“Fellow Africa hand Remer Tyson and I were huddling behind the thickest wall we could find one bad morning in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and, as one does as the bullets fly, we grew philosophical, recalls International Affairs analyst Jonathan Manthorpe of a day in 1991. “If Africa had any sense,” said Remer, correspondent for a major American newspaper group, “it would give Somalia to the Eritreans to run.” “Trouble is,” he added, “the Eritreans are far too sensible to take it.”
That was then. Now, Eritrea is called “the North Korea of Africa” writes Manthorpe. An excerpt of today’s column:
After being the driving force behind the liberation of Ethiopia, the Eritreans gained their own independence in 1993. This was a time when many African nations were overthrowing the rule of “Big Man” dictators and embarking on the stormy transition to forms of democracy. In this sea change, Eritrea, with its compact and resource-rich territory and highly motivated people, was seen as potentially the most successful.
Instead, quite the reverse has happened. Eritrea is now often called “the North Korea of Africa.” That neatly sums up the reality of today’s Eritrea as a grim totalitarian state with prisons crammed full of dissidents, shunned by its neighbours, forced into diplomatic isolation, and with its economy buckling under United Nations sanctions.
No wonder that Eritrea’s diplomats in Canada, as they do elsewhere in the world, try to strong-arm emigrant Eritreans into donating two per cent of their incomes to the government in Asmara back home.
So what went wrong? The answer is President Isayas Afeworki … read more (subscription required)*
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Eritrea: the failure of Africa’s most promising nation
Jonathan Manthorpe’s columnist page is here.
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