Obituary: Dr. Hashim Gamal A-Din A-Shami

Obituary: Dr. Hashim Gamal A-Din A-Shami

Dr. Hashim Gamal A-Din A-Shami passed away in Istanbul, Turkey, where he was taking medical treatment on Monday, August 1, 2022. Dr. Hashim was born in the Red Sea coastal city of Tio, Eritrea, in 1948, to his father, Sheikh Gamal A-Din Ibrahim Khalil, and mother, Handia Humo Motala.

A veteran UN official and a writer, Dr. Hashim was a well-versed intellectual interested in peoples' causes in the region and beyond. He was interested in the history and studies of East Africa and the Southern Arabian Peninsula. Dr. A-Shami was a man of high integrity, social, kind, and generous. Though born in Eritrea, he felt he belonged to all Afar in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. His most significant contribution to the Afar was his book, 'Al Manhal: The Source in the History and Narratives of the Afar (Danakil),' which was issued in 1991 in Arabic with a second edition in 1996. The book is about 750 pages. The book was translated to Amharic, with additions to the Arabic version in 2007 with the title ዓፋር (ደንከል) ታሪክና መረጃ አርክ ምንጭ. The book was translated to English in 2018.

The book presents analytical and documentary accounts of Afar (Danakil/Adal) in relations with neighboring peoples around the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It includes over 30 colored maps and copies of 19 fundamental conventions, protocols, treaties, and pacts between Afar (Danakil, Adal) Sultanates and Sheikhdoms with colonial powers (Italy and France).

​Moreover, it covers various dimensions: Afar political history; structure of the Afar Sultanates; degree of decentralization; religious aspects from pre-Christianity and pre-Islamic ages up to date (2017); social systems; the pedigree of Afar tribes; Afar social and economic life according to the categories for the period 1800-1960; Afar socio-civilizational manifestations from 600 BC to 10 AD which includes Afar ports, cities and ways of living, particularly in Afar coastal belt from the north of Dahlak Archipelago to Zeila; the presence of the Ottoman empire over very few points of the Afar coast during 1647-1866; and the Egyptian existence in some of the Afar mentioned ports up to 1885.

​Dr. Hashim descended from an Islamic religious family, and his grandfather was an Islamic scholar who made Tio a spiritual center. After completing elementary and secondary school, Dr. Hashim traveled to Egypt, where he got his bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics and agronomy from Cairo High Polytechnic Institute in 1970 with outstanding results and was the first in his batch. After returning from Cairo, managed the Awsa informal cooperative, a semi-mechanized farm of 25,000 hectares in the lower Awash Valley. He got his MSc degree at Arizona State University with honors in Agricultural Economics in 1974 and completed his Ph.D. studies in Economics at Wisconsin University in 1979. 

From 1980 to 1985, he worked as an Economist for the oil, gas, water, agriculture, and desalination sectors in the Ministry of Planning in Saudi Arabia, where he contributed substantially to the 5-year development plan in the kingdom. He joined United Nations (UN) 's FAO as an economist based in Rome and was a Regional officer for Near East and North Africa, 1985-1989.

Dr. Hashim was appointed Chief Technical Advisor, Senior Planning Economist, and Team Leader at the United Nations Department of Social Affairs from 1989 to 1996. He was FAO representative in Nigeria and Yemen 1996-2008. During his term in Nigeria, he also engaged and contributed to the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS). During his tenure in the United Nations, he met many leaders in the countries he worked and visited which gave him an in-depth knowledge of Horn of Africa, in particular and Africa and the Middle East. He retired in 2008. Dr. Hashim served as Development Adviser to the Government of Djibouti from 2009-2014.

While studying at the university in Egypt, Dr. Hashim accompanied Sultan Ali Mirah Hanafi in his meetings with Egyptian officials in 1967. He witnessed an undeclared agreement between Egypt (represented in the person of Mr. Mohammed Fayek, Head of the Department of African Affairs in the Egyptian Presidency) and Afar leader Ali Arif Burhan and Sultan Ali Mirah Hanfari. Egypt agreed to the independence of Djibouti for the first time. Egypt also convinced other Arab countries to follow suit. Previously Egypt supported the accession of Djibouti to Somalia. As it is well known that both Somalia and Ethiopia claimed Djibouti. The opinion of the Sultan was if Djibouti was not independent, there might be a war between Ethiopia and Somalia on the issue. Just before the independence of Djibouti, the Government of the Republic of Somalia, particularly the President, Mr. Mohamed Siad Barre, approved it. Thus, Djibouti obtained its independence without obstacles. Sultan Ali Mirah Hanfari got scholarships to Afar students from Egypt in 1967. Egypt also provided a radio broadcast in the Afar language, where Dr. Hashim worked for a short while.

As a personal note, Dr. Akrem Ali Altom, introduced to Dr. Hashim in Egypt, and we became close friends from the first day. He was a mentor, and I have learned many issues from him pertaining to the Afar people and the region's political dynamics. He not only encouraged me to author a book about Eritrea but kept pushing me till I finished it, "The Dynamics of the unfinished African Dream: Ancient Times to 1968". He introduced me to many valuable references. He also contributed substantially to the chapter about the ancient history of Eritrea but did not permit me to acknowledge that in the book. I spoke to him regularly. Almost at least once a week, we exchanged views on regional developments. He will be deeply missed.

Dr. Hashim is survived by two sons, two daughters, and several grandchildren.

Highlights from the Curriculum Vitae of Dr. Hashim Gamal A-Din A-Shami written in 2011

EXPERIENCE: Over 31 years of actual experience (excluding post-graduate time):

      -        Assistant Terminal Superintendent, Mobil Oil, (Ethiopia).

-                General Manager of an agricultural enterprises with semi mechanized 25000 hectares in Ethiopia; (Awash valley) (1971-1973); His Highness the late Sultan Ali Mirah,  was the chairman of the entity in subject.

-        Also worked an adviser to Sultan Ali Mirah 1971-1973.

-        5 ½ years as a Senior Economist (Planner), Natural Resources Department (water, desalination, agriculture, oil and gas), the Ministry of Planning in Saudi Arabia (1980- 1985);

-        2 ½ years as Regional Adviser for the Near East and North Africa Region (training in planning) in Rome, at FAQ Headquarters (1985-1988)·

-        6 ½ years as a Senior Economist/Planner to the Ministry of Planning starting from Jan.4, 1988, under United Nation Department for Economic and Social Affairs (N.Y) UNDESA, FAO and UNDP joint project under UNDESA

      -        July I, 1994, to May 1996 as a Chief Technical Adviser and Team Leader in UNDESA (United

            Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, N.Y.) project in Saudi Arabia, Grade D-1;

      -        June 1, 1996, to July 11, 2002 FAO Representative in Nigeria,

Grade 0-1

 

-        June 1,1996 to July 11 2002 FAQ Representative (FOCAL POINT) to The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It is a regional group of 15 West African Countries founded on 28 May 1975. FA0 has a Regional Office in Accra, Ghana, that covers the same countries and more

 

-        July 12, 2002 to October 31^st , 2008, FAQ Representative in Yemen, Grade D-1;

      -        Acted several times as UN Resident Coordinator in Nigeria and Yemen. Also, as a Dean of The UN Group due to a long stay in both countries

     -        November 1, 2008, Retired

    -        November 2008 - to 2011: Advisor to the Gov. of Djibouti also as consultant in economics

    -        Lectured on development planning (concepts and techniques) at the Arab Planning Institute (API), Kuwait; the Institute of National Planning (INP), Cairo; Arizona State University (ASU), USA, etc. These tasks were undertaken during his tenure with UNDESA and FAO as part of assignments. His counterparts in the aforementioned Institutes were Professor Abdul Aziz Ibrahim at INP; Professor Abdulla at API and Professor Philip Stiles at ASU. He had drafted and/or contributed in drafting operational plans for oil, gas, water, desalination and agriculture for a two-consecutive, Five-year development plans for Saudi Arabia 

-        Also assumed responsibility as a member of Financial Ceiling Committee in two Mid-Term Plans as well as member of Energy Committee during 5th Development Plan.

 

 Honours: 

·       Ideal student for 1969, Egypt (Faculty level).

·       B.Sc. Grade: Excellent and ranked 1^st out of classes for whole academic period 1966- 1970

·       M.Sc. Grade 4.00 out of 4.00, Straight A at Arizona State University, Tempe, USA (1973-1974)

·       Ph.D. Dissertation, Grade=A, University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA.

·       In 1972 granted Honorary Citizenship of USA

            by the City Government of Lubbock Texas ,USA. This took place

            during a visit on the invitation by the US State Department. Visited

           Chamber of Commerce’s bureaus, agricultural production units,

            agro-industries, irrigation schemes and commodity markets in the

            following states: W.D.C., Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona,

       California, Illinois, N.Y., and Puerto Rico.

·       In June 1986, received from Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA, a plaque for special recognition for outstanding services in international development.

·       In 1994, received from the UNDP in collaboration with the concerned Government department of the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a plaque for special appreciation for distinguished contribution in the training of the Saudi nationals through a UNDP/UNDESA project

 

PUBLICATIONS:

•       The Impact of Cotton on the Economic Development of Egypt, 1952-1976

 

Published June 1980, Publisher: University Micro-films International 3000 ZEEB Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106 USA. ORDER No. 8007539 PP.358 (Ph. D) DISSERTATION. Among other things analysis/evaluation were based on three econometric models. Also, two mathematical models were developed (i) one for measurement of resources transfer from cotton sub-sector to the rest of economy and vice-versa and (ii) a model for import substitution efficiency measure for the infant industry (cotton-based industry).

 

Over the period of the study productivities of the whole Egyptian economy, industry, cotton-based industry, and oil sector were calculated for comparative analysis. Also, income distribution and employment generation analyses were made.

 

A DOZEN OF PUBLICATIONS IN ECONOMNIC AND FINANCIAL STUDIES

 

Most of these were issued by sponsoring institutions, organizations, and employers. The ownership of publications belongs to the sponsors.

 

PERIODICAL REPORTS: 

Quarterly report on petroleum and other energy sources, jointly prepared by A-Shami and Dr. Khalil Mohamed Zahr, Senior Energy Adviser, Ministry of planning (MOP), Saudi Arabia, about 5-15 pages; each issue for the period 1982-1984 (in Arabic and English). Series of reports were written - jointly with Dr. Zahr on Energy (particularly oil related) during 1988-1994. Ownership of These reports are belonged to MOP.

 

DEVELOPMENT OF QUANTITATIVE TOOLS FOR POLICY ANALYSIS:

 Contribution in development of L.T. Energy Model (world demand/supply for energy including oil) for Saudi Arabia done in collaboration of UNDESA and the Institute of Statistics Norway - Oslo. 

"A Medium-Term Oil Model" jointly developed by Dr. Khalil Zahr, Senior Energy Advisor, UNDESA and A-Shami for the Ministry of Planning of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia prepared under the project SAU/94/001 "Support for Economic Planning, Modeling and MIS Development", March 1996. It was meant to complement the system of macro-economic Models. The Model was conceptualized, specified, designed and estimated by Zahr and A-Shami while its programming and implementation on the TROLL system was undertaken by the Institute of Statistics Norway, Oslo, under leadership of Professor Olav Berjkholt 

Updating and enhancement of a Food Demand Model for planning purpose  

Travels: visited most of European countries, most of West Africa, East African countries,

South Africa, 18 Arab countries, Turkey, UK and USA (Half of its States, Puerto Rico and Virgin Island) 

Conferences & Seminars: Attended a large number of workshops, seminars and conferences mainly pertinent to Socio-Economic Development and a few as observer on Conflict Resolution.  

Hobby: Reading about development issues and Modern Arab and East African history.

 

 ----------

Mohamed Kheir Omer

A treasure trove: Some 90 historical books and documents on Sudan

 A treasure trove: Some 90 historical books and documents on Sudan

https://app.mediafire.com/y2i1s516m484k

The Rise of Political parties in Sudan 1936 - 1946 PhD Thesis

 The Rise of Political parties in Sudan 1936 - 1946 a PhD thesis by Alexander Solon Cudsi 

Can be downloaded at https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/28607/1/10672766.pdf

Or at 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/47w88xxro6z315u/Sudan+RISE+OF+POLITICAL+PARTIES+1936+to+1946.pdf/file

A 2019 PhD Thesis: MODELING THE LOCAL POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ADULIS: 1000 BCE – 700 ACE

 

MODELING THE LOCAL POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ADULIS: 1000 BCE – 700 ACE 

A 2019 PhD Thesis   DANIEL T. HABTEMICHAEL Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

https://www.academia.edu/81479533/Modeling_the_Local_Political_Economy_of_Adulis_1000_BCE_700_ACE

Two political economy models are used to critically evaluate the energetics data from the built-forms combined to another set of data of essential artifacts from the site. The traditional political economy perspective holds that Adulis is a periphery, a port in an Aksum dominated world economy. An alternative theoretical position proposed in this dissertation is that Adulis was an independent state and a center of its own. 

The dissertation research shows the archaeological data supports that Adulis was a center of its own. Moreover, the dissertation successfully establishes the basis of Adulis' political economy by distinctly illustrating its role in interregional trades in aromatics, readiness to train and export war elephants, and its perceived upper-tier rank in governance locally and among other Red Sea ports. Early involvement of Adulis in the aromatics trades of the Red Sea instituted tangible and intangible political economy capital. However, it was a combination of Adulis’ capability to export war elephants in wars of local and general interest, its strategic location connecting the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean worlds, responsible governance, and its favorable climatic conditions all were factors in Adulis’ significant position in antiquity.

 

A Portrait: Isaias Afwerki, The Man & The Dictator

By

 Faisal Ali and Mohamed Kheir Omer

 11 April 2022 

0

6703

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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

Islamic Brotherhoods in Ethiopia and Eritrea by Jonathan Miran

Islamic Brotherhoods in Ethiopia and Eritrea by Jonathan Miran

https://www.mediafire.com/file/y9h2i1tiy3en290/Islamic_Brotherhoods_in_Ethiopia_and_Er+(1).pdf/file 

Rab'att: A traditional Youth Association Among Tigrait Speaking Communities in Eritrea

 

Rab'att: A traditional Youth Association Among Tigrait Speaking Communities in Eritrea

The "Rab'at Dsllālat". A presentation of the Tigre text Author(s): Glanfrancesco Lusini and Mohammed-Ali Ibrahim Mohammed Source: Rassegna di Studi Etiopici , 2012, Nuova Serie, Vol. 4 (47) (2012), pp. 205-213 Published by: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino S

https://www.mediafire.com/file/a6sziz4ffxobbiq/Rabaat+Traditional+Youth+Association.pdf/file

REPORT ON ERITREAN REFUGEES IN TIGRAY & THE ETHIOPIAN CIVIL WAR 2022

 REPORT ON ERITREAN REFUGEES IN TIGRAY & THE  ETHIOPIAN CIVIL WAR  2022 

Download the report: https://www.mediafire.com/file/3mpq138pqawpra2/Between_a_Rock_and_a_Hard_PlacEritrean_Refugees_in_Tigray_and_Ethiopian_Civil_War_2022.pdf/file