From Guerrillas to Government: The Eritrean People's Liberation Front

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The EPLF is an exceptional political phenomenon because of its discipline and organization, its blend of ideology and pragmatism, its ability to remain immune from external pressures and significant internal splits, and its military success in liberating Eritrea against an international and African consensus opposed to new states. A further mark of its exceptionalism derives from the domestic, regional and international context in which it had to operate: a highly fragmented society arising from cleavages based on religion, culture, ethnicity, regions and 'tribe', as well as property reactions, fractured nationalism and persistent historical bifurcation of nationalist movements and organizations - powerful obstacles deriving from Ethiopia's successive alliances with the US and Israel and the USSR and Cuba. The focus of the book is on the EPLF from its formation in the early 1970s to its victory in 1991, and its transformation from liberation front to ruling party and government of independent Eritrea. It looks at the attributes of the EPLF, which brought it victory, and the tension, if not contradiction, between the attributes of successful military and political struggle and those attributes necessary for governing Eritrea successfully in the post-independence period.

SYNOPSIS

Since 1998, Eritrea and its neighbor Ethiopia have spent an estimated $1 million a day in fighting over a disputed area of land. Pool (government, University of Manchester) offers background for understanding the roots of the conflict, looking at Eritrean nationalism, the formation and operation of the liberation front of Eritrea, and the political forces at work in Eritrea's struggle for independence.