Ethiopia’s Record of Duplicity and Destabilization

By Ghidewon Abay Asmerom

Over the past two years, Ethiopia’s leaders have intensified a campaign of distortion, casting themselves as victims of injustice while blaming their neighbors for instability. This performance reached its peak at the United Nations General Assembly, where Ethiopian representatives sought to deflect attention from their own record by throwing baseless accusations at Egypt. Egypt reply on September 29, 2025 was a stinging rebuke to Ethiopia’s duplicity.

Let us be blunt: Ethiopia’s leadership is neck-deep in duplicity. It wraps itself in the language of sovereignty and stability when convenient, only to shred those very principles when they stand in the way of Addis Ababa’s ambitions. This is not merely hypocrisy. It is a calculated strategy that undermines Africa’s fragile framework of stability and risks dragging the Horn of Africa into new and devastating conflict.

Ethiopia’s favorite narrative is that of the unjustly landlocked nation, hemmed in by hostile neighbors. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed even argues that it is “unfair” for Afar in Eritrea and Djibouti to enjoy ports while Afar in Ethiopia do not, or for Somali in Somalia to have beaches while Somali in Ethiopia remain landlocked.

On the surface, such rhetoric masquerades as an appeal to fairness. In reality, it is a distortion of history and law. The matter of Africa’s borders was settled six decades ago. In 1964, the Organization of African Unity enshrined the principle of inviolable borders at independence to prevent endless wars of revision. Ethiopia itself championed this principle when it served its interests. Today, however, the same Ethiopia seeks to tear it up to annex Eritrea’s sovereign coast.

Ethiopia’s duplicity becomes clearer when its record is held against its rhetoric. Addis Ababa speaks of stability. But in practice, it has left a trail of aggression and destabilization across the region.

Ethiopia’s leaders never tire of portraying their country as a victim of injustice, yet the record tells a very different story. Far from being a stabilizing force in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia has consistently undermined its neighbors, violated international law, and trampled on the very principles of sovereignty it once claimed to defend. Its actions reveal a pattern of duplicity and aggression that Africa can no longer afford to ignore.

Take Somalia. In 2024, Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, effectively recognizing the break-up of a fellow African state. This reckless act struck at the core of African solidarity and mocked the principle of inviolable borders enshrined by the Organization of African Unity in 1964. Ethiopia once championed that principle when it served its interests; today it casually discards it when it obstructs its ambitions. Addis Ababa compounds this betrayal by keeping troops in Somalia outside the African Union’s mandate, operating in direct violation of the very security frameworks designed to safeguard the continent.

Sudan, too, has felt the weight of Ethiopia’s adventurism. In the fertile al-Fashaga borderlands, Ethiopian forces have repeatedly trespassed, seized land, and looted resources, sparking violent clashes. Instead of seeking compromise, Ethiopia has chosen confrontation, destabilizing yet another neighbor.

The duplicity extends beyond bilateral relations. Once entrusted as a regional peacekeeper, Ethiopia managed to bring disgrace upon itself by being expelled from the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) for misconduct, an extraordinary humiliation and a public reminder that Addis Ababa’s words about peace rarely match its deeds.

Nor has Ethiopia confined its recklessness to land disputes. On the Nile, Addis Ababa has chosen to weaponize a river that sustains hundreds of millions of people. By unilaterally filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), it has ignored international law and the principle of equitable sharing, threatening the livelihoods of downstream states Egypt and Sudan. The Nile, which should bind nations together, has instead been wielded by Ethiopia as a blunt instrument of coercion.

Its treatment of Eritrea exposes the same pattern of duplicity. Ethiopia fought a devastating war with Eritrea between 1998 and 2000, only to lose before the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), which under the Algiers Agreement issued a unanimous, final, and binding verdict in Eritrea’s favor. Ethiopia’s response was not compliance but defiance: it rejected the ruling, attempted to impose a suffocating diplomatic siege, and embarked on a campaign of subversion. Having failed to achieve its aims through war or diplomacy, Ethiopia stooped even lower, entangling itself in human trafficking and identity theft. Addis Ababa orchestrated schemes to smuggle its own citizens abroad under stolen Eritrean identities, deliberately draining Eritrea of its youth. Thousands were funneled into Europe, Canada, and the United States in this way.

The sordid nature of this operation was later confirmed by Ethiopian officials themselves. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and former Tigrayan leader Getachew Reda both publicly admitted that Ethiopia had been in the business of trafficking those with money or diaspora relatives, extracting thousands of dollars per head in a criminal enterprise designed to weaken Eritrea. Rarely has a state so brazenly turned crime into policy.

This is the real Ethiopia: a country that undermines Somalia’s unity, violates Sudan’s sovereignty, disgraces itself in peacekeeping, destabilizes Somalia with unauthorized troops, wields the Nile as a weapon, defies international arbitration, and profits from human trafficking. It is a record of deception, aggression, and lawlessness.

And yet, despite this record, Ethiopia once again rattles its sabers over a Red Sea port to which it holds neither legal title nor historical claim. The last time an Abyssinian kingdom possessed a Red Sea outlet was more than a millennium ago, when the Kingdom of Aksum traded through Adulis. Since that era, the coastline has passed through the hands of Ottomans, Egyptians, Italians, the British, and finally Eritreans. Ethiopia’s fleeting access to the sea came only through the UN-imposed federation with Eritrea in 1952, followed by its illegal annexation and occupation. The occupation ended decisively in Massawa in 1990, when Eritrean fighters liberated the port city, paving the way for Eritrea’s full independence and the liberation of Assab in 1991. In 1993, an internationally supervised referendum confirmed the will of the people with 99.8 percent voting for independence, closing the chapter on Ethiopia’s coastal ambitions once and for all.

On the Nile, Ethiopia acts as if it alone can dictate the river’s future. It unilaterally filled the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in defiance of historic agreements, the principle of equitable sharing, and the cooperative spirit needed to manage a transboundary lifeline. Ethiopia’s claims to the Red Sea, like its handling of the Nile, are not policies but fantasies. They are myths manufactured to distract from internal crises—civil war, ethnic fragmentation, debt, and corruption. They are illusions dressed up as strategy. And if indulged, they will plunge the Horn of Africa into endless turmoil.

Until Addis Ababa abandons these illusions, respects international law, and accepts the sovereignty of its neighbors, it will remain not a pillar of African peace but a menace to it.

This is Ethiopia’s real record, not the victim’s tale it projects abroad. Why the theater of victimhood? Because Ethiopia is a state in deep crisis. Its ethnic federal system has produced war in Tigray, violence in Amhara and Oromia, and unrest in other regions. The economy is buckling under unsustainable debt, collapsing foreign currency reserves, and runaway corruption. State-owned enterprises are drowning in liabilities.

Faced with this domestic collapse, Ethiopia’s leaders look outward. They manufacture enemies, fabricate grievances, and cloak failure in illusions of power. This is an old trick for weak regimes, but in the Horn of Africa, where one spark can set the region aflame, it is especially dangerous. At the core of Ethiopia’s duplicity lie two dangerous fantasies: controlling the Nile and reclaiming the Red Sea.

The international community cannot afford to be fooled. Every loan, every aid package, every diplomatic nod risks enabling Ethiopia’s reckless adventurism. This is a state that has already defaulted on its Eurobond, squandered wealth on war and vanity projects, and left its people impoverished. To bankroll Addis Ababa now is not to promote stability, it is to subsidize chaos.

Ethiopia’s neighbors: Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti, Egypt—have all borne the sting of Addis Ababa’s duplicity. The African Union was founded precisely to stop such destabilizing behavior. To allow Ethiopia’s myths to stand unchallenged is to betray the very foundations of African unity.

Ethiopia’s leaders accuse others of destabilization. But the record speaks clearly: Ethiopia is the one trampling Somalia’s sovereignty, encroaching on Sudan, threatening Eritrea, defying borders, and gambling with the Nile.

The world must call this behavior by its true name: deception born of internal crisis, projected outward through reckless claims. Africa deserves better. It deserves a stable, responsible Ethiopia that respects its neighbors and international law. Not an Ethiopia that destabilizes, deceives, and dreams of empire. Every claim of Ethiopia’s “historic right” to the Red Sea or unilateral dominance over the Nile must be met with firm rejection. History does not support it. Law does not permit it. And peace cannot survive it.