By The Star Staff Writer
MOGADISHU – Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki blasted “powerful countries” that use terrorism, piracy and the illegal trade of weapons and narcotics as justifications to further their “interventionist and expansionist agendas” in the Horn of Africa region.
Although Afwerki was circumspect in his wording and didn’t name a particular culprit, yet it’s abundantly clear that he was referencing the West, especially the United States and the European Union. The US, whose government treats parts of Somalia as an “area of active hostilities,” supported Ethiopian forces who occupied Somalia for two years. The EU also has an anti-piracy Naval Force ATALANTA, or NAVFOR, that patrols off the coast of Somalia to deter, prevent and repress piracy and armed robbery at sea.
In an indirect jab at Somalis, whose Pressident, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo, is visiting the Red sea nation, President Afwerki said foreign schemes “would not have materialized without the harmful role and complicity of domestic surrogates.”
“We have learned a lot from the obstacles that were woven in the past decades after the end of the Cold War, as we all embarked – i.e. Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Sudan – in earnestness on the path of nation building,” President Afwerki said, according to an English-language text of his speech posted on the website of the Eritrean Ministry of Information.
Afwerki delivered the speech at the gala dinner he hosted for the Somali President Farmajo on Saturday night. Farmajo is in Asmara for a three-day visit aimed at restoring ties with Asmara, which in the past Mogadishu accused of supporting the Qaida-linked militants of al Shabab that is trying to topple it.
The ties between Somalia and Eritrea soured in the early 2000s, when Somali leaders allowed Ethiopia’s late dictator Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to have them in the palm of his hand and pull the strings of their proud nation’s affairs.
In 2007, Eritrea suspended its membership of the Intergovernmental Agency for Development, or IGAD, in protest of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia. Asmara’s decision to play host to Somali leaders, who opposed Addis Ababa’s two-year occupation of their country, has angered many countries, including the United States, which provided Ethiopian forces in Somalia with military and intelligence support.
Afwerki said external interferences in the Horn of Africa region have caused ethnic and clan cleavages and destruction, scourges of poverty and hunger spurred by external pillage and internal thievery, micromanagement of anarchy through UN agencies and NGO, intractable border crises and strife and spiraling crises under the rubric of “peace keeping” missions.
The Eritrean President said these obstacles have thwarted the region’s efforts to build cohesive nations, develop economy, consolidate independent and sovereign governments and institutions and regional peace and stability based on internal resources and capabilities.
“But this epoch of crises, conflict and instability is not inherently sustainable,” Afwerki said. “As such, it is nearing its end. We are indeed entering a new, transitional, phase.”
He said Eritreans “demonstrated exceptional resilience to challenge and frustrate all forms of subversion directed at them. “
“They have prevailed in spite of the transgressions and pressures to which they were subjected without let-up,” Afwerki said.
He also lauded Ethiopians for rising up against the recently ousted Tigray-dominated tyrannical administration that ruled Addis Ababa for the last 28 years before being edged out this year by popular uprising from Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups, the largest and second-largest tribes in the country respectively.
“They (Ethiopians) are marching forward at a rapid pace for the crystallization and consolidation of a correct national and regional policy framework,” Afwerki said, adding that he had no doubt that “the people of Somalia will, as ever, be fellow travelers with the peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea.”
Ethiopia and Eritrea have reconciled earlier this month after two decades of hostility and bloody wars that in 1998-2000 killed around 80,000 people from both sides.
Ethiopia has last month announced its intention to cede Badame town, which was at the center of the conflict between the two neighboring nations, to Eritrea that claimed the town’s ownership. A UN court awarded Badame to Eritrea, a decision Addis Ababa’s previous administrations declined to abide by.
President Afwerki said the “intertwined” and “historical ties between the peoples of Eritrea and Somalia” existed well before “the advent of Western colonialism in the region.”
“In the Cold war period that ensued after decolonization, the solid ties between our two peoples reached its zenith to become the closest special relationship in the Horn of Africa,” Afwerki said. “We are proud of this history. The respect of the people of Eritrea to the brotherly peoples of Somalia is indeed anchored on this profound historical appreciation.”
Somalia’s last central government has financially, diplomatically and militarily supported Eritreans during their guerrilla warfare to split off from Ethiopia, of which they were part before their independence in 1993.
Referencing that role, President Afwerki said the bond of “solidarity of our two peoples was reinforced through various phases and forms of resistance to domination.”