The Washington Times
October 15, 1998, Thursday, Final Edition
Eritreans are rebuilding pre-World War II Italian locomotives under their
own financial steam, evidence of a people determined to stand on
their own on a continent awash in corruption and Western handouts. They
even pay their taxes and spurn foreign aid.
And there are virtually no beggars or crimes. In much of Africa or the
Middle East, observers often find themselves searching for something
positive, something - anything - to relieve the gloom. It is the opposite
in Eritrea. "I scratch my fingers in the dirt," said a Western ambassador,
but I've worn them to the bone and found nothing."
What is Eritrea's secret?
"Doing it ourselves" - as the railway chief said - sums it up: self-reliance,
ingrained, passionate, stubborn, at times to the point of masochism,
lies at the heart of the "ethics of the bush." Other virtues they learned
in those heroic years were self-denial, solidarity, patience, a high sense
of national purpose that nonetheless accommodated pragmatism and adaptability.
Eritreans remain deeply anchored in themselves and their own experience.
So it's almost a fetish of their leadership that, while open to the world,
it doesn't accept "models" or formulas of any kind. If anything,
in fact, post-colonial Africa has served as a model of how not to proceed
with the construction of its own latecomer state.
"They sometimes study things to excess here," said a Western banker, "but
it pays off. President Afewerki rightly says that Eritrea is like
the tortoise that gets there in the end."
OPEN PRESIDENCY
"Most African leaders are emperors," said
a Sudanese opposition leader, marveling at the modesty of Eritrea's ruling
class. For example, a government minister makes an appointment to see someone
in the simplest of lean-to coffee shops outside his ministry. There are
no perks, no official cars and, even in new buildings, no elevator to a
fourth-floor minister's office. People can walk virtually unchecked into
the presidency itself or chance upon the incumbent in any bar or
restaurant, where he insists on paying the bill himself.
Another African, Martyn Ngwenya, head of the U.N. Development Program in
Asmara, bears lyrical witness to the "corruption-free development environment"
which Eritrea has achieved.
"Here," he said, "".
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