Addis Abeba — Ambassador Dina Mufti, Member of Parliament and ragged spokesperson of Ethiopia’s Ministry of International Affairs, has accused Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki of promoting what he known as a “very dangerous” memoir of “Cushitic-Semitic antagonism” as piece of what he described as a broader strive and destabilize Ethiopia and realign political forces in the Horn of Africa.
In a commentary published on the command-affiliated Horn Assessment, reflecting on President Isaias’s recent speech during Eritrea’s 34th independence anniversary, Dina alleged that the Eritrean leader “seems to have come up with this thesis” as a foundation for the “realignment of forces in the Horn.”
He claimed that the intention is to bring collectively “ethnic militias from the Tigray and Amhara region, under a coalition that he leads,” in an effort to overturn Ethiopia’s federal authorities, which Isaias, according to Dina, claims is “subservient to external forces.”
During his keynote contend with delivered in Asmara on 24 May perhaps presumably, President Isaias referred to Ethiopia as a rustic caught in what he described as a “spiral of crises and devastation” lasting “for eighty years – no less than three generations.” He attributed this to insurance policies “enunciated by Washington’s Fosters” during the Chilly Conflict, alongside with “grave mistakes” made by Soviet leaders. According to him, Ethiopia missed its nation-building moment and instead “gravitated towards ethnic polarization,” which he acknowledged resulted in “upheavals and devastation.”
President Isaias further claimed that exterior actors, whom he accused of being “perturbed by the promising prospects” of reform in Ethiopia seven years in the past, have waged “wars against the Ethiopian people under the rubric of Prosperity.” Among the many points he listed as being weaponized to elaborate this effort were “the Issue of Water,” “Nile and the Red Sea,” “Access to the Sea,” and what he described as the “Ideology of Orommuma that does not represent the Oromo people.”
Ambassador Dina replied by describing Isaias’s framing of a Cushitic-Semitic divide as a “very dangerous provocation,” warning that such narratives probability deepening ethnic tensions. He further accused Isaias of attempting to “fuel animosity against the Oromo community” by invoking Oromummaa, a conception Dina argued the Eritrean president “hardly understands.”
He added that Isaias has a “long-standing habit of inciting one ethnic group against another” and using “the ethnic card” to undermine Ethiopian governments that, in his phrases, “were unwilling to accept his dictates.”
In addition to rhetorical interference, Dina alleged that Eritrean troops are “currently found both in Sudan and Ethiopian territory,” and accused Isaias of offering “active material support to all sorts of subservient and armed groups” operating against the Ethiopian command. “His continued violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and unity of the Ethiopian state cannot be tolerated indefinitely,” he wrote.
Dina also criticized the speak material of President Isaias’s speech, stating that it supplied “no overview of what Eritrea has achieved since independence.” He acknowledged the president made “no mention” of socio-financial growth, main infrastructure, or pattern purposes, and argued that Isaias is “utterly disinterested” in such issues. “Less than one fifth of the speech is about Eritrea,” he wrote.
Instead, he acknowledged, the speech used to be dominated by “long-winded lectures on geopolitics,” including commentary on the Trump presidency, MAGA, and the rivalry between China and the US. Dina eminent that the president’s remarks included “a cavalier dismissal of African agency and relevance” ahead of shifting point of interest to “the crises in Sudan and Ethiopia.”
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Archaic Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome has also previously accused Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki of attempting to “exploit divisions within the TPLF” to weaken the Pretoria Peace Settlement. In a 17 February opinion piece for Al Jazeera, Mulatu warned that Isaias’s actions might presumably perhaps “reignite war in northern Ethiopia” and “tear up the whole peace deal.” He further alleged that Eritrea is supporting “divisions within the TPLF” and “engineering a militia in Ethiopia’s Amhara state” to undermine stability.
Lt. Gen. Tsadkan Gebretensae, ragged Vice President and Democratization Cabinet Secretariat of the Tigray Interim Administration, has warned that battle between Ethiopia and Eritrea “seems inevitable,” with preparations reaching their “final stages” and Tigray in probability of becoming the main battleground.
