Will Eritrean President Issayas Afeworki Ever Change his Regime`s Domestic and Foreign Policies?
blurb:isstoday:14012009eritrea
14 January 2009: Will Eritrean President Issayas Afeworki Ever Change his Regime’s Domestic and Foreign Policies?
Earlier this month, Eritrea’s President Issayas Afeworki gave an interview to the Eritrean media tightly controlled by his regime. In this extraordinarily defiant interview, he accused the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of masterminding a plot to undermine Eritrea. This statement can be seen in the context of President Isayas’ unrepentant antagonism that has become a feature of the Eritrean regime.
President Issayas is a hardened survivor of a decades-long guerrilla warfare. According to some commentators, he constantly looks back to the glorified anti-Ethiopian struggle, which provides the cornerstone of his political legitimacy and carries the view that Eritrea is surrounded by larger states which permanently seek to dominate and even destroy it.
President Issayas is incontestably the predominant figure that articulates the Eritrean regime’s domestic and foreign objectives. In addition, he always makes his own views prevail against any contrary opinion. Even if very little is known about its inner workings, the political strategy and makeup of the entire Eritrean regime centrally depend on the viewpoint of President Issayas, especially after September 2001 when his most prominent opponents were summarily arrested. The president’s predominance was boosted by the fact that handpicked persons who are either particularly loyal to him or simply fear political reprisal were placed in the regime’s key positions.
Yet, the 1998-2000 war with Ethiopia considerably weakened the internal cohesion of the regime, and impaired the morale of the Eritrean military. It also weakened the Eritrean population’s morale and faith in the regime that were both further eroded by the drastic decline in living standards. The war had created a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, the regime cannot reverse the economy’s decline without sweeping reform that would take time to produce results. On the other hand, the population is only concerned with securing the next meal and is in no condition to even think about the regime’s overthrow, with or without the assistance of the CIA.
Foreign policy is ultimately the reflection of domestic policies, and the autocratic nature of the Eritrean regime eventually became a threat to all neighbouring states. Indeed, the Eritrean regime embarked on an aggressive foreign policy built upon the belief that only a militarily strong Eritrea could play a central role in the Horn of Africa. It was also an attempt on its part to divert popular attention from the apparent lack of a functioning democratic and constitutional system. The Eritrean regime’s antagonism towards all neighbouring states could amply testify to its overreliance on brinkmanship and military threats as primary tools of foreign policy. Within the space of just five years after Eritrea’s official independence in 1993, it quarreled with Sudan in 1994, Yemen in 1995, Djibouti in 1996 and Ethiopia in 1998. The Eritrean regime also went to great lengths to undermine the stability of neighbouring states and make them vulnerable to its pressure, providing training and arms to Ethiopian, Djiboutian, Sudanese and Somali opposition armed groups. The final act of its ill-conceived foreign policy was pulling out of the regional grouping IGAD in 2007.
However, the Eritrean population, which lost thousands of young men and women to the 1998-2000 war, is fully aware that the current Eritrean regime can no longer react in military terms to all regional challenges. The forcefully recruited Eritrean soldiers have been continuously deserting in large numbers and seeking refuge in neighbouring states. Furthermore, the polarised Eritrean Diaspora, which had been generously financing the Eritrean regime’s war efforts, has begun openly questioning its domestic and foreign policies and significantly reduced its remittances.
To be sure, Eritrea has become an atrophied autocratic regime faced by the triple challenge of potential internal divisions, a dilapidated economy undermined by rampant corruption and determined neighbouring states forging a watchful alliance. Moreover, succession is proving to be the weakest point of the Eritrean regime. As long as the issue of who will succeed President Issayas remains unresolved, there remains the potential for instability on his eventual demise or death. Millions of ordinary Eritreans are really wondering if the current regime could survive and democracy could be established in Eritrea if and when President Issayas dies, accidentally or otherwise. After all, he is not immortal. They would also like to know whether it could conceivably increase the possibility of a civil war and dismemberment as well as encourage opportunistic external interference.
In such a context, President Issayas ought to realise that negotiation and diplomacy represent the best possible tool for Eritrea to continue as a viable state. Only negotiation and diplomacy could establish a meaningful basis for the Eritrean regime to resolve its costly conflict with Ethiopia, reestablish its political legitimacy and assist all Eritrean political forces to peacefully resolve their differences. However, negotiation and diplomacy would require President Issayas to stop looking at international relations as win-lose games in which everyone merely seeks to manipulate everyone and everything. They will also inevitably require him to ascertain and respect the sensibilities and intentions, with regard to common issues, of neighbouring states that could initiate countermeasures to his deliberately provocative remarks and actions. Such countermeasures could seriously harm Eritrea’s long-term security and welfare, especially since there is little likelihood that its economy is going to quickly improve. Thus, for the sake of regional peace and stability, President Issayas should make amends for his past errors of judgment by irrevocably abandoning or at least softening his belligerent defensiveness, at least during high-profile interviews.
Berouk Mesfin, Senior Researcher, Direct Conflict Prevention Programme, ISS Addis Ababa
