Eritrea: the Government vs. the People

Photo: President Isaias Afewerki with his Defense Minister

It is time for the Eritrean leadership to stop blaming the US or Ethiopia or any other third party for the country´s political and economic hurdles. This stance is a sign of serious weakness in leadership. It only delays the social and democratic changes which the Eritrean people desperately need in order to begin to enjoy the benefits of their hard-won liberation almost two decades ago.

Eritrea will never be able to get out of its current dilemma if it allows its real or perceived enemies to determine its future. The best way for Eritrea to deal with its external enemies is by working hard to establish democratic institutions, by encouraging free market economy, introducing a constitutional system of government, ending the ban on press and academic freedoms, respecting the principles of human and democratic rights, and immediately releasing or bringing to trial the thousands of jailed religious and political opposition leaders.

This writer is old enough to remember another similar African situation during the Cold War, namely that of Somalia under President Siad Barre who also ruled on the basis of how well or how badly his country was treated by the US, the USSR or neighboring Ethiopia. Like Eritrea´s President Isaias Afewerki, the Somali leader also chose absolute dictatorship as a domestic policy. Expectedly, this method of administration led to the demise of Barre in 1991. It also caused the human and social catastrophe that continues to beset Somalia.

Eritrea is not unique in Africa with unique political wisdoms to deal with possible social upheavals. Unless it changes direction, the country may not survive the aftermath of what critics see as a possible, sudden collapse of Afewerki´s authoritarianism like that of Barre´s Somalia or Mobutu Sese Sekou´s Zaire(DR Congo) in which millions have died in Africa´s worst civil wars.

It is time for Eritrea to engage in a real social and political revolution instead of wasting precious time and energy blaming others for what is wrong. The solution to the country´s external problems is the introduction of fundamental change in domestic policy.