This book gives a detailed description of Eritrea's post-war politics
and is the first comprehensive analysis of the country's economy.
Eritrean independence under the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (now
the People's Front for Democracy and Justice) became an international
cause celebre during the 1980s. Eritrea was the first African nation to
gain independence in the post-colonial period and appeared to be opening
a new and progressive path in African politics. But the promise of the
revolution was soon betrayed by the outbreak of war with Ethiopia, the
PFDJ's increasingly repressive domestic policies, its mismanagement of
the country's economy, and its hostile relations with its neighbours.
The PFDJ government dismantled existing formal and informal
institutions, crippled the private sector, banned private newspapers,
civil and political society organisations, expelled international NGOs
and aid agencies when over two-thirds of the population were dependent
on food aid, detained without trial journalists, thousands of
dissidents, and former leaders of the liberation struggle, and turned
national service from an instrument of nation building and national
integration into an instrument of open-ended forced labour.
In this well-researched first account of post-independence Eritrea, Gaim
Kibreab gives a detailed and critical analysis of how things went
woefully wrong and how the former 'liberators' turned into oppressors
with no respect for the rule of law, human rights andreligious freedom.
GAIM KIBREAB is Professor of Research & Director of Refugee Studies,
Department of Social & Policy Studies, London South Bank University
Published in association with the Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
