His Excellency President Isaias Afwerki

Isaias And His Friends In 1972 In Ubel

 Isaias Afworki was born on February 2,1946 is the first and current President of Eritrea, attaining thatstatus when he led the Eritrean People's Liberation  Front to victory in May 1991, thus ending the 30-year old armed liberation struggle that the Eritrean people refer to as "Gedli".Afewerki joined the Eritrean Liberation

 Front (ELF) in 1966, and the following year he was sentto China to receive more advanced military training. Four years later he was appointed commander in the ELF army. However, citing irreconcilable ideologicaland tactical differences, he and a small group of combatants separated from the ELF and founded

another front called the Eritrean People's Liberation  Front (EPLF). Since survival at the heels of the ELFwasn't easy, the EPLF allied with other two groupsthat had splintered from the ELF earlier: the PLF1, led by Osman Saleh Sabbe, and another group known as OBEL. In 1976, the EPLF split from Sabbe's group after the latter signed a unity agreement with the ELF (the Khartoum Agreement). Isaias Afewerki served as a leader of the EPLF during the long Eritrean struggle for independence that was crowned with independence after 30 years of armed struggle.In April 1993, a United Nations-supervised referendum on independence was held, and the following month Eritrea was declared independent. The EPLF renamed itself the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) on February 1994 as part of its preparation to usher itself as a political party in a democratic Eritrea. However, due to the fact that Eritrea finds itself on a war footing as a result of the unsettled border conflict with Ethiopia since 1998, the drafted Eritrean Constitution and itsimplementation are indefinitely put on hold. As such, the PFDJ still rules Eritrea. In 2001, a group made up of 15 top government officials, referred to as the G-15, issued an open letter criticising the Isaias Afewerki's government of "illegal and unconstitutional" practices and calling for the implementation of the drafted Eritrean constitution. However, their call was unsuccessful and of the G-15 group, eleven individuals remain detained in Eritrea and have yet to be charged.

After Eritrean independence was achieved  in 1991 and  in 1993 after a referendum, Afewerki became the first head of state. During the first years of his administration in this new state government, the institutions of governance were structured and put in place. This included a top to bottom restructuring of the structures of governance by provision of an elected local judicial system to expanding the educational system to as many regions as possible. In November 1993 the President ordered the imprisonment of war-injured veterans for protesting about difficult living conditions in military barracks. The only independent human rights organization was shut down. In 1997 the President unilaterally ordered the closure of all international development agencies working in the country. Presidential elections, planned for 1997, never materialised and Eritrea remains a one-party state, with the ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice the only party allowed to operate  In May 2008 Afewerki announced that elections would be postponed for "three or four decades" or longer because they "polarize society.Also in 1998 a border conflict with neighbouring Ethiopia spiralled into a full-blown war; Afwerki turned down several offers of a peaceful settlement. In September 2001 Afwerki ordered the arrest of eleven of the highest-ranking members of his administration, many of them his closest friends and colleagues who had fought alongside him for nearly four decades. They were arrested for 'suspected treasons for selling their country and their people.