Isaiah Afewerki

Isaías Afewerki (Asmara, Ethiopian Empire, February 2, 1946) is an Eritrean dictator, president de facto of his country since 1991, later elected on February 24. May 1993 after a referendum in which 95% of the electorate approved the new constitution.

Biography

In 1966 he joined the Front for the Liberation of Eritrea (FLE) and traveled to the People's Republic of China where he joined the Army for training. He later co-founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Eritrea and was appointed secretary general in 1987. After his country's independence, he became its first president and led the subsequent armed clashes with Ethiopia. He turned the FPLE into the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) which functions as a single party. He has not called free elections since his accession to the presidency.

As President of Eritrea

Although the separation from Ethiopia was amicable, in 1994 it severed diplomatic relations with the Ethiopians. The situation coincided with the start of financing the Sudanese guerrilla and the dispute over the Hanish Islands, which led to a confrontation with Yemen. He maintained good relations with the United States by defending the segregation of Eritrea, but the situation worsened successively due, on the one hand, to the fact that the country had not managed to overcome the subsistence economy, on the other to the confrontations with neighboring countries and, finally, First, the declared war with Ethiopia for two years over sterile border territories that ended with a severe military defeat of the Eritreans at the hands of the Ethiopian army in 2000, when they occupied the port of Asab, right in the southernmost tip of the country..

After signing peace with the Ethiopians and reaching an agreement with Sudan, the Afewerki government has remained under criticism for the serious economic and social situation in the country, described by the US ambassador in 2010, Ronald McMullen, to the point out to the State Department that "Eritrean youth are fleeing their country in droves, the economy appears to be in a death spiral, Eritrea's prisons are overflowing..."; the successive famines in the country (the last in 2011), the lack of democratic freedoms and the repression of public liberties that, according to Amnesty International, have landed 10,000 Eritreans in prison. According to a Reporters Without Borders report, he would have uttered the phrase:

Those who think there will be democracy in this country can think of it in another world.

Isaiah Afeworki

Signing of peace with Ethiopia

On July 9, 2018, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared an end to the state of war between their two countries and the normalization of their relations. The diplomatic rapprochement progressively improved, on July 16 he traveled to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa for a diplomatic visit and announced the reopening of the Ethiopian embassy in Eritrea. On July 19, Ahmed appoints the first Ethiopian ambassador to Eritrea in twenty years, Redwan Hussein.

On September 11, 2018, on the occasion of the Ethiopian New Year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaías Afewerki reopened the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia, which had been closed since 1998. The two border crossings correspond to: the cities of Bure, Ethiopia and Debay Sima, Eritrea, and to the northwest between Zalambessa (Ethiopia) and Serha (Eritrea).

This was widely recognized by numerous world leaders and the United Arab Emirates government awarded Isaias Afwerki the Order of Zayed (First Class) in recognition of his efforts to end the conflict. As part of the closer ties between the two countries, the Ethiopian and Eritrean intelligence agencies began close cooperation after July 2018, which concerned Eritrean refugees in Addis Ababa, some of whom were temporarily detained for three weeks during the Tigray war, acquitted by Ethiopian courts. and only released two weeks after his acquittal.

Tigray War

During the Tigray War, which began on 4 November 2020 with a pre-emptive strike against the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) Northern Command center by TPLF-affiliated forces, there was close widely recognized cooperation between the ENDF and the Eritrean Defense Forces (EDF). The war started after the TPLF, Tigray's ruling party, attacked the ENDF camps in Tigray and pushed them into Eritrea. Eritrean forces joined the ENDF and, allegedly with the help of armed UAE drones, counterattacked TPLF forces. There was alleged looting in the Tigray region, including large-scale systematic looting in Aksum following the massacre in that city in late November 2020.

After several weeks of the Ethiopian government denying the presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Prime Minister admitted the presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia and agreed to withdraw them. Under international pressure, on March 26, 2021, following a meeting between Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Isaias, it was announced that Eritrean troops would withdraw from the Tigray region. As of June 30, 2021, Eritrean forces had not yet withdrawn from Tigray.

Criticism

In June 2015, a United Nations panel accused Isaias of leading a totalitarian government responsible for systematic human rights violations in Eritrea that may amount to crimes against humanity. Amnesty International believes that the government of President Isaias Afwerki has imprisoned at least 10,000 political prisoners. Amnesty also claims that torture - to punish, interrogate and coerce - is widespread.

The Eritrean government denies the allegations and, in turn, accuses Amnesty International of supporting a political agenda of "regime change."

Although Isaias criticized other leaders during the African Union summit in Cairo in 1993 for staying in power too long while also rejecting the cult of personality, his former comrade Andebrhan Welde Giorgis said of Isaias: &# 34;having personalized power, he has abused it to the fullest"