Many of the approximately 39,000 East Africans who call Seattle home were in Volunteer Park Sunday to celebrate Eritrean Independence Day.
On May 24, 1991, “Eritrean People’s Liberation Front forces moved into the capital Asmara, reinstating independence, following a 30-year-long battle against the Ethiopian military regime,” Wikipedia sums it up in what seems to be a massive simplification.
Washington history site Historylink.org documents the rise of the Eritrean Association in Greater Seattle as an important part of the community starting in 1994:
The association converted the house into an office with meeting rooms and a computer lab, and a community center that provides space for computer classes, tutoring, Tigrinya literacy classes, and other programs. Eritreans can receive help in becoming a United States citizen and in finding jobs and housing.
Earlier this year, CHS reported on the effort to create an East African business association centered around the Central District’s restaurants and markets.
In addition to food, drink, dancing, and song, celebrations during Sunday’s event included protesters on hand to have their say about Isaias Afwerki who has served as president since leading the fight for independence. “Constitution amended & prevails, dictator die,” read the shirts worn by some in the group. Security on hand attempted to remove the protesters from Sunday’s event but after a review of the organizers’ permit, police said the group could stay.
Later, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray arrived to formally proclaim Eritrean Independence Day in the City of Seattle.
“Seattle was the first city in America to recognize Eritrean Independence,” Murray said. “And we are so proud of that.”
“Thank you for choosing Seattle.”
Luvin it!
I think this may have been the most crowded I’ve ever seen Volunteer. We were just passing through, but it looked like people were having a blast!
Those children are so cute!
Or, another perspective. This group, every year, plays terribly repetitive, amplified music for hours and hours and hours on end, leaves behind more trash than any other group, and leaves many, many burnt patches on the lovely lawn (made by using those disposable grills, I assume). Since this happens every year, why can’t the parks department or, god forbid, the organizers themselves, ask the community to leave the park the way they found it? Yuck.
You come off very hostile.
Would you be okay if they played grunge music?
Settle down John. The person just doesn’t like the park being trashed. Uptight Seattlelite strikes!
I would not love grunge for ten hours straight, but I would be more inclined to welcome the group playing back if they showed some sort of civic responsibility towards our shared public resource and towards their fellow citizens by cleaning up their own water bottles, popsicle sticks, twist-off bottle caps, balloons, napkins, etc. Many groups use the park and make noise, and I am just saying that my observation is that some groups do a much better jobs than others cleaning up their own mess. This groups seems to do very little and leaves it all to the parks department (aka the rest of the taxpayers) to clean up. This group could and should do better.
Also, this is the only group who leaves burnt patches on the lawn every year. Who does that? What do they think the park would look like if everyone did that? Come on.
Agree. At a minimum, any users of OUR park should leave it in the same condition they found it.
This is not a complex issue. No park can look the same after 1000 people party on it for a full day. It takes some time to recover. If the event organizers are not able to clean the park reasonably, the park managers can have it cleaned and have the event organizers pay for it. Any park manager knows this. Lets not try to make an elephant or of an ant.
Amnesty International is not quite so enthused about the aftermath of Eritrean independence. Quote below from https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2013/05/eritrea-rampant-repression-years-after-independence/
Eritrea: Rampant repression 20 years after independence
Twenty years after its independence, Eritrea’s prisons are filled with thousands of political prisoners, locked up without ever being charged with a crime, many of whom are never heard from again, Amnesty International said in a report released today.
Twenty years of independence but still no freedom details how throughout the past two decades government critics, journalists and people practising an unregistered religion, as well as people trying to leave the country or avoid indefinite conscription into national service have been detained without charge in unimaginably atrocious conditions.
“The government has systematically used arbitrary arrest and detention without charge to crush all opposition, to silence all dissent, and to punish anyone who refuses to comply with the repressive restrictions it places on people’s lives,” said Claire Beston, Amnesty International’s Eritrea researcher.
“Twenty years on from the euphoric celebrations of independence, Eritrea is one of the most repressive, secretive and inaccessible countries in the world.”
Amnesty International believes that at least 10,000 political prisoners have been imprisoned by the government of President Isaias Afewerki, who has ruled since the country’s independence in 1993. With no known exception, not a single political prisoner has ever been charged with a crime or tried, had access to a lawyer or been brought before a judge or a judicial officer to assess the legality and necessity of the detention.
In the vast majority of cases, the prisoners’ families are not informed of their whereabouts, and often never hear from their relative again after they are arrested. Torture – for punishment, interrogation and coercion – is widespread. Practitioners of unregistered religions are tortured to force them to recant their faith.
This has been debunked numerous times as outright lies and exaggerations. In fact, Amnesty International has been caught red-handed trying to start an Arab-Spring style uprising in Eritrea. So what they say has to be taken with a grain of salt, considering they were caught trying to destabilize Eritrea.
Eritrea is a peaceful, secular, free and stable country. It’s a developing country. It’s on the right path.
Well, The Guardian, which is pretty lefty, had this to say recently: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/apr/21/escaping-eritrea-migrant-if-i-die-at-sea-at-least-i-wont-be-tortured, so it doesn’t seem to be going that well.
Amnesty International and the Guardian, well known overthrowers of governments.
Here come the nutters!
Park user
If You have other alterior motive be a man/women call spade a spade because the community leave the park cleaner than they have received it. I was there as a visitor
There is still a lot of trash even today, so not sure what you are talking about. You have to actually walk around the park and across the grass to see it. Thousands of lollipop sticks, the plastic from lollipops, popsicle sticks, bottle caps, etc. It is really not very nice looking, and the caps that have metal in them are not nice for other people to step on barefoot.
So, not making it up, it’s really there, and because most of the pieces of debris are so small, I assume it will take a very long time for it to get cleaned up.
Also, “ulterior.”
Eritrea is a developing nation that is trying to build the country with “sweat and not dept”. It relies on its human resources to develop the country in a sustainable way. It learned not to repeat the history of many African countries that ignored self-reliance and depended on aid from donor countries.
To learn more please check this out video titled “the other narrative’:
I’m curious, Muler: Are you from the Mayor’s office?
Wanna bet that next Eritrean Independence Day, Murray does not wrap himself in the flag of a country characterized by the UN Human Rights Council as one of “pervasive State control and ruthless repression.”
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15699&LangID=E
“Thousands of Eritreans Face Torture and Death as They Flee Despotic Rule” – https://news.vice.com/article/thousands-of-eritreans-face-torture-and-death-as-they-flee-despotic-rule
“Once hailed as beacon of hope, Eritrea quickly devolved into a secretive dictatorship.” – http://world.time.com/2013/01/27/a-glimpse-into-a-mysterious-african-dictatorship-is-eritrea-on-the-verge/
“Any sign of protest [in Eritrea] is quickly crushed, and opponents of the government face immediate imprisonment and torture, often in underground jails in remote areas. There they are stuffed into metal containers where the heat is unbearable, and given little food or water. The right to trial does not exist, and those convicted have no recourse to appeal.” – http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/opinion/hidden-oppression-in-eritrea.html?_r=0
My grandmother was in one of the photos! So proud right now.