As all Eritreans are aware, Isaias Afewerki has been involved in the war in Tigray in support of Abiy Ahmed since the start of the war on November 4, 2020. The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), Amhara Militias, and Eritrean Army are committing massacres against innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly, across Tigray, destroying and looting private and public properties. Isaias’s choice is to build Eritrea with stolen Tigrayan properties. The Eritrean people must deplore Isaias’s actions to strip Tigray’s religious artefacts (relics), industrial and academic assets, and private properties, including money, mobile phones, bedding, handkerchiefs, and kitchenware, and transport them to Eritrea. These dreadful atrocities shame the peace-loving Eritrean people and will stain the history and integrity of Eritrea as genocidaires, rapists, and looters.
The Eritrean Army is committing genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, rapes and sexual violence, ethnic cleansing, destruction, and looting of properties in Tigray. These atrocties are not committed in the name of all Eritreans but in the name of the brutal dictator Isaias Afewerki, who has made freedom and democracy a distant dream for the Eritrean people and bankrupted the Eritrean economy for the last 30 years. Isaias has betrayed the promise made to the Eritrean people, i.e., “freedom, democracy, and prosperity.” We all know that there has been no freedom, no democracy, no prosperity, and no election in Eritrea since 1991.
If Abiy Ahmed, Isaias Afewerki, and Amhara Unitarian elites are not challenged with united forces (i.e., both Eritreans and Tigrayans coming together), the dynamics of the war in Tigray may come to engulf Eritrea next. Abiy and Amhara elites are battling against Tigray now, and the Amhara expansionists may move to target Assab and even the whole of Eritrea, as Amhara elites believe Eritrea should be part of Ethiopia. You might have seen video clips on YouTube and social media from Amhara expansionists as well as comments from the current Amhara elites in Abiy’s government about their claim to Assab as well as to bring back Eritrea under Ethiopian rule. The land-grabbing expansionism of the Abiy government and Amhara elites is agile and can go in any direction to revive the Amhara supremacy of the past, make it happen now, and build it in the future.
Moreover, Isaias spoke candidly about himself on many occasions, saying that he would not mind Eritrea becoming part of the Ethiopian Federation. Isaias can exchange his personal ego-driven power to ditch 30 years of struggle for independence. I am hopeful that Eritreans will not want to be ruled by the past failed Amhara unitarian system of government.
Abiy Ahmed changed his allegiance from his Oromo roots to Amhara after the people of Oromo brought him to power, and now he is brutally killing and imprisoning his people for rejecting his political vision to abolish self-determination under the Ethiopian constitution of federalism. The political dimension of Abiy Ahmed is changing rapidly to bring back the past Amhara repression rule. This makes him a very dangerous man to every non-Amhara ethnic group as well as Eritreans.
As we all know, the Eritrean Army is now embedded with the Ethiopian Army, fighting and committing genocide against the people of Tigray, raping girls and women, looting, and destroying Tigray. The ENDF can easily disarm the Eritrean Army that is residing in Tigray and the Amhara region. If the entire Eritrean army is disarmed while they are in Tigray and the Amhara region, what can Eritrea have left to defend its territories? Nothing. This makes Eritrea vulnerable to invasion and very exposed to defending its territories. If Abiy succeeds in destroying Tigray, he will move on to invade Assab and the rest of Eritrea.
Eritreans should understand that Abiy Ahmed is backed by dark foreign forces that want to control the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Isaias may be part of the coalition for now, but this may not last if the Tigrayan resistance is weakened or eliminated. The whole sale of political treachery and betrayal to consolidate power around the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa will come next. Abiy might charm Isaias now, but he can turn against Isaias and the Eritrean people, as he has turned against the TPLF and the people of Tigray.
It is well known that Abiy was brought up and trained by the TPLF. Abiy and his Oromo Democratic Party (ODP) have been in coalition with the TPLF under the umbrella of the EPRDF. He was a minister under Hailemariam Desalegn and chief of security. He was involved in human rights abuses and killed his own people. He is ruthless and ambitious and wants to be king and dominate the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.
As we can now see, Abiy has presented himself as if he has never been involved in maladministration, corruption, and human rights abuses. Conversely, he is pretending that he is a messiah and can save Ethiopia and establish a democratic Ethiopia, which is far from these honey-coated words.
Instead, he has turned his messiah belief to systematically kill and imprison leaders of the opposition parties and the people of Tigray, Oromo, Sidama, Welayita, Hadiya, Kemant, Agew, Somali, Gedeo, Hadiya, Benishangul-Gumuz, etc., as never seen before in the history of Ethiopia.
Abiy Ahmed is a liar, and Isaias took advantage of Abiy’s weakness. Isaias understood well that Abiy is in a deep political mess, ruthless, and has no humanity on his conscious, as we have been and are witnessing what’s happening in Somali, Oromia, Sidama, Kemant, Welayta, Gedeo, Gumuz, Konso, Hadiya, Afar, etc., since he assumed power in 2018 and in Tigray in the past 2 years. Isaias found his perfect tyrant in himself and has been courting and hugging Abiy like his beloved brother so that both can commit genocide, war crimes, and gross human rights abuses in Tigray under the complete blackout of communications. On the other hand, Abiy is using Isaias for his political survival and has been showing Isaias Ethiopia’s secrets around the country to make sure he stays on his side to help him annihilate the TPLF and the people of Tigray and destroy and loot public and private properties in Tigray.
Abiy Ahmed has made serious pacts in secret with Isaias Afewerki, under the hospices of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to return Bademe, destroy and loot Tigray, and rampage through the Eritrean refugee camps in Tigray to kill or involuntarily repatriate Eritrean refugees to Eritrea, amongst others that have been kept secret out of the public’s knowledge, to convince Isaias to help him subjugate Tigray, as the TPLF has been an obstacle and a fierce resistant to Abiy’s grand project. These are some of Isaias and Abiy’s pitched pacts as part of their Ethio-Eritrean peace agreement in 2018. Abiy Ahmed’s war on Tigray will not end in Tigray. The worst is yet to come.
Humanitarian organisations have been reporting on the safety of Eritrean refugee camps in Tigray because of the attacks and forced deportations to Eritrea by the Eritrean Army, as well as involuntary repatriations via Bole airport to Asmara, where they could be grossly mistreated or killed by the Isaias Afewerki regime. This was a sign of the brutal dictator Abiy in the making, having no respect for international humanitarian law or the Geneva Convention to please his temporary comrade in crime, Isaias Afewerki. The UN and African Union are powerless to stop Abiy’s and Isaias’s war crimes and genocide in Tigray, as dark foreign forces are at work to thwart and block any attempt to stop the war in Tigray and elsewhere in Ethiopia in order to control the country’s resources.
Before Abiy succeeds in subduing Tigray and the brutality comes to Eritrea, Eritreans must stand with the people of Tigray. All Eritreans should be worried about what will happen next to Eritrea and must defend their brothers and sisters in Tigray. All Eritreans should remember that, whatever the political differences Tigrayans and Eritreans might have had, the TPLF and EPLF fought together against the brutal Derg. Both Eritreans and Tigrayans won the bitter struggle against the Derg and Amhara elites in 1991. The Amhara elites, who terrorised and murdered Eritreans and Tigrayans during the struggle in 1974–1991; Isaias is now allies with the Derg Amhara elites and killing innocent children, women, and the elderly in Tigray to appease his old foe, the Amhara elites.
Abiy’s plan is far from his cunning narrative and Medemer philosophy. He is motivated by revenge to consolidate his dictatorial rule, supported by ruthless Amhara elites who want to bring back the failed centralised rule (unitarian and expansionist ideology) of Emperor Menelik and Haileselassie. Abiy can bomb towns and cities and kill as many Tigrayans as he wants, but he will never rule Tigray and will never win the hearts and minds of Tigrayans. Tigrayans will do it again by going back to past guerrilla warfare to assert their self-determination rights or possibly independence to live in peace with Eritrean brothers and sisters. Tigray and Eritrea were divided by Amhara rule during Menelik’s reign. I won’t go into the history in detail, as Eritreans are familiar with how Menelik let Eritrea be ruled by Italy after the Adwa War victory in 1896, saying, “Let the Italians rule Eritrea beyond Mereb Melash,” and how Emperor Haileselassie hanged Eritrean heroes who defended their rights to self-rule in the 1960s.
Therefore, Eritrean brothers and sisters should be warned of what will come next after Tigray. The only choice is that both Tigrayans and Eritreans who believe in self-rule, self-pride, and freedom should join forces to defeat Abiy and remove Isaias from power so that the people of Eritrea and Tigray can live in harmony and peace together under our respective flags to develop our economies and establish free trade between Tigray and Eritrea. After all, we, the people of Tigray and Eritrea, share a common identity, speak the same language, and have the same culture. We must preserve the unity of brotherhood and sisterhood to eliminate the common enemy who divides us so that we can live together in peace and develop our economy.
Let’s remember our fallen Tigrayan and Eritrean heroes who fought for our freedom and those who were hanged by Emperor Haileselassie in the 1960s. We, Tigrayans and Eritreans, must stand and fight together to remove Isaias and combat Amhara expansionism before it is revived again.