Isaias Afwerki

In August 1971, a group of younger ELF members held a meeting at Tekli (northern Red Sea) and founded Selfi Natsinet, known as the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). The group elected five leaders, including Afwerki. In October 1971, the group formed a committee to draft and issue a highly polemical document, Nihnan Elamanan (“We and Our Goals”), in which they explained the rationale for their decision to create a separate political organization instead of working within the ELF.[14]

In 1977, EPLF held its first congress, at which Afwerki was elected vice-secretary general. During the second congress of the EPLF in 1987, he was elevated to the status of secretary-general of the organization. In May 1991, with the end of the Ethiopian Civil War he became secretary-general of the Provisional Government of Eritrea.

Afwerki during independence celebrations in 1997

In April 1993, a United Nations-supervised referendum on independence was held, and the following month Eritrea achieved de jure independence. Afwerki was elected as the president of the State of Eritrea by the National Assembly and declared the first head of state, a position he has held ever since the end of the war for independence.[15]

In February 1994, the EPLF held its third congress, renamed itself the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) as part of its transition to a political party and Afwerki was elected secretary-general by an overwhelming majority of votes. In his first few years Afwerki was hailed as a new type of African president with then-US President Bill Clinton referring to him as a "renaissance African leader". However, in 1997, a new constitution was drawn up, but never enacted, and elections were cancelled. [15] In 2000, 15 ministers including his vice president wrote an open letter asking him to step down.[16]^: 8:56 On September 18, 2001, he closed the national press and prominent opposition leaders were arrested.[17]

President Isaias with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, December 2002

As of 2009, he advocated for the development of indigenous political and economic institutions, and a strategy that suited Eritrea´s internal conditions and available resources.[18] The key elements were to include ambitious infrastructure development campaigns both in terms of power, transport, and telecommunications, as well as with basic healthcare and educational facilities.[19] In 2010 he responded to the question when elections would be held "lets wait 3 or 4 decades".[16]^: 10:41 In 2018, Afwerki oversaw an unexpected transformation of Eritrea's relations with Ethiopia. In June 2018, Ethiopia's newly elected prime minister Abiy Ahmed negotiated an end to the border war between the countries, diplomatic and commercial ties between Ethiopia and Eritrea were re-established, and on 9 July 2018, the two leaders signed a peace declaration that ended the war between their countries,[17]and enunciated a framework of bilateral cooperation. This was widely acknowledged by numerous world leaders, with the UAE Government awarding Afwerki the Order of Zayed (First Class) in recognition of his efforts to end the conflict.[20] After July 2018, the Ethiopian and Eritrean intelligence agencies started a close cooperation. This worried Eritrean refugees in Addis Ababa, some of whom were temporarily detained for three weeks during the Tigray War (2020-2022), acquitted by Ethiopian courts, and only released two weeks after their acquittal.[21]

Voice of America's Peter Clottey interviews Afwerki in New York, 2011

The Tigray War began on 3 November 2020 after the Tigray People's Liberation Front, Tigray's ruling party, attacked the Northern Command center camps of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) in Tigray and pushed them to Eritrea. The Eritrean Defence Forces joined hands with the ENDF and allegedly with the help of UAE armed drones counter-attacked the TPLF forces. There was alleged looting in Tigray Region, including systematic, wide-scale looting in Aksum following the Aksum massacre in late November 2020.[22][23] After several weeks of Ethiopian government denial of the presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Prime Minister admitted to the presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia and agreed to withdraw them. Under international pressure, on 26 March 2021, after a meeting between Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Afwerki, it was announced that Eritrean troops would withdraw from the Tigray Region. .[24][25]

Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed with Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki in March 2019