Ask people what they know about Somalia and most will probably start talking about pirates, terrorists and Black Hawk Down. Not many would think to mention democracy or free elections as well, but they should. Last month, Somaliland--an impoverished sliver of territory that has maintained de facto independence from Somalia since 1991--held elections that put the democratic pretenses of its neighbors in the Horn of Africa to shame.
Eritrea has avoided international attention in recent years in ways that may have protected the Red Sea country's rulers from proper scrutiny but benefit no one else. Even those who recall that the continent's youngest state gained its unlikely independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a bloody thirty-year struggle may be shocked to hear that the optimistic nationalism of the 1990s has been dissolved under President Isaias Afewerki into a despairing void, causing thousands of Eritreans to flee the country that they fought so hard to establish.
From the Horn of Africa, a Ray of HopeJul 21, 2010
