1.
National Assembly (Eritrea)
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According to the IPU, parliament has 150 indirectly elected members. The National Assembly was composed in February 1992, AFP reported that Eritreans have elected 399 representatives in the countrys six regions in a lengthy process that will lead to the formation of a constituent assembly. The regional elections began on 4 January 1997 in some parts of the country and were completed in others by 1 March 1997, the National Assembly is located in the capital Asmara. While Eritrea was federated to Ethiopia, and later annexed from 1952-1962, Eritrea has a one party national Assembly governed by Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice. From the time of independence since May 1991, the country has been continuing with a government elected during the elections in June 1993. The scheduled elections in 2001 has been postponed indefinitely, the regional and local elections are conducted on a periodic basis on a restricted framework. All men and women of any ethnic or religious background are eligible to vote, only individuals, not parties, are allowed to contest and the elections are presided by representatives from PDFJ. Policy decisions should be centered around the party mandate and opposition, the composition of the 150 members of the National Assembly is members from the Central Committee members of the ruling PFDJ and 75 others elected from the 527 member Constituent Assembly in 1997. The elections were held for a government to discuss and ratify the new constitution. The stipulation set for the 75 elected members were, a minimum of 11 women members, the President is elected by the members of the National Assembly for a five-year term and a maximum of two terms. The members of the National Assembly are elected directly by popular vote, in May 1997, a new constitution was adopted, which enabled only the 75 elected members needed in the Assembly, while 75 others from the PFDJ were nominated from Central Committee. The members of the assembly were allowed to continue until next elections were held. The National Assembly is scheduled to meet six months or at points of emergency at the behest of President. The Council of State reports to the Assembly, Assembly is set as the top most legislative body of the Constitution of Eritrea that needs to assure the fundamental rights of the citizens of the country and to ensure justice, peace and stability. The National Assembly was also set to oversee the Executive branch of the constitution during the regime of the transitional government, the other major functions of the National Assembly include approval of budgets, governing domestic and foreign policies, and regulating the policies of the council. Politics of Eritrea List of legislatures by country Legislative branch
2.
People's Front for Democracy and Justice
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The Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice is the current ruling political party in Eritrea. Successor to the formerly left-wing nationalist and African socialist Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, the historical region of Eritrea had joined Ethiopia as an autonomous unit in 1952. The Eritrean Liberation Movement was founded in 1958 and was succeeded by the Eritrean Liberation Front in 1961, the ELF grew in membership when the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie abolished Eritrea’s autonomous status, annexing it as a province in 1962. In the 1960s and ’70s the ELF undertook a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the Ethiopian government. A faction of the ELF broke away in 1970 to form the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, the EPLF managed to secure control of much of the Eritrean countryside and build effective administrations in the areas it controlled. Fighting that broke out between the EPLF, ELF, and other Eritrean rebel groups in 1981 prevented further military gains, after the holding of a United Nations-supervised referendum on independence there in April 1993, the EPLF declared the new nation of Eritrea the following month. In February 1994 the EPLF renamed itself the People’s Front for Democracy, the leader of the PFDJ party and current President of Eritrea is Isaias Afewerki. Currently the Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice is the legal party in Eritrea. There is some debate as to whether PFDJ is a political party or whether it is a broad governing association in transition. However, local elections continued in Eritrea, the most recent round of local government elections were held in May 2004
3.
Eritrean People's Liberation Front
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The Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front was an armed organization that fought for the independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia. It emerged in 1970 as an intellectual left-wing group that split from the Eritrean Liberation Front, after achieving Eritrean independence in 1991, it transformed into the Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice, which serves as Eritreas only legal political organisation. The EPLF was a movement in which 30% of the fighters were women. The women fighters influence in the patriarchal and quite conservative Eritrean society was significant, EPLF and Eritrean Liberation Front first struggled during the Eritrean Civil War. In the early 1980s, new armed conflicts between the rival Eritrean Liberation Front led to the front being marginalized and pushed into neighboring Sudan, the EPLF remained the only relevant opposition to Ethiopian occupation in Eritrea. The EPLF captured many Ethiopian soldiers during the war for independence and kept them in prisoner of war camps. Due to the ethic of the EPLF however, these POWs were not harmed by their captors. Some segments of the EPLF went as far as teaching prisoners of war some trades, during its protracted struggle the EPLF constructed an underground hospital. In these hospitals surgeries were conducted as well as the production of various pharmaceuticals, the front also constructed schools in the liberated areas, as well as underground and partially outdoor schools for the children of the EPLF. In 1988, the EPLF started an attack from the province of Sahel towards the south. The EPLF emerged as the dominant rebel force as early as 1977, in 1991 the EPLF succeeded in liberating Eritrea on May 24,1991. At this first meeting a Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-General were elected and this program specifically targeted a liberalization of womens rights as well as a broad educational policy for maintaining every language and improving literacy. It was also set out that the boundaries of a liberated Eritrean state would be based on the treaties of Italy. The Second Congress in 1987 brought together the EPLF and the Eritrean Liberation Front/Central Leadership in what was called the Unity Congress and this was the culmination of negotiations over three years which had brought together the two fighting forces in October 1986 under a unified command. On this congress, Isaias Afewerki replaced secretary-general Ramadan Nur, the Third and last Congress of the EPLF was held in 1994 in Asmara. It was important as it converted the Front from an organization to a purely political movement. At this Congress, the name of the organization was changed to the Peoples Front for Democracy, Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice Official Website List of incidents attributed to the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front on the START database
4.
Sebhat Ephrem
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Sebhat Ephrem is the Minister of Energy and Mines for Eritrea, a former Minister of Defence and former Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front commander during the Eritrean War of Independence. Sebhat completed high school at the Evangelical Lutheran High School in Asmara and he later attended Addis Ababa University for two years before joining the EPLF in 1972. As a fighter, he rose up the ranks from a political commissar to becoming part of the executive committee. Sebhat Ephrem served from June 1992 to March 1994 as the Governor of Asmara, from March 1994 to May 1995 he served as the Minister of Health. In both positions he brought structure and reorganization to these offices, after leaving the military in June 1992, he returned to the army in May 1995 with the rank of general and was appointed and confirmed as Minister of Defense. It is believed that he is the only 4-star general in the Eritrean defence forces thus far
5.
Asmara
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Asmara, known locally as Asmera, is the capital city and largest settlement in Eritrea. Home to a population of just over 1,000,000 inhabitants, the city is located at the tip of an escarpment that is both the northwestern edge of the Eritrean highlands and the Great Rift Valley in neighbouring Ethiopia. Asmara is situated in Eritreas central Maekel Region and it is known for its well-preserved colonial Italian modernist architecture. These towns were attacked by clans from the low land. Until the women of each clan decided that to defeat their common enemy, the men accepted, hence the name Arbate Asmera. Arbate Asmara literally means, in the Tigrinya language, the four made them unite, eventually Arbate was dropped and it has been called Asmara which means they made them unite. There is still a district called Arbaete Asmara in the Administrations of Asmara and it is now called the Italianized version of the word Asmara. The westernized version of the name is used by a majority of non-Eritreans, while the inhabitants of Eritrea and neighboring peoples remain loyal to the original pronunciation. The missionary Remedius Prutky passed through Asmara in 1751, and described in his memoirs that a church there by Jesuit priests 130 years before was still intact. Asmara started to grow in a way when it was occupied by Italy in 1889 and was made the capital city of Italian Eritrea in preference to Massawa by Governor Martini in 1897. In the early 20th century, a line was built to the coast, passing through the town of Ghinda. In both 1913 and 1915 the city suffered only slight damage in large earthquakes, in the late 1930s the Italians changed the face of the town, with a new structure and new buildings, Asmara was called Piccola Roma. Asmara was populated by a large Italian community and consequently the city acquired an Italian architectural look, the city of Asmara had a population of 98,000, of which 53,000 were Italian according to the Italian census of 1939. This fact made Asmara the main Italian town of the Italian empire in Africa, in all of Eritrea the population of Italians was only 75,000 in total in that year, making Asmara by far their largest centre. Many industrial investments were made by Italy in Asmara, but the beginning of World War II stopped the blossoming industrialization of the area, in 1952, the United Nations resolved to federate the former colony under Ethiopian rule. During the federation, Asmara was no longer the capital city, the capital was now Addis Ababa, over 1,000 kilometres to the south. The national language of the city was replaced from Tigrinya language to the Ethiopian Amharic language. In 1961, emperor Haile Selassie I ended the federal arrangement, ethiopias biggest ally was the United States
6.
Italian Eritrea
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Italian Eritrea was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy in the territory of present-day Eritrea. Although it was created in 1890, the first Italian settlements in the area were established in 1882 around Assab. The colony officially lasted until 1947, ignoring their treaty with Ethiopia, they openly encouraged Italy to expand north into Massawa, which was taken without a shot from its Egyptian garrison. Located on an island surrounded by lucrative pearl-fishing grounds, the superior port was fortified. Assab, meanwhile, continued to service as a coaling station. As they were not a party to the Hewett Treaty, the Italians began restricting access to arms shipments and imposing customs duties on Ethiopian goods immediately. In the disorder that followed the 1889 death of Emperor Yohannes IV, Gen. Oreste Baratieri occupied the highlands along the Eritrean coast and his subsequent victory over his rival kings and enthronement as Emperor Menelek II made the treaty formally binding upon the entire country. Secure both domestically and militarily, Menelik denounced the treaty in whole and the war, culminating in Italys disastrous defeat at Adwa. Massawa remained the primary port for most of northern Ethiopia, but its relatively high customs dues, dependence on caravans, seeking to develop their own lands, the Italian government launched the first development projects in the new colony in the late 1880s. The Eritrean Railway was completed to Saati in 1888 and reached Asmara in the highlands in 1911, the Asmara–Massawa Cableway was the longest line in the world during its time. Italian administration of Eritrea also brought improvements in the medical and agricultural sectors of Eritrean society, despite an imposition of racial laws, all urban Eritreans had access to modern sanitation and hospital services. The Italians also employed local Eritreans in public service, particularly the police, in a region marked by cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity, a succession of Italian governors maintained a notable degree of unity and public order. Nicknamed Colonia Primogenita in contrast to the newer and less-developed territories of Italian Somaliland and Libya, the first few dozen families were sponsored by the Italian government around the start of the 20th century and settled around Asmara and Massawa. The Italian-Eritrean community then grew from around 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II, by the early 1940s, Catholicism was the declared religion of around 28% of the colonys population. Benito Mussolinis rise to power in Italy in 1922 brought profound changes to the government in Eritrea. This Fascist period was characterized by expansion in the name of a new Roman Empire. Historian Gian Luca Podesta wrote that practically Asmara has become an Italian city, the newly opened factories produced buttons, cooking oil, and pasta, construction materials, packing meat, tobacco, hide and other household commodities. The Italian government continued to implement agricultural reforms but primarily on farms owned by Italian colonists, consequently, the standard of living in Eritrea in 1939 was considered among the best on the continent for both the local Eritreans and the Italian settlers
7.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
8.
Addis Ababa University
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Addis Ababa University is a state university in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Originally called the University College of Addis Ababa at its establishment in 1950, the institution received its current name in 1975. Addis Ababa University was founded as a college in 1950 by a Canadian Jesuit, Dr Lucien Matte. It began operations the following year, over the following two years an affiliation with the University of London was developed. The writer and theorist Richard Cummings served as a member of the Faculty of Law in the 1960s, the university offered its first Masters programs in 1979 and its first PhD programs in 1987. Three top university administrators resigned their posts in December 2002 in protest against increasing government interference in internal university matters, government officials wanted the University to change its system of student evaluations to conform to a gemgema system favored by the ruling party. In 2013/2014, there were 33,940 enrolled undergraduate students,13,000 graduate students and 1733 PhD students, Addis Ababa University has thirteen campuses. Twelve of these are situated in Addis Ababa, and one is located in Bishoftu and it also maintains branches in many cities throughout Ethiopia. The government assigns qualified students to these universities upon completion of secondary school, associated institutions include the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, founded by Richard Pankhurst. The Development of Higher Education and Social Change, an Ethiopian Experience
