Link to article: https://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00094338.html
Ethiopia has recently accused Eritrea of working with the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) to wage war on Eastern Africa. The Tigray People Liberation Front is a terrorist group that originated from an indigenous ethnic group to Eritrea. A letter was addressed to the UN security general stating that a war in eastern Africa was almost inevitable and action must be taken to avoid this. Ethiopia accusations are backed up by their statement that they believe Eritrea has been gearing up and increasing arms for the potential war. This is another chapter in Ethiopia journey to gain access to the red sea so they can access more trading ports. Eritrea is currently blocking Ethiopia’s access to these ports.
I think this might be a plot by Ethiopia to try and get the other countries of Eastern Africa to gang up against Eritrea so they can finally gain their access to the red sea ports. It seems like they are also trying to get the UN on their side by making Eritrea look like the bad guy. I don’t deny that Eritrea is a very likely candidate for a starter of war because of their authoritarian governmental system but I just don’t see the reason of Eritrea starting a war so randomly when they weren’t threatened and while they’re in a very advantageous place in Eastern Africa as they own a lot of prime red sea real estate.
If I were Ethiopia I would dig further into the situation if you actually believed there was some kind of arms build up and then present that evidence to the neighboring nations who can then start to plan either their attack or disarming of Eritrea. If I were the UN I would wait to see if Ethiopia is bluffing because if they are and they attack Eritrea for no reason then they would look very bad and it could cause Ethiopia to overrule all of Eastern Africa.
This can relate to what we did in class because in class we did a project on the global freedom index and a thing that I learned from that is that Eritrea is the least free country out of any country even being less than China and North Korea. This contributes to the article because it makes Eritrea look like a very prime target to be blamed as a starter of war even if they don’t have anything to do with it just because of their history.