Eritrea
Title Details

446 Pages

0 x 0 cm

12 line illus.

Series: Eastern Africa Series

Series Vol. Number: 5

Imprint: James Currey

Eritrea

A Dream Deferred

by Gaim Kibreab

  • Description
  • Contents
  • Author
This book gives a detailed description of Eritrea's post-war politics and is the first comprehensive analysis of the country's economy.

Eritrean independence under the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (now the People's Front for Democracy and Justice) became an international cause celebre during the 1980s. Eritrea was the first African nation to gain independence in the post-colonial period and appeared to be opening a new and progressive path in African politics. But the promise of the revolution was soon betrayed by the outbreak of war with Ethiopia, the PFDJ's increasingly repressive domestic policies, its mismanagement of the country's economy, and its hostile relations with its neighbours.
The PFDJ government dismantled existing formal and informal institutions, crippled the private sector, banned private newspapers, civil and political society organisations, expelled international NGOs and aid agencies when over two-thirds of the population were dependent on food aid, detained without trial journalists, thousands of dissidents, and former leaders of the liberation struggle, and turned national service from an instrument of nation building and national integration into an instrument of open-ended forced labour.
In this well-researched first account of post-independence Eritrea, Gaim Kibreab gives a detailed and critical analysis of how things went woefully wrong and how the former 'liberators' turned into oppressors with no respect for the rule of law, human rights andreligious freedom.

GAIM KIBREAB is Professor of Research & Director of Refugee Studies, Department of Social & Policy Studies, London South Bank University

Published in association with the Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
Introduction
The Broken Promises, Demand for Change & Violation of Human Rights
Associational Life in Independent Eritrea
Towards an Explanation
The Demise of the Private Sector
PFDJ's Dominance of the Economy & the Consequences
Freedom of Association, Political Stability & Institutions
Shattered Promises: In Lieu of a Conclusion

GAIM KIBREAB retired as Professor of Research and Director of Refugee Studies, School of Law and Social Science, London South Bank University in 2021. He is the author of Eritrea: A Dream Deferred (James Currey, 2009), People on the Edge in the Horn (James Currey, 1996) and The Eritrean National Service (2017).

Ebook (EPDF)

9781846157226

September 2009

Buy

$29.95 / £19.99

Title Details

446 Pages

0 x 0 cm

12 line illus.

Series: Eastern Africa Series

Series Vol. Number: 5

Imprint: James Currey