M.A. / With the exception of the Western Sahara, Eritrea was the only African country to have been permanently occupied by another African country after the Second World War, when the concept of self-determination had been widely recognised and accepted. Despite the illegality of the Ethiopian annexation, the conflict in Eritrea was largely under-reported in the Western media, especially in the 70s and 80s. There were also few protests from the international community, especially African states and their leaders, many of whom viewed the conflict in Eritrea as a secessionist problem. The Organisation of African Unity was founded in Addis Ababa in 1963 and Ethiopia had a particularly prestigious position in Africa. During three decades the Eritrean nationalists conducted a war of liberation with no parallel in Africa and one which can only been compared to the Vietnamese struggle against French and American domination. The war in Eritrea was a protracted conflict that involved many thousands of soldiers, foreign military advisors and heavy military equipment on the Ethiopian side and a much smaller fighting force on the Eritrean side, which only had the support of the civilian population. This mini-thesis looks into those socio-economic aspects that enabled Eritrea's most efficient and resilient liberation front, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, EPLF, to mobilise the Eritrean population around the goal of national liberation. The study pays particular attention to how the EPLF obtained the highest degree of participation from the civilian population and how it maximised all available resources to fight the Ethiopian occupation forces.