
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 23, 1993                   TAG: 9304230007
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: ASMARA, ERITREA                                LENGTH: Short

ERITREANS VOTING ON INDEPENDENCE

Eritreans at home and abroad begin voting today in a three-day referendum that officially will end three decades of struggle for liberty and create the world's newest nation.

The outcome is not in doubt. Eritrean officials, foreign diplomats and other observers expect at least 90 percent of the voters to choose independence from Ethiopia.

It will be the first free election in 20 centuries of recorded history for a people who have been ruled over the last 400 years by the Turks, the Egyptians, the Italians, the British and the Ethiopians. - Associated Press

by CNB