ut of his briefcase Bereket Habte Selassie, professor of African and Afro-American studies, pulls a blue, pocket-sized booklet. Selassie carries it with him always. It is the constitution of Eritrea, Africa, and he wrote it.

To understand, you have to go back more than 40 years. In the late 50s and early 60s, Eritrea and Ethiopia were still joined in "a very lopsided federation in which Eritrea had some autonomy, but the Ethiopian government had sovereignty over Eritrea," Selassie says. At that time Selassie was serving the federation as a judge of the Supreme Court and then as attorney general. Though he was a public official, Selassie had what he calls an "uneasy" relationship with the government, disagreeing over human rights and other issues. "When the emperor decided to abolish the federation arbitrarily, illegally—I resigned." Selassie says.

For a couple years Selassie worked as an attorney with the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Then he joined the Eritrean freedom fighters. He served as a diplomat and represented them at the United Nations.

"You are talking about a person who had known public office as a judge, a lawyer, and then takes up arms against the government," Selassie says. "A lawman turned outlaw, so to speak."

The war for independence from Ethiopia lasted 30 years. Meanwhile, in 1975, a civil war broke out in Eritrea. Selassie mediated that conflict and helped bring about a cease-fire. He eventually decided to join one side because, he says, it had concrete aims of social justice and equality, rather than simply control of the government. "You can't be neutral when a nation's life is involved," he says.

n 1991, Eritrea finally won its independence. The country needed a fresh start—and a new constitution. For that, leaders turned to Selassie, who by then was living in the United States. He agreed to serve as the principal draftsman of the constitution and to chair the 10-member drafting committee as well as the 50-member constitutional commission.

First, Selassie made sure to consult the Eritrean public. "From the beginning I made it quite clear to the members of my commission that we were servants of the people and had to consult with them as the stakeholders," he says. The commission prepared educational documents on issues such as separation of power, the rights of women, and the contents of a constitution and had them translated into four of Eritrea's most common languages (there are nine languages and four ethnic groups in the country). After documents were broadcast over the radio and distributed in print, citizens attended public debates.

Selassie and each commission member traveled to different parts of Eritrea to begin the debates, which were held in schools, town halls, and even outdoors. "There are some nomadic communities, so we'd move with them, share a meal, and talk," Selassie says. Though many citizens are uneducated, he says, after receiving some information they would debate enthusiastically. "If you invite the villagers for three or four hours, they like it so much that they debate throughout the day and some even overnight."