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Eritrea
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Episode sixteen of Pieces of History journeys into the rugged landscapes and complex past of Eritrea - a nation whose story is shaped by ancient empires, fierce colonial rivalries, and decades of struggle for independence.
In this episode, we explore Eritrea’s unique position at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East - from its role in the ancient Aksumite Empire to centuries under Ottoman and Egyptian influence, followed by Italian colonization and the brutal fight against Ethiopian annexation.
What fuelled the thirty-year war for independence? How did colonial ambitions and shifting alliances shape Eritrea’s identity? And what challenges has this young nation faced since finally achieving sovereignty - including a devastating border war, authoritarian rule, and prolonged isolation?
This is more than a history of conflict and survival. It’s a story of resilience, cultural richness, and a people’s enduring hope for peace and self-determination.
Email: piecesofhistorypod@outlook.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Eritrea's History
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pieces of History. I'm Colin McGrath and in each episode I delve into some renowned and lesser known events that have shaped our world. This week we turn our attention to one of the world's most underreported and yet most fascinating countries, Eritrea.
00:00:30
Speaker
Rather than plunging straight into a single battle or era, today we'll sweep across two millennia of history. will trace the rise of ancient kingdoms, the legacy of Italian colonialisation, the long battle for independence and the challenges of nation building in the modern era.
00:00:47
Speaker
By the end, I hope you'll see why Eritrea's story deserves a place centre stage in the history of Africa and in our own understanding of resilience and identity.
Geography and Cultural Diversity
00:00:57
Speaker
Nestled in the Horn of Africa, Eritrea is a nation both geographically compact and incredibly diverse,
00:01:04
Speaker
It shows borders with Sudan to the west, Ethiopia to the south and Djibouti to the southeast, while its eastern edge opens onto the Red Sea, offering a coastline of more than 1200km.
00:01:16
Speaker
Across those waters lie Saudi Arabia and Yemen, reminders of the region's long-standing connection with the Arabian Peninsula. Eritrea's terrain is as varied as its history, from the scorching plains of the Danquil Depression one of the hottest inhabited places on earth.
00:01:31
Speaker
To the cooler highlands around Asmara, its capital, the land rises and falls in dramatic relief. In the west, you'll find fertile lowlands where agriculture thrives. To the east, arid deserts give way to coastal plains and coral reefs teeming with marine life.
00:01:48
Speaker
The country boasts nine recognised ethnic groups, including the Tigrina, Tigre, Saho, Afar and Reseda, each with their own language, customs and traditions. At just over 117,000 square kilometres, about half the size of the UK, Eritrea is smaller than many African countries but rich in ecological and cultural contrasts.
Language, Religion, and Governance
00:02:10
Speaker
Its population, estimated at around 3.7 million, is predominantly rural, though Asmara with its palm-lined boulevards and modernist architecture stands as a striking exception.
00:02:22
Speaker
Once dubbed the Pocola Roma by Italian colonizers, the city remains one of Africa's most architecturally unique capitals. Today, Tigrinya, Arabic and English are widely spoken, and the official currency is the Nafqa, named after a town that became a symbol of the country's fight for independence.
00:02:43
Speaker
Religion too reflects Eritrea's later past. Christianity, primarily in the Eritrean Orthodox tradition, and Islam, with deep historical roots, are the country's two main faiths.
00:02:55
Speaker
Despite its hard-won independence in 1993, Eritrea today is often referred to as Africa's North Korea, a label that reflects its extreme levels of state control, isolation and repression.
00:03:08
Speaker
The country has never held a national election. Its president, Asias Afwerki, has ruled without interruption since independence, operating under a single-party system where dissent is not tolerated and independent media has been banned since 2001.
00:03:22
Speaker
The Constitution, ratified in 1997, has never been implemented and the country continues to function without an independent judiciary or formal political opposition.
National Service and Isolation
00:03:33
Speaker
One of the most defining and feared aspects of Eritrean life is its indefinite national service programme.
00:03:40
Speaker
Introduced ostensibly as a means to rebuild the country after decades of war, it has evolved into a system of forced labour that has drawn widespread international condemnation. Men and women, often in their late teens, are conscripted into military or civilian service with no clear end date.
00:03:57
Speaker
This policy, combined with tight border controls and internal surveillance, has led hundreds of thousands of air trains to flee, often at great risk, across deserts and seas in search of refuge.
00:04:09
Speaker
Eritrea's isolation is also geopolitical. After a brutal border war with Ethiopia in 1998-2000, triggered in part by disputed towns and unresolved territorial claims, the country adopted a fortress state mentality.
00:04:24
Speaker
Even after a peace agreement was signed in 2018, the government remained cautious, paranoid about foreign influence and reluctant to open up.
Historical Identity and Early Empires
00:04:32
Speaker
While there are flickers of change and the diaspora continues to press for reform, Eritrea remains a country cut off, not only from the world, but often from its own people.
00:04:44
Speaker
Though Eritrea often flies under the international radar, its people carry a deep pride in their identity, shaped by geography, language, resistance and a consistent negotiation between tradition and change.
00:04:56
Speaker
It is a place where history is not just studied but lived, etched into the mountains, sung in the highlands and remembered in every family whose story touches the struggles and triumphs of the past century.
00:05:09
Speaker
Our journey begins long before colonial boundaries or modern flags, back in the early centuries of the Common Era, in the highland plateaus and Red Sea lowlands that would one day be called Eritrea.
00:05:21
Speaker
This land formed the eastern frontier of the Ascomite Empire, a powerful African kingdom whose influence stretched across what is now northern Ethiopia, Eritrea and parts of Sudan and Yemen.
00:05:32
Speaker
By the 1st century CE, the empire's beating heart lay inland, but its lifeline pulsed along the coast. Through the port city of Adullis, nestled just south of present-day Massawa.
00:05:44
Speaker
Adullis was a jewel of ancient commerce. Known to Greek and Roman geographers, it was referenced in the Periplus of the Aetherian Sea, a 1st century mariner's manual, as a key node in the spice and ivory trade.
00:05:58
Speaker
From here, frankincense, gold, slaves, obsidian and exotic beasts sailed across the seas to the Mediterranean, Persia and India. Ships returned bearing silk, wine and fine ceramics, threads in a vast economic web that made the Red Sea a true maritime crossroads.
00:06:16
Speaker
Archaeologists have uncovered Greek and scribe coins bearing the names of Ascomite kings, one reading Aksumites who believe in Christ, and taroing granite cella, some over 20 metres high, marking royal tombs and signalling imperial grandeur.
00:06:32
Speaker
One of these monarchs, King Azana, adopted Christianity around the 4th century CE, making Askham one of the first officially Christian states in the world centuries before much of Europe.
00:06:44
Speaker
Historian Stuart Munro Hay, a leading authority on Askham, wrote, quote, It was the only sub-Saharan African polity of its time to issue its own carnage and to be known to classical authors as the major power of the world, end quote.
00:06:58
Speaker
But by the 7th and 8th centuries, the empire's fortunes began to decline. Climate change, over-forming and the shifting of trade routes following the rise of Islam all played their part.
00:07:09
Speaker
The Islamic conquest transformed the commercial networks of the Red Sea. Although Ascombe's dominance receded from global prominence, the coast of Eritrea remained alive of change. Arab merchants, Somali and Afar seafarers and Swahili-speaking traders began to frequent coastline.
00:07:27
Speaker
Islam spread gradually, especially among communities in the lowlands, mingling with other traditions. The city of Maswawa, built across a series of coral islands, evolved into a bustling centre under changing rulers, first under Bidja tribal confederacies,
00:07:43
Speaker
and Ottoman Empire and later the Egyptians. Travellers in the 16th century described Musawah as a furnace of wind and salt, yet it was also a place where languages mixed, cultures intertwined and the Red Sea's ebb and flow tied Eritrea's coast to Mecca, Alexandria and beyond.
00:08:02
Speaker
As historian Edward Ullendorf noted, quote, the coastline of Eritrea was never passive. Its peoples were not merely recipients of foreign culture, but active participants in a centuries-long maritime dialogue, end quote.
Colonial Era and Resistance Movements
00:08:17
Speaker
Eritrea, even then, was a gateway and a meeting ground, a place shaped as much by ships and shorelines as by mountains and kings. And this legacy of being pulled between inland empires and distant seas would echo throughout its long, turbulent history.
00:08:33
Speaker
As the twilight of Ascan faded, the coastline of Eritrea did not fall silent. It remained open, ever shifting and exposed flank on the western edge of the Red Sea. New empires now turned their gaze towards these waters, drawn by trade, religion and strategic ambition.
00:08:51
Speaker
In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire, at the height of its naval power, swept down the Red Sea andla mosawa and and the Dalek Archipelago. Their aim was to counter the Portuguese and to secure the Red Sea route to Mecca.
00:09:06
Speaker
From 1557, Massawa became the capital of the Ottoman Hebes Eleth, the province of Hebesh, which extended theoretically over parts of modern Eritrea and northern Ethiopia.
00:09:18
Speaker
but this was no tightly governed province. The Ottomans, preoccupied with their Boers in Europe and the Arabian Peninsula, ruled from a distance, often through delegated power, giving rise to the local elite of Beja, Trinca and Afar leaders, as well as Ottoman appointed Beys and Neabs, who were deputy governors.
00:09:37
Speaker
These niabs would be influential over two centuries, administering justice and collecting taxes, often with minimal oversight from Istanbul. Masaba became a cultural frontier.
00:09:49
Speaker
It was not Istanbul, but neither was it Ascombe. The city took on the architectural and religious imprint of the Ottoman world, minarets rose alongside coral stone homes.
00:10:00
Speaker
and Arabic became a language of commerce and power. Yet Ottoman authority was often tenuous inland, especially in the highlands where local Christian rulers retained control. As historian Richard Pankhurst put it, quote, the Ottoman grip was always partial, more tied than anchor.
00:10:18
Speaker
It surged along the coast but rarely held in the interior, end quote. By the 19th century, another power rose to challenge Ottoman presence, Egypt. Under the ambitious and reform-minded ruler Muhammad al-Pasha and later his grandson Khadiv Ismail, Egypt sought to expand southward and eastward, partly to control trade, partly to compete with European imperialism and crucially to secure access to the Red Sea during the scramble to modernize Egypt um bill de cz canal and In 1865, with Ottoman decline accelerating, Egypt effectively took control over the administration of Musawah
00:10:58
Speaker
Ottoman blessing put under Egyptian direction. The Egyptians expanded controlled inland, establishing garrisons in towns like Kirin and Sahilt. They introduced new bureaucracies and built rudimentary roads and laid the groundwork for more centralised rule.
00:11:15
Speaker
One of the most notable Egyptian figures in the region was Vauna Munsinger, a Swiss-born explorer and diplomat who entered Egyptian service and became governor of the eastern Sudan Amasabha. He advocated for deeper Egyptian control into the highlands, warning Cairo that if they didn't expand swiftly, Europeans, in particular the Italians of British, would step in.
00:11:38
Speaker
In 1873 report to Cairo, Munzinger wrote, Egypt's expansion was short-lived. he who controlleds the highlands of bogul and the passes of hamasion control the horn of africa delay and others will seize what egypt alone can make prosper ankle but egypt's expansions him a shortleve By the late 1870s, Egyptian rule faltered due to financial ruin, growing nationalist unrest at home, and military defeats.
00:12:02
Speaker
Notably at the hands of the Mahatist uprising in Sudan, their garrisons in Eritrea became overextended and vulnerable. This vacuum set the stage for the next chapter, one that would be defined not by native empire or Muslim sultanate, but by the ambitions of Europe.
00:12:19
Speaker
Eritrea, once a borderland between Afro-Arabian worlds, now stood at the threshold of colonial conquest. The final decades of the 19th century were a time of unraveling and upheaval in the Horn of Africa.
00:12:33
Speaker
As Egyptian control crumbled, a power vacuum spread across Eritrea's rugged highlands and searing coastal plains. Wasaba, the old Red Sea gateway became a ghost of imperial promises, its Ottoman minarets casting long shadows over a port now teetering between worlds.
00:12:52
Speaker
Into this uncertainty stepped local forces, proud, complex and determined not to be dominated. Highland rulers, known as Shoum or Dismatch, began reasserting autonomy.
00:13:04
Speaker
Among them, the Bahir Nagash, Lord of the Sea, and leaders from the province of Hamaslan, re-emerged, trying to consolidate control over their fractured domains. Yet they did so under increasing pressure, not just from Egypt's retreat, but from the expanding reach of the Ethiopian Empire to the south.
00:13:24
Speaker
Emperor Johannes IV, ruling from the Tigrian heartland, had grown wary of both Egypt and the encroaching Europeans. He launched military campaigns to secure the Ethiopian north, including parts of present-day Eritrea.
00:13:38
Speaker
The local population, in particular the Tigrina-speaking Highlanders, found themselves caught between multiple claims of sovereignty. Ottoman, Egyptian, Ethiopian and soon Italian.
00:13:51
Speaker
Some communities resisted fiercely, others manoeuvred, alliances of convenience formed and dissolved overnight, depending on which foreign garrison offered the most security, the least interference or the best bribes.
00:14:04
Speaker
One oral account from the Hamasian region recorded in the early 20th century, quote, When the lion and the jackal fight over the mountains, the goat learns to climb higher, end quote.
00:14:16
Speaker
But the climb would not be high enough. In 1885, with Egyptian forces fully withdrawn and Britain uninterested in direct administration, the Italians landed in Maswa, under the pretense of filling the void.
00:14:30
Speaker
Within months, they began pushing inland, armed with colonial ambitions, military supplies and diplomatic approval from the scramble of Africa. The era trends would now face an entirely new form of domination.
00:14:43
Speaker
European colonialisation had arrived. it came cloaked in the language of civilization and progress, but enforced by cannon fire, railway spikes and martial law.
00:14:55
Speaker
When the Italians arrived, they spoke of development, order and destiny, but their deeper motivations were imperial pride and strategic ambition. Aretrea became Italy's first African colony in 1890, formalised under King Umberto and named Colonia Eritrea, after the Roman name for the Red Sea, mayor Ereuthium.
00:15:19
Speaker
The first capital was Massawa, but the Italian gaze soon turned inland. The highland city of Asmara, cooler and strategically placed, became the jewel of the colonial project.
00:15:30
Speaker
Roads, schools, railways and government buildings began to spring up, not just for the benefit of the Eritrean people, but to serve the needs of colonial administration and Italian settlers.
00:15:42
Speaker
As Mara was transformed, By the it earned the nickname, the Pocla Roma, Little Room. The city became a playground for art deco architects and urban planners.
00:15:54
Speaker
Its cinemas, wide boulevards, Catholic churches and espresso bars looked less like Africa and more like a suburb of Milan. Even today, Asmara's skyline preserves a surreal legacy, a UNESCO listed time capsule of colonial ambition.
00:16:11
Speaker
but beneath this architectural polish was repression. Air trains were pushed into segregated quarters and forced into labour. A two-tier legal system ensured Italians had rights while locals had rules.
00:16:25
Speaker
and in 1935, as Mussolini prepared his brutal invasion of Ethiopia, tens of thousands of Eritrean Ascari soldiers were conscripted to fight for Italy against their own neighbours.
00:16:37
Speaker
Some Eritreans resisted, underground networks, armed rebellions in the Sahel and acts of sabotage marked the colonial period, but many were silenced by exile, execution or erasure.
00:16:50
Speaker
As historian Dukes Nagash wrote, quote, Eritrea was not just Italy's first colony, it was also her testing ground, the laboratory of racial policies and authoritarian control that would later define fascist imperialism, end quote.
Federation with Ethiopia and Struggle for Independence
00:17:07
Speaker
By the 1940s, the Italian dream of empire began to collapse. World War II was raging and Eritrea was again poised for transformation, this time under British occupation, and eventually into a long, bitter struggle for self-determinisation.
00:17:23
Speaker
By the time Italian rule ended in Eritrea in 1941, the legacy left behind was a contradiction carved in concrete and barbed wire. On one hand, the Italians had built cities, ports and a railway network stretching from the Red Sea to the Highlands.
00:17:40
Speaker
They established industrial plants and introduced mechanised agriculture. The striking archdeco skyline of Ismara remains today one of the most surreal remnants of this era, a city frozen in European modernist ambition amidst East African hills.
00:17:54
Speaker
But for the Eritrean people, these developments came at a cost. Italians occupied the top of a strict racial hierarchy. Eritreans were denied citizenship, forced into labour and subjected to racist laws that governed where they could live, what they could do and how they could interact with settlers.
00:18:13
Speaker
Italian men were encouraged to form temporary unions with Eritrean women, leading to thousands of mixed race children, many of whom were abandoned or denied recognition. Some of the harshest elements of fascist ideology were experimented with in Eritrea years before being unleashed fully in Europe.
00:18:31
Speaker
Historian Julia Barrera writes of this era, quote, In colonial Eritrea, the control of sexuality became a tool of racial policy, part of a broader project to regulate and dominate native bodies and lives, end quote.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yet many era trains, in particular those trained in Italian-run schools or employed in colonial administration, would carry a deep familiarity with European political structures, languages and aspirations.
00:19:00
Speaker
These experiences, paradoxically, would later help fuel the nationalist movements that emerged in Italy's wake.
00:19:07
Speaker
When Italian forces surrendered to the British in 1941, Eritrea fell under British military administration, a wartime occupation that would stretch into a decade-long holding pattern. To some Eritreans, the defeat of Italy brought hope of autonomy, perhaps even independence, but the Allies were more concerned with regional strategy than local dreams.
00:19:29
Speaker
Britain ruled Eritrea without annexing it, maintaining order and managing infrastructure while defying the question of its future. and In practice, this meant preserving colonial systems while attempting to balance the competing claims of Eritreans, Ethiopians and international powers.
00:19:46
Speaker
Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, who had returned from exile after the war, lobbied hard to absorb Eritrea. He argued that Eritrea and Ethiopia had charred ancient bonds, cultural ties and Christian faith.
00:20:01
Speaker
But many Eritreans remembered the forced conscriptions and highland wars of the 19th century and feared domination from Addis Ababa more than any European presence. In this climate, Eritrean political consciousness awakened.
00:20:16
Speaker
Trade unions, civic groups and political parties emerged for the first time. The Eritrean Muslim League called for full independence. The Unionist Party, supported by Haile Selassie, favoured federation with Ethiopia.
00:20:30
Speaker
And many young Eritreans, now educated in both Arabic and Italian systems, began dreaming of self-rule. British officials worried of choosing sides issued vague reassurances.
00:20:43
Speaker
In a 1948 report, a colonial officer wrote, quote, Eritrea is not Ethiopia, nor is it Sudan. It is a place apart whose people must be heard before history writes them out, end quote.
00:20:57
Speaker
But history had other plans.
00:21:01
Speaker
1952, after years of debate and diplomatic wrangling, the United Nations imposed a compromise. Eritrea would be federated with Ethiopia under the sovereignty of the Ethiopian crown, but with its own parliament, flag and official languages, Arabic and Tigrinya.
00:21:19
Speaker
To many, it a bitter pill. Independence denied, but autonomy promised. For a time, Eritrea functioned as a quasi-state. It had its own schools, newspapers, labour unions and representatives.
00:21:33
Speaker
But Halle Selassie saw Federation not as a settlement, but as a stepping stone. Slowly, systematically, he dismantled Eritrea's autonomy. By 1955, federal institutions were being dissolved.
00:21:48
Speaker
In 1958, Eritrean labour unions were outlawed. Arabic was removed from official use and in 1960, political parties were banned. Two years later, Haile Selassie dissolved Federation annexing Eritrea outright as Ethiopia's 14th province.
00:22:05
Speaker
For many Eritreans, this was nothing less than a betrayal. Resistance began almost immediately. In 1961, Hammond Idris Awat, a former Italian colonial soldier, fired the first shots in what would become the Thirty Year War for Independence, the longest armed conflict in post-colonial Africa.
00:22:25
Speaker
As historian Ruth Loeb later wrote, quote, Eritrea was not guaranteed independence, it had to wrench it inch by inch from the teeth of empire, end quote.
00:22:37
Speaker
In September 1961, beneath the shadows of the Sahel Hills, Hamad Idris Awat and a small band of fighters launched a guerilla ambush against Ethiopian police near Mount Adil.
00:22:49
Speaker
Their weapons were few, mostly old Italian carbines and smuggled rifles, but their intent was unmistakable to liberate Eritrea by force. What followed was one of the longest, most brutal independent struggles in modern history.
00:23:05
Speaker
At first, the world barely noticed. The early guerrilla fighters formed the Eritrean Liberation Front, or the ELF, largely supported by Muslim lowland communities and Arab states.
00:23:17
Speaker
Their tactics were classic insurgency. Hit and run ambushes, sabotage and invasion. But the real enemy was not just military might, it was silence. The West, gripped by Cold War logic, saw Haile Selassie as an ally.
00:23:32
Speaker
He had charmed the League of Nations in the nineteen thirty s and the UUN in the 1950s. In Washington and London, Eritrea's plight was dismissed as an internal Ethiopian matter. Meanwhile, inside Eritrea, the war escalated, towns were bombed, villages were razed, thousands of civilians were killed or disappeared,
00:23:52
Speaker
The Ethiopian army responded to resistance with collective punishment, torching crops, poisoning wells, executing suspected collaborators. In one case, the town of Anna was destroyed in 1970, its population slaughtered in reprisal.
00:24:08
Speaker
By the early 1970s, the liberation struggle fractured. The ELF, seen by many as el elitist and ethnically imbalanced, was challenged by a breakaway faction, the Airtrain People's Liberation Front, or the EPLF.
00:24:23
Speaker
Composed largely of Highland Christians but inspired by leftist revolutionary ideals, the EPLF sought not only national liberation but social transformation. They built underground hospitals, schools and even a theatre troupe, all behind enemy lines.
00:24:40
Speaker
They trained women as frontline soldiers, a radical move at the time, and developed a culture of self-reliance that would define the movement. A famous EPLF slogan summed up their ethos, quote, victory through struggle, not charity, end quote.
00:24:56
Speaker
American journalist Robert D. Kaplan, visiting the region in the 1980s, would later write, quote, the EPLF was perhaps one of the most impressive guerrilla organisations in the world, egalitarian, disciplined and terrifyingly effective, end quote.
00:25:12
Speaker
but success came slowly. Ethiopia, now ruled by the Darug military junta after the overthrow of Hady Selassie in 1974, received massive Soviet aid, tanks, jets and military advisors.
00:25:26
Speaker
Whole Eritrean villages were turned to rubble by MiG aircraft and napalm bombs. In response, the EPLF dug deeper, building a vast network of underground bunkers and hospitals in the Sahail mountains, particularly at NAFCA, a symbolic and literal stronghold of the revolution.
00:25:45
Speaker
Over time, the war became total, families were torn apart, generations knew nothing about conflict, yet, incredibly, air-trend nationalism grew stronger, not weaker.
00:25:57
Speaker
The shared suffering forged an identity deeper than ethnicity or religion, rooted in sacrifice, resistance and endurance.
00:26:06
Speaker
By the late 1980s, the tide had turned. The Soviet Union began withdrawing support from Ethiopia and the Dürig regime. Under the brutal rule of Mingstu Halif Maram, crumbled under its own repression.
00:26:19
Speaker
In May 1991, the EPLF swept into Asmara without resistance. The capital had fallen. Eritrea was, in practice, free. But freedom would not be officially recognised until 1993 when over 99.8% of Eritreans voted for independence in a UN supervised referendum.
00:26:40
Speaker
The new state of Eritrea was born, not just in a glow of diplomacy, but in the blood and dust of a 30-year war.
Post-Independence Challenges and Peace Efforts
00:26:47
Speaker
As EPLF leader and now President Isaiah Seforky proclaimed on Independence Day, quote, we have earned this, not with words, but with will, end quote.
00:26:59
Speaker
Eritrea's hard-won independence was celebrated with jubilation in 1993, as the nation emerged from three decades of war. For freedom was just the beginning of a new, difficult chapter.
00:27:10
Speaker
Conflict erupted once more, this time with her former ally and long-time rival, Ethiopia. The two neighbours clashed over the disputed Badmai border region, igniting a brutal and costly war that lasted until 2000.
00:27:24
Speaker
Tens of thousands died, and hundreds of thousands were displaced. The Algiers Agreement eventually brought a ceasefire, but tensions simmered for years after, fuelled by unresolved border demarcations and mutual sus suspicion.
00:27:38
Speaker
Meanwhile, inside Eritrea, the EPLF, now the People's Front for Democracy and Justice, PFDJ, consolidated power. Its leader, Afwerki, who had been the face of the liberation struggle, became the country's first, and so far, only president.
00:27:56
Speaker
Promises of democratic governance and pluralism give way to a tightly controlled political system. The constitution, ratified in 1997, has yet to be fully implemented and national elections have been repeatedly postponed.
00:28:11
Speaker
Critics describe Eritrea today as one of the most repressive states in the world. The government's control extends into into every aspect of life, with indefinite national service, strict censorship and harsh punishment for dissent.
00:28:25
Speaker
The UN and various human rights groups have documented systematic abuses, including forced conscription, arbitrary detention and restrictions of freedom of speech and religion. Many era trends have fled abroad, forming a large diaspora Eritrea's isolation grew deeper in the 21st century as strained relations with Ethiopia and suspicion from Western powers limited economic and diplomatic opportunities.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yet in 2018, a surprising breakthrough occurred. After two decades of hostility, Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a peace agreement, formally ending the state of war. Borders reopened, embassies reopened and families separated for years were reunited.
00:29:08
Speaker
President Afwerki declared, quote, we have chosen peace not out of weakness, but because we are confident in our strength and in the justice of our cause, end quote.
00:29:19
Speaker
Still, challenges remain. Eritrea's political future is uncertain, its economy fragile and its people yearning for peace and stability after generations of struggle.
00:29:32
Speaker
Eritrea's story is one of resilience carved into the rugged landscape, a nation forged by ancient empires, shaped by colonial ambitions and hardened in the fires of liberation.
00:29:43
Speaker
Its people who carry the weight of history with a fierce pride, a testament to endurance in the face of adversity. As we reflect on Eritrea today, we are reminded that history is never fully finished.
Conclusion and Reflection
00:29:56
Speaker
The echoes of the past ripple into the present, shaping the dreams and challenges of tomorrow.
00:30:04
Speaker
Thank you for joining me on this journey through Eritrea's rich and complex history. Stay tuned for the next episode, where we'll continue to uncover more hidden corners of history. Make sure to subscribe and rate Pieces of History podcast on Spotify and iTunes, and you can contact me at piecesofhistoryatoutlook.com or on Instagram and Facebook at Pieces of History.
00:30:25
Speaker
Thanks for listening.