Is it Ethiopia or Egypt that flaunts hegemonic ambitions? |
It has been over two years since Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s claim of Ethiopian “natural rights” to the Red Sea. Has Ethiopia eschewed what Tafi Mhaka, in a 14 November 2023 piece, dubbed as Ethiopian imperial ambitions? Ethiopia’s ruling Prosperity Party would counter it never had such ambitions in the first place. They, instead, accuse Egypt, as done recently by Ethiopia’s ambassador to Somalia, Suleiman Dedefo, in an article that was published on 3rd December by the AfricaReport media under the title of “Horn of Africa: Egypt’s ‘strategic balance’ disguises regional ambitions’.
The ambassador accused Egypt of disguising its “malicious hegemonic ambitions”. The ambassador was responding to the Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty’s reference of the Horn of Africa region being “continuously challenged by the inherent inclination of certain parties within the region to export their chronic internal instability by fabricating external threats, inventing enemies and fueling hostilities resulting from hegemonic tendencies”. Like many observers of the region, Ambassador Suleiman nodded Abdelatty was referring to Ethiopia here.
But who really has hegemonic ambitions? Well, Ethiopian officials and surrogates have openly spoken of their “hegemonic ambitions”, articulated both in writing and in speeches, in official and affiliated platforms. I have not, however, found such public pronouncements from Egyptian officials.
Ethiopia wants ownership of a coastline
In Ethiopian ruling party parlance, “sea access” is interchangeable with their demand for “sovereign sea access”. Whereas the former is legitimate, the latter is not since no coastal state would willingly forfeit its territory. It’s to be recalled that Ethiopia rejected Djibouti’s generous offer to jointly manage the port of Tadjourah for commercial activities. According to President Ismail Guelleh of Djibouti,........