The Manufactured Enemy: How Ethiopia Uses Eritrea to Distract from Its Own Failures

By David Yeh

The Ethiopian government’s renewed attempt to frame Eritrea as the invisible hand behind the Amhara Fano insurgency is not merely dishonest, it is a calculated and cynical effort to manipulate public perception at a moment of severe internal weakness. The ruling party, increasingly described by its critics as a hollowed out structure propped up by propaganda rather than legitimacy, has become a kind of Potemkin political machine: a façade of authority masking profound institutional decay. In such a brittle system, scapegoating is not an occasional tool it is the backbone of governance.

And so, when federal forces were driven back by Fano fighters in a string of engagements that left government units scattered and scrambling, the political reaction was as predictable as it was serious. In place of accountability, analysis, or reform came the same recycled accusation dragged out from the archives whenever things fell apart: blame Eritrea. Blame it loudly, blame it without evidence, and hope the public is too exhausted or too frightened to demand proof.

This tactic is not clever. It is not strategic. It is not even original. It is the reflection of a leadership unwilling to confront its own failures and terrified of admitting that its security policies, military strategies, and political calculations have backfired.

What triggered this latest wave of finger-pointing was not intelligence data or intercepted weapons shipments none of which the government has presented. Instead, the trigger was humiliation. Video clips began circulating online showing Fano fighters standing over crates of ammunition abandoned by federal forces during a disorderly retreat. Analysts who reviewed the footage noted that the markings on the boxes match Ethiopian stock, not foreign logistics chains. The terrain aligns with known conflict areas. The uploads came from multiple unrelated accounts, making coordinated fabrication unlikely.
In other words, the visible evidence contradicted the government’s preferred narrative. So the administration simply invented a more convenient one.

The pattern is painfully familiar. A battlefield loss occurs, and within hours the government shifts from silence to desperation, attempting to drown out criticism with declarations that Eritrea is secretly orchestrating Ethiopia’s unrest. It speaks with certainty while presenting nothing. It warns of foreign plots while ignoring domestic failures. It treats the Ethiopian public not as citizens deserving truth but as an audience to be distracted and pacified.

And this is where the Potemkin party label becomes unavoidable. A government confident in its own competence does not respond to military setbacks with fabrication. A leadership grounded in legitimacy does not lash out at imaginary enemies. A functioning state does not rely on smoke and mirrors to compensate for broken governance. What remains is a shell an administration that performs the gestures of authority while hollowed out from within.

The rhetorical revival of Eritrea as the omnipresent villain reveals something even more alarming: the leadership’s growing disconnect from reality. When governments repeat narratives long after they have lost credibility, they are no longer manipulating the public they are deceiving themselves. And when a government begins to believe its own propaganda, the risks multiply. Decisions become detached from evidence. Policies are shaped around illusions. Diplomacy deteriorates as imagined threats replace actual analysis.

This self deception might be politically convenient in the short term, but it is strategically disastrous. Ethiopia cannot afford instability, nor can the region tolerate the unintended consequences of a government fabricating threats to mask internal dysfunction. Every reckless accusation increases the likelihood of misunderstandings, escalations, and diplomatic fallout none of which serve Ethiopia’s long-term interests.
The most frustrating aspect of this manufactured narrative is that it fundamentally avoids the question that matters most: Why is armed resistance growing inside Ethiopia in the first place? Why do Fano fighters continue to gain ground? Why is federal authority eroding across multiple regions? Why does trust in the central government continue to collapse?

These are internal problems with internal causes political centralization, regional disenfranchisement, inconsistent governance, and the erosion of public trust. No amount of scapegoating will fix them. Blaming Eritrea does not address political grievances. It does not rebuild broken institutions. It does not repair federal-regional relations. It simply pushes Ethiopia deeper into denial.

Opposition groups have made this point repeatedly: the government’s obsession with externalizing its failures is not just dishonest; it is corrosive. It creates a political culture in which truth becomes optional, evidence becomes irrelevant, and accountability becomes impossible. It replaces leadership with theatrics, governance with narrative construction, and strategy with improvisation.

What is left is a government that cannot defend its borders, cannot maintain internal stability, and cannot even admit what is happening on the ground. Instead, it reaches for the same overused story: the foreign enemy, the shadowy saboteur, the fabricated threat. But these stories are falling apart. The public sees through them. Experts see through them. Even some within the ruling party see through them.

The question, then, is not whether the government can keep deceiving the public. It is whether the government can survive once the propaganda finally collapses under its own weight. Because a state that must continually invent external enemies to explain away its failures is not a strong state, it is a fragile one. A Potemkin state. A state staring down crises of its own making and choosing fantasy over responsibility.
Until Ethiopia’s leadership confronts the internal realities driving unrest, it will remain trapped in a cycle of denial, distraction, and decay. Blaming Eritrea may provide a momentary political shield, but it cannot stop the erosion of legitimacy. And no amount of manufactured enemies can hide the fact that the greatest threat to Ethiopia’s stability today comes not from outside its borders, but from the failures of its own government.

Ethiopia’s reliance on manufactured external threats to explain internal failures has become increasingly transparent and counterproductive. The repeated accusation that Eritrea is supplying arms to the Fano rebels serves less as an analysis of the conflict than as a political distraction, designed to shield the government from accountability for its military, logistical, and governance shortcomings. Evidence circulating from the ground including videos of seized ammunition and the consistent reports of opposition groups points to internal causes rather than foreign involvement. By choosing deflection over introspection, the government undermines its own credibility, erodes public trust, and risks inflaming regional tensions. Sustainable stability and genuine political progress in Ethiopia will require confronting these internal challenges honestly, rather than hiding behind a convenient but fabricated enemy.