Writing in Al Jazeera on Monday, Teshome, Ethiopia’s president from 2013 to 2018, who is considered a close ally of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, accused Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki of “working to reignite conflict in northern Ethiopia”, and called for global pressure on Eritrea to avert such a disaster.
“Isaias is not just drawn to conflict but he seeks it out and thrives on it, like a pyromaniac who can’t resist setting fires,” Mulatu wrote. “Today, Isaias is once again engaged in manoeuvres that are as destructive as they are predictable.”
“The world must act. Diplomatic pressure must be exerted against those who want to see an end to peace, like Isaias.”
‘Foolishly audacious accusation’
Eritrea’s information minister Yemane Gebremeskel responded to Mulatu’s piece in a lengthy statement released Thursday, accusing the ex-Ethiopian leader of trying to “make Eritrea a scapegoat”.
“This foolishly audacious accusation is intended to cover up and justify [Ethiopia’s] openly war-provoking and dangerous agenda,” Yemane said. “Eritrea has absolutely no desire or appetite to intervene in the internal affairs of Ethiopia.”
Eritrean troops fought alongside the Ethiopian government against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) between 2020 and 2022, during the devastating civil war in the northern region of Tigray that claimed an estimated hundreds of thousands of lives.
In November 2022 Ethiopia’s government signed a peace deal with TPLF in Pretoria, South Africa, bringing hostilities to an end. But Isaias is understood to have felt sidelined by the agreement, and relations between Asmara and Addis Ababa have been on a downward slide ever since.
While Eritrea claims to have “withdrawn its forces to its internationally recognised sovereign borders”, the Eritrean army still occupies large swaths of northern Tigray.
Mulatu, in his Al Jazeera piece, said Isaias “wanted the conflict in the Tigray region to continue indefinitely and Ethiopia to bleed into oblivion”, and that he regarded the Pretoria agreement as a “personal setback”.
Mulatu went on to accuse Isaias of trying to sabotage the peace by working with a faction of the TPLF – which since the signing of the agreement has been riven by a bitter schism – to “undo the Pretoria agreement”.
Communication with Eritrea
Rumours have swirled for months that the faction of the TPLF led by Debretsion Gebremichael, the party’s chairman, is communicating with Eritrea.
Military officers aligned with Debretsion’s faction within the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) issued an alarming statement on 23 January, in which they all but threatened to remove Tigray’s regional administration by force.
Debretsion and his allies deny the allegations of contact with Eritrea. One diplomatic source says it is likely that there is at least some communication between the TPLF and Asmara.
It is not known, however, how extensive such communications may be, nor is there any evidence of Eritrean involvement in the Debretsion-aligned commanders’ 23 January statement.
“How can I work with those who have destroyed my people? With Isaias?” one of the TDF commanders involved in the 23 January statement told The Africa Report last month.
Yemane, the Eritrean information minister, called Mulatu’s accusations “false” and “malicious provocations”, adding that “the Ethiopian federal government [has been] waging an intense and unacceptable campaign against Eritrea, claiming that it must take over sea outlets and ports”.
He was referring to regional tensions that have flared over the past few years over Ethiopia’s declared goal of securing access to the sea. In October 2023 Abiy, Ethiopia’s prime minister, suggested in a speech that his nation had historical rights over the ports of Assab and Massawa, which Ethiopia lost control over when Eritrea seceded in 1993.
In recent months Ethiopian state TV has aired several programmes suggesting that surrendering the ports was a historical mistake that should be rectified.
Eritrean nationalists reacted with outrage last week to widely circulated images of a map of Ethiopia on display at the recent African Union summit in Addis Ababa. The map, critics said, appeared to show an enlarged Ethiopia that included parts of Eritrean territory, including the port of Assab.
