During the PFDJ’s 20 years in power, thousands of innocent and helpless sons and daughters of the Red Sea Afar have been subjected to heinous atrocities of ethnic cleansing through indiscriminate killings, everlasting disappearances, unwarranted detentions and mass expulsion into refugee camps in neighboring countries. The Red Sea Afar have patiently waited for a change of heart in Eritrea’s ruling elite, while witnessing their livelihoods and ways of life being deliberately re-engineered by the PFDJ to fit the regime’s narrow ethno-centric agenda
Afar Language Development Conference, Logya Afar Region, Ethiopia : April 24th 2009
This conference was the 6th such conference addressing the issues of the Afar language: its development and script since the first meeting in Addis Ababa in 1996. The previous conference was held in Uppsala , Wik High School , in Sweden from May 21st to 27th in 2007. The last meeting then based its discussion around the concluding points of the Uppsala meeting, there it was agreed among others on holding an Afar language development conference once every two years. People who attended the conference included those working on Afar language development in Ethiopia , in Djibouti and Afar regional government officials as well as individuals from the Red Sea Association in Eritrea . In total, there were 100 participants in the conference. The participants discussed on 4 agendas which have re-occurred in previous such meetings on the development of the Afar language script as follows: 1- What level of development has the script reached at the moment? 2- Any possible obstacle or challenge so far? 3- What part of the problems is solved and what parts remain unsolved? 4- Which ways are more important for the development of the script in the future?
Particularly after the 2007 Sweden meeting, the work done in terms of development of the script during the 2 year period was evaluated at a high level (in the conference). This conference was funded by Afar Friends in Sweden through UDC in Djibouti and hosted by Afar Pastoralist Development Association (APDA). Having evaluated and discussed the development of the Afar script, the following 7 recommendations were agreed on:
1. Afar regional government officials, intellectuals and every Afar individual should make every effort to develop the language, making it the officially spoken and written language in workplaces and schools. 2. All works done with the language at every level must be encouraged by the people 3. Normally, a language can develop when it is written regularly by the people. Therefore everyone is asked to use it in writing according to his/ her knowledge of the script. 4. Women should be encouraged to participate at a high level in the work of Afar language development. 5. All signboards, whether in offices or on shops/ businesses will be written in Afar language 6. The history of how the use of Afar writing developed should be recorded in Afar language. 7. There should be places where Afar literature (written material), music and culture cassettes are available and sold.
