adonay
on
26th Mar 1999

I'm from Canada.

• Report demonstration in Ottawa (Canada)
  Sat, 27 Mar 1999 15:15:26 -0500
  
  
  
  Over 300 Eritreans and their friends demonstrated for Peace in front of the Canadian Parliament building. At the head of the demonstration, there was a huge banner that read: Eritrean Worldwide Demonstration for Peace. Elementary school children waving Eritrean flags followed it. Behind them came the rest of the group carry placards and chanting that Eritrean wants peace and to stop the Ethiopian aggression. Unfortunately, Parliament had decided on Thursday that it would not sit on Friday, but the absence of Parliamentarians did not deter the crowd. The marchers just kept on chanting. The marchers then proceeded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where they handed signed petitions and a letter addressed to the Minster to a senior official of the Department of African
  Affairs. Two journalists interviewed several of the demonstrators. The demonstration was animated
  and somber at the same time. Eritreans in Ottawa have no expectations from the Government of Canada. They openly say that it has never stood by the side of Eritrea in the past, and it is not doing
  so now. But, that was not why they marched. Simply and bluntly put, they said they just had to do it. The expressions of solidarity with the people back home and the fighters in the trenches were many. A mother running with two daughters under the age of five to catch up with the marchers. Another mothers holding her five-year-old daughter with one hand, and pushing the stroller in which her two-year-old daughter was with her other hand. Yet another mother, who came with her three children under the age of 13, having postponed a visit to her sick mother who is at the hospital. Adult men and women, who have had little respite in the lives, marching, once more, for the elusive future. This was what the demonstration was about, this was the spirit of the marchers. And, if need be, set the next date, they will be back again. They will always come back. J. Goytom