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Manqa, David Pool from book 
Manqa: The Internal Crisis 
Book: Guerrillas to Government. The Eritrean People's Liberation Front. 
By: David Pool 
Pp 76-87 
The institional framework for attaining full unification provided a forum for a root-and-
branch criticism of the nascent political organization. The major focus of the critics was 
the undemocratic nature of the front, the lack of rights of fighters and the failings of the 
leadership in a wide range of areas: administration, supply, health and military.  At the 
heart of the opposition were university and secondary school educated who had joined 
the Ala group after a conscious recruitment campaign aimed at them by the Ala 
leadership.(23). Much of the criticism of the leadership was concentrated on Issayas 
Afeworki, and pulled into the opposition orbit two of the original members of the Ala 
group: Solomon Woldemariam and Tewolde Eyob.(24) It is a mark of the sensitivity of 
this challenge to the leadership that the episode has never been publicly acknowledged.  
While many have used the internal challenge as a means of criticizing the EPLF, an 
account of it is important because of its impact on the organizational development of the 
front and, in particular, in enhancing the solidarity of the leadership. 
The opposition force was called the manqa, after the Tigrinya word for bat, and derived 
from the opposition's habit of mobilizing support through discussions and propaganda 
conducted with fighters at night. The Destructive Movement portrayed the campaign 
graphically: 
On every occasion, in every valley and hill-top, at the highest pitch of their voices they began 
spreading news that there was no democracy and the rights of the freedom fighters were 
violated. 
In October 1973, two leading dissidents, Mussie Tesfaimikael and Afeworki Kiflu, issued 
a statement.  The former took the opportunity of the meeting held on 3 October, and 
called by the committee of studies established in April 1973 to examine administrative 
integration, to raise a wide-ranging attack on the leadership.  The resolution of the crisis 
in favour of the latter was a formative influence in shaping the nature of the relationship 
between the leadership and the fighters.  In this regard, it was a victory of a centralist 
conception of democracy rather than a populist one.  It was a victory for the approach 
advocated by Issayas Afeworki and his allies in the PLF.  It also set the tone for the way 
in which Eritrean society was mobilized by the leadership both during the armed struggle 
and after liberation.  In the short term, it enhanced the power of the ELF in the plateau as 
the PLF withdrew its forces there, allowing the ELF to extend its secret organisations in 
Asmara and the other towns.  Together with the civil war between the ELF and the PLF, 
this deep and divisive crisis strengthened the military position of the Ethiopian army in 
Eritrea, which only the fall of the imperial regime in 1974 undermined. 
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The Destructive Movement, the official EPLF account of the crisis, although in some 
ways self-serving, provides a fascinating insight into the early nature of the EPLF which, 
a decade later, was in control of much of Eritrea.  It also provides a clear portrayal of 
Issayas Afeworki's early conception of democracy. He was a major target of the 
opposition attack and a defender of the leadership. A useful supplement to this document, 
al-Amin's account covers rather similar ground.  Al-Amin was a leading cadre of the PLF 
and on the committee to investigate the criticisms made by the manqa. Oddly, but 
perhaps unsurprisingly, Al-Amin names Mussie, Yohannes Sebhatu and Afeworki Kiflu 
as the most prominent members of the dissidents, but leaves Tewolde Eyob and Solomon 
Woldemariam, founder leaders of the Ala group, unnamed. 
Although the later EPLF gained the admiration of many foreign observers for its 
efficiency and the egalitarian relations between the fighters, the criticisms made by the 
manqa directly attacked both. In the military sphere, criticism was made of poor co-
ordination and intelligence, resulting in PLF forces attacking each other; of inadequacies 
of supply to units in the highlands and on battle fronts in the north; and of the 
organisation and co-ordination of movements of men and supplies from the base areas to 
the highlands. The style of leadership, particularly that of Afeworki, was heavily 
criticized.  The opposition argued that physical force was used against fighters who 
voiced criticism of the leadership and against the civilian population.  Surprisingly, and 
in contrast to other documents, statements and pamphlets issued later by the EPLF, 
individuals were named. From a contemporary standpoint, it must be an embarrassment 
that leading members of the post-independence government were accused of assault and 
that members of the PFDJ central committee were hit. This kind of rumbustious 
brawling, as some of it turned out to be, was later corrected by a more forceful internal 
policing.  The manqa crisis, then, ultimately created a stronger framework of control over 
internal dissidence and Ethiopian and ELF infiltration. 
The accusations of beatings and hittings were generally proven and admitted.  The 
'mistakes' admitted in the military sphere were 'subsequently corrected'.  The argument of 
principle about the nature of democracy was won by Afeworki through a combination of 
alliance politics with the PLF leadership, the regard for Issayas on the part of the 
highland units and a general disregard for democratic accountability in the context of the 
battle against the ELF and the Ethiopians.  In particular, the PLF leadership was either 
scornful of the ideological debate or sympathetic to Afeworki and mobilized key cadres 
against the manqa.  Markakis, in his otherwise authoritative account of the EPLF, was 
partly inaccurate when he wrote of illiterate PLF fighters having no taste for obscure 
Marxist-Leninist theory.  As the EPLF official account makes clear, the manqa 
opposition forces had garnered some support from PLF fighters. 
The manqa argued that the rectification of mistakes was best achieved through increasing 
the democratic accountability of the leadership and power-sharing.  Their solution was to 
establish a 'people's administration' through the establishment of a 'supervisory body'.  In 
essence, it called for an institutional check of a permanent nature.  In his response, 
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Issayas Afeworki stressed the necessity of a guiding role for the leadership and controlled 
participation through discussion: 
The duty of the leadership is to try to understand the real and potential problems of the people 
it leads and find lasting solutions for them.  Any leadership must be very careful not to make 
hasty decisions.  Decisions made by the leadership should then be conveyed to the lower strata 
of society.  Here, the decisions are debated and finally approved or rejected.  The leadership 
would be informed of the results of the process and make necessary amendments ... Popular 
administration does not mean that all the people will administer.  Leadership of the people 
means representing the wish of the people. 
This paragraph is again resonant with the language of Mao and the Chinese Communist 
party (of learning from the people, of solving the problems of the people (25), but like the 
criticism it was couched in very practical terms. 
Afeworki went on to list the attributes of 'a democratic system of administration in a 
revolutionary organisation'. These included an elected legal organ, which established 
political doctrines and administrative structures, instructed the departments and 
supervised departmental relations. The leadership would appoint department heads and 
take decisions on which the departments could express their views, to which the 
leadership would then react.  Individuals could only claim rights to participate, express 
opinions, vote and stand for election on the basis of their acceptance of five basic 
principles: the organisation is above the individual, majority decision-making, the 
existence of differences in ranks, the subordination of departments to the leadership, and 
a common leadership but separate areas of responsibility.  Accountability of the 
leadership was confined to critical comments by departments arising from implementing 
policies.  The leadership, however, formulated policy and made appointments to 
departments.  The criticism levelled at the internal dissidents and challengers to the 
authority of the leadership is again similar in language to the writings of Mao in On 
Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party,  with its attack on ultra-democracy, petty- 
bourgeois individualism and subjectivism .(26) 
This internal struggle within the EPLF was a protracted one, beginning in September 
1973 and only resolved with the appointment of a jury at the end of May 1974 and the 
approval of the verdict of execution in August of the same year. One account lists those 
executed as Yohannes Sebhatu (27) director of publications and information; Mussie 
Tesfamikael, political commissar and unit commander; Habte-Selassie Kidane, political 
commissar; Haile Hahtsun, doctor; Afeworki Kiflu and six other fighters. (28) The 
intensity of the internal agitation was such that older members of the leadership took 
sides, both trained political cadres and new recruits were mobilized and the PLF had to 
pull its forces out of the highlands to the Sahel base area.  The defeat of the populist line 
was organized through a set of committees.  By this time all wings of the EPLF were 
committed to fighter committees elected and selected by the leadership of the PLF and 
the Ala group, and both were so committed to unity that they could not brook further 
internal dissension.  Their main task was to restore the military and political capacity of 
the new unified front, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Forces, to deal with the ongoing 
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civil war against the ELF and to confront the Ethiopian army, a series of developments 
we shall examine in Chapter 5 on the military expansion of the EPLF from the 
Ethiopian revolution to liberation.  Here we shall retain a focus on the establishment of 
administrative and control structures of the EPLF.  Without these it would have been 
impossible to maintain the dynamics of its development as it responded to changes in its 
external environment beyond its control. 
It is clear from the section of the report written by Issayas that a major impetus to 
developing the PLF into the successful military organisation that it became was the 
criticisms raised by the manqa.  Implicit in the defence and vindication of the leadership 
and the detailed criticisms lay the plan for the organizational future.  Much of it was 
implemented and laid the basis for the political, administrative and military strategies for 
the following years.  The special edition of Vanguard, reviewing the developments of 
1975, makes a clear, if somewhat indirect, reference to the means by which the internal 
opposition was quelled.  The major stress was placed on rigorous political education for 
the 'mass' of the fighters, on democratic centralism and criticism and self-criticism as 
means of rectifying past mistakes from which 'anarchistic elements' and 'opportunistic 
agents' benefited.(29) With the large civilian flight from the vengeful Ethiopian regime in 
the mid-1970s, the absorption of new recruits had to be managed in a 'more controlled 
and supervised fashion'.(30) No doubt the kernel of these strategies was there, laid by the 
training period in China.  To expand activities in the highland areas a clear set of goals 
was established.  These included recruiting new men, organizing in the towns, 
particularly among the students, establishing an information department and intensifying 
propaganda activities, politicizing and organizing the peasantry and mobilizing the 
different Eritrean nationalities, in particular the Sahho and Dankali Afar. 
The report also proposed reducing dependence on supplies coming through Sudan by a 
strategy of self-reliance based on developing closer relations with rural producers, 
enhancing food storage and beginning to farm.  In order to improve military skills, it was 
proposed to establish military camps for new trainees, upgrade political education and 
translate political education material into Arabic.  In aiming to politicize the rural 
population, priority was given to those closest to the EPLF's military positions through 
providing them with health care and education.  Specific forces based on Chinese and 
Vietnamese experiences, armed propaganda squads and barefoot doctors, were to be 
allocated these tasks.  Priority was also given to the tens of thousands of Eritrean refugees 
in the Sudan. 
This comprehensive strategic framework aimed at increasing the number of fighters, 
developing links with the civilian population and enhancing its military capacity 
enabled the front to absorb the large numbers which joined it between 1974 and 1978.  
During these four years the EPLF took advantage of a series of dramatic events: the 
Ethiopian revolution, the joint EPLF-ELF assault on Asmara and the bloody Ethiopian 
reprisals, the liberation of the towns and the 'strategic' withdrawal from them in 1977-8.  
Organizing the towns and expanding the network of secret cells there both facilitated 
urban military operations and provided a conduit for civilians and supplies into the 
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EPLF.  Providing health care for peasants and pastoralists in areas which had no 
medical facilities generated significant rural support, in a way that politicization through 
political education with its unfamiliar Marxist/Maoist class analysis did not.  In 
addition, it insulated the growing numbers in the base areas from local epidemics.  
Similarly, the expansion of veterinary care for the animals of the rural population 
enhanced the popularity of the front.  For both pastoralist and peasant their camels, 
oxen, sheep and goats were critical for their livlihoods.  Such welfare provision also 
provided ease of entry into both the pastoralist camps and the villages.  We shall return 
in the following two chapters to this crucial period between 1974 and 1978. 
Only in 1973 were joint administrative departments established and the health centres 
and hospitals of the three forces combined.  Administrative functions and responsibilities 
were not clearly defined: the discharge of the sick and wounded from hospital was shared 
between Issayas Afeworki, leader of the Ala group, and Ahmad Hilal of the PLF, the 
secretary of the executive and also the head of the health department.  Supplies for both 
the highlands and Sahel were not easy to come by.  They were affected by meagre 
financial resources as well as by restrictions placed on them by the Sudanese government 
and interruptions caused by Ethiopian army and the ELF attacks.  In the highlands, 
although money was provided to purchase supplies from the towns and the local 
population, the poverty of the latter was a serious constraint.  The front, at that period, 
was also subject to infiltration because it lacked a sophisticated intelligence department 
and had only a handful of secret cells through which fighters could be recruited and 
assisted to Sahel. 
Mishandling civilians was admitted but the manqa accusation of compulsion and 
mistreatment was disavowed.  The organisation of Eritrean civil society both in the 
villages and the towns was not far advanced.  As Issayas Afeworki put it in the 
Destructive Movement: 'the situation of civil war is so unideal that we can hardly leave 
our positions to enjoy a bit of peace.  Those civilians within our reach are taught of our 
objectives but for the moment we cannot organize them.' Extending outwards into 
Eritrean society (the theme of the following chapter) was a function of its internal 
organizational coherence and autonomy that was based on three characteristics: the 
continuity of leadership cadres, the ideological framework for absorbing recruits into the 
front and the internal system of discipline and controls. 
Leadership and the Expansion of the Second Tier 
A strict democratic centralism was the core organizing principle of the front.  Within the 
EPLF, personalities have great significance, as we have seen in the discussion of the 
dissident problem.  For outsiders, however, the particular weight of individuals within the 
political bureau is hard to assess.  The predominance of Issayas Afeworki from the 
foundation of the EPLF is marked.  Other than those martyred during the armed struggle, 
the leaders elected at the unification meeting of the Ala and PLF groups remained more 
or less intact until the first congress of the EPLF in 1977.  The two key figures in the 
unification process were Ramadan Muhammad Nur and Issayas Afeworki.  They had 
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been part of a small study circle in the mid- I960s in Kassala, which also included Haile 
Woldetensai, Ali Sayyid Abdallah and Al-Amin Muhammad Said. (31) Both Ramadan 
and Issayas had been part of the ELF batch trained in China in 1967 and had returned as 
political commissars, respectively, for the fourth and fifth zones, from which they were 
elected to attend the Aradib meeting representing the reformist position against the ELF 
leadership. Both were again elected to the provisional leadership of the three dissident 
zones in 1968. (32) Ramadan's politico-military origins in the fourth zone, his role as one 
of the founders of the PLF, together with his admiration of the Chinese and Vietnamese 
guerrilla strategies shared with Issayas, were important factors in facilitating unity.  
Ramadan had also been elected at the Ambahara meeting of the PLF to the leadership, 
which sought agreement on co-ordination with the Ala group.  His influence was a 
decisive factor in providing the latter with arms received from Sabbe.  He was also 
reported to have played a key role in the departure of Mesfin Hagos from the PLF to the 
Ala group.  As well as being radical, educated and politically formed, he was from the 
Muslim Tigre and, thus, a fine complement to Issayas Afeworki's Ala group, which was 
systematically portrayed by the ELF as Christian highland chauvinists. 
The format establishment of the EPLF took place at its first congress in January 1977, 
and democratic centralism was institutionalized in the selection of delegates and election 
of leadership.  Ramadan Muhammad Nur was elected secretary-general and Issayas 
Afeworki assistent secretary-general.  The national democratic programme was also 
adopted although it had been formulated much earlier. (33) Units of the EPLF and the 
mass organisations elected 315 members to attend the congress, with one-third from the 
mass organisations.  Congress elected a central committee of 37 with six alternates, and 
its members had to have had two years' experience in the armed struggle. The central 
committee elected the political bureau of 13, the qualification for which was five years in 
the armed struggle.  The specification of numbers of years fighting distinguished between 
two political generations of recruits.  For the central committee, there was provision for 
those who had joined before the mass influx following the Ethiopian army response to the 
EPLF/ELF attack on Asmara in January 1975, and for the political bureau those who had 
joined before January 1972.  These latter were founder fighters of the PLF and the Ala 
group or those who joined in the first one and a half years after the split from the ELF, a 
period of considerable hardship. 
PB members were Issayas Afeworki, Haile Woldetensai, Mesfin Hagos, Petros 
Solomon, Sebhat Ephraim, Berhane Gerezgiher, Okba Abraha, Ramadan Muhammad 
Nur, Mahmud Sharifo, Ali Sayyid Abdallah, Ibrahim Afa, Al-Arnin Muhammad Said and 
Sa'id Barre.  Most had backgrounds as University and secondary school students (34) 
followed by military training in Syria, China and Cuba.  All but three had left from the 
ELF.  Petros Solomon and Sebhat Ephraim were involved in the manqa agitation, 
illustrative of the capacity of the older core leadership to absorb the second generation 
radicals.  Of different social and political backgrounds and educational and cultural 
experiences, they had more or less absorbed some combination of radical socialist 
nationalism, Marxist-Leninism and classical guerrilla war tactics and strategy.  They 
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were a contrast to the early ELF leaders of the nationalist struggle who had found their 
political language in Egypt, their tactics in Algeria and their skills in the Eritrean police 
or the Sudanese army. 
The leadership of the EPLF, in internal discussions or negotiations with the ELF, 
generally combined a united number of people.  There were those around Ramadan 
Muhammad Nur from the Massawa--Harqiqo area, mixed Tigre and sections of the 
Sahho, and those around Issayas Afeworki.  They were bonded together through victory 
over the manqa, complex relations within Osman Salih Sabbe, cosmopolitan military 
training in guerrilla war and opposition to the unreconstructed ELF, and a presence, if at 
times temporary, in the highlands and proximity to supply routes across the Red Sea.  
The determined Afeworki had in his circle Haile Woldetensai and Mesfin Hagos of the 
'old' fighters, and Petros Solomon and Sebhat Ephraim of the post-1973 but pre-1975 
fighters.  From the PLF fighters were Ramadan Muhammad Nur, Ali Sayyid, Ibrahim 
Afa, and Al-Amin Muhammad Said.  Not all of those who had field commands had had 
any kind of overseas military training: Petros Solomon and Sebhat Ephraim gained their 
military training in the field.  Others like PLF cadre Ramadan Awlaya had military 
training in Syria and continued in the EPLA; he became a successful commander of 
heavy artillery units in battles through the 1980s.  Veteran fighters like Al-Amin and 
Sa'id Barre moved to responsibilities for foreign affairs, particularly with Arab 
governments in the Gulf. 
The main administrative command structures under the PB were committees for military 
and political affairs and departments of economics, health, social welfare and mass 
administration.  A group of four from the PB constituted the standing committee which 
was responsible for day-to-day decision-making and included the secretary-general and 
assistant and the secretaries of the military and political committees.  Many of the PB 
acted as military commanders through to liberation, and some shifted between political 
and military work.  After the 1977 congress Sebhat Ephraim was responsible for mass 
administration, a crucial instrument in the expansion of the organisation of and control 
over Eritrean society in the liberated, semi-liberated and occupied areas.  After the 
second congress he was responsible for military affairs and led the army into Asmara in 
1991. Petros Solomon was in charge of the eastern front in 1977-8 and later was in 
charge of security.  Ali Sayyid and Ibrahim Afa (35) were front commanders and Mesfin 
Hagos was commander of one of the four divisions on liberation. 
There was a greater degree of continuity of PLF founder members, whereas of the 
original founders of the Ala group only Issayas and Haile Woldetensai were elected to 
the PB.  In the second tier of the leadership, the central committee, were other PLF 
founder members: Al-Amin Sarraj, Ramadan Osman Awlaya and Musa Rabi'a.  Of the 
early members of the Ala group were Asmarom Gerezgiher and Adhanom 
Gebremariam.  There would appear to have been a marked bonding within the 
leadership between those who made the transition from the PLF and Ala into the EPLF 
and those who joined during the process of merger and the period of civil war. 
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There is one qualification to the rosy picture of a dominant leadership after the defeat of 
the manqa, and it arises from the emergence of a grouping identified as the yamin or 
rightist opposition.  Mention has to be made of this group because, like the manqa, it 
was an opposition movement that remained publicly sensitive after independence.  No 
clear account of it has been given and yet all fighters know about it to one degree or 
another.  The motivation and membership of this grouping is more shrouded in mystery 
than the former.  It has been portrayed as regionally particularist, rooted in an Akalai 
Guzai sub-highland regionalism, by one well-informed Eritrean writer who has linked it 
to Solomon Woldemariam's attempt to take advantage of the manqa disturbance. (36) 
The present author's sources suggest that it was not a coordinated opposition and could 
not be accurately characterized as a movement.  The tag of 'rightist' was an obscurantist 
device to cover a motley of educated critics who were in key positions but who were not 
associated with the manqa.  It was a collection of individuals from different highland 
provinces, some of whom were frontline fighters while others were from the internal 
security organisation.  The dissent began in 1976, and a dozen or more were executed in 
1980. The great majority were imprisoned and subsequently reincorporated into the front.  
Some of those involved were exposed in public criticism sessions and accused of 
criticizing the leadership of the front for neglecting areas from which they originated and 
attempting to recruit others on a particularistic basis.  Several of the individuals who have 
been identified with this rightist tendency and were imprisoned were from Hamasin 
province. 
Whatever the highland province origin, that these networks of opposition emerged on 
some claimed form of highland particularism provided a further impetus for 
centralisation and organizational and ideological discipline based on open, public 
criticism and self-criticism sessions.  Solomon Woldemariam, a non-ideological 
opponent of Issayas, was at the centre of one ineffective network of opposition, and 
despite that was forgiven and somewhat protected, unlike Tewolde Eyob, until his 
individualistic activities proved too much.  He was captured fleeing to Sudan in 1980 and 
some years later executed.  The devil of early Eritrean nationalist division had been one 
of Muslim against Christian Tigrinya, and divisions between Tigrinyans on the basis of 
provincial primordialism was a horrific spectre for the leadership and had to be quashed.  
Although this challenge did not mobilize on anything like the scale of the manqa it was 
the last challenge to the consolidated leadership of the EPLF. 
At the EPLF's second congress in 1987, the PB was reduced to nine Members (37) and 
the position of assistant secretary-general was abolished.  The secretary-general gained 
more format powers over day-to-day decisions and appointments assisted by a secretariat.  
A general staff was also created under the secretary-general, who acted as commander-in- 
chief Issayas Afeworki replaced Ramadan Muhammad Nur as secretary-general and it 
was to him that these extensive powers accrued.  PB members retained considerable 
spheres for individual initiatives within their areas of responsibility. 
The central committee was expanded to 71, with seven alternates, and the congress to 
above a thousand.  There was, then, a shrinking core of the top leadership and an 
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expansion of the second tier.  This restructuring reflected the increasing responsibilities 
of Issayas Afeworki, the marginalization of Ramadan Muhammad Nur, a narrowing of 
the numbers at the apex of the EPLF and an expansion of the second tier into a number 
which reflected the expanding functions and members of the front.  The broader 
leadership of 71 became an unwieldy body for decision-making and more one of 
ratification of the decisions of the core leadership.  A combination of leadership 
dominance, collective decision-making and scope for individual initiative within front 
guidelines was a salient characteristic of the EPLF mirrored at all levels of the front. 
The 1987 congress also marked the incorporation of the ELF central leadership, or 
Sagem group.  Although most of the Sagem fighters were highlanders, and thus 
augmented the already dominant fighters from the Tigrinya speakers, associated with 
them was Ibrahim Totil, a veteran ELF leader from the Nara community of south- 
western Eritrea. The Nara community had long been linked to the ELF, and the 
inclusion of Totil and other ex-ELF Nara fighters was of symbolic value for the EPLF 
in the eyes of Eritreans who made ethnic calculations. 
Footnotes. 
23  See Ammar, Eritrea. 
24.  It has been argued that the motivation of these two early leaders was an Akalai Guzai 
regionalism opposed to the power of those from Hamasin.  See lyob, The Eritrean 
Struggle, p. 117. Although Akalai Guzai regionalism seems rather far-fetched and a 
leadership struggle between founders of the Ala group makes more sense, this split has 
been characterized as a 'rightist' challenge to Afeworki's position.  The DM mentions 'a 
person called Solomon. 
25.  In an interview with Eritrea Now, January 1980, Afeworki made clear that he had 
little taste for then contemporary Chinese leaders.  'We content ourselves with what other 
Chinese have taught us in making their revolution. 
26. Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, Vol. 1, Peking, 1975. 
27.  Sebhatu bad been a leading student agitator at Haile Selassie University in Addis 
Ababa and founder member of the Marxist Crocodile Society He was expelled from the 
University in 1965 and suspended indefinitely in 1969.  R.R. Balsvik, Haile Selassie's 
students: The Intellectual and Social Background to Revolution 1952-1977 (African 
Studies Center, Michigan State University, Michigan, 1985), pp.   118, 154, 258. 
28. The other fighters named were Hberash Melke, Dehab Tesfatzion, Workuha, 
Hebrahtu Woldu, Alazar TesfaMchael, Michael Russom, AbietoTazaz and Semere 
Guadad.  'Unita Nazionale e Nazionalismo Eritreo', Africa, no. 4/5, Sept-Oct. 1977, p. 
153.  Haile Hahtsun is presumably Haile Mahtsoun, who was not executed but 
imprisoned for some time.  Opposition sources give higher figures for those executed.  
Considerable numbers were disciplined and imprisoned. 
29.  al-Tali'a (Arabic for Vanguard), l3 January 1976, pp. 2-3. 
30 Ibid. 
31. Connell, Against All Odds pp. 79, 287. 
32. Al-Amin, al-Thawra, pp. 22-3. 
33. As stated explicitly in The DM, published in 1974. 
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34. Ties of friendship and shared political activism prior to joining the struggle linked 
several of these together.  Issayas and Haile Woldetensai were student organizers in the 
Prince Makonnen Secondary School at Asmara in the mid- I 960s, students together at 
University in Addis Ababa and joined the ELF at the end of 1966.  Sibhat Ephraim and 
Berhane Gerezgiher were students in Addis and left together to join the EPLF in 1972, as 
did Okba Abraha and Petros Solomon. 
35. Ibrahim Afa died in 1985.  His death has become a matter of controversy.  ELF 
sources imply a power struggle between him and Issayas Afeworki.  Other explanations 
include an organizational difference over the role of the military committee, of which he 
was the head, to be abolished at the 1987 congress, while the reader of a draft of this 
book suggests an additional disagreement over military strategy.  Controversy and 
suspicion arise from the two-year gap between Ibraffim's death and its announcement.  
The detail involved in assessing the circuitous interpretations of Ibrahim Afa's death will 
be left to an Eritrean Agatha Christie. 
36. See lyob, The Eritrean Struggle, pp. 116-17.  The author is related by marriage to a 
former EPLF internal security and central committee member and, one assumes, well- 
connected.  Yet the paragraphs on these pages and the explanatory endnotes, particularly 
no. 34, are obfuscating in the extreme.  Given the sensitivity of internal dissent issues, 
perhaps the obscure prose is intentional. 
37. Ibrahim Afa was killed by Ethiopian artillery (and not at the behest of Issayas 
Afeworki, as a false but continuing ELF-inspired rumour has it) and Mesfin Hagos, 
Berhane Gerezgiher, Okba Abraha and Sa'id Barre were not elected. 
* * * * * 
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