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Kidane Mengisteab and Okbazghi Yohannes. Anatomy of an African Tragedy: Political, Economic and Foreign Policy Crisis in Post-Independence Eritrea. Trenton, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 2005. 310 pp. Tables. Bibliography. Index. $29.95. Paper.
Dan Connell. Conversations with Eritrean Political Prisoners. Trenton, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 2005. 212 pp. Bibliography. Appendixes. $24.95. Paper.
These two books by three experienced scholars of Eritrean, Horn of Africa, and international political issues complement each other in demonstrating the disillusionment that has set in because of the failure of postindependence Eritrea to live up to the hopes of its early supporters.
Following an introduction (in chapter 1) that places Eritrea in its postcolonial African context, chapter 2 of Mengisteab's and Yohannes's book summarizes "the history and anatomy of a populist authoritarian state," essentially arguing that political, economic, and cultural democracy have all failed to materialize. After emerging as the dominant political-military movement in Eritrea by the late 1970s, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) became increasingly authoritarian and nondemocratic. This trend continued in the first years of independence in the early 1990s, as the Front transformed itself into the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), the sole political party in the new state.
The authors argue that "cultural democracy" could theoretically be a sound policy for the linguistically, ethnically, regionally, and culturally diverse country, but the government has exploited such differences to "divide and contain" rather than allow the free expression of differences to create a larger sense of unity. Similarly, the promotion of women's rights has long been...