recover it.
The reporter's questions always started with the same vague request: How was it? The fighters knew instinctively what they were being asked. The Tserona offensive is now legendary in Eritrea. The Ethiopians attacked in human waves, supported by tanks and artillery, against heavily defended Eritrean positions. The Eritreans hunkered down in their bunkers, reportedly not firing back until the Ethiopians were within clear sight. The tanks and bulldozers came first, creating narrow corridors through the Eritrean landmines, with columns of Ethiopian soldiers directly behind. When there were no tanks, the Ethiopian troops were ordered through the minefields and into the Eritrean line of fire. Ethiopian POWs have told their captors that the officers who ordered them into the minefields are from the northern Ethiopian province of Tigray. Eritrean soldiers say many of the soldiers threw down their arms, took the hands of their Ethiopian comrades, and walked into the minefields to die.
Eritrean fighters, when asked about themselves, said the fighting was not a problem. But there is evidence that several tanks broke through the Eritrean lines and that many Ethiopian troops reached the Eritrean trenches. "Of course we lost people," they said. "This is war. In war, people die. But our losses were very small. We were well protected in our trenches, while they were attacking across open fields. What did you expect?" Several fighters spoke of hand-to-hand combat.
Eritreans don't share their feelings easily with outsiders. When asked about the emotional experience, fighters said, "I felt happy." "I was proud." And the journalists appeared shocked.
Finally, a fighter named Birikhti broke in: "The Ethiopians didn't come here to bring us milk and honey. They came to kill us," she said. "They had maps to go on to Asmara where our families live. And what do you think they would have done there? They would have continued their killing and their destruction of our families, of our friends and our country. I feel sorry for the Ethiopians who died here, but I also feel happy that I stopped them from killing me and my family."
The Battle of Tserona lasted for three days and three nights, usually with only an hour between waves of Ethiopians. Just enough time to mix some powered milk, and reload their weapons. "They just kept coming at us, like ants," she said. "I thought they'd never stop coming; that it would never end."
Then Birikhti grew quiet. "It was horrible," she said in a tiny whisper. "There was no place to step at all when it was over. There were so many bodies. They were everywhere. Everywhere."
"No, I don't think about it at all," she said. Her mouth twisted slightly, her voice halted, and she whispered, "I don't dream about it. Ever."
Ethiopian defensive positions were judged to be between a half to three kilometers from the earthworks where we talked with the Eritrean fighters. We walked over the hillocks-through an extensive warren of underground trenches, burnt-out tanks and personnel carriers-in the direction of a grassy plain. Quickly, a fighter stopped us.
"The mines start from here," he said pointing to a spot about a meter away. I looked closer and saw thin metal stalks rising out of the ground with cylindrical bits swaying slightly on top.
Then he pointed at the earthworks which was now behind us. Ethiopian soldiers, he said. Where? I asked.
"There," he said, pointing at a nearby mound. "And there and there." I walked forward for a closer look at the mound of dirt. There was a blackened hand reaching up. I followed the ground's outline and a boot protruded. Back up, there was a face, decayed and open. And there was another and another and another. This massive ridge surrounding the fighters, where they ate and worked and slept, was full of the soldiers killed in March. That's why the smell was so pervasive.
These Eritrean fighters were living in a cemetery. The seasonal rains had begun to wash away the ridge tops, exposing the bodies of dead soldiers.
"We'll have to bury them again," said the fighter. I asked why they'd been put there in the first place. "If we'd tried to collect them individually, we'd have been shot by the Ethiopians. If we'd burnt them, that would've been a clear beacon of our position to the airplanes." So they bulldozed them under.
I asked why, but the young fighter turned away, looked up at the sky, and whispered, "I don't mind. They were the enemy and they tried to kill us. We killed them first." He was no more than 18 years old, but his eyes looked old. He had done things here that he cannot forget, events he will see over and over in his dreams.
Nearby, I saw a pair of black plastic sandals like those the Eritrean fighters always wear, and these looked new. When I asked about them, he refused to answer, turned and returned to camp. As I followed, I saw more sandals scattered here and there. I wondered if I knew their owners. Had they come to my classroom? Had I shared a cup of tea with them?
I wondered about such bewildering thoughts, the fears that have created the need for talk of victory, an effort to somehow protect the living from the deaths of their friends. How could they survive without it? I realized that I had to leave this field, without learning what I had thought I wanted to know.
The author was evacuated with 85 other Peace Corps volunteers in June 1998. He prepares Eritreans for a university-level English curriculum, and works with some of the more than 268,000 Eritreans displaced by the war.
