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HY AND awkward, the teenage Issaias Afwerki did not stand out. As a student in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, the future president was known less for his bookish brilliance than for sudden flashes of temper. One day in the early 1960s his physics teacher, an American, handed him a particularly shoddy mark. Issaias walked calmly to the front of the class and slapped him in the face. An act of vindictiveness as well as self-confidence, it was characteristic of the man for the rest of his life.
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It is 30 years this month since Issaias, as leader of the secessionist Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, at last succeeded in overthrowing Ethiopia’s military dictatorship. In alliance with the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (