A study of the North African country lays bare a ruler at war with his own people, says Joanna Lewis

• By Joanna Lewis

President Isaias Afewerki
Chairman of the State Council
Chairman of the Transitional National Assembly
C-in-c of the Armed Forces
Chancellor of Institutes of Higher Learning
Chairman of the PFDJ [the sole political party]
Vice-President – vacant since 2001

There have been no elections in Eritrea since 1993. Instead, as the above extract from Martin Plaut’s masterful account perfectly illustrates, this tiny state in North Africa is ruled by dictatorship. In 2015, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Eritreans endure “systemic widespread and gross human rights violations” and “a total lack of the rule of law”.

“Eritrea was born a one party state”, as Plaut, an Institute of Commonwealth Studies…