Isayas Afewerki

Isayas Afewerki (2002).

Isayas Afewerki ( Tigrinya ኢሳያስ አፈወርቂ ; born February 2, 1946 in Asmara ) is an Eritrean politician. He is Secretary General of the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice, which is led within the framework of a one-party government . Before that, he headed the predecessor organization Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) during the Eritrean War of Independence .

Afewerki has been President and Chairman of the interim government of Eritrea, which has existed since that time, since the official founding of the state on May 24, 1993 .

Life path

Afewerki is the son of a minor civil servant who worked for the tobacco monopoly. His mother had Tigray ancestors. The family professed Orthodox Christianity .

Youth and education

Afewerki grew up in the Aba Shi'aul working-class district of Asmara. He attended one of the city's two state secondary schools that existed at the time, named after Endelkachew Makonnen .

Isayas Afewerki studied engineering in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa from 1965 , but failed the exam at the end of the first year.

At that time he already participated in the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), which fought for the independence of his home province Eritrea from Ethiopia. He recognized that the predominantly Muslim leadership discriminated against highland Christians. After dropping out of university in June 1966, he went to Kassala, Sudan, to work for the organization . There he founded a conspiratorial group within the ELF on October 17th with Mussie Tesfamikel , who was executed in 1974, and Haile Wod'ensae , known as "Drue,".

He and four other comrades, including Ramadan Nur , received military training for a year in the People's Republic of China at the height of the Cultural Revolution .

EPLF and struggle for independence

Afewerki was arrested and imprisoned for six months while attempting to secretly return home from Saudi Arabia by Dau . The ELF functionary Osman Saleh Sabbe achieved his release and made him political commissioner of the Christian-dominated 5th Division (around Asmara) of the now divided ELF in 1968. Afewerki and his left comrades considered the separation along religious-ethnic lines to be inappropriate and initially formed a “People's Liberation Front” (PLF2). The guerrillas, which were mainly active in Danakil, finally split off with the founding of the secretly organized Eritrean Revolutionary People's Party on April 4, 1971. Afewerki worked out its political program. From this emerged the Eritrean People's Liberation Front .

After Haile Selassie was overthrown by the "provisional military administrator" Derg in Ethiopia in 1974 , ideological differences arose with other liberation movements regarding the assessment of the political role of the Soviet Union. Until 1976, the EPLF and the increasingly insignificant ELF cooperated in the fight for Eritrea's independence. For the next few years it was closely associated with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). Until the victory in the Ethiopian civil war , when the coalition of the revolutionary democratic front of the Ethiopian peoples marched into Addis Ababa in May 1991, Afewerki remained leader of the EPLF and thus after de facto independence in 1991, which was followed by international recognition in 1993, naturally the first state and head of government of his homeland.

Politics as President

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President Isayas Afewerki (2002)

On May 22, 1993, the National Assembly of Eritrea elected Afewerki as President with 99 votes out of 104. Since the declaration of independence on May 24, 1993, Afewerki has been head of state and government rolled into one.

Afewerki's rule is described as authoritarian . A one-party system of the PFDJ has existed under his leadership since 1994. The 1997 constitution did not come into force. Its ideology is pragmatic, moderate Marxist. In doing so, he shows a sense of mission without, however, leading to a leadership cult. Even his fiercest political opponents do not accuse him of personal enrichment or corruption, as is often the case among African autocrats. Domestically, he relies on a group of old comrades, including Yemane Ghebreab (* 1954), Abraha Kassa (security services), Hagos Ghebrehiwot (finances) and Yemane Ghebremeskel (government spokesman ).

Foreign policy

In terms of foreign policy, Afewerki maintains good relations with the People's Republic of China , but also with Iran and Cuba . At the feast on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of China, while drunk, he expressed himself critical of the revisionism that has dominated there since 1979 and declared that he would remain an admirer of Mao Tse-tung .

Relations with Ethiopia and the USA remained tense until 2018.

Due to the decades-long war of independence against Ethiopia , Eritrea's independence is strongly emphasized, which is sometimes referred to as isolationism . The Eritrean-Ethiopian border war of 1998–2000 made it necessary to reorganize the Eritrean society through military organization, which continues to this day and is the main point of criticism of its external enemies. Ethiopia was supported by the USA in that war, so that they agitate against the political system and the powerful president. This is also because he supports groups other than the Americans in Somalia.

On July 9, 2018, Afewerki signed a peace treaty with Ethiopia's President Abiy Ahmed after he had given up his claim to the Eritrean region around Badme .

Personal

Afewerki speaks good Arabic. He is described as reticent and modest, albeit, as a result of 30 years of underground activity, suspicious and security-conscious. Occasionally he is quick-tempered.

Afewerki is married to Saba Haile, a fellow campaigner whom he met in Nakfa in 1981 . The couple has three children: Abraham (* 1982), Elsa (* 1991) and Berhane (* 1993).

Awards

• 1st class of the Order of Zayed, highest honor in the United Arab Emirates.

literature

• East, Roger [ed.]; Profiles of people in power: the world's government leaders; London, 2006 (Routledge), pp. 176f.
• Plaut, Martin: Understanding Eritrea; Oxford 2016

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fischer Weltalmanach 2003
2. ↑ See Grill, Bartholomäus; “He lives like a monk”; Spiegel, September 18, 2018
3. ↑ [1]
4. ↑ Eritrea, Foreign Policy. Federal Foreign Office, accessed on July 21, 2018 . 
5. ^ Self-reliance could cost Eritrea dear. In: BBC News. July 5, 2006, accessed January 25, 2014 . 
6. ↑ Ethiopia and Eritrea make peace. Time online from July 9, 2018
7. ↑ President Isaias Afwerki's Biography (as of 2010)

Web links

• Bio Notes on Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki (2008-11-12), author. by US Ambassador McMullen
• Human Rights Watch : World Report 2014. Eritrea