Ethiopia: In Search of Casus Belli To Get Assab

Eritrea and Ethiopia have gone to war twice now.   One, the War for Independence (1961-1991), took 30 years.  The other, the War for Border Demarcation (1998-2000) lasted two years.  During the No Peace No War era (2000-18), it’s safe to assume there were bombing raids and clashes here and there that were not fully disclosed.  Consequently, citizens of both nations have a fairly good idea of when their governments are readying for war.  Let’s list all the things two countries who are about to go to war do before they go to wars to assess how likely war is:

1. Diplomatic Breakdown:  Quick: who is the Ethiopian Ambassador to Eritrea and the Eritrean Ambassador to Ethiopia?  During their honeymoon period (2018-2020) we knew: Ambassador Redwan Hussein and Ambassador Semere Russom.  But now? Who knows.   After Redwan was recalled to join the Foreign Ministry at another capacity, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed nominated an Ambassador from Tigray Region’s TPLF–knowing fully well that he would never get accredited.  Meanwhile, Semere Russom has returned home leaving the embassy to Biniam Berhe, Eritrea’s representative to the African Union and IGAD.   This is not a good thing but it is consistent with the persona of Abiy Ahmed and Isaias Afwerki:  Abiy doesn’t think that African countries need to have so many ambassadors when one can represent multiple countries and Isaias Afwerki doesn’t think much of embassies other than in their role to enforce compliance from Diaspora communities.  Most of the diplomats in Eritrea are not fully accredited and cannot leave its capital, Asmara.

2. Rhetoric and Propaganda:  Since at least October 2023, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed told his parliament and his nation that it is not a taboo for landlocked Ethiopia to openly declare its intent to have not just port access but Sea Sovereignty in the Red Sea, senior members of Ethiopia’s ruling party, Prosperity Party, and the Government of Ethiopia, have made it known that by Sea Sovereignty in the Red Sea they mean Eritrea’s Port of Assab.   Any day, including today, there is some “historical claim” to Assab, despite the fact that the whole reason Eritrea and Ethiopia had a rapprochement in 2018 is because Ethiopia, for the first time in 18 years, pledged to “fully accept and implement” a border ruling which says, among other things, Assab is Eritrean and Ethiopia’s border is 60 kilometers from the coast.  This “Assab is Ethiopian” mantra has become a regular feature in Ethiopian State Media as well as Social Media for the past 18 months.  The Government of Eritrea has shown remarkable restraint on this, a tone that was set by Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki when he encouraged everyone to ignore the provocation by Abiy and his lieutenants.   It is true that Eritrea’s Minister of Information, Yemane Gebremeskel, occasionally addresses the provocateurs–but this is limited to the platform “X”, in English: 99% of Eritreans in Eritrea are unaware of it.

3. Military Buildup:  States that are about to go to war have military buildups along their common border.   There is no independent press allowed anywhere near the common border so this is next to impossible to verify.   It is true that Reuters reported on March 14, 2025 that “Eritrea ordered a nationwide military mobilisation in mid-February, according to a human rights group, and Ethiopia deployed troops toward the Eritrean border, diplomatic sources and Tigrayan officials told Reuters.”  But Eritrea’s “military mobilization” is the standard round-up it does, annually, when conscripts with nothing to do decide to go home for a visit and don’t come back.  This is something I know something about: as Editor of Awate.com’s Gedab News, roundups and mobilization is something we reported on every year for 15 years.  As for the “Tigrayan officials”–Tigray is an Ethiopian Region bordering Eritrea–who are quoted claiming there is Eritrean military buildup, it’s likely that the un-named  “Tigrayan officials” are the same ones who have established a long track record of manufacturing stories.

4. Stoppage of Trade:   Just before the 1998 war between Eritrea and Ethiopia broke out, there were a lot of trade-related grievances from both sides.  Ethiopia accused Eritrea of taking advantage of their relationship to buy coffee using local currency and exporting it for dollars.   Eritrea accused Ethiopia of making impossible demands on cross border traders–that they have to post a letter of credit for all imports–in a region without banks or letters of credit.  Currently, while there has been a high-profile case of economic friction–Ethiopian Airlines has been banned from all flights from and to Eritrea–there is not exactly a steep decline in trade, because there was none to begin with.   According to OTC, in 2023, when the two countries were such close bosom buddies that they had just coordinated a joint two-year war against Tigray Region, Ethiopia exported to Eritrea $20.2 thousand worth of cotton, labels and paper spools while Eritrea exported $8.33 thousand worth of hard liquor.  That is not a typo: thousands in annual trade, not hundreds of thousands.

5. Territorial Disputes:  After war broke out between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1998, we were told there had been border skirmishes between Eritreans and Ethiopians in the Badme region.  These were the usual cross-border skirmishes over land and resources that were being handled via a joint border committee, we were told.  We were also told–shown letters between Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and President Isaias Afwerki–that Ethiopia was crossing over Eritrean border in hot pursuit of Ugugumo (Afar) rebels then fighting the Ethiopian government.  In 2002, based on the Algiers Agreement, the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) provided to the UN Cartographic Unit a detailed virtual demarcation (virtual because Ethiopia reneged) with 41 coordinates (longitude and latitude) which connect the entirety of the Eritrea Ethiopia border.  While a “border incident” cannot be prevented whether a border is demarcated or not, there should be zero reason for Ethiopia to make new arguments since the EEBC judges said “virtual demarcation” is as legal as real demarcation.  This, by the way, is what Abiy Ahmed allegedly decided to “fully accept and implement” on June 8, 2018: the main reason he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

6. Proxy Wars: Nations that are about to go to war usually have proxy wars: think of Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo.  The ruling party of the Tigray Region (TPLF) has split into two with one side–those in charge of the Interim Administration– accusing the other–the Old Guard of TPLF–of colluding with Eritrea.  The Vice President of the Tigray Interim Administration, General Tsadkan Gebretensae, goes a step further: in an article posted in Africa Report the General says that the goal of the Old Guard of TPLF is to “use him [Isaias] and his regime to topple Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and then turn on Isaias.” There is tie-breaker between the Old Guard  TPLF and Neo TPLF who are at each other’s throat and that is General Tadesse Werede, in charge of Tigray security, and, in his recent address, he disputes this claim:

On the other hand, Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Gedion Timothewos, addressing the diplomatic community in Addis Abeba, claimed that a TPLF faction is “collaborating with external forces hostile to Ethiopia.” Ethiopia usually uses “external forces hostile to Ethiopia” or “historical enemies” when referring mostly to Egypt but sometimes to Eritrea’s ruling party, so it’s not clear whom he is referring to. What is clear, historically, is that Eritrea President Isaias Afwerki has a long history of hosting Ethiopian armed groups in Eritrea to apply pressure on the Ethiopian government. More recently, the Ethiopian government has been hosting an Eritrean opposition group, Brigade nHamedu, as well as Eritrean Afar activists demanding more autonomy for Afar Eritreans to apply pressure on the Eritrean government.

7. Casus Belli:  None of the above, individually or collectively, indicate that at “any moment war between Ethiopia and Eritrea could break out” as the first sentence in the article by General Tsadkan claims.   What is true is that the Pretoria Agreement and its follow-up Kenya Declaration that the government of Abiy Ahmed and the TPLF signed has strict deadlines on disarmament, demobilization, reintegration (DDR) of the Tigray Defense Forces and the return of the displaced.   In his wild press conference, Getachew Reda, the President of the Interim Administration, blamed the other faction of TPLF (the one allegedly colluding with Eritrea) of being responsible for the failure to return internally displaced persons; for still maintaining an armed group and for the lack of DDR.

While the Pretoria Agreement was, technically, an agreement between the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) and TPLF, in reality, it was negotiated between FDRE and United States/European Union, with TPLF, then on the precipice of extinction, just told where to sign.   Since the President of Eritrea is on record as having described the Pretoria Agreement as a treaty engineered by the “Washington Gang” to save TPLF and interrupt what accountability demanded–the retirement of the TPLF which was responsible for a disastrous war–he makes for a convenient scapegoat when the treaty fails–DESPITE the fact that one of the signatories–Getachew Redda–is blaming a TPLF faction for being responsible for its failure.

But, if Ethiopia is determined to have war–you cannot get Assab without war–it will likely use the failure of the Pretoria Agreement as casus belli for the war.  And the war, if it happens, will have nothing to do with Pretoria Agreement and everything to do with forcefully taking a port that doesn’t belong to you.