Talk:Assab

Assab, 1st Italian colony in Africa.
The treaty between Giuseppe Sapeto, Italian explorer and emissary of the Società Rubattino, and the sultans Ibrahim and Hassan ben Ahmad was signed on November 15, 1869. On March 13, 1870 the Italian flag was run up. Assab became Italian Colony on July 5, 1882: 630 Kmq.

I have removed the POV tag because the opposition to the article is both unfactual and offensive. Whether Ethiopians recognise Assab as Eritrean or not is irrelevant. There is no basis for claiming that the citizens of Assab oppose their status as Eritreans. They have voted in the UN supervised referendum for independence of their country (which is Eritrea) from Ethiopia. If Ethiopians (or anyone else) wants to write articles about Afar opposition movements (based in Ethiopia, fighting the Ethiopian government) they may do so on Ethiopian wikipedia pages. zeragito 06:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

"Under occupation"
Ethionet, your addition is not only POV and heavily biased but the "sources" you list are from internet commentaries. This is not fit for Wikipedia. Mesfin 16:52, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, NPOV is not appropriate for that edit, rather Fact tags. Ironically Asseb is the first part of Eritrea. --Merhawie 17:06, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You are right. So i have added more sources from Ethiopian opposition parties and Ethiopian parliamentarians. Also the Africa Review(AHSI) confirms the majority Afar stance on Assab. I also advise you to do more research on this from Ethiopian websites, other political parties, Ethiopian organizations and civil societies regarding their stance on Assab too. In fact, any sources that are not related to the current ruling party in Ethiopia will help clear up on the Assab issue. Thank You --Ethionet 17:51, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this version is more than adequate for this subject. Mesfin 21:01, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with your version but i will allow you to keep most of your new version. Still the part about native Afar groups' recognition of Eritrea sovereignty should not be left alone.Ethionet 23:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * ethionet, I have read your Africa Review link, nothing in it proves your claim that "Some Afar people, who are the natives of Assab, do not recognize Eritrea as a sovereign state." The link is irrelevant as it doesn't even concern Eritrea but just gives a small rundown on a few Ethiopian political groups and contains only one related paragraph:

"Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF), limited presence in Afar region) - The ARDUF was formed in March 1993 as a coalition of three organizations: the ARDU (Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Union), the AUDF (Afar Ummatah Demokrasiyyoh Focca) and the ARF (Afar Revolutionary Forces). The ARDUF was opposed to the division of the Afar region between Eritrea and Ethiopia and called for the reunification and autonomy of Afar territory. The ARDUF had warned foreign workers in November 2003 of the threat of insecurity if they enter the Afar territory under the cover of border demarcation. The rebel group has never recognized Eritrea as a sovereign state, and considers the larger part of Eritrea as an annexed Afar territory. The conflict persists for 14 years, and has drawn more fire from Addis Ababa than from Asmara."


 * The other addition you added: "Many Ethiopians; however, (especially after the massacre) don't recognize the current ruling party as legitimate and see it as an Eritrean agent. Since the leaders of the current governments were former allied warlords, many Ethiopians disagree with the formation of an Eritrean state out of a former province." has no relevance in regard to Eritrea's Sovereignty.


 * The link to ethiopar.net merely lists the names of Ethiopian parties in the Ethiopian parliament and is not relevant. The links to nazret.com and the letter to the Addis tribune are just commentaries placed on the internet and are not considered reliable as sources by wikipedia standards.


 * I must say that if you have an agenda to push (that Ethiopia should annex Eritrea) the correct action would be to create your own web page about it and not use Wikipedia for this cause. Mesfin 06:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

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 * No, i do not wish to create my own webpage. I have equal right to place sourced info on wikipedia just like you. In Ethiopia, we have what we call Elections. Maybe the lack of multiparty elections in the Eritrean province have harmed your ability to comprehend information. The fact that Eritrea has been hijacked and oppressed by a bunch of warlords, namely EPLF, has not been forgotten as well. Those Afar political groups and organizations, which you belittled, are in the Ethiopian parliament. For instance ARDUF makes up a big part of the coalition in the opposition party known as UEDF. It is one of the various Afar organizations that holds numerous seats in the Ethiopian parliament. In elections, you hold seats after you get voted in and elected by the people. The people' voice and interests are thus expressed via such democratic means. So whatever is in the policy and mission of those Afar organizations is the will and interests of the more than 1 million Afars (which i have to remind you is the largest Afar population anywhere) Also i hope you recall that the Afar people are the inhabitants of Assab. I certainly understand your inability to comprehend such concepts so i advise you to ask an elder (intellectually) and learn about elections. As you know the Afar people are nomadic and have often crossed over the borders and mostly live as such. And having never faced such a tragic separation of their historical lands in the red sea, all Afar people are one and the families are not against each other in supporting Afar organizations. As we have read from BBC, the same organizations we are talking about were fighting Ethiopia before, with help of Afars in Assab until they realized the root cause of the issue and came together with other Ethiopians to fight the warlords in Asmara. Knowing the beginning and the old bases of the rebels is also enough for you to understand if you are able to.
 * Also regarding the recognition of Eritrea's sovereignty, yes the Afar people, represented by all of those Afar political parties, do NOT reconize Eritrea's sovereignty. (Just like most of Ethiopians)And the same Africa Review(AHSI) organization you quoted said this. It stated that ARDUF "never recognized Eritrea as a sovereign state, and considers the larger part of Eritrea as an annexed Afar territory." Again, only understanding the concept of elections and democracy will help you comprehend this. Again no, i do not have to create my web page. I have equal rights to use wikipedia, especially when i have information sourced by Ethiopian government, Ethiopian parliament, famous African organizations and premier Ethiopian news media outlets. Ethionet 09:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You will find that I have compeltly removed most commentary to just give out the only source that we can both agree on that is relevent. I must also warn you that insults are not allowed in Wikipedia. Mesfin 21:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I am sure you remember that you were the one who insulted claiming that i should go create my webpage. As you can read from the history of this talk page, i have already allowed you to keep many sentences and wordings that i didn't like. I have kindly conceded a few time already and it was not nice to take advantage of this kindness by deleting almost everything on the section. Again do not delete information from Ethiopian government, Ethiopian parliament, famous African organizations and premier Ethiopian news media outlets. If the info is not favorable to you, you are welcome to tag it with "POV" and add a sourced information that you think is left out.Ethionet 21:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * On second reading your Kinjit link doesn't even talk about annexation. Please provide a quote from that link (or possibly another credible link) which supports the statement that they would try to annex Asseb. Mesfin 21:24, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * My friend, please go back and read the history of the edits of this article. It was not me who said anyone is going to "annex" Assab. Some Eritrean government cadre editor by name of Merhawie put that word "annex" in the article, not me.

One would usually "annex" something if it was never part of that former one thing. In this case, nobody is talking about annexing. Assab was part of Ethiopia or an Ethiopian territory. The main opposition party, Kinijit's, policy also underlines that. Actually, not only Assab, the opposition party showed evidence that the whole transformation of the Eritrean province to a country was and is illegal. As you can read from the long text, the party stresses Ethiopia's access to the sea and the illegal occupation of Assab by Eritrea (which was illegally endorsed by the current TPLF ruling party.)Ethionet 21:24, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I am not going to touch this article any more today but so far you have made a lot of grand claims without providing any reliable sources. I have outlined above that the links you provided are either irrelevant, contradictory or are from biased Ethiopian internet commentaries. This addition is POV in that it is pushing a bizarre pro-Eritrean annexation agenda, it is badly sourced, it is mis-placed (this article is not for addressing Ethiopian political movements), and it is giving undue weight to a minority viewpoint. The correct place to put such things is in your own webpage. Wikipedia is not a soapbox.


 * You have not even tried to address these points. If you wanted to mention that this strange movement merely "exists" in Ethiopia, you are welcome; anything more is in clear violation of Wikipedia's rules. Until you address these problems you have a hard time justifying them. Mesfin 21:56, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

For anyone disputing asseb as part of eritrean soverign territory if you have a problem you can dispute it with oau and the colonial treaties,why is it ethiopian are the first to claim asseb as part of ethiopia,historically its the land of the ethnic afar tribe but to try to claim it because at one stage you had it under your control is contradiction.basically every land apart from tigray and amhara is thanks to the treaty so in order to push for the return of asseb to ethiopia is breaking the colonial treaty and you might as well give up oromo including addis,ogaden,afar etc..because most of these land was aquired little more than 100 years ago and thanks to the treaty it was included into ethiopia.the afar in eritrea fought for the independence of eritrea.My question for ethiopians is what right do u have to ask for afar land in eritrea to be joined to ethiopia,eritreans can request the same thing to have whole afar including afar in ethiopia to be joining eritrea,its the same thing.For afar in ethiopia if you want to create independence then firstly get meles to agree by using article 39 to seperate then plea your case to the oau so they can break the treaty that is holding every country in africa to attack its neighbour then if you succeed you might have a case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaya7 (talk • contribs) 05:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

2000 War?
The claim that the Ethio-Eritrea war was an attempt to take Assab is factual so i have decided to keep it. You may check various independent references that indicate who started the war. You may also check various references that show Ethiopian army wasn't going deep into Massawa and taking over most of West Eritrea. I think we all know why that happened. Anyway maybe future wars will be for Assab is the 2000 war. Regarding the title word "sovereignty" i will let you use that word but most Ethiopians call it an occupation issue. --Ethionet 18:40, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Moved from the article
First is this unattributed statement:
 * There is an ongoing dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia as to the ownership of this port hub, Assab.

Then this equally unattributed response:
 * There is no dispute of owner ship of Assab as long as the people of Eritrea and Ethiopia are concerned, if you are writing article about Assab being from the west power there exist indifference about both people and what you are trying to achieve is a military base across the Red sea
 * “Please Let the Assabian write about Assab”

At the moment & for better or worse Assab is clearly inside Eritrean territory. Unless someone can provide verifiable sources that show Ethiopia has laid claim to this port (or that its inhabitants believe that Ethiopia has done so), these statements add no value to this article & should be kept out of it. -- llywrch (talk) 02:13, 4 June 2008 (UTC)