Rebel who Loved to Help, Netsanet Asfaw, Gives Up the Fight

Atsede Tamene (Lt. Col.) was 12 when she first met her role model, Netsanet Asfaw. It was the early 1980s, the Derguewas in power, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was an up and coming leftist, revolutionary movement waging armed struggle.

Atsede was a part of this struggle even at that age, and she would meet up with about five more new recruits, which included Netsanet, in Eritrea. For the journalist that came from Germany, the 12-year-old would serve as part of her introduction to a young but gradually strengthening organisation.

Joining an armed struggle was not going to be a walk in the park, something Atsede made sure to mention to Netsanet. She believed that the transition, especially for someone who had lived part of their lives in a developed country, would be particularly jarring.

“You can’t do this. It'll be too hard for you,” Atsede would tell her. “Why don’t you get back to Germany, send us sugar and medicine … that would be more helpful to the struggle.”

Netsanet would have none of this. Every struggle needs its intellectuals close by, she believed, and she would serve the movement better this way. The proof of her determination was her resignation to the rigours of armed struggle: the travelling in the dead of night, the uncomfortable living quarters where they sometimes had to sleep on an assortment of sacks and the plain tasting food.

Cooking, washing clothes and cleaning were all done in turn. Netsanet did not mind doing her share.

“She fit right in,” says Atsede.

It was not just that. She also came up with her own initiatives, such as fighting illiteracy. One of the beneficiaries was Atsede, who could not read and write then, and did not see the point in being able to. Netsanet persuaded her otherwise.

“The war will end, and there will be two types of people,” Netsanet told Atsede then. “The educated and the uneducated. The latter will be condemned to a life of cleaning, cooking and washing clothes.”

This scared her into learning under Netsanet’s tutorship during the years of armed struggle.

“I never thought it was of any value, but she persuaded me otherwise,” says Atsede, who recently did her masters and wrote her dissertation on federalism.

Netsanet, whom many young women in the struggle looked up to, passed away on March 9, 2020, at 75 years old, after battling complications from a fall she took 10 months ago. Survived by a daughter, she was first a journalist, then a leading member in an armed struggle, before getting appointments to various positions in government offices and serving as an MP in the federal parliament.