Commentary: Abiy Ahmed’s Declaration of War on Eritrea

Amb. Andebrhan Welde Giorgis
 

Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has threatened to invade Eritrea, seize its port of Asseb and acquire ownership of its coastline. His initial posturing seemed a propaganda stunt to divert public attention from Ethiopia’s worsening domestic woes and mobilise support to shore up his fragile ethnoreligious sectarian regime. His deployment of military assets, including pawns, in Samara, the capital of the Afar Regional State adjoining Eritrea, however, signals a turn from bluffing and brinkmanship into a shooting war. As a prelude, Abiy displayed a map of Africa that incorporates a large territory of Eritrea (and parts of Djibouti and Somalia) into Ethiopia during the AU Summit in Addis Ababa in mid-February 2025. These measures constitute a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea and effectively signify a declaration of war on the State of Eritrea. 

 In an address to the Ethiopian Parliament on 13 October 2023, Abiy Ahmed officially declared a very dangerous threat against the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ethiopia’s proximate Red Sea littoral neighbouring states, particularly focused on Eritrea. Since the threat impacts not only the question of future peace and war between Eritrea and Ethiopia but also the stability and security of the Horn of Africa, it is a grave matter that requires an appropriate and timely démarche. Quite in keeping with such costly past failures, the government of Eritrea has yet to lodge or deliver a proper demarche. The regime’s failures are the product of President Isaias’s deep hostility and contempt for domestic and international rule of law and antipathy for diplomacy as well as lack of proper understanding of the significance of timely démarches.  

Abiy’s minions and several officials of his Oromo-dominated regime have used the state and social media to spread a plethora of ignorant, frenzied and virulent warmongering emulating the prime minister’s brazen threat to commit aggression against Eritrea. The threat to invade Eritrea contravenes the UN Charter, the AU Constitutive Act, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the 2018 Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Abiy’s infantile politics and illusory ambitions have already immersed Ethiopia in a quagmire of ethnic wars and internecine conflicts. Aggression against Eritrea would be playing with fire. His defiance of international law - the foundation of normal relations among nations - and resort to the ‘law of the jungle’ against Eritrea would spell disastrous defeat for Ethiopia and further destabilise, unravel and disrupt war-torn Ethiopia itself. 

Abiy Ahmed and his Oromummaa ‘Prosperity Party’ (1) have been busy orchestrating a series of cheeky statements in meetings with businessmen, senior military officers and party cadres declaring his territorial designs on Eritrea. Abiy had formally crossed the red line when he claimed, in an address to the Ethiopian parliament, that Ethiopia has a “natural right” to possess direct access to the Red Sea; that the Red Sea forms the “natural border” of Ethiopia; and that, direct access to the Red Sea based on historical, geographic, ethnic and economic grounds, is an existential necessity for Ethiopia (2). 

The fabricated history that feeds the false expansionist narrative has nurtured the dream of a greater Ethiopia with access to the Red Sea and driven successive Ethiopian regimes to wage devastating wars (1961-1991, 1998-2000) and sustain humiliating defeats in trying to dominate Eritrea. Even though population size and firepower do matter, Eritrea’s experience during the last six and half decades shows that, in the final analysis, war is primarily a contest of will power. The total military victory of the armed struggle and the successful foiling of Ethiopia’s attempt to reoccupy Eritrea after independence are the outcome of the resolute determination and resilience of the Eritrean people in resisting Ethiopian aggression and their indomitable will to safeguard Eritrea’s sovereign statehood. 

Abiy’s demand for forcible ownership of a port, a transit corridor and a naval base on the Red Sea represents a virtual declaration of war on Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia. Has Ethiopia ever in its history owned a sea outlet or a port on the Red Sea? Is the obsession for ownership of a sea outlet and a port on the Red Sea or the pursuit of Greater Ethiopia or Greater Tigray new? What about the hostile narrative to the sovereignty of Eritrea that many members of the Ethiopian and Tigrayan elites invoke constantly? Is the narrative correct or false? And what would constitute a durable solution? 

As the subject matter at hand is very broad, I have relied on the perspectives of history and international law to condense and present a concise commentary under fifteen interconnected subheadings, namely: (1) New Wine in Old Wineskins; (2) The Scourge of Delusion; (4) The Kingdom of Axum and Eritrea; (5) The Making of Eritrea and Ethiopia; (6) The Making of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary; (7) Eritrean National Identity and Statehood; (8) The Path to Durable Path; (9) Access to Sea: Right of Ownership or Use; (10) Compensation and Reparations; (11) A Lie Told Ad Nauseam Does Not Turn True; (12) The Enemy Within; (13) Proactive Diplomacy; (14) National Duty; and (15) Conclusion.

   1. New Wine in Old Wineskins 

In peddling the expansionist territorial claims of generations of contemporary Ethiopian rulers and ruling elites against Eritrea, Abiy is simply pouring new wine in old wineskins. The Biblical parable admonishes people not to “pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out; and the wineskins will be ruined” (3). 

Once again, the expansionist ambition of Ethiopia’s ruling elites over Eritrea has reared its ugly head in a perilous gambit of ‘Greater Ethiopia with access to the Red Sea’. It is an open secret that Abiy and his inner circle have been propagating the surreptitious scheme not only to acquire a port, a corridor and a naval base on the Red Sea but also to invade and bring Eritrea back under Ethiopian domination. Such a scheme has been tried before and failed miserably at a devastating human and material cost to both countries. 

The scheme’s public declaration has set Abiy on a collision course to provoke war and play a zero-sum game with dire consequences for the peoples, economies and future of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. The genie is out of the bottle. His belated attempt to equivocate and backtrack on his assertion while his parading troops saluting him during his display of military bravado shouted “the sea is ours; the port is ours; the ships are ours” can hardly repair the damage done or bridge the credibility gap created by his stream of pathological lies. No doubt, his new map and military deployment in Samara have upped the ante. 

Certainly, war is a multi-edged sword that will cut and visit death and destruction on both sides. It would wreak havoc and cause immense suffering on the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia with destructive spillover effects on the entire region of the Horn of Africa. It would also jeopardise maritime security in the vital sea-lanes of the southern Red Sea. Furthermore, war would pose a clear and present danger to international peace, stability and security.   

   2. The Scourge of Delusion 

Abiy has long been intimating that the ultimate home of the Ethiopian navy established in Lake Tana will be Eritrea’s Red Sea coast. During the heyday of their bromance, Isaias was prudently advised to reach agreement with Abiy on a reciprocal recognition of the colonial treaty border as the international boundary between the two countries. Instead of using his immense leverage at the time to secure Ethiopia’s formal recognition of the colonial treaty border as the basis for durable peace between the two countries, Isaias rejected the valuable advice stating that “the issue of boundary demarcation is not our priority now” and chose to awaken a dead dream buried thirty-four years ago. 

Once again, Isaias missed a golden opportunity to agree on and settle the precise location and eventual physical demarcation of the international boundary between the two countries with his Ethiopian counterpart. Such a formal bilateral agreement could have foreclosed the ongoing false accusations of Eritrean occupation of Ethiopian (Tigrayan) territory constantly repeated by certain Prosperity Party and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) leaders and cadres as well as bellicose members of the Ethiopian and Tigrayan elites. 

His tempting gift of a map of Eritrea’s Red Sea littoral, compulsive reiteration that Abiy would lead and represent Eritrea and Ethiopia from then on, and obsessive declaration that whoever thinks that Eritrea and Ethiopia are two countries does not know the reality might have prompted false hopes and abetted Abiy’s territorial ambitions over Eritrea. In fact, Isaias showed no reaction beyond beating his chest in glee when Abiy joyfully declared, while lavishing him in a grand state dinner that “what I and Esu (Isayas) will share is Asseb”. Abiy had reportedly offered territorial swap, equity shares or federation or confederation between Eritrea and Ethiopia in return. 

His pipe dreams aside, Abiy seems too naïve, too ignorant or too delusional to realise that his bargaining offers of (1) territorial swap, (2) equity shares in Ethiopian Airlines or the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, (3) federation or (4) confederation of Eritrea and Ethiopia are non-starters. Federation and confederation suggest a hidden expansionist agenda for which there exists a bitter historical memory of betrayal and war. Neither the land swap nor the equity shares are equivalent to the intrinsic value of a coastline with its extensive territorial waters and exclusive economic zone endowed with abundant marine resources. Venting apparent frustration with his failure to whet his appetite for Asseb peacefully, Abiy has resorted to asserting Ethiopia’s purported “natural right” and declared a dangerous adventure to invade Eritrea, forcibly occupy the port of Asseb to possess a sea outlet and establish a naval base on the Eritrean Red Sea coast as an existential necessity.

It would of course be nice for any land-locked country to own a transit corridor and an outlet to the sea. However, no transit country would willingly compromise its sovereignty and territorial integrity, rendering the possibility a case of “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride them”. Obviously, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia have repudiated Abiy’s assertion. 

It is also crucial to stress that port ownership on Eritrea’s Red Sea coast is neither an existential necessity nor an obstacle to the development of Ethiopia, as Abiy falsely claims. Ethiopia has other options and has used them during the last twenty-five years. Trying to externalise or divert attention from the internal causes of Ethiopia’s underdevelopment is wrong, myopic and counter-productive. Any attempt to gain such ownership by the threat or use of force constitutes a dangerous gamble. No transit state would allow the wilful violation of its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity in flagrant breach of international law. Such aggression is bound to be a double-edged sword that could destroy, disrupt and dismantle Ethiopia. 

Viewed from the perspective of the prevailing national and regional dynamics, Abiy’s agenda is delusional, dangerous and unattainable. The thinly veiled invocation of ‘it is our turn to rule Ethiopia and dominate the region’ in the context of Ethiopia’s perniciously ethnicised politics portends disaster for Ethiopia and trouble for its proximate neighbours. Whether or not Abiy will be able to impose the narrative of his Oromo ethnic group’s ‘turn to rule and dominate’ and be allowed to commit aggression on the neighbours depends on the people of Ethiopia. His repeated references to Ethiopia’s large and growing population size, however, bear the implicit threat of invading hordes menacing small Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia.

It is déjà vu. Hitler’s Germany tried it in Europe with catastrophic consequences for Germany, Europe and the world. Abiy’s predecessors - Emperor Haile Selassie, Colonel Mengistu and Prime Minister Meles - tried it against Eritrea and failed. History teaches that his fragile, beleaguered and increasingly ethnicised regime can only meet the same fate. He thus needs to learn from the disastrous failures of the past, rethink his futile but dangerous agenda and reverse course. He needs to sober up and put a bridle on his illusory territorial and maritime ambitions over Eritrea and the other Red Sea littoral states of Djibouti and Somalia.

   3. The Perilous Mix of Ignorance and Arrogance 

Abiy’s false and reckless claim of the Red Sea as the natural border of Ethiopia by invoking Axum, Ras Alula and Haile Selassie signifies his crass ignorance of the history of Axum and Eritrea. His assertion that the Red Sea forms the natural border of Ethiopia and implication that Eritrea formed a natural part of Ethiopia are patently false. 

Were it not for the dangerous consequences of his ignorant narration, belligerent assertion and arrogant threats, his deceptive and mendacious claims could have been dismissed as infantile figments of a covetous imagination. Since they are being officially disseminated and repeated ad nauseam by the state media and pro-regime social media outlets, however, let me offer him and his ilk a quick recap of Eritrean History 101. 

   4. The Kingdom of Axum and Eritrea

The land of modern Eritrea and the ancient port of Adulis, located about 40 kms south of Massawa, formed the cradle and the geographic centre of the Kingdom of Axum. At the zenith of its power during the 4^th and 5^th centuries A.D. (4), the Kingdom Axum extended across present-day Ethiopia, northern Sudan, southern Egypt, southern Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Djibouti and north-western Somalia (5). During the 7^th century, however, its power and influence “declined as a direct consequence of the Arab invasion of Egypt” forcing the Beja tribes of eastern Egypt and northern Sudan to move southwards and push their kinsmen already settled in the Northern Highlands and Barka lowlands on to the Central Highlands (6). 

The Beja invasion, the subsequent spread of Islam into the coastal areas and the destruction of Adulis in 710 A.D. cut off Axum from access to the Red Sea. These events disrupted Axum’s maritime trade, the main source of its prosperity and power, and precipitated its decline. The loss of Adulis and the Red Sea littoral to nascent Islam forced the Christian Axumites to withdraw southwards to the isolation of their highland bastions, never to return to the Red Sea. Once it declined, Axum never revived. From the downfall of Axum until the late 13^th century (1270), “the whole of Eritrea was still under the Beja Confederacy” (7). 

Following a century of fragmentation, Eritrea’s Central Plateau formed the core of the Medre Bahri, or the Land of the Sea, between the 15^th and 18^th centuries (8), enjoying sovereignty under the rule of the Bahri Negasi, or the King of the Sea (9). Despite recurrent reciprocal invasions across the Mereb-Belesa-Muna Rivers (10) during Abyssinia’s “era of the princes”, the Central Plateau, the Northern Highlands, the Western Lowlands and the Coastal Plains that constitute the territory of modern Eritrea remained separate from Abyssinia (11). James Bruce, a Scottish explorer who set out from Massawa to trace the source of the Blue Nile River in Lake Tana in 1770 reported that the “Medre-Bahri and Abyssinia were distinctly separate political entities constantly at war with each other” (12). 

No Abyssinian ruler or invader, including Ras Alula, ever dominated the entire Medre Bahri or reached the shores of the Red Sea during the period from the fall of Axum in the 8^th century to the federation of Eritrea with Ethiopia in 1952. 

During the immediate precolonial era, however, the land of Medre Bahri faced another period of fragmentation due to internal dynamics and external encroachment. In the east, Ottoman Turkey, which had taken control of Massawa and Hirgigo in 1557 (13), remained in occupation of the port city and the coastal plains until their transfer to Khedivate Egypt in 1872 (14). In addition, Khedivate Egypt invaded the Gash-Setit Basin, occupied the Bogos region and established a garrison in Keren in the mid-1880s and invaded the Central Plateau (15). 

From the south, Abyssinia invaded the Central Plateau and battled Egypt (16) whence Ras Alula, having tricked Ras Welde Michael Solomon into submission, set quarters in Asmera (17). Italy established a foothold in the Bay of Asseb in the extreme southeast in 1869 (18) from which it proceeded, at the behest of the British eager to forestall possible French expansion into Eritrea from Djibouti, to occupy the whole of Eritrea and declare it the first born (primo genito) colony in Africa in 1890.  

The historical evidence posits the longstanding existence of Medre Bahri as a self-governing political entity autonomous of and in constant conflict with Abyssinia. Several rival kingdoms arose and fell in Abyssinia during the span of eleven centuries between the fall of the Kingdom of Axum and the advent of European colonial rule in the Horn of Africa. However, neither any of the rival kingdoms that arose and fell in Abyssinia during that era, nor any contemporary state today can justifiably claim to be the direct heir of the Kingdom of Axum. Nor can any of them rightly claim dominion over the Eritrean Red Sea coast. No Abyssinian ruler or invader, including Ras Alula, ever dominated the entire Medre Bahri or reached the shores of the Red Sea during the period from the fall of Axum in the 8^th century to the federation of Eritrea with Ethiopia in 1952. 

   5. The Making of Eritrea and Ethiopia 

In a nutshell, the territory of modern Eritrea remained fragmented between the mid-16^th and late 19^th centuries. Medre Bahri suffered occupation of parts of its territory by Ottoman Turkey (1557-1872), Khedivate Egypt (1872-1885), Italy (1869-1889) and Abyssinia (1876-1887). Italian occupation in 1890 brought about the territorial integration of Eritrea under a central colonial administration. Subsequently, Eritrea endured Italian colonial rule (1890-1941); British military occupation (1941-52); federation with Ethiopia (1952-1962); and Ethiopian annexation (1962-1991). 

Meanwhile, during the onset of the European scramble for Africa, Abyssinia found itself in the paradoxical position of both a victim and a perpetrator of colonial aggression. It foiled Italian invasion at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, a great feat hailed as “the first major African victory over a European country since Hannibal’s time two thousand years earlier” (19).  

Having foiled Italian colonisation, Abyssinia expanded through a series of wars carried out in collusion with the European colonial powers or in adroit exploitation of their rivalries to conquer non-Abyssinian territories. The acquisition of “vast quantities of modern firearms”, initially from Italy, which “made possible the inception of Menelik’s empire”, and later from France, which “made possible its completion”, enabled Menelik, the King of Shoa, to seize “central power in Abyssinia” as emperor in 1889, conquer “colonies” and transform the “Shoan kingdom” into the “Ethiopian empire”. The conquered “colonies” included lands inhabited by the Afar, Anuak, Beni Shangul, Borana, Gambela, Gurage, Oromo, Konso, Sidama, Somali, Welamo and Welayta peoples in the west, south and southeast of the country (20). With the completion of Menelik’s conquests by 1910, Abyssinia assumed its present geopolitical formation while Eritrea was already an established colonial state by 1890.

It is evident therefore that there existed neither an Ethiopia nor an Eritrea recognisable in their present geopolitical formations and existing boundaries prior to the advent of the colonial era. Eritrea and Ethiopia, just like the prototype modern African state, owe their present geopolitical formations to the partition of Africa by the European powers. The colonial partition of the Horn of Africa shaped the present geopolitical formation, not just of Eritrea and Ethiopia, but the whole Horn region, while colonial treaties delimited their international boundaries.  

   6. The Making of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary 

Eritrea and Ethiopia share about 1,000 kms long common border delimited by three colonial treaties. The 1900 treaty agreed between Ethiopia and Italy delineates the Central Sector of the boundary (21). The 1902 treaty agreed between Italy, Ethiopia, and Great Britain is an annex to the 1900 Treaty between Italy and Ethiopia amending the Western Sector of the Treaty Line while keeping the Central Sector intact (22). The 1908 treaty agreed between Italy and Ethiopia delimited the Eastern Sector of the boundary (23). 

So delimited, the colonial treaty border between Eritrea and Ethiopia retained its de facto and de jure international status which Eritrea inherited and sanctified at the time of its declaration of independence as a sovereign state. International recognition of the sovereign State of Eritrea and Eritrea’s joining the community of free nations upholds the sanctity of the colonial treaty border consistent with treaty law. The inviolability of colonial borders existing at the time of accession to independence, the principle of uti possidetis juris, is also upheld by international customary law and the AU Constitutive Act.

   7. Eritrean National Identity and Statehood 

Italy brought together a hitherto fragmented territory and diverse population under a single central administration. It established a unified colonial entity, built a network of modern urban, industrial, transport and telecommunications infrastructure designed to service a settler colony. The introduction of new factors and relations of production unleashed new social forces. Resistance to Italian colonial oppression and its systemic racism cultivated a shared national identity and fanned Eritrean nationalism. The experience of common oppression under alien rule forged the development of a shared psychological makeup and a distinctive Eritrean national identity (24). An autonomous Eritrean history and a feasible Eritrean culture have forged a distinctive Eritrean national identity.  

Continuation of Italian policy of oppression and racial discrimination under British military administration intensified Eritrean yearnings for freedom. The dialectics of colonial oppression and popular resistance generated an awareness of a common condition and an overarching Eritrean national identity that transcended ethnic, linguistic, religious, and regional affiliation. Over a century of common political and armed resistance reinforced a distinct Eritrean identity, consolidated Eritrean nationalism and defeated imperial Ethiopian hegemony. The tenacity, potency and resilience of Eritrean nationalism successfully challenged Ethiopian annexation and international complicity to achieve self-determination. Eritrea’s independence settled the territorial and boundary question once and for all.  

   8. The Path to Lasting Peace

The legitimacy of Eritrean self-determination, sovereign statehood and territorial integrity is rooted in history and founded in international law. Lasting peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia requires Ethiopia, including the TPLF and the Tigrayan elite, to respect (1) the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea and (2) the sanctity of the colonial treaty border between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Durable peace is a necessary foundation for cooperative relations between the two countries and the coprosperity of the Eritrean and Ethiopian peoples. 

The Eritrean people made immense sacrifices to gain independence. Sovereign Eritrea is the collective acquis of the toil, sweat and blood of successive generations of Eritreans; and it is here to stay. Despite enduring domestic adversity on account of the atrophying of an erstwhile revolutionary movement, the patriotic Eritrean people have demonstrated the determination, capacity and resilience to defend the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of their country. They should not be forced to do so again. Beyond independence, the Eritrean people seek justice and aspire to live in peace, freedom and prosperity under the rule of law. 

Today’s governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia had no role in the making of their common border. Both countries inherited the colonial treaty border. It is thus incumbent upon Ethiopia to unequivocally embrace the principle of uti possidetis juris and affirm its unconditional recognition of Eritrea’s boundary as delimited by the colonial treaties. Abiy’s regime, his Prosperity Party minions and certain elements of the Ethiopian elite (including the TPLF and certain elements of the Tigrayan elite) should recall and bear in mind the disastrous consequences of the first unilateral attempt (1997) by their predecessor regime to redraw the boundary whose negative impact continues to reverberate to date. Otherwise, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it! 

The expeditious implementation of the Algiers Agreements and the physical demarcation of the boundary in line with the Demarcation Directions of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), with the technical support of the UN Cartographic Unit, is imperative to avert war and build peace. Demarcation would, among other things, signify the abandonment of Ethiopia’s perennial territorial ambitions over Eritrea or parts thereof. 

Eritrea’s experience with Ethiopia under Emperor Haile Selassie, Colonel Mengistu, Prime Minister Meles and now Prime Minister Abiy shows that an Ethiopia dominated by the elites of a single ethnic group represents an existential threat to the national security of Eritrea. Although the establishment of a regime type is an issue that concerns the people of Ethiopia, securing lasting peace between the two countries would necessarily require the emergence of an inclusive democratic regime in Ethiopia willing to live in peaceful coexistence and cooperative relations with Eritrea. The development of autonomous civil society would play a supportive role in the process in both countries. 

Bold steps are needed to end the vicious cycle of zero-sum outcomes and vengeance to avert war and usher in a new era of reconciliation. This would enable a realignment of progressive forces at the national, bilateral and regional levels committed to the pursuit of a new democratic dispensation conducive to peaceful coexistence and cooperative relations. Once established, a democratic Eritrea and a democratic Ethiopia can normalise and institutionalise their relations in line with international law and cooperate in earnest to capitalise on the complementarity of their economies for the benefit of their respective peoples.

   9. Access to Sea: Right of Ownership or Use 

Abiy has staked a right of ownership of access to the sea and vowed to fight for it for generations to come. His reckless claim is nothing new. It echoes the defunct narrative of certain elements of Ethiopian (and Tigrayan) elites who reject the legitimacy and bemoan the reality of Eritrea’s sovereign independence. It is consistent with the expansionist narratives of “Greater Ethiopia” and “Greater Tigray’ to dominate the whole or parts of Eritrea and gain access to the Red Sea on grounds of defunct history and ethnic or cultural similarity. The claim of right of ownership of access to sea rather than right of use of access to sea and freedom of transit is an existential threat to the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea and a menace to the peace, progress and wellbeing of the Eritrean and Ethiopian peoples as well as to regional stability. 

Ethiopia’s pursuit of right of use of access to the sea is legitimate and essential for the conduct of its foreign trade. However, the terms of access and modalities of transit should be agreed through bilateral negotiations with one or all its maritime neighbours in accordance with international law. The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Article 125) (25) provides similarly land-locked states with the right of access to the sea and freedom of passage through the territory of transit states; with agreed terms and modalities of freedom of transit between the land-locked states and the transit states; and with the transit states exercising full sovereignty over their territory and the right to take all measures necessary to prevent any infringement on their legitimate interests.    

Even maritime states that possess their own ports use transit states to complement their own ports for efficient and cost-effective services. For instance, Germany, which owns Europe’s largest economy and several ports of its own, uses the Dutch port of Rotterdam as the major outlet for the bulk of its international trade. The forty-four land-locked countries in the world, including the sixteen in Africa, have worked out bilateral agreements with the relevant transit states for access to the sea. Ethiopia itself has such an agreement with Djibouti and had negotiated a Protocol Agreement with Eritrea in 1993 which provided it with concessionary access and freedom of transit to Eritrea’s ports of Massawa and Asseb.  

It should, however, be recalled that Ethiopia unilaterally forfeited the use of Eritrea’s ports and transit facilities when it declared war on Eritrea in 1998 and resorted to bombing Asseb and Massawa. Ethiopia went further to threaten international shipping against using the Eritrean ports. I am unaware that Eritrea has ever denied Ethiopia the right of use of its ports. 

I am, however, aware that after the end of the war, Ethiopia’s then premier, Meles Zenawi, had vowed not to use Eritrea’s ports to deny revenues and inflict financial harm on Eritrea in a lose-lose mindset. Ethiopia must abandon its warmongering and outrageous assertion of ownership, reverse course and negotiate a win-win bargain for the right to use port access and transit freedom in good faith in the framework of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. 

Although left idle to rot as ghost towns to date, Eritrea’s ports have a great potential to serve as key links in the global trade network and entrepots of international transhipment, à la Dubai. With a modicum of prudence, wisdom and statesmanship, Eritrea’s present ports and additional developable ones on its long Red Sea coastline have ample space for all interested. 

   10. Compensation and Reparations

Compensation and reparation are two forms of corrective or reparative justice undertaken after a sovereign state invades, colonises or perpetrates wrongful injury on another state or people. 

The Eritrean people have endured successive invasions and colonial domination, oppression and exploitation under Italy, Great Britain and Ethiopia. Not content with colonial domination, oppression and exploitation, the British tried to dismember Eritrea, dismantled and plundered its critical infrastructure, industrial plants and productive assets. Ethiopia unilaterally abrogated the federation, annexed Eritrea and waged a colonial war of domination for thirty years against the Eritrean people. In waging an expansionist war, it carried out a scorched earth policy of wholesale destruction, massacres and atrocities throughout Eritrea. 

The people of Eritrea have thus a legitimate right to claim compensation and demand war reparations for the wars waged and historical wrongs committed against them and their country by the three successive colonial powers, namely, Italy, Great Britain and Ethiopia. The demand for compensation and war reparations must be duly made and the right realised the sooner the better. Ethiopia’s compensation and war reparations would not only provide closure for Eritrea and Eritreans as victims of a brutal war of aggression and its immense collateral damage but also persuade Ethiopia to rethink and foreclose its dangerous threat to invade Eritrea and seize the port of Asseb by force. 

   11. A Lie Told Ad Nauseam Does Not Turn True

Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels asserted that telling a big lie and keeping repeating it creates the illusion of truth and makes people believe it. Emulating Goebbels, several defunct former senior TPLF leaders and cadres have widely spread the narrative that the Ethiopian military central command’s decision to seize Asmera and Asseb during its 1998-2000 war of aggression was reversed by the order of the then Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The big lie, told to rationalise Ethiopia’s failure to achieve its war objective to reoccupy Eritrea, has been making the rounds among certain elements of the Ethiopian and Tigrayan elites. 

The fact is that the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) successfully repulsed Ethiopia’s largescale and repeated human-wave attacks on the Alitena-Mereb Front (Aiga, Alitena, Zalambesa, Tserona); on the Mereb-Setit Front (Badme, Geza Gerehlase) and the Bure Front (26). Despite a serious setback, the breach on the Mereb-Setit Front (Badme, February 1999) due to failures of leadership and actionable real-time intelligence, the EDF brilliantly crushed Ethiopia’s bloodiest last-ditch battles targeting Asmera at Igri Mekhel (March 1999), Adi Begi’o (May 2000) and Senafe (June 2000) and Asseb at Bure (June 2000). Division after Ethiopian division was thrown into the fray and decimated in the killing fields (27). It is in the public domain that the war ended when all these attempts failed and the three Ethiopian generals in command of the three fronts, one by one, informed Meles that their exhausted and badly mauled troops had no capacity to launch a new offensive or sustain the war (28).

Addicted to disregard for facts and blinded by the ignorance or deliberate distortion of history, Prosperity Party officials and elements of the Ethiopian elite have fabricated a new lie: that Asseb has never been Eritrean and that it has always been Ethiopian. Ethiopia was not even in the making when Italy first set foot in Asseb in 1869. As explained above, the territories inhabited by the non-Abyssinian peoples of the Afar, Anuak, Beni Shangul, Borana, Gambela, Gurage, Oromo, Konso, Sidama, Somali, Welamo and Welayta in today’s Ethiopia were conquered and colonised by King Menelik of Shoa between 1889 and 1910 while Eritrea was already an established colonial state in 1890.

Apparently unwilling and unable to learn from history, Ethiopia is waging an intensive and extensive propaganda war threatening to invade Eritrea and seize the port of Asseb. If Ethiopia invades, the invasion should not be conflated as a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The international community should duly condemn Ethiopia’s unjust war of aggression against Eritrea as illegitimate belligerence in violation of international law and support Eritrea’s just war of national defence as legitimate resistance upheld by international law. Inevitably, history is bound to repeat itself in the ignominious defeat of the new aggression. 

   12. The Enemy Within

Isaias has usurped the sovereignty of the Eritrean people, monopolised state power and pursued policies and actions that have arrested Eritrea’s development potential. Abandoning the National Charter, the Macroeconomic Policy Framework and the Constitution of Eritrea, he has imposed a brutal dictatorship, abused the Eritrean people, destroyed the national economy, regressed Eritrea, impoverished its people and emptied it of its youth and most of its professional and entrepreneurial elite. Above and beyond being a flagrant abuse of their human rights with impunity, his pernicious detention or suspension (freezing) of tens of thousands of Eritreans, including senior EPLF cadres, army officers and veterans of the armed struggle, has depleted the nation of competent and capable personnel. 

Denied the right to lead a normal life in their own country and lacking a government that protects and defends them, Eritreans forced to take refuge in many countries endure immense atrocities and suffering as helpless victims of human trafficking, indignity, imprisonment, and outright murder. The constant drain of manpower and shrinkage of the home population pose an existential threat to the security of the people and the sovereignty of the state and put the future of the country and people at risk.  

Maintaining a credible defence capability as a deterrence requires well equipped professional armed forces with a unified command and control structures. Building and sustaining combat effective armed forces require ability to acquire and use modern science and technology, knowhow and advanced weapons systems in the context of a growing national economy. Furthermore, it requires the application of national service in line with the statutory terms of its proclamation, a growing population base and sustainable economic development.

The African proverb, “If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm” befits Eritrea’s situation. The Eritrean people have endured harsh domestic oppression and denial of basic freedoms and rights. An authoritarian regime has closed the political and economic space, isolated the country, pauperised the people, and pushed the youth into mass exodus - draining Eritrea’s manpower and compromising its future. It has failed to capitalise on Eritrea’s ample resource base, abundant maritime assets and significant geostrategic, geoeconomic and geopolitical advantages to develop the country and improve the livelihood of the people. 

The absence of a published national budget and lack of accountability and transparency in the management of public finance, revenues and expenditures, including the revenues from the highly lucrative mining sector, represents a serious obstacle to prudent economic governance. The ruined coupon economy hardly delivers the meagre rations for daily sustenance, forcing the people to wallow in misery. Our cities and ports languish in a state of decay, with the dilapidated façades of their buildings and potholed streets lying in utter disrepair while our idle ports have become virtual ghost towns. 

A stagnant coupon economy has been unable to create employment, produce wealth and generate prosperity. The nearly two-decades ban on the construction sector has aggravated the acute shortage of housing. Essential services like energy, electricity, running water, quality education, public health and medicine, public transport and internet access are often lacking or inadequate. In this connection, I cringed when a recent visitor to Eritrea, who is resident in the region, told me that Eritrea is lagging twenty years behind its neighbours in the state of its physical and social infrastructure. It is Eritrea’s composite political, economic and diplomatic weakness that prompts external threats to its sovereignty and territorial integrity.  

There is no freedom of expression, assembly or association. Lack of due process condemns citizens and senior public officials and military officers alike to arbitrary arrests, indefinite detention and forced disappearance. Absence of rule of law, coupled with the dearth of economic, energy, environmental, food, health, personal and political security, denies the people the right to lead a fulfilling life in freedom, peace, and prosperity. 

Isaias has refused to implement the Constitution of Eritrea and institute rule of law. He has imposed the capricious rule of man on a law-abiding society proud of its centuries-old codified customary laws. He has obstructed the building of a functional state apparatus, viable state institutions or operational administrative organs. He has been unwilling and unable to establish inclusive constitutional governance, develop the economy or pursue social progress. 

During thirty-four years of its tenure in power, the Isaias regime has failed to provide basic needs and essential social services for most of the Eritrean people. This dismal reality proves its inability to properly govern the country or meet the needs of the people. The outcome of Isaias’s bad governance has impoverished the Eritrean people and prompted contempt and vulnerability on Eritrea. Those who cheer or flatter Isaias and inflate his destructive ego need to come to their senses and join ranks with the effort to change the policies and practices that have created the dismal situation. 

   14. Proactive Diplomacy 

War is a continuation of politics by other means while diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means. There exists an intricate relationship between politics, war and diplomacy in the relations among nations. Proactively deployed, diplomacy can serve to prevent or complement war in the pursuit of a strategic or political objective. Proactive diplomacy aims to defend or advance the national security interests of the state and the people, prevent, resolve or manage conflicts and pre-empt wars. 

Lodging a timely démarche in protest of a statement or action of a foreign government hostile to one’s national interest is an essential element of proactive diplomacy. Démarche is a formal diplomatic representation of the official position, views or wishes of a government on a subject of national interest delivered to the appropriate official of another government or international organisation. Governments use it mainly to protest or object to actions by a foreign government or to persuade, inform or gather information from a foreign government. 

Besides sustaining well equipped combat effective armed forces with a deterrence capability and nurturing regional and international alliances, a good leader deploys proactive diplomacy to ensure the defence of his country and the security of his people without war. Proactive diplomacy can prevent, contain and manage conflict and, in case of contestation regarding the origin of a conflict, can create favourable conditions for one country at the expense of the other. For instance, Eritrea’s failure to lodge démarches in July 1997 (the case of Ad Murug) and May 1998 (the case of Badme and its environs) led to the designation of 6 May 1998 as the status quo ante to Ethiopia’s advantage and Eritrea’s disadvantage. 

Drawing lessons from past experience, including the case of the Hanish-Zuqur Islands (1995-1998), the Government of Eritrea should have lodged démarches with the Government of Ethiopia, the UN Secretary General, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the P5), the AU, the EU, etc., protesting Abiy Ahmed’s threat to violate the territorial integrity of Eritrea in his address to the Ethiopian Parliament on 13 October 2023 and again when he displayed a map of Ethiopia that incorporates Eritrean territories at the 15 February 2025 AU Summit in Addis Ababa.

The policy of silence in the face of Ethiopia’s concerted campaign of official threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea signifies not merely a failure to avoid past mistakes but also continued hostitlity and contempt for domestic and international law and antipathy to diplomacy. Keeping silent or responding only via social media to statements or actions that affect Eritrea’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security manifests diplomatic ignorance detrimental to the national interest. In addition to undermining Eritrea’s national security interests, inability to pursue prudent and effective proactive diplomacy places a heavy burden on the Eritrean people, especially the EDF, in the defence of the country.

   15. National Duty

Abiy Ahmed’s declared intention to invade Eritrea and forcibly seize the port of Asseb constitutes an existential threat to the security of the Eritrean people and the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the State of Eritrea. If he invades and ignites a war, all patriotic and nationalist Eritreans have a national duty to firmly condemn, oppose and resist Ethiopia’s aggression against Eritrea. Any Eritrean who, under any guise or pretext, aligns with or abets Abiy Ahmed’s project of flagrant aggression can only be a pawn and a traitor.

On the other hand, the Eritrean people, just like all peoples the world over, deserve human security and wellbeing to lead a fulfilling life in freedom, peace, and prosperity in their country. Furthermore, we have an inalienable right to constitute a government of our choice, to be governed under the rule of law and to enjoy rudimentary rights and fundamental freedoms. Instead of scattering all over the world as refugees and irregular migrants, we deserve to exercise our right to live in our home country in dignity, security and prosperity. 

It is high time that we who seek a free, democratic, just and prosperous Eritrea advocate the protection of the people’s fundamental freedoms, rights and human security; endeavour to catalyse homegrown transition to constitutional governance; and defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Those who prioritise the national interest of Eritrea and the wellbeing of the Eritrean people should advocate opening the political and economic space and the prudent management of Eritrea’s natural and human resources to develop its economy and create employment, produce wealth, and generate prosperity. Putting in place a legal framework and a judicious microeconomic policy would kickstart development, encourage domestic investment and attract foreign direct investment.

While advocating and working for a stable transition to democratic governance, patriotic Eritreans at home and abroad must firmly oppose Ethiopia’s expansionist ambitions over and aggression against Eritrea. To survive and thrive in a volatile and turbulent region, Eritrea needs to embrace its people and sustain a credible defence capability for deterrence; a professional army with modern equipment and unified command-and-control structures; and a growing and educated population to ensure a reliable skilled manpower base for development and national security. This demands the implementation of national service in line with the terms of Proclamation 82/1995 (29). 

 

Conclusion

The Eritrean people have been squeezed between the anvil of domestic oppression and the hammer of threatened aggression. Patriotic Eritreans should prioritise the wellbeing of the Eritrean people and the long-term national security interests of the State of Eritrea. They have a noble responsibility to resist domestic oppression, oppose foreign aggression and advocate the restitution of the people’s sovereignty. Effective action demands building and bolstering a coalition of prodemocracy activists at home and in the diaspora in an inclusive Eritrean Sovereignty Bloc to strengthen our people’s agency to defend their rights and freedoms; exercise their sovereignty; foil the threat of aggression; and defeat any invasion.  

The alternative to a mutually beneficial agreement within the framework of international law is the death, destruction and suffering of war. It is thus imperative that Abiy abandons his outrageous claim of ownership, retract his expansionist map, stop his bellicose rhetoric, and end his warmongering. Instead, he should negotiate in good faith to agree on the terms and modalities of Ethiopia’s access to sea and freedom of transit for its imports and exports through Eritrea that respects the full sovereignty, territorial integrity and legitimate national security interests of Eritrea in accordance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. 

Notes and References

1. The Prosperity Party is dominated by the Oromo Democratic Party, formerly the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO). The OPDO was constituted mainly of former Oromo soldiers of the Derg’s Ethiopian army taken prisoner and later released by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). It was formed under the aegis of the then dominant Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) as a substitute of or a counterweight to the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) governing coalition.

2. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, ከጠብታ ውሃ እስከ ባህር ውሃ (From a Drop of Water to Sea Water), address to the Ethiopian Parliament delivered on 13 October 2023. Available online: https://fb.watch/nFi5YLLmR1/.  

3. The Holy Bible, Matthew 9:17

4. Trevaskis, G.K.N. (1960), Eritrea: A Colony in Transition, 1941-1952, Oxford University Press, London: 5

5. Turchin, P. and J. M. Adams and T. D. Hall (2004), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, University of Connecticut. November. Available online: http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/people/turchin/ PDF/Latitude.pdf

6. Trevaskis, G.K.N. (1960): 5 

7. Yohannes, O. (1991), Eritrea: A Pawn in World Politics, University of Florida Press: 30

8. Pateman, R., Eritrea: Even the Stones Are Burning, Red Sea Press, 1990 

9. Haile, S. (1988), “Historical Background to the Ethiopia-Eritrea Conflict”, in Lionel Cliffe and Basil Davidson (eds), The Long Struggle of Eritrea for Independence and Constructive Peace, Trenton, NJ, The Red Sea Press: 11-32

10. The Mereb River, along with the Belesa and Muna Rivers, forms the historical divide between Medre Bahri and Abyssinia. The 1900 boundary treaty between Italy and Ethiopia confirms the Mereb-Belesa-Muna line as the international border between Eritrea and Ethiopia in the central sector.

11. Reid, R. (2007), “The Trans-Mereb Experience: Perceptions of the Historical Relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia”, in «Journal of Eastern African Studies»: 246

12. Yohannes, O. (1991): 31 

13.  Reid, R. (2007): 32-34    

14. Trevaskis, G.K.N (1960): 7

15. Longrigg, S. (1945), A Short History of Eritrea, London Clarendon Press: 113

16. Trevaskis, G.K.N (1960): 7

17. Resistance from Raesi Welde-Mikael of Hamasien, Dejach Bahta of Akele Guzai, Fitewrari Kiflu of Seraye and Kentiba Hamid of Habab and peasant revolt hindered Yohannes’ effective control of the Central Plateau.

18. Longrigg, S. (1945): 112-113

19. Harris, Joseph E. (1987), Africans and their History, Revised Edition, New American Library, New York and Scarborough, Ontario: 176-177. It must be stated in deference to historical fact, however, that the first great victory of an African army over a European army, after Hannibal’s, occurred about a decade earlier when the Sudanese Mahdist army routed General Gordon’s British colonial army in Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, in January 1885. Unlike the case for Ethiopia, however, the absence of European rivalry for the colonial domination of the Sudan allowed the British to eventually subdue the Mahdist resistance and establish the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium of the Sudan by September 1898. 

20. Adejumboli, S. A. (2007), The History of Ethiopia, Westport, CT and London, Greenwald: 28

21. Hertslet, Sir E. (1909), The Map of Africa by Treaty, Vol. II N^o 125, 3^rd Edition, H.M.H.O., by Harrison and Sons, London Smithsonian Libraries. Available online: https://www.africaemediterraneo.it/it/numeri-rivista/laboratorio-africa/

22. Hertslet, Sir E. (1909), N^o 100. Available online: https://www.africaemediterraneo.it/it/numeri-rivista/laboratorio-africa/ 

23. Hertslet Sir E. (1909), N^o 381. Available online: https://www.africaemediterraneo.it/it/numeri-rivista/laboratorio-africa/

24. Welde Giorgis, A. (2014), Eritrea at a Crossroads: A Narrative of Triumph, Betrayal and Hope, Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.: 13-49 

25. 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Available online: https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf 

26. Welde Giorgis, A. (2014): 525-541.

27. Brig. Gen. Batcha Debelie, https://youtu.be/D-FUrYMxMk8?si=QyFjU6Lss2ctYfvu

28. Eritrea War 1998 – 2000: Ex-Ethiopia Minister Ato Ermias Legesse, https://youtu.be/z6mZ9-pPfNA?si=uPNBI-AGGSBLYG4W

29. Government of Eritrea, Gazette of Eritrean Laws, Proclamation 82/1995, N^o 11, Asmera, 23 October 1995