American writer and security analyst Paul B Henze, who served in the Carter administration as a deputy to National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, once made a very astute observation about Eritrea’s current president, Isaias Afwerki.
In his 2007 book, Ethiopia in Mengistu’s Final Years: Until the Last Bullet, he noted “Isaias impressed me as remarkably similar in temperament and attitudes to Mengistu [Haile Mariam, Eritrea’s former dictator who has overseen the killings of tens of thousands of opposition figures and civilians]. He has many of the same mannerisms, a rather bulldoggish seriousness, a defensiveness behind a facade of feigned reasonableness that is not really convincing. One senses a stubborn, fundamentally authoritarian personality.”
The similarities Henze saw between Mengistu and Isaias have proven correct and highly consequential over the last three decades.
After declaring victory against the Mengsitu regime in 1991, Isaias was able to oversee the emergence of an independent, sovereign Eritrea. For a brief moment, Eritreans were full of hope. They assumed independence would bring more freedom and better economic prospects. There was talk of turning Eritrea into Africa’s Singapore.
However, the euphoria of independence was short-lived. The dream of transforming Eritrea into a prosperous liberal democracy did not appeal to Isaias. He wanted his country to resemble not Singapore, but Sparta. He rejected the democratic constitution drafted by the pre-eminent Eritrean jurist Bereket Habte Selassie and ruled Eritrea with an iron fist.
In no time, he turned Eritrea into a garrison state. He transformed Eritrean institutions and society at large into tools to fulfil his geo-political fantasies. Eritreans became unwilling pawns in the president’s many military schemes, with no space left for their personal dreams and aspirations.
Isaias ruthlessly dealt with even his closest colleagues and allies who dared to suggest that Eritreans enjoy some basic liberties that people elsewhere in the world often take for granted.
In May 2001, 15 senior Eritrean officials, many of whom had been on the president’s side throughout the independence war, issued an open letter urging him to reconsider his autocratic mode of governance and hold free and fair elections. At the time, three of the 15 officials were living abroad, and one eventually changed his position and rejoined the Isaias government. The remaining 11, however, were swiftly arrested on unspecified charges. More than 20 years later, the fates of these 11 men are still unknown. No one knows for sure if they are alive or dead. No legal or religious counsel or family member has been granted access to them. There have been no charges, no trials, no conviction and no sentence.
Though these senior officials are among the most prominent in Eritrea to be meted such treatment, their fate is hardly unique. Anyone in Eritrea who dares to question the great wisdom of the infallible President Isaias meets the same fate.
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