{"id":13580,"date":"2022-03-24T23:16:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T23:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=13580"},"modified":"2022-03-25T11:23:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T11:23:45","slug":"isaias-afwerkis-gamble-in-ethiopia-is-endangering-eritrean-sovereignty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=13580","title":{"rendered":"Isaias Afwerki\u2019s gamble in Ethiopia is endangering Eritrean sovereignty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Since the conflict in Tigray started in 2020, Eritrea has become further entangled in Ethiopian politics. Young Eritrean conscripts assigned to the region have been killed, and Eritrean refugees have been displaced. Yohannes Woldemariam argues that the state\u2019s actions under President Isaias Afwerki show a pursuit of regional integration over Eritrean independence, with little regard for its citizens.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: LSE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eritrea achieved self-determination after a devastating 30-year war and a referendum<\/a> that demonstrated overwhelming support for independence. Yet the country\u2019s President, Isaias Afwerki, a homegrown dictator, has hijacked Eritrean aspirations<\/a> and perpetuated his personal rule through a vicious series of assaults upon real and imagined opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire Eritrean youth has been on war footing ever since the 1998-2000 \u201cborder war\u201d with Ethiopia, who are put into an indefinite military service<\/a> and used as unpaid mercenaries for Isaias\u2019 military adventures \u2013 in the Congo, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen. Since November 2020, Eritrean conscripts as young as 16<\/a> have been killed in the Tigray region<\/a> of Ethiopia for a war that has little to do with them. Meanwhile, Eritrean refugees<\/a> have been victimised by all sides<\/a> of the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abiy Ahmed has done a personal favour for Isaias, with the conflict helping him to assert himself and prolong his despotic rule. But the same cannot be said<\/a> for the Eritrean people. Before the war, the country was a pariah<\/a>, both regionally and internationally. Qatar was once Eritrea\u2019s only significant lifeline<\/a>, but Isaias has now fostered closer ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Russia<\/a> and China<\/a>, while under sanctions from the United States<\/a>. At the United Nations General Assembly in March 2022, Eritrea supported Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine<\/a>, advocating against human rights investigations directed at Russia, distinguishing itself<\/a> as the only African country<\/a> to provide the country unequivocal support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is set against a backdrop of Abiy in Ethiopia feeling squeezed economically, fearing the potential impacts of the HR 6600 Bill<\/a> in the US Congress, which would require sanctions on persons deemed to threaten peace and security and violate human rights in the conflict. In contrast, Isaias appears less concerned with HR 6600 because he believes staying the course in the Tigray is worth more than the Bill\u2019s consequences. For one, a resurgence of the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF) political party in the neighbouring region is seen as an existential threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China is worried that Eritrea\u2019s involvement in the conflict will affect its large investments in Ethiopia<\/a> and has moved to strengthen ties with Isaias. Further, its renewed interest in the Red Sea, for political and economic reasons, can be used by Eritrea as a potential shield. At the same time, Eritrea\u2019s closer ties with China through an embrace of the Belt and Road Initiative<\/a> also risk a debt trap<\/a>. Simultaneously, by allowing regional powers like the UAE<\/a> to use the Eritrean port of Assab for its war effort in Yemen, it situates itself in complex geopolitics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By antagonising Western countries and the United Nations, Eritrea is relying on a few actors<\/a>, such as Russia and China, to bring it lucrative rents, particularly from arms and other hidden investments. The result is that in addition to the cost of lives, Isaias\u2019s participation in the Ethiopian civil war is gambling with Eritrean self-determination<\/a>. Making himself a useful pawn for regional and international actors, which he in turn exploits by switching sides \u2013 as in a survival game \u2013 is risky business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can seem paradoxical, however, that someone like Isaias who fought for Eritrean independence can possibly betray this vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isaias, in fact, has a history of ambivalence<\/a> about Eritrean sovereignty \u2013 second to his grandiose ambitions of using the country\u2019s strategic location to pursue regional hegemony over the Horn of Africa. Meles Zenawi, former Ethiopia Prime Minister, once gave an interview<\/a> to the CIA agent Paul Henze in which he stated that Isaias had not been as committed to Eritrean independence as the Eritrean people \u2013 a view corroborated by Mesfin Hagos<\/a>, a former Eritrean defence minister and a founding members of the Eritrean People\u2019s Liberation Front. In a central committee meeting in 1991, Mesfin says he was stunned to hear Isaias floating the idea of joining the Ethiopian People\u2019s Revolutionary Democratic Front<\/a> political coalition that was governing the country. Isaias quickly retreated from the idea, perhaps biding his time for a more opportune moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mixed signals from Isaias about Ethiopia\u2019s use of Eritrea\u2019s ports have rekindled the landlocked country\u2019s expansionist ambitions to become a naval power, which alarms Eritreans<\/a> concerned with territorial expansion. In Ethiopia, a desire to use the ports is shared across the political spectrum, from Tigrean activists to Ethiopian elites. Immediately before the Tigray war, the Tigrean General Tsadkan Gebetensae stated on record his ambitions<\/a> of incorporating the Eritrean port of Assab. Likewise, Professor Gelawdios Araia<\/a> of Lehman College argued for Tigray\u2019s control of parts of the Red Sea, either by collaborating with \u201cprogressive Eritreans\u201d or by force. Abiy in Ethiopia has openly stated his desire for a single army<\/a> for Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Ambassador Dina Mufti, spokesman for the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry, further said: \u201cIf you ask each and every Eritrean today, they don\u2019t like or celebrate the day they separated from Ethiopia and Ethiopians feel the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of insistence from Isaias on demarcation, and instead the suggestion of promoting regional integration, would only steam ahead if his personal power and influence was seen to grow. To this end, Tigrean resistance is a problem. For over 20 years, Eritreans were told that the impasse between the two countries arose from the TPLF\u2019s refusal to demarcate the border<\/a>, but when Isaias realised that Abiy Ahmed had turned against the political party, he declared that \u201cborders do not really matter\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faced with such a helpless situation, the Eritrean diaspora opposition is in a state of paralysis. Some feel that creating an alliance with the TPLF against Isaias is of strategic necessity. Others do not trust the TPLF to respect Eritrean sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Abiy\u2019s questionable control over the Amhara militia, which is adamant to continue the war against Tigray, even if Abiy pursues a negotiated end, Isaias has developed separate parallel relationships with subnational groups, including the Amhara and the Afar. Isaias is now deeply involved<\/a> in Ethiopian politics in complex<\/a> ways and committed to the elimination of the TPLF leaders<\/a> seen as blocking his ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid these political manoeuverings, Eritreans are among the major losers of the Tigray conflict, more so because the war is not about them. An Eritrean leader who cared about Eritrean lives and sovereignty would have produced a very different situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the conflict in Tigray started in 2020, Eritrea has become further entangled in Ethiopian politics. Young Eritrean<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[32,255],"class_list":["post-13580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-english","tag-lse"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78.png",1270,707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78.png",300,167,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78.png",640,356,false],"large":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78.png",640,356,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78.png",1270,707,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78.png",1270,707,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78.png",825,459,false],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78.png",590,328,false],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78-300x300.png",300,300,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78-600x334.png",600,334,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1-78-150x150.png",100,100,true]},"author_info":{"info":["Axumawian Media"]},"category_info":"Article<\/a>","tag_info":"Article","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13582,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13580\/revisions\/13582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}