The latest opinion article by senior Ethiopian officers Redwan Hussein and Getachew Reda, revealed on Al Jazeera English’s web site, makes an attempt to painting Ethiopia as an harmless sufferer being reluctantly “dragged” into battle by exterior actors. In doing so, the piece seeks to absolve the ruling Prosperity Occasion of duty for Ethiopia’s mounting home crises.
Extra dangerously, this narrative serves as a diplomatic smoke display screen designed to normalise the unprovoked hostility, state-sponsored inflammatory rhetoric and aggressive army mobilisations that the Ethiopian authorities has directed in the direction of Eritrea since late 2023.
By making an attempt to reframe up to date inner tensions because the direct product of exterior overreach or unresolved previous grievances, the present Ethiopian safety discourse represents a profound and harmful inversion of actuality. It distorts the true drivers of instability within the area to defend the federal authorities from worldwide scrutiny.
The catastrophic conflict that engulfed northern Ethiopia for 2 years, from the preliminary outbreak of hostilities on November 4, 2020, till the signing of the cessation of hostilities settlement on November 2, 2022, didn’t come up from regional exterior manipulation or cross-border instigation. It was the product of Ethiopia’s long-standing inner ethnic cleavages and institutionalised political polarisation, relatively than any exterior machinations.
The historic document confirms that Eritrea didn’t instigate this battle, nor did it harbour expansionist designs on sovereign Ethiopian territory. As a substitute, Eritrea was reluctantly drawn into an imposed conflict on the express request and formal invitation of the Ethiopian federal authorities and for cogent causes of self-defence.
Certainly, the broader aims of the conflict agenda explicitly included and focused the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea from its very inception. This actuality will not be a matter of speculative interpretation; it’s an unalterable element of the general public document.
Getachew’s personal intensive public statements and quite a few real-time posts beneath his official X deal with throughout these tragic years simply validate that the focusing on of Eritrea was a deliberate, premeditated technique by regional forces relatively than an unintentional byproduct of a home policing motion.
Following the formal cessation of hostilities, the political and army management of the Prosperity Occasion, extending from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed downward, profusely and publicly expressed their profound gratitude to Eritrea. These acknowledgements had been made via official statements, parliamentary discussions, state media and remarks by senior army officers. For Redwan and senior Prosperity Occasion officers to now retroactively body Eritrea as an inherent antagonist or a relentless spoiler of home peace runs utterly counter to those express, recorded admissions.
This tendency in the direction of revisionism is additional illustrated by the extremely romanticised anecdotes propagated by Getachew and Redwan concerning the tense surroundings in the course of the Pretoria peace talks. Each officers have concocted a closely theatrical and completely fictitious story in regards to the alleged consternation of their South African hosts, who supposedly feared that “the negotiating groups from the 2 warring Ethiopian events may get right into a fistfight in the course of the convention corridor if not constantly shepherded to avoid each other”.
In response to this manufactured narrative, the hosts had been then shocked to witness a “cordial tone”. This narrative of sudden, miraculous reconciliation between bitter enemies serves a selected propaganda function: it portrays the Pretoria Settlement as a spontaneous triumph of home unity over exterior division.
Nevertheless, this narrative ignores the truth that months earlier than the formal talks in South Africa, confidential contacts had already taken place in Djibouti and the Seychelles beneath the sponsorship of exterior mediators. As later acknowledged by Getachew himself, the fighters had already established channels of communication whereas the conflict was nonetheless raging.
Underneath the deliberate prodding of components throughout the Prosperity Occasion, the 2 groups explored choices to affix forces and redirect their mixed army capacities in the direction of a conflict of aggression in opposition to Eritrea. Of their contorted views, a sovereign and steady Eritrea constituted the last word risk to their respective political futures.
When the Everlasting Cessation of Hostilities Settlement was lastly signed, it was basically understood as a peace pact between inner warring sides inside Ethiopia. It’s, and stays, an Ethiopian affair, purely and completely. Its provisions involved home constitutional preparations, the disarmament of armed teams, and the restoration of federal authority.
Eritrea’s place concerning Pretoria has remained constant and principled. It helps any real effort that promotes peace, stability, and predictability in Ethiopia and the broader area. A peaceable, steady, and united Ethiopia that respects the sovereignty of its neighbours is within the strategic curiosity of each state within the Horn of Africa. Eritrea possesses neither the political urge for food nor the strategic curiosity to scuttle an settlement between competing Ethiopian political forces. A peaceable, unified, and steady Ethiopia that respects its neighbours is within the very important nationwide safety curiosity of each state within the area.
Towards this backdrop, the present propaganda campaigns and clear disinformation efforts, as epitomised by the latest opinion article, are systematically designed to re-package an unprovoked agenda of battle and hostility that Addis Ababa has unleashed in opposition to Eritrea since December 2023.
Throughout this era, the Prosperity Occasion abruptly shifted its state rhetoric, launching a manufactured marketing campaign centred on what it termed “sovereign entry to the ocean”. To construct legitimacy for this legally untenable and traditionally flawed narrative, the ruling occasion has systematically mobilised an enormous, state-backed equipment. Instructors, researchers, media figures, cultural icons and educational lecturers, each Ethiopian nationals and co-opted international commentators, have been aggressively deployed throughout worldwide boards, tv networks and digital platforms to push this warped sovereign entry narrative.
This coordinated marketing campaign seeks to normalise the concept colonial boundaries within the Horn of Africa are negotiable with a purpose to try to problem inviolable ideas of sovereignty and territorial integrity which have lengthy underpinned regional stability.
This aggressive rhetoric has not been confined to speeches and opinion items. In a direct try to drag Eritrea right into a militarised battle, the ruling occasion has massed substantial army formations, heavy artillery, and mechanised divisions in shut proximity to the Eritrean border.
This sample of behaviour is instantly mirrored alongside the northern frontier, the place provocative pronouncements are accompanied by unremitting sabre-rattling concerning the acquisition of Assab and different Eritrean coastal lands via negotiations if doable, and by drive if vital.
The broader sample extends past Eritrea. Ethiopia’s latest international coverage conduct has more and more generated tensions with a number of neighbouring states. The Memorandum of Understanding signed with Somaliland, which sought entry to coastal territory with out the consent of Somalia’s central authorities, triggered a significant diplomatic disaster and raised severe questions concerning respect for established ideas of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Equally, Ethiopia has repeatedly pursued interventionist insurance policies in neighbouring conflicts within the quest for short-term geopolitical aims. Whether or not in Somalia, Sudan or elsewhere, Addis Ababa’s reckless regional agenda of expansionism has contributed considerably to regional distrust and destabilisation.
Thus, the narrative that Ethiopia is an involuntary sufferer being dragged again into conflict by exterior forces ignores the truth of the ruling occasion actively transferring army belongings, signing unlawful treaties and threatening the borders of sovereign states. This explicitly coercive stance instantly undermines the foundational ideas of peaceable coexistence and good neighbourliness which might be important for the Horn’s stability.
Finally, peace within the Horn of Africa can’t be bargained away to appease the shifting calculations of a stressed neighbour. The trail ahead calls for a direct finish to the reckless sabre-rattling in pursuit of illicit “sovereign maritime entry”, the unconditional cessation of cross-border proxy alignments, and a return to the foundational ideas of non-interference and territorial integrity.
Till the worldwide neighborhood confronts the true inner drivers of Addis Ababa’s aggressive posture relatively than entertaining its manufactured grievances, the area will stay perilously weak to harmful miscalculation. Eritrea stands agency in its resolve, anchored in authorized permanence and historic details. Those that look to externalise their home damage via regional destabilisation will discover that Eritrea’s sovereignty is neither negotiable nor penetrable, and that lasting safety can solely be achieved when boundaries are revered and worldwide regulation is upheld with out exception.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial coverage.
