Ethiopians in L.A. Still Feel Pain of War

It is a Saturday night at Rosalind’s, and mingling with the swaying beat of the house band are the echoes of a distant war.

Sitting at a table of the popular Fairfax district Ethiopian restaurant, Bruke Abaynhe says he heard that his cousin is home from the front with a hand injured by mortar fire but is eager to jump back into the fray.

In the next chair, Tsegai Zeweldi speaks of visiting his homeland recently to attend his mother’s funeral and meeting one of his cousins, a special forces commando who was too fearful to describe what he had been through. But Tsegai heard from others of the misery that land mines have inflicted on the countryside and of the hundreds of thousands of refugees forced from their homes, living in the desert with little food or clothing.

There is a nasty war raging between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a dispute over who owns a scorching, mostly uninhabited border region. It has claimed thousands of lives and unleashed untold horror in a land that has experienced too much of that sensation.

But while the world has been riveted by ethnic warfare in Kosovo, few have taken heed of the equally destructive conflict in the Horn of Africa. For people like Abaynhe and Zeweldi, the indifference to the plight of their countrymen is a source of sadness and frustration.

Ethiopians and Eritreans make up a tiny portion of the thousands of immigrants who enter California each year. But their numbers are growing. Nearly all of them have a personal stake in what happens back home. Their brothers, cousins and friends are engaged in fierce combat. Grandmothers, aunts and uncles have been uprooted and reduced to beggars.

“For the ordinary person in America there is still a lot of ignorance about our country,” said Haile Gessesse, another of the Rosalind’s regulars. “The war is talked about for a fraction of a minute, if at all. Neither the government or the people here are taking it seriously.”

When the conflict erupted in the spring of 1998, Gessesse was visiting relatives in the northern region of Badme, close to where the bombs began falling. In the surrounding towns, schools were closing and families were fleeing. He was struck most by the youth of those heading for the front: They were mostly youngsters fighting this war.

“Ethiopians and Eritreans are the same people in many ways, the same culture and language,” said Gessesse, a community college teacher who has lived in the United States for 20 years. “It is tragic on both sides.”

Though the local Eritrean population numbers only 6,000 to 7,000, there are almost 45,000 Ethiopians in Los Angeles, the second-largest community in the nation after that in Washington, D.C. Indeed, the number of African immigrants in the county has grown tenfold, to about 250,000 from the 28,000 recorded in the 1990 census.

They hail from Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa and a host of other countries, and many are political refugees or come to attend college.

African immigration in Southern California has followed a path different from that of larger immigrant communities, especially those from Mexico and some Asian countries.

Ethiopians are not clustered in neighborhoods around common community centers and shopping districts but are dispersed throughout the county. They have tended to become professionals--doctors, engineers, professors--rather than entrepreneurs. Their most recognizable presence is the dozen or so restaurants and shops that have come to define a stretch of Fairfax Avenue between Whitworth Drive and Olympic Boulevard.

The block is a colorful shock in an area of otherwise sedate and neatly trimmed homes and apartment buildings. Traditional African and reggae music issues from storefronts, as does the biting aroma of incense. Men sit outside on spindly chairs sipping coffee.

Although Ethiopian refugees here speak several languages and practice different religions and customs, the population in recent years has forged stronger ties, becoming involved in local elections and opening more businesses.

“There is a second generation coming up who were born here, people who understand the American system and want to be a part of it,” said Elias Wondimu, managing editor of the Ethiopian Review, a magazine distributed internationally in English and Amharic, the main language of the country.

Sipping a Coke under a sidewalk canopy at a Fairfax eatery, Wondimu is engaging and soft-spoken in the Ethiopian manner. The local community is hungry for news of the war, but it is not so easily obtained, Wondimu said. He said the Ethiopian government has kept most native journalists far from the front lines.

The Horn of Africa nations have been fighting over disputed parts of their 620-mile border in mostly unpopulated mountainous regions.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of civilians have been killed and more than half a million residents on both sides of the border have been driven from their homes.

Mediation efforts by African countries, the United Nations and the United States have failed to resolve the dispute.

Some recent arrivals to Los Angeles have firsthand accounts. They are reluctant to speak publicly because they fear for the safety of family members left behind. Although there have been no obvious hostilities between the two groups locally, some say tensions are beginning to surface.

An Eritrean couple who arrived in Los Angeles eight months ago said they have felt shunned by some Ethiopians, even though they have no connection to the government or its politics. The couple and their three children fled Ethiopia, where they were born and had lived for their entire lives, after they were forced out of their jobs, their home was confiscated and they became outcasts in their neighborhood.

“I was supposed to get a pension and we had put all of our investments into our home. Now we have nothing,” said the husband.

“So many people are on the streets begging, and in the border area many innocent women and children are being killed,” he said.

Zody Polonio’s 78-year-old father still tends the fields of the family farm. Though he is some distance from the fighting, she has not heard from him in four years but others say he is OK.

Her brother is another matter. He is a truck driver who gets paid to transport supplies close to the front.

“I’ve spoken to my brother every week for the last 12 years, and I think it’s the biggest expense I have,” said Polonio, an eight-year resident of Los Angeles. “Sometimes he says everything is OK, but he doesn’t want me to worry.”

Polonio, who is both forceful and elegant, has taken an unusual path for a woman from a country that clings tightly to traditional gender roles. Born in the countryside, she fought for an education, joined the military and became an officer in the navy under the communist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

But Polonio rejected the politics of the military dictatorship. She deserted, was granted political asylum in Kenya and ended up in the United States. Now she is working to establish a counseling and orphanage center for her countrywomen who are victims of rape and domestic violence.

Her plans were formed before the current strife, but the war has only heightened the immediacy of her project. She and others are planning a fund-raiser this month at Rosalind’s to increase awareness of the conditions.

For Ethiopians and Eritreans in Southern California, the American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles is attempting to locate and get messages through to family members who may be caught up in the strife. Noemi Rossler, international specialist for the group, said she has received a steady stream of calls from families inquiring about their loved ones. A major problem is that, unlike Kosovo refugees who were gathered in camps, those uprooted in the African conflict have mostly scattered into the surrounding countryside.

Nikki Tesfai, director of the African Community Resource Center, a nonprofit group that provides support for African refugees in the county, said many families want to bring their endangered relatives to the United States. They are hampered by the ceiling (recently raised to 12,000 from 7,000) placed by the U.S. government on the annual number of African refugees who can enter the country.

Tesfai said she is also optimistic that Southern Californians will rally to the cause of those displaced by the war.

“One lady who called about a family from Kosovo called back and said she wanted an African family to sponsor,” Tesfai said. “American people are accepting, when they are educated and aware of what is happening.”