Ethiopian Government Promotes False Narratives to Deflect Internal Crises
The Ethiopian government continues to advance misleading narratives that place responsibility on Egypt for Ethiopia’s historical loss of access to the sea. These unfounded claims, promoted by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration, are widely seen as an attempt to divert public attention from mounting domestic instability. By externalizing blame, the government seeks to obscure deep-rooted internal conflicts and civil unrest currently affecting several regions, most notably Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, and Benishangul-Gumuz.
Ethiopia’s Landlocked Status: A Result of Internal Choices, Not External Conspiracies
Ramy Zohdy, an expert in African affairs, told Afronews that the narrative accusing Egypt of causing Ethiopia to become landlocked is a blatant distortion of historical reality. According to Zohdy, Ethiopia’s geographical status is the outcome of its own political decisions and internal trajectories, not the actions of Egypt or any external actor.
Claims that Cairo played a role in depriving Addis Ababa of maritime access represent a clear falsification of the political history of the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia did not lose access to the sea due to foreign interference, but rather as a consequence of prolonged internal fragmentation, ethnic tensions, and political conflicts within the Ethiopian state itself.
Eritrea’s Independence and the Misuse of History
Ethiopia became landlocked following Eritrea’s independence in 1993, which was achieved through a United Nations–supervised referendum. This process was formally accepted by the Ethiopian government at the time. Holding Egypt responsible for Eritrea’s independence is neither logical nor academically credible, as the outcome resulted from a long Ethiopian civil war and a legal international process in which Addis Ababa willingly participated.
Egypt was not a party to the conflict, did not sponsor the referendum, and did not benefit from its outcome. Assigning blame to Cairo for a sovereign decision endorsed by Ethiopia itself reflects a deliberate manipulation of historical facts.
Exporting Internal Failure Through the “External Enemy” Narrative
Zohdy noted that these fabricated accusations are part of a broader strategy to export internal failure by inventing an external adversary. Whenever Ethiopia faces severe economic pressures, unresolved ethnic divisions, and ongoing armed conflicts, ruling elites revert to the rhetoric of the “external enemy” to mobilize domestic support.
This pattern is evident in the current discourse surrounding Egypt, particularly amid Addis Ababa’s failure to manage internal diversity, stabilize conflict-ridden regions such as Tigray, Amhara, and Oromia, and secure international consensus around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which has increasingly been viewed as a legally and politically opaque project.
Linking Maritime Access to the Nile Dispute: A Political Pressure Tactic
The attempt to link Ethiopia’s maritime access issue to the Nile water dispute constitutes an illegitimate form of political and media pressure. This narrative is designed to justify Ethiopian rigidity in GERD negotiations by portraying Egypt as a “sieging” power, rather than as a downstream state facing an existential threat to its water security.
Such rhetoric deliberately shifts the discussion away from international law and into a framework of political grievance. The reality, Zohdy emphasized, is that Egypt negotiates on the basis of its right to life and survival, not regional dominance. Recasting an illegal dam dispute as a fabricated geopolitical conflict serves only to evade international legal obligations.
Allegations of Egyptian Hostility in the Horn of Africa
Accusations regarding an alleged hostile Egyptian presence in Somalia, Djibouti, and Sudan represent a clear inversion of reality. Egypt’s engagement in Somalia is official and legitimate, carried out at the request of the Somali government as part of efforts to support state-building and combat terrorism.
Relations between Egypt and Djibouti are openly developmental, commercial, and security-oriented. Meanwhile, Egypt’s role in Sudan remains confined to political and diplomatic initiatives aimed at preserving state unity and ending the ongoing conflict, not fueling or prolonging it.
Stability Versus Chaos in the Horn of Africa
Egypt’s regional approach is rooted in supporting stability rather than fomenting chaos. Those responsible for prolonging conflicts in the Horn of Africa are the actors who armed militias and promoted fragmentation, not those advocating political solutions and the preservation of national institutions.
The Dangerous Turn Toward Coercive Expansion
The most alarming aspect of current Ethiopian discourse lies in its attempt to legitimize coercive expansion toward the sea. This rhetoric goes beyond targeting Egypt and seeks to prepare domestic and international opinion for the idea of imposing a so-called “right” to maritime access by force, in violation of neighboring states’ sovereignty.
Such discourse is not economic in nature but represents a highly dangerous military-political narrative that threatens the stability of the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region. It raises serious concerns about attempts to redraw regional maps under the pretext of alleged “historical rights.”
Conclusion: Propaganda, Political Blackmail, and Regional Implications
What the Ethiopian government is promoting today amounts to a propaganda narrative designed for domestic consumption, a tool of political blackmail in the Nile water negotiations, and a cover for chronic internal governance failures. More troublingly, it may serve as a prelude to expansionist regional policies with far-reaching consequences.
Egypt did not create a landlocked Ethiopia, did not besiege the country, and did not ignite the wars of the Horn of Africa. Rather, Egypt remains a civilizational state committed to international law, while Ethiopia’s current leadership appears to be attempting to rewrite geography through media narratives after failing to do so through political means.
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