Without peace

In the shadow of the wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine (already relegated to a forgotten war), the shadow of a new conflict appears in the Horn of Africa. In particular, after a speech in mid-October in which Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed claimed Ethiopia's right to have an outlet to the sea. After the cold response from Eritrea, the signs of war appeared evident. Eritrea in fact became independent from Ethiopia in 1991 and brought with it the ports of Assab and Massawa: since then Ethiopia has been the largest land locked state in the country. world. And it was precisely the reason of the Ethiopian Prime Minister who claimed for Ethiopia a natural right to have an outlet on the Red Sea, where the new version of the Chinese Silk Road passes, in which Beijing has invested billions of dollars of which Addis Ababa needs for development. Also because there is no large commercial traffic in Eritrea, a country that for at least 20 years has been locked in a nationalist and Maoist dictatorship that does not respect freedom and civil rights, favors wars and has transformed ports into military bases.

At the end of November the exchanges, which were followed by verbal reassurances, turned into troop movements at the border and overflights of military aircraft. Ethiopia and Eritrea have already fought a fratricidal war from 1998 to 2000 to resolve the issue of access to the sea and borders with weapons.

Then followed a long period of frost in which the Ethiopian government, which was led by the Tigrayan leaders, had severed all relations and Eritrea was subjected to a harsh international embargo, because it was accused of selling weapons to jihadist terrorists in Somalia. With Abiy Ahmed's arrival in power, peace returned and the prime minister himself was undeservedly awarded the Nobel Prize in 2019, precisely for having re-established diplomatic relations with the regime of Isaias Afewerk.

But this alliance was the precursor to the elimination of the Tigrayan leaders, sworn enemies of both, and on November 4, 2020, a terrible war broke out in Tigray which caused more than 600 thousand deaths. The region has been ravaged by Eritreans, the Ethiopian army and regional Amhara militias and thousands of ethnic rapes and crimes against civilians have been committed. However, the Peace of Pretoria signed a year ago did not satisfy the Eritreans who are continuing to occupy part of the territory of Tigray (i.e. Ethiopia) and have allied themselves with the Amhara against Addis Ababa. Abyi has relaunched the landlocked card to reunify the country, but it is a dangerous relaunch, in an area marked not only by internal Ethiopian conflicts of an ethnic nature, but also by the Somali and Sudanese civil wars.

If there were to be a war it would be unleashed on two nations, Eritrea and Ethiopia, impoverished by wars, persecution and climatic conflicts that are bringing famine and disease and to which further death and destruction would be added. In the meantime, the dictatorial regime in Asmara is increasingly rigid, forcibly enlisting people, has been persecuting dissidents for years by imprisoning them for life and has even gone so far as to persecute the Catholic Church, arresting a bishop a year ago. In this country without freedom, even footballers are forbidden to leave the borders for fear that they will flee abroad, so much so that Eritrea has decided to withdraw its football team from the qualifiers for the African Cup of Nations and the World Cup without warning, sparking the great disappointment of Eritrean athletes, already great cycling fans. It would be incredible if it were the grain of sand that finally blocks a repressive and rusty political mechanism that lives by unleashing conflicts.


Paolo Lambruschi
NP December 2023