Following a series of interviews with former colleagues, this is an attempt to profile one of Africa’s most reclusive and authoritarian leaders. Though he remarkably outlasted his peers, his unwillingness to change is now detrimental to his country and its neighbours. https://democracyinafrica.org/a-portrait-isaias-afworki-the-man-the-dictator/
A Portrait: Isaias Afworki, The
Man & The Dictator
11.04.2022 published at Democracyinafrica.com
Faisal Ali, Mohamed Kheir Omer
Following a series of
interviews with former colleagues, this is an attempt to
profile one of Africa's most reclusive and
authoritarian leaders. Though he remarkably outlasted his peers, his
willingness to change is now detrimental to his country and its neighbours.
Isaias Afwerki has never faced an election in
the three decades he's led his country. He tends not to mince words about why
this is the case. Isaias cannot stand to take a mandate from the people as that
will limit his powers. He believes his stewardship is necessary to safeguard
the integrity of the young republic he believes he steered to independence. He
doesn't do it for fun or glory, as he explained in a rare personal interview
in 1996. Isaias said he "dislikes" politics but views it as a sacred
"duty." "Whenever justice is missing in a society, it always
grates on you," he said.
This calling, he explained, has come at a
tremendous personal sacrifice, forcing him to put aside his own personal,
artistic and literary pursuits to lead his nation. "I do not like the life
of a politician," he continued, "I don't even like to live like a
president." Given that's the way he feels, it should come as no surprise
that by all common understandings of what these roles entail, he doesn't do
politics, nor does he live like your regular president. At the age of 62, Isaias told a visiting German
parliamentarian in late 2008 that he is healthy and expects to live another 40 or 50 years, during which he hopes to continue to
lead his country.
The mere suggestion that he needed a mandate
from the Eritrean people took him by surprise when a journalist fielded a
question about when polls might be held in the country. "What elections?"
Afwerki brusquely responded combatively before launching a seemingly unrelated
diatribe against the United States. "We will see what the elections in the
United States will bring, and we will wait about three or four decades until we
see genuine, natural situations emerge." "Maybe more, maybe more, who
knows," he said with a chillingly straight face.
His style of engagement with the media -
seesawing between reclusive aloofness & combative engagement - is refracted
through his regime's foreign policy. His country had a thorny baptism in
regional geopolitics, directly warring with all its neighbours (and Yemen) and
extending its influence as far as Congo, where Eritrean forces helped bring
Laurent Kabila to power in 1997. His three-decade-old vendetta with the Tigray
People's Liberation Front (TPLF) put him among the architects of Ethiopia's war
with the organisation in Tigray. The US re-imposed sanctions on the
country for its role in Ethiopia's war, where Eritrean forces are accused of gross human rights abuses & war crimes, ending a brief four-year interlude where Eritrea was
sanctions-free.
Like his old friend Gaddafi, Isaias revels in
the anti-American tough-guy brand he's now cultivated, although he once
supported the US war in Iraq, offering it a base. He more recently sealed his position among an
isolated club of states, including Iran, North Korea, Russia and Syria when
Eritrea voted against a UNGA resolution condemning Russia's invasion of
Ukraine. This didn't surprise observers of Eritrea as its foreign minister
visited South Ossetia and
Crimea after Russia occupied both
territories.
But ultimately, Eritrea was never big enough
for Isaias, and he was always too aloof to engage with bodies that might limit
his influence. When he attended his first continental summit in 1993 with the
AU's predecessor, the Organisation for African Unity, he viewed the AU as a tool for American hegemony - calling the organisation an abject
failure. Eritrea only joined "in the
spirit of familial obligation." He held East Africa's regional body IGAD
in similar contempt. He also worked with Gaddafi, an old ally, on an ambitious
bid to form an alternative body to the African Union called the Community of Sahel-Saharan States in 1998 to no avail.
Early Life & The Guerrilla Years
Very few have been so resistant to change
throughout their lives, despite the significant changes in their fortunes, as Isaias.
He has always been notoriously brutal, hot-tempered, secretive and unwilling to
indulge any opposition. He created and lived through history, betrayed and was
betrayed, and made and broke lives with the same demeanour today as he had when
he was an adolescent revolutionary, according to former colleagues of his we
interviewed. "The jaded emotional view," he said in his 1996
interview, was "fostered with time and loss of colleagues.” "You then
ask yourself, am I not human?" he added.
American journalist Robert Kaplan first met Isaias
in the mid-80s during the heady days of Eritrea's independence war. Isaias’
mustache, clipped perfectly then as now, sat perched above a mouth, which when
open in public delivers, Kaplan said, "a cold, authoritative style of
speech". In his book Surrender or Starve, Kaplan observed that
Isaias had "affected a military disposition," a rock-hard
stubbornness and indifference about how he realizes his goals. This trait would
both serve and undermine him during his stormy political career.
The second eldest in a family of eight, Isaias
was born in Asmara under British rule in 1946. He was never one to accept
second fiddle, and according to people who grew up with him, this trait was a
crucial part of his character since childhood. He
wanted to captain all his neighbourhood teams, always insisting on sitting in
the best seat available at home. He slapped
an American high school physics teacher who gave him a bad grade. But it was in Eritrea's independence movement where Isaias
made his name.
He first joined Eritrea's independence movement
with the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). Unlike most of his colleagues
who joined the armed struggle after leaving their studies in good standing, he
left Haile Selassie University after failing his freshman exams. This factor
may somewhat explain Isaias' inferiority complex towards his comrade (which he
eventually eliminated) and why he attempted to wear the robe of an
intellectual. Kaplan believed Isaias was the most "intellectually interesting
politician in the history of postcolonial Africa.” Clinton similarly extolled
him as a “renaissance African leader.” Though he
presides annually over military graduations at Sawa, he has never attended a university
graduation ceremony.
Michael Gabr, a member of an ELF cell with
Isaias in Addis, feared Isaias would form his own power centre in the
organisation. According to Haile Durue, Isaias and himself joined the ELF to split it and
create their organisation. While Gabr wasn't wrong about Isaias’s intent, he
certainly underestimated his ambition. Isaias could not accept being a member
of the ELF leadership. He needed an organisation where he commanded absolute
authority. After he returned from China, where the ELF sent him for military
and ideological training during Mao's now-infamous Cultural Revolution, Isaias's
return would be decisive for the future of the Eritrean liberation movement. US
diplomatic notes said he "was turned off by the cult of personality
surrounding Mao" but internalized the need to eliminate political
opponents, leading him to the summit of Eritrea's liberation movement.
The first challenge to his leadership after splitting from the ELF was in
1973. Some of his former colleagues and classmates called for democratic
decision-making and more accountability from the leadership. The dissidents
were labeled 'Menkae', Tigrinya word for bat (meaning
those who moved at night). The ring leaders were executed, and others
imprisoned for years. This challenge led to forming a notorious and highly
feared security apparatus, 'Halewa Sowra,' another Tigrinya word for 'guardians
of the revolution.' This apparatus proved a crucial tool for Isaias to
consolidate his grip over the EPLF and its successor, the People's Front for
Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), which has existed only in name since 2001. The US
ambassador to Eritrea quoted his Chinese counterpart, who said
that Isaias "learned all the wrong things" during his stint in their
country. All decisions were his; there was no space for alternative views.
Eritrea's former central bank governor &
diplomat, Andebrhan Welde Giorgis, who the president fired for refusing an
order to transfer funds illicitly, said the "air vibrated with tension"
during their meetings. "He got so furious and agitated that his neck veins
seemed about to burst," Giorgis wrote. His
temperamental unwillingness to accept anything but his view was also displayed
when he hosted a dinner for US
embassy officials in 2008, where he became involved in a heated discussion about
tomatoes. Isaias complained that despite his wife's efforts, some tomatoes she
was growing came out too small, to which a legal advisor responded that cherry
tomatoes are meant to be small. Afwerki stormed out of the room, surprising
even his security detail.
Development Policies
Some observers and UN officials applaud Isaias's development
and self-reliance policies. The Eritrean regime prides itself on achieving the Millennium Development Goals, particularly
in the health sector, such as reducing maternity child mortality, improving
maternal health, and combating diseases like malaria and HIV. In Eritrea's response to the Universal
Periodic Review of the UN's Human Rights Council of 2014, the government stated
that its key national priorities are creating and enhancing a conducive
environment for its citizens to exercise their fundamental human rights in the 'broadest definition of the term.' But
the EU indicates that the country is facing
considerable challenges: ensuring food security, providing and updating essential
social services, and combatting youth unemployment. Regarding health services
in the country, it is worth noting that Eritrea is the only country in Africa
that has denied
its population Covid-19 vaccines without any explanation.
Eritreans we speak to inside Eritrea, and recent visitors to the country,
paint a gloomy picture. There is an acute shortage of essential medicines.
Despite the need for health services, the government closed 22 health clinics operated by the
Eritrean Catholic Church in 2019 because of the Church's criticism of the government.
Poorly paid doctors are not allowed to use private clinics after government
work hours, thus overloading hospital services. Dr. Futsum Ghebrenegus,
Eritrea's only psychiatrist in a traumatised country,
has been in prison since 2004 for his religious views, and his whereabouts are
still unknown.
Isaias prides himself on self-reliance, but the country doesn't publicise
its loans and development aid. It has never published a budget since independence.
In Eritrea, everything is confidential, but lenders are transparent. Eritrea
has borrowed 631 million US dollars from China from 2000 to 2018. World Bank data indicates that Eritrea
received 4.36 billion US dollars in net official development assistance and
official aid from 1992 to 2019. A US Bankruptcy Court ruled Eritrea pay $286m loans
to Qatar
National Bank (QNB). QNB can search anywhere the government may have assets and
retrieve them to satisfy its debt. Though Eritrea has taken baby steps
in the right direction on health, the drawbacks of the country's governance
structure have undermined further progress.
"In Isaias, time stopped."
Eritrea has fought both offensive and
defensive wars with its neighbours and has harboured simmering grudges against
them. It has been a victim of international intrigue and a perpetrator of
elaborate plots. It has armed and faced down rebel groups. It has had its
borders contested and has contested the boundaries of its neighbours. Nowhere
have these dynamics played out more intensely than in Isaias's turbulent
relationship with his old friends in Eritrea's parent state Ethiopia.
Isaias and former Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi reportedly lived together in North Mogadishu, where both were
provided Somali passports and given a radio frequency to broadcast in Tigrinya
and Arabic. Their movements would eventually end President Mengistu Haile Mariam’s reign with the TPLF serving as the battering ram,
triumphantly marching on Addis Ababa and installing a new regime. It was a remarkable achievement. "It is as though Soviet Communism had been overthrown
not by Russians but by Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians had taken power in
Moscow," read one letter
to the New Yorker.
Immediately after the independence of Eritrea,
Isaias and Meles were on good terms. According to a senior Eritrean official,
both worked together to influence Somalia by supporting warlord Farah Aideed
after the fall of President Siad Barre. Meles, however, was always uneasy about
his relationship with Isaias, who he tended to view as a ruthless and volatile
figure. Isaias' suspicions arose when he believed Zenawi
attempted to kill him in a plane he arranged for Isaias, which caught fire but
landed safely in 1996. Isaias rarely forgets and doesn't tend to forgive
betrayal, as with the case of former information minister Niazghi Kiflu, once a
close ally who left the country for medical help to London and was denied burial in Eritrea
after they fell out despite pleas for clemency. However, with Meles, the stakes
were higher, and the hostility ran deeper. These dynamics took a deadly turn
when a border dispute erupted into a full-scale war in 1998, confirming Isaias'
fears about his big neighbour.
When Isaias said the injustice
"grates" him, he wasn't kidding, but his predictable responses were violence
and silence. For a good reason, he was furious when the UN awarded Eritrea
control over Badme, a small town on their shared border, but Ethiopia refused
to let it go, which put more bad blood between the leaderships of both
countries. The unresolved border dispute gave Isaias justification to create a
political vacuum domestically, put his country on a permanent war footing, and
take part in a regional proxy conflict with Ethiopia. He wouldn't accept the
humiliation of defeat again and began biding his time before he could settle
the score.
Isaias' sense of unfairness was further provoked
when he was singled out with sanctions for playing spoiler for the groups
across the region he supported (allegedly including Al-Shabab). TPLF-dominated
Ethiopia, which did the same, got away scot-free. Ethiopia engaged the
international community, whilst Eritrea said it did nothing wrong and
retreated. "The regime virtually dared the UN Security Council by
insisting on its blanket denial," Giorgis, former president of the Bank of
Eritrea and its EU ambassador afterward, observed in his book. This insistence
on denial when caught and silence when speech is required is a trademark of
Isaias's character and regime.
In 2012, PM Meles Zenawi, Isaias' foe, died. The
TPLF saw a fall from grace in Ethiopian politics, which continued until PM Abiy
Ahmed took up the mantle and set himself the task of dismembering the TPLF and
its networks in the Ethiopian state. The TPLF's leadership generally held
Ahmed's new administration in contempt, with its head Debtresion Gebremichael calling the new PM "immature.”.
Isaias saw an opportunity to break out of his isolation in Ethiopia's shifting
tides and warmly embraced the young prime minister with whom he concluded a
peace deal, the details of which remain obscure, which won Ahmed the Nobel
Peace Prize.
Isaias is a cunning manipulator
and determined survivor, and by 2018, he emerged as the grand older man of East
African politics. Zenawi had died, Ethiopian and Kenyan leaders came and went,
Somalia imploded, and Sudan split with a coup toppling its long-time leader, Omar Bashir. Isaias, however, remained, having changed little about his
government. According to one analyst, regional leaders today seek his advice, likely impressed by his remarkable
longevity despite his isolation.
Just as he taunted the ELF when
he defeated them during the independence war, mere victory wouldn't be enough
against the TPLF. He had to rub it in. The day before Ahmed launched his
campaign against the TPLF with Isaias' support in November 2020, the Eritrean
embassy in Addis Ababa put a cryptic post on its Facebook page, which ended ominously with: "Game Over!"
The differences between Isaias
and the TPLF weren't only personal. Isaias profoundly disagreed with the way Meles
re-organised the Ethiopian state. Isaias always thought ethnic and religious
sectarianism was a blight, and his party rejected this doctrine much earlier. For
him, it is more difficult to influence or manipulate a federal state than a
centralised one. He never talks about his Tigrayan ethnic background nor makes it a vehicle for his brand of politics. However,
its institutionalisation in Ethiopia threatened Eritrea’s own more centralised
and controlled regime.
As he broaches that threat and Eritrean troops
occupy parts of Ethiopia's Tigray region, it is difficult not to reflect on the
last time Isaias found himself in a similar role as Ethiopia's kingmaker almost
three decades ago as a young rebel. He worked to undermine one rebel group and
form another. That rebel group overthrew one of Africa's most able governments
and separated itself from it, creating a new state and a new society. Whilst
many struggle to break with their pasts imprisoned by the circumstances they
inherit, Isaias has always been a leader who played high stakes and needed to
look forward. His great vice, in many ways, wasn't that he was chained to his
past; he chained himself to it and dragged it into his present like a wrecking
ball.
Faisal
Ali is (@fromadic92) a multi-media
journalist based in Istanbul. He writes about East African culture and
politics.
Mohamed
Kheir Omer
(@mkheirom) is an African-Norwegian, researcher, and writer based in Oslo,
Norway. He is a former member of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF).
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Amharic translation of the article: (25) "ፕሬዚዳንትነቱን አልፈልገውም፣ ፖለቲካም ያስጠላኛል" ኢሳያስ አፈወርቂ| ETHIO FORUM - YouTube