There is a big difference between Ethiopia under Meles Zenawi as a Prime in 2006 and Ethiopia under Abiy Ahmed in 2024. Zenawi guided Ethiopia through the end of the Cold War and the ‘War on Terror’ era. With the help of Sudan, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, and several Western countries, the TPLF managed to sideline other armed fronts, such as the Oromo Liberation Front, to dictate how the Ethiopian Defence Forces would operate. His federal project directed the energy of ethno-nationalists towards nation-building. The right-to-secede article in the Ethiopian constitution did the trick…
Abiy Ahmed came to power peacefully in 2018 but waged two civil wars—one against the Tigrayans, the other, ongoing, against the Amharas. Those missteps did not stop him from trying to annex a Somali coastal area to secure access to the sea. He signed a maritime Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland Administration, a secessionist entity in northern Somalia. Unlike Zenawi, Abiy attempts to exploit anti-Somalia sentiments among certain Western politicians, who are oblivious to the cornerstones of the post-World War 2 settlement and the primacy of countries’ sovereignty as set out in the United Nations Charter.
Abiy sees Ethiopia’s membership in BRICS as an opportunity to become more intransigent towards Somalia. He expects that China and Russia will support his land-grabbing ambitions. Somalia supported Ethiopia’s position on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in 2018, but in 2024, Somalia finds its territorial integrity threatened by Ethiopia eager to acquire access to the sea. Abiy is more megalomaniacal than Mengistu Haile Mariam, whom the former Soviet Union abandoned because of his disregard for the rights of ethnicities (Tigray, Oromo, Eritrea, Western Somalia aka Ogaden, Sidamo, etc.). Mengistu pressed on with the war against the TPLF and EPLF to stay in power. The outcome in 1991 was the fall of the Derg regime, and Ethiopia became a landlocked country after the independence of Eritrea in 1993.
Why is Abiy Ahmed keen on undermining the British state-building initiatives in the Federal Republic of Somalia? Ethiopian leaders’ understanding of post-World War II history is that Addis Ababa outwitted Britain twice — first, when it persuaded the British Empire to breach Protectorate Agreements with Somali clans and let Ethiopia annex Somali territories, and second, when Britain liberated Ethiopia from fascism and had Eritrea annexed by Addis Ababa. Abiy Ahmed does not see a rules-based order; he sees himself as an agent in the Horn of Africa who is willing to fight wars on behalf of America.
