Finn Thybo Andersen
APPENDIX:
The Journey to Eritrea in 1985
In spring 1985 I visited the liberated
areas of Eritrea. I travelled by air to Khartoum. The next day
a general strike started, which meant among other things that
the air conditioner at the hotel stopped working, making the
heat almost unbearable. At the same time the hotel staff prevented
me from leaving the hotel because of the riots. Thanks to this
I could follow the development from my balcony as the clouds
of tear gas drew right up to my room and at one point the military
shot live ammunition. The riot ended by the President of Sudan,
Nimeiris' withdrawal, whereupon the Sudanese behaved in the same
way as the Danish must have done on the fifth of May in 1945.
The whole administration had collapsed and when I had to have
a permission to leave Khartoum, I had to stay there involuntarily
for another two to three weeks before I could continue my journey.
I was going to Port Sudan, the main port of Sudan
by the Red Sea. We travelled in a crammed bus without windows
and the journey took two days through desert, desert and more
desert. After a couple of days in Port Sudan we were suddenly
going on in a Toyota Land Cruiser in late afternoon. Twenty kilometres
south of Port Sudan, there was no more asphalt and soon after
that there was nothing even similar to a road. How the driver
could find his way at all with lights out remains a mystery to
me. The speed on the other hand was the highest possible and
as the ground we were driving on was not always smooth, we were
bumped around in the car. In pitch darkness and with lights out,
we drove into Eritrea, and late at night we arrived at ERA's
reception centre in Sahel in northern Eritrea. In this remote
mountain area, the liberation movement had it's base.
This
was the way we travelled every time I had to be transported for
the next two months: During the night in darkness, in dust and
heat for seven to eight hours each time. In Eritrea we often
drove along the dried out river beds that were filled with stones.
It happened more than once that we had to walk in front of the
car, removing stones to be able to get along. Not a very comfortable
way of travelling, sometimes almost unbearable.
The
situation in 1985 was that the Ethiopians controlled most of
the bigger towns. On the roads between them, they had to travel
in military convoys. The territories plus some towns were controlled
by EPLF. Apart from this, the Ethiopians controlled the air territory,
which was the reason for all transports to take place at night
time with lights out.
Everything was hidden and
camouflaged. Housing, hospitals, everything were in underground
houses where the entrance was hidden by bushes. For the same
reason, all the important activities took place in the evening.
At 6 p.m., darkness fell suddenly, and generators started up
and workshops, small factories, hospitals, schools etc. worked
till about midnight. All of the military and some of the civilian
equipment that the liberation movement had was captured from
the enemy. (At this time EPLF had about 100 captured tanks).
Therefore they had all these workshops where they were able to
repair and produce things, cars, radios, printing presses - everything
which is needed for a community to work.
I visited
the hospital in Orotta, a big hospital with wards and surgery
rooms in rock caves where experienced doctors carried out advanced
operations. I also visited the refugee camp Solomuna, where tens
of thousands of refugees from the areas controlled by Ethiopia
lived. There were almost only women, small children and disabled
soldiers, since the men were either killed or taking part in
the liberation movement. Children at the compulsory school age
I met at the revolutionary school, a boarding school, likewise
hid in the mountains.
I also visited Nafka, one
of the towns controlled by the liberation movement. Because of
that every single house had been destroyed by Ethiopian bombs
( strangely enough the mosque and the church were the only buildings
left undamaged). Just outside the town was the front-line with
its system of trenches.
I also visited a prisoner-of-war
camp with Ethiopian prisoners of war. There were only a few guards
but the prisoners had been deprived of their footwear, so if
they wanted to run away they wouldn't get far in the rocky hillside.
But why would they want to run away? If only they had been able
to get home to their families and their land, but they would
just get enrolled once again in a hopeless war. Here at least
they got food every day.
Tenessai was another
liberated town, founded by the Italians during the colonial time.
It wasn't destroyed by bombs. On the other hand nobody lived
there for fear of bombardments. So in the middle of the desert
was this abandoned Italian town, where you could walk around
like "Palle Alene i Verden" ( Danish children's book:
Palle alone in the world).
Everywhere we went
on our tour, we saw the Eritreans building ditches and water
reservoirs. There had been severe drought for many years, so
both the drought and the wars had created one of the great famines
which strike Africa with recurrent force. But while I was there,
the rain started to fall for the first time in many years. Shortly
after the rain had began pouring down, a flood roared down the
dried up river bed so violently that it cost the lives of men
and animals in many places. No sooner had the rain stopped than
there wasn't a poodle left, the river bed lay just as dried up,
as it had done for the last couple of years. The problem was
to capture the water when it came. Therefore ditches, dams and
water reservoirs were built.
Finally, I was at
the Cultural Departement. Everyone who came to the liberated
areas had to contribute by sharing their knowledge and their
competence. In my case it meant, that I was going to the Cultural
Departement where the artists of the liberation front were. I
was going to teach them and here I had my first experience of
teaching art. I felt unsure, but it must have made a certain
impression, because I later got to know that the artists in Eritrea
are working according to Finn's priciples.
During
those three weeks, I stayed in a container hidden under a heap
of twigs. The studio was built in in a rock and my students had
their Kalasnikovs AK47 beside them, loaded with live cartridges.
The last night in Eritrea I spent in a small village
by the Sudan border. Here the truck convoys boomed past all night
with the headlights switched off, carrying milk powder and durrah
flour. Due to war and drought, a whole nation was unable to produce
food and therefore had to be supplied from the outside. But here
at least, an organisation, ERA, was prepared to receive and distribute
the aid effectively, and that's why the aid organisations preferred
to work with Eritrea. In Ethiopia the aid was confiscated and
given to the army, I was told by relief workers I met.
One
of my ideas with the journey was to draw and paint what I saw.
So I did and the material I produced, I used after my return
for exhibitions, which were shown among other places at libraries
around the country, at Kofoed's school in Copenhagen and at conferences
on Eritrea in Norway and Sweden.
The exhibition
could be hired and the income I got from it and from selling
posters and lectures, I used for a shipment of artist supplies
for Eritrean artists.
Lesabe, member of the ZAPU central committee,
Sheba Tavarwisa and Chama Zewepango, members of the ZANU central
committee, at a meeting at TTA Løgstør 1979.
LITERATURE: BOOKS OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE TO TTAL
Boris Simon: Abbé Pierre og klunserne
i Paris. Lohse 1963
Flemming Chr. Nielsen: Operation
Emmaus. Aros 1966
Gotfred Appel: Der kommer en dag. Futura
1971
Gotfred Appel: Klassekamp og revolutionær
situation. Futura 1971
V.I. Lenin: Om imperialisme
og opportunisme. Futura 1973.
Mao Tse-tung: Filosofiske
skrifter. Futura 1973
Don Barnett: Hos guerillaerne i Angola.
Futura 1972
Don Barnett: Sejre eller dø.
4 angolesere beretter om deres vej til revolutionen. Futura 1974
Zimbabwe. Klassekamp - befrielseskamp.
Internationalt Forum 1978.
Befrielseskampen i
Afrika. Udgivet af Afrikagrupperne i Sverige 1977.
Michael
Raeburn: Black Fire! Julian Friedmann Publishers 1978.
John Markakis and Nega Ayele: Class and
Revolution in Ethiopia. Spokesman Bertrand Russel House 1980
Basil Davidson, Lionel Cliffe and Bereket Selassie:
Behind the warin Eritrea. Spokesman Bertrand Russel House 1980
Richard Sherman: Eritrea, the unfinished revolution.
Praeger Publishers, New York 1980
Fred Halliday
and Maxine Molyneux: The Ethiopian Revolution. Verso Editions,
London 1981
Torben Retbøll: Kampuchea og den
vestlige presse. Forlaget Oktober 1979
Sonja Schulte
og Walther Hansen: Hvad sker der i Kampuchea. Klunsergruppen
i Ollerups forlag
Milovan Djilas: The new class. Thames and
Hudson
Boris Weil: En særlig farlig forbryder.
Centrum 1980
Lilith: Billedet som kampmiddel.
Kvindebilleder mellem 1968 og 1977. Informations Forlag 1977.
Dedicated
Karsten, Rita, Flemming, Lotte, Sofie, John, Eva,
Lars, Lis Per, Per, Lone, Mike, Knud Erik, Klaus, Lissa, Susanne,
Nathalie, Solvej, Louise and every one else who participated
and friends in Viborg, Ollerup and in IMCC and in memory of Jens
Burmeister, Knud Jensen, Sofus Dufour Andersen and Tove Dyrman