A cursory revisit to the politico-economy history of the Horn of Africa where Eritrea is found
informs us that this strategic region of Africa has served as a theatre of war for a very long period
of time and it still features armed conflicts and political and social instability. It is important to
note that instability has been occasioned not only by internal conflicts and by those that flow
across borders but also by the clashes of national interests of big and small, near and far
international power players. The Eritrean people have been victims of this unfriendly geopolitical

dynamics and have had to conduct a long bloody liberation struggle to claim its legitimate self-
determination as sovereign people and country. That is to say, the Eritrean people had to pay

this huge cost to rectify the wrongs that were done on Eritrea by these geopolitical actors in the
1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. As we all know, these actors under the aegis’s of the UN created

a system (the Federal Act) where the legitimate rights of the Eritrean people for self-
determination as sovereign people and country was slowly but surely subverted by the Crown

of Ethiopia. The final act of this subversion occurred when the King of Ethiopia unilaterally
dissolved the Eritrean parliament and consequently annexed Eritrea on 14 November 1962.
What followed was anyone’s knowledge and does not merit presenting it here in this short piece.
Besides, I hope Eritreans will not be forced to do it all over again. But, there is something which
seems very familiar to Eritreans, though. It looks like Eritrea is actually suffering from a
“backtracking syndrome”.