The Eritrean Dictator Can’t Have It All: Destabilize Ethiopia, Play Victim, and Mask His Failure
The Eritrean Dictator has recently issued a series of inflammatory accusations against Ethiopia, alleging violations of its sovereignty, false-flag operations, and preparations for war. These charges, coming from the world’s most paranoid, sycophantic, and narcissistic dictator, are not grounded in fact. Instead, they represent a deliberate effort by the brutal dictator to divert attention from his internal failures and longstanding role in destabilizing Ethiopia and the wider Horn of Africa and the Red Sea while playing a victim.
Contrary to the Eritrean dictator’s claims, Ethiopia is not planning a war. The country is embroiled in multiple brutal internal conflicts, including those in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, Afar, and other regions, which have stretched the capacity of the federal government. In many of these regions, the federal government lacks even minimal control, let alone the capacity to mount external military operations against Eritrea. The notion that Prime Minister Abiy is preparing to invade Eritrea is not just untrue, it is logistically and politically implausible.
Yet the dictator continues to paint itself as the victim of an imminent Ethiopian threat. This narrative is more about domestic control than foreign policy. The Eritrean dictator lacks any real internal legitimacy. He has failed to provide his people with basic public services; there is no electricity, no clean water, no functioning healthcare system, no employment opportunities, no housing, no internet access, and no freedom. For decades, he has relied on one thing to stay in power: fear. He frames Ethiopia—first under the TPLF until 2018, and now under Abiy Ahmed—as a U.S.-backed existential threat.
In this context, Ethiopia’s legitimate concerns about the dictator’s interference in its internal affairs must be taken seriously; concerns that have already been formally communicated to the UN Secretary-General and several Heads of State and Government. The Eritrean dictator is training, arming, and funding Ethiopian militias and opposition groups, including factions of the TPLF in Tigray, the Amhara Fano militia, and other areas. These are not isolated allegations; they are part of a pattern of regional destabilization that the Eritrean dictator has followed for years, often under the radar of international scrutiny.
The Eritrean dictator is warmly embracing Dr. Debretsion, the former governor of Tigray, who survived the Tigray war and is currently the leader of the Tigrayan faction that commands the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF), aligned with him against the Ethiopian federal government. This is even though the TPLF is both the architect and defender of Ethiopia’s federal constitution, while the Eritrean dictator is actively working to dismantle it. They have nothing in common. In truth, the Ethiopian Prime Minister and the TPLF share no disagreement regarding the federal constitution — they are fundamentally aligned on this issue.
Despite these provocations, Ethiopia is in no position to threaten Eritrean sovereignty. Vast stretches of its border with Eritrea, approximately 600 kilometers along the Tigray region and 450 kilometers along the Afar region, remain outside federal control, often dominated by local forces or actors aligned with the dictator. In many of these areas, the federal government lacks military presence, let alone command. There is no federal army presence within 300 kilometers of the Eritrean border, deep inside Ethiopia. The Eritrean dictator’s suggestion that Ethiopia is the aggressor here is a textbook case of strategic deflection.
The Eritrean dictator also continues to invoke the 2002 Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) ruling and the 2018 Peace and Friendship Agreement with Prime Minister Abiy to justify his claims. But this is misleading. The dictator himself deprioritized border demarcation in 2018 at the request of Prime Minister Abiy, publicly dismissing it as unimportant, saying that saving Ethiopia is more critical. Isaias Afwerki is a staunch unionist—like his father, uncle, and grandfather—who historically advocated for Eritrea’s unity with Ethiopia. It was this family legacy that helped persuade the United States to support unification, despite the Eritrean people's clear aspiration for independence.
The peace deal was less about genuine reconciliation and more a tactical alliance to defeat the TPLF, which ruled Ethiopia from 1991 until 2018, the dictator’s longtime adversary for institutionalizing an ethnic and language-based federal arrangement that remains popular among the Ethiopian people. The Eritrean dictator's interference in Ethiopia aims to dismantle the Ethiopian constitution and reestablish a unitary state dominated by the Amhara elite. At the time, the TPLF posed a significant threat to Abiy Ahmed’s newly formed administration. In response, Dr. Abiy deployed his now-famous 'Medemer' slogan— a strategic Ethiopia–Eritrea Unionist appeal aimed at securing the backing of unionist Isaias Afewerki and the Amhara political elite.
Another often-repeated claim by the dictator is that Ethiopia seeks access to Eritrean ports “legally if possible, militarily if necessary.” This statement, widely attributed to the Ethiopian prime minister, has never been made. While it’s true that Ethiopia is landlocked and has legitimate strategic interests in the Red Sea, it has multiple potential partners, including Djibouti and Sudan. The portrayal of Ethiopia as singularly focused on Eritrean ports is a deliberate distortion. While the Ethiopian Prime Minister has occasionally made vague references to Red Sea access in an attempt to rally domestic support, the effort has largely failed, even among the Amhara population, who cling to a nostalgic but historically unfounded belief in Ethiopia’s supposed entitlement to the Red Sea, rooted in myths of a 3,000-year imperial legacy rather than legal or geopolitical reality.
In the Amhara region, the Amhara have effectively become proxies for the Eritrean dictator. Their resentment toward the Oromo-led federal government is intensifying, fueled by the government’s failure to transfer the fertile Welkait land in the Tigray region to the Amhara after the 2021 Tigray war—despite this requiring a violation of the ethnically and linguistically based federal arrangement, a mandate the federal government neither holds nor is authorized to enforce. This tension is further aggravated by the federal government’s military actions against Amhara militias, its crackdown on the Orthodox Church, and the rise of Oromo nationalism and control within the federal government. Together, these dynamics are escalating tensions and deepening the country’s instability.
In the Tigray region, the Tigrinya population, located approximately 800 kilometers from Addis Ababa, the country's political and economic center, harbors deep resentment toward the Ethiopian federal state. This is fueled by rising Tigrinya nationalism and the collective trauma of the genocidal war waged against them by federal forces, Amhara militias, and the Eritrean dictator in 2021. However, the TPLF is not exempt from blame for betraying the Tigray people. The war also resulted from the TPLF’s delusions about its power and capabilities. Stubbornly unaware of reality, they provoked the federal government, rallying multiple forces against themselves and ultimately unleashing a devastating crisis upon the people of Tigray. Recently, the Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, handpicked Tigrayan Governor Getachew Reda, who was ousted by the TPLF faction that opposed Abiy.
Similarly, in the Oromo region, many remain firmly committed to self-determination for the Oromo people, who have their own distinct language and culture, with Addis Ababa considered their historical capital. This dynamic is also evident among other groups, including the Somali region and the Afar region. Ethiopia is a fragile state facing deep structural challenges. Its economy is in decline, unemployment is widespread, and environmental degradation continues to worsen. Rapid population growth adds further strain, while the absence of any national consensus on political structure has left the country deeply divided. Intense competition over limited resources has fueled ethnic tensions, violent conflicts, and targeted ethnic-based attacks. These problems are compounded by a complex and fragmented geography, making it even impossible to build a cohesive and harmonious society.
Ironically, Eritrea is the only state in the region without internal or external strategic threats, due to its secure geography and societal homogeneity. Eritrea is naturally shielded by formidable geographic barriers: the Semien Mountains to the southwest, the Danakil Desert to the south, the Nubian Desert to the west, and the Red Sea to the east. Thanks to the Tigrinya people, who have an ancient Judeo-Christian civilization, are highly homogeneous, with no tribal or clan structure, and are capable of mobilizing a strong, cohesive national army. The dictator, however, uses this stability to intervene and destabilize neighboring countries easily to stay in power.
Although Eritrea’s economy has collapsed, the dictator requires very little to back disgruntled tribes and clans in the region’s fragile neighboring states, including Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen, Djibouti, and Somalia. It’s a low-cost strategy with a highly destabilizing impact. The West consistently underestimates Eritrea’s power by reducing it to comparisons of GDP and population size. The Eritrean dictator has been interfering in Sudan’s fragile transition. He continues to support the Iran-backed Islamist factions against the U.A.E-backed rapid forces, further destabilizing Sudan and the entire region, and the Red Sea. It is time for the United States and its partners to see the Eritrean dictator’s narrative for what it is: a smokescreen. Far from being the victim of aggression, the Eritrean dictator is an active driver of instability in one of the world’s most volatile regions.
Ultimately, the Eritrean dictator’s inflammatory rhetoric serves a domestic purpose: to maintain power through fear, using its media and narrative monopoly and isolation, especially in the highland regions of Hamassien, where dissatisfaction with the government runs deep, and fear for the sovereignty of the country becomes the last remaining pillar of control. This distraction hides his failure to provide even the most basic services to the Eritrean people, as well as the silent ethnic cleansing targeting the Tigrinya population, proud heirs of an ancient Judeo-Christian civilization that has preserved its Ge’ez language, culture, and national pride for millennia.
In the periphery, Akeleguzay and Seraye, the dictator and his cronies, committed genocide, forcing hundreds of thousands into exile and leaving entire villages empty. In Hamassien, the political, economic, and cultural heart of the country, people face a different set of injustices. There are deep grievances over the forgotten martyrs, the neglected veteran fighters, a collapsing economy, and the systematic destruction of land, including by the greedy Chinese mining companies.
Power is concentrated in the hands of the Eritrean dictator and his few cronies, third-generation Italian-instilled parasite ruling elites from the Akeleguzay and Tigray regions. At the same time, Hamassien, despite its massive role in the army and the high number of martyrs, has almost no voice in government. Families in Hamassien have lost four to seven children each, yet the regime shows no respect for their sacrifice. The parasite ruling elite treats Hamassien as expendable while clinging to power and wealth.
Change can be achieved peacefully and legally through additional secondary sanctions on all Eritrean mining and through a 24-hour satellite TV and radio broadcast that promotes Tigrinya nationalism, economic prosperity, direct democracy, and anti-corruption values. When Eritrea—the de facto nation-state of the Tigrinya people—becomes an official one, and its national narrative shifts to delivering dignity, pride, prosperity, freedom, equality, safety, and justice for its people, instead of promoting the parasitic ruling class’s anti-West narrative, Eritrea will become a decisive stabilizing power and a strong ally of the U.S. and its Western partners.
Ethiopia, overwhelmed by civil wars, a collapsing economy, and political fragmentation, is in no position to start a war, especially not against Eritrea, the very country that helped prevent its collapse in 2018. With U.S. aid suspended and the country drowning in Chinese debt, the idea is absurd. It’s not Ethiopia that is calling for war; it is the Eritrean dictator destabilizing Ethiopia, fabricating threats to distract from its own failures, brutality, and tightening grip on power, and playing victim.
The dictator must go—his removal is the only way to end the silent ethnic cleansing of the Tigrinya people, the organic outpost of the Judeo-Christian west for two millennia, secure peace in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, prevent the expansion of China, Russia and Iran in the region, and serve the interests of global stability.