Mereja.Forum

[Zmeselo]

[sesame]

The main reason they did not invite Eritrea is because they were sure he would not waste his time and resources to attend such a humiliating experience. The doddering Biden should have held a virtual meeting. His in person attendance is sure to be full of comical incidents and gaffes. After calling Cambodia, Columbia and France, Frank recently, I will not be surprised if he calls Africa something hilarious. His dementia is getting visibly worse by the day! What a great time to be alive to witness the death of an Imperialist super-power!

[Sholla Addis]

.
.
I want the best for the nation, but if Hassan Sheikh, the "president," is a proven thief, he deserves to be degraded.

His lack of conscience prevents him from objecting to the treatment that is being meted out to him.

A new generation that is prepared to understand what pride and dignity are is what Somalia needs.

[Zmeselo]

The World Ahead | The World Ahead 2023
Eritrea is the most dangerous player in the Horn of Africa

The whole region is worse off than five years ago



Nov 18th 2022

By Tom Gardner: Africa correspondent, The Economist

https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahe ... -of-africa

Five years ago a new political dawn seemed to be breaking on the Horn of Africa. Protests in Ethiopia, the region’s largest and most important country, led to the appointment of Abiy Ahmed as prime minister. A democratic opening ensued. Abiy swiftly made peace with neighbouring Eritrea, Africa’s most secretive and autocratic country.

The Ethiopian leader was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2019 for his efforts. Soon afterwards, change came to Sudan. Protesters toppled Omar al-Bashir in 2019, ending his 30-year-long tyranny. Sudan embarked on a hopeful democratic transition of its own—aided in part by Abiy, who helped negotiate a deal between civilians and the armed forces.

Fast forward to 2023, and the picture is much grimmer. Ethiopia has been mired in civil war for more than two years. Though a peace deal was signed in November, it is shaky—and much of the country remains wracked by conflict. It could yet spread, even across Ethiopia’s borders into neighbouring countries.

Relations with Russia and China complicate matters

In Sudan, the armed forces grabbed power in a coup in 2021 and seem determined not to relinquish it. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s de facto president, aims to hold elections in July 2023, or possibly earlier. These will satisfy nobody except his patrons in Egypt and the Gulf. Yet they may also aggravate tensions between Mr Burhan and Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, his chief rival. Mr Dagalo, the vice-president, heads a notorious paramilitary unit that Mr Burhan wants to integrate into the national army. Mr Dagalo is resisting, which could spell trouble. The only possible bright spot in the region is Somalia, where the new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has made progress beating back the jihadists of al-Shabab.

At the heart of the region’s recent travails, though, lies Eritrea. In 2020 its veteran dictator, Issaias Afwerki, threw his vast conscript army into Ethiopia’s civil war to aid Abiy in his battle against Tigrayan insurgents. He will not pull them back voluntarily. Issaias considers the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, which runs the Tigray region along Eritrea’s southern border, as an existential threat (the Tigrayans regard him with similar hostility). He may try to spoil the peace deal that Abiy has struck with them.

Issaias’s menace goes beyond Tigray. Several thousand Somali troops, sent to Eritrea for secret training by Mr Mohamud’s predecessor, have yet to return home. Issaias appears to want to use them as leverage over Mr Mohamud. Sudan’s leaders fear that if Eritrean forces prevail in Tigray, Issaias may turn his sights on eastern Sudan. Eritrea has a history of supporting Sudanese rebels.

Western countries will be watching Issaias closely in 2023 and may step up economic sanctions. But relations with Russia and China complicate matters. China is Eritrea’s most important foreign financial backer and is extending its control over the country’s crucial mining sector. Russia, which seeks a naval base on the Red Sea, could be sending arms. The Horn’s spoiler-in-chief is unlikely to change its behaviour while it enjoys the backing of such powerful friends.■

Tom Gardner: Africa correspondent, The Economist

This article appeared in the Africa section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2023 https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahe ... ahead-2023 under the headline “Spoiler-in-chief”