Isaias Afwerki (born February 2, 1946, Asmara, Eritrea) is an Eritrean independence leader and has been the president of Eritrea since 1993.
When Isaias was born in 1946 in Asmara, the city was under the United Nations-mandated control of the United Kingdom. Eritrea itself was federated to Ethiopia in 1952 and was forcibly annexed 10 years later. This annexation spurred the formation of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in the Eritrean western lowlands. Isaias studied engineering in Ethiopia at the University of Addis Ababa, but he left the university in 1966 to join the ELF. During Ethiopia’s own revolution in 1974, Isaias led the highland-dominated Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). In 1987 he was elected secretary-general of the EPLF. After years of military struggle, the EPLF defeated Ethiopian troops in May 1991. A provisional government was put in place with Isaias at the head, and a referendum on Eritrean independence from Ethiopia was planned for the future.
Eritreans voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence in the referendum, which was held in April 1993. The next month Isaias was elected president of Eritrea by the National Assembly as well as chairman of the aforementioned body, giving him control of both the executive and legislative branches of government. On May 24 he officially proclaimed Eritrea’s independence.
In the years that followed, Isaias gradually consolidated his power over virtually every aspect of Eritrean life, serving additionally as commander in chief of the army and as chairman of the country’s sole political party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), as the EPLF renamed itself in 1994. He canceled the 1997 presidential elections, and in 2001 he virtually closed the national press. That same year he had several prominent opposition leaders arrested and charged with treason. Critics of his regime accused him of using a long-standing border dispute with Ethiopia to avoid implementing Eritrea’s constitution, which had been ratified in 1997, and for other repressive measures in the country. Another border dispute, this time with Djibouti, broke out in 2008.
Isaias continued to preside over a country that was becoming increasingly repressed and isolated and in which living conditions grew dire. United Nations reports released in 2015 and 2016 detailed the alleged human rights violations committed by Isaias’s regime, calling some of them crimes against humanity. The findings of the reports were denounced by Isaias’s government.
Isaias oversaw an unexpected transformation of the country’s contentious relations with Ethiopia in 2018. Outreach by Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, in June regarding ending the long-standing border war between the countries led to a flurry of diplomatic activity, including reciprocal visits by Isaias and Abiy in July. Diplomatic and commercial ties between Ethiopia and Eritrea were reestablished, and on July 9 the two leaders issued a joint statement declaring that the state of war between their countries was over. Given that Isaias had long used the conflict with Ethiopia as an excuse for the repressive conditions in his country, many wondered how the recent changes would affect the lives of Eritreans.