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Eritrea

Twin specters of war and authoritarianism haunt the Red Sea country of Eritrea, which achieved formal independence in 1993 after more than a century of struggle.

Under Italian rule from 1890, Eritrea fell under British control at the end of World War II. Britain turned both Eritrea and its larger neighbor Ethiopia over to the UN, which called for a federation between the two countries. In the 1960s, groups of guerrillas, soon spearheaded by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), a well-disciplined militia led by Isaias Afewerki and his small cadre of Maoists, launched a 30-year war of independence from Ethiopia.

Post-independence politics has been largely dominated by the EPLF, or, more precisely, by the clique around Isaias, who became Eritrea’s first president. Renamed as the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), the former militia outlawed other parties and subordinated all other non-religious organizations to PFDJ control. While the drafting of a new constitution allowed some Eritreans to envision a pluralistic future, the new government behaved arbitrarily, censoring the press and detaining regime critics on a regular basis. The constitution has been effectively suspended since its adoption.

The trend toward authoritarianism was exacerbated by the Ethiopia-Eritrea war of 1998-2000, sparked by a dispute over where to draw the border that is still not fully resolved. As well as causing 70,000 casualties, mass refugee flight and severe economic disruption, the conflict empowered hardliners who backed Isaias’ view that Eritrea should be a “guided democracy” in which the popular will was only a rubber stamp for the leader’s decisions. The regime also embarked on an enormous military mobilization (including forcible conscription) that has left much of the nation’s youth under arms eight years later. At the end of 2003, nearly 280,000 Eritreans remained refugees in Sudan, Ethiopia and elsewhere.

Tension is building anew along the Eritrean-Ethiopian border, whose final demarcation in 2002 Ethiopia has yet to accept.


Facts and Figures »