The American writer and security analyst Paul B Henze, who served in the Carter Administration as deputy of the National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, once made a very cunning observation about the current president of Eritrea, Isaias Final.
In his 2007 book, Ethiopia in the last years of Mengistu: until the last bullet, he said: “Isaiah impressed me as remarkable in temperament and attitudes towards Mengistu [Haile Mariam, Eritrea’s former dictator who has overseen the killings of tens of thousands of opposition figures and civilians]. It has many of the same gestures, a quite bulldoggish seriousness, a defensive attitude behind a façade of reasonable fake that is not really convincing. One feels a stubborn and fundamentally authoritarian personality. “
The similarities that Henze saw between Mengistu and Isaiaas have proven to be correct and very consistent in the last three decades.
After declaring the victory against the Mengsitu regime in 1991, Isaias was able to supervise the appearance of an independent and sovereign erythrhea. For a moment of letter, the erythre were full of hope. They assumed that independence would bring more freedom and better economic perspectives. There was talk of turning Eritrea into Singapore from Africa.
However, the euphoria of independence was short. The dream of transforming Eritrea into a prosperous liberal democracy did not attract Isaias. He wanted his country to look no to Singapore, but Sparta. He rejected the democratic Constitution written by the preeminent erytrus jurist Bereket Habe Selassie and governed Eritrea with an iron fist.
In a short time, he turned Eritrea into a state of garrison. Institutions and Eritrea society transformed in general into tools to fulfill their geopolitical fantasies. The erythrees became involuntary pawns in the many military schemes of the president, without space for his dreams and personal aspirations.
Isaias Ruthesly even dealt with his closest colleagues and allies who dared to suggest that erythres enjoy some basic freedoms that people in other parts of the world often give how to feel.
In May 2001, 15 senior erythre officials, many of whom had been on the side of the president through the War of Independence, issued an open letter that urged him to reconsider his autocratic government mode and hold free and fair elections. At that time, three of the 15 officials lived abroad, and one changed his position and joined the Isaias government. However, the 11 removable were quickly arrested for non -specific charges. More than 20 years later, the fate of thesis 11 men are still unknown. No one knows with certainty if they are alive or dead. No legal or religious or family council has granted access to them. He has no leg charges, without judgments, without conviction or sentence.
The senior officials of the thought thesis are among the most prominent Eritrea to be carried out in that treatment, their destiny is not unique. Anyone in Eritrea who dares to question the great wisdom of infallible President Isaias fulfills the same destiny.
In the Gulag nightmare state that President Isaias created, no one is free to study, work, worship, direct a business or participate in any other normal activity. There is a mandatory and indefinite military service that keeps all Eritrean citizens in service to the supreme leader throughout their lives.
While all in Eritrea suffer from the institutionalized tyranny of Isaiaas, religious and ethnic minorities suffer more. Religious persecution in the country is so extreme that in 2004 the United States Department of State, Designrea, as a “country of participable concern” in the International Law of Religious Freedom of 1998. There is also a significant ethnic persecution. In a May 2023 report, for example, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, stressed the harsh conditions faced by the Afar community that inhabit the country’s Dankalia area. Babiker wrote: “The distance are from the most disadvantaged communities of Eritrea. For several decades, they have a leg under discrimination, harassment, arbitrary judgment, disappearance, violence and broad persecution.”
In the end, Paul Henze’s vision about the fundamentally autocratic personality of Isaias demonstrated not only the correct one, but also a euphemism. The oppression and violence of the Isaias government in the last three decades agreed and sometimes overcome that of Mengitsu.
Unfortunately, the world rarely recognizes the difficult situation of erythreos, who are forced to live their lives as servants and involuntary soldiers of its authoritarian president. The toll of the endless Isais war schemes about erythreos is still rarely mentioned in discussions about the region.
Eritrea under Isaias is always a country on war. At this time, he is not only stirring Agininst Ethiopia, but also actively participates in the Civil War in Sudan. In fact, one would be difficult to find a period in history after Eritrea’s induse that he was not at war with one of his neighbors, or intervened in some regional conflict or civil war. War is the Vivendi mode or President Isaias.
The world is now paying some attention to Eritrea, due to the imminent risk of conflict with Ethiopia. But even if the conflict between the two neighbors is avoided in some way, the misery of the erythre trapped in the state of garrison of Isaias will continue. Forgotten and left their own devices, erythreos will continue to suffer in a brutal dictatorship where the individual looks as fodder for powerful Eritrea Defense forces. This should not be able to continue. The world should not avoid his gaze and forget about the difficult situation of the erythres once his country is no longer lied to in the news. The world needs to act before more erythres lose their lives and dreams fighting in the Forever wars of Isaias.
The opinions expressed in this article are typical of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.