Eritrea's Truth Cannot Be Silenced: Red Sea Roundtable Responds to U.S. Senate Misconceptions

Standing Firm with Eritrea

Red Sea Roundtable stands in full agreement with the statement issued by the Embassy of the State of Eritrea to the United States on May 16, 2025. This official communication decisively corrects the misleading narratives presented during the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on East Africa, which irresponsibly echoed baseless claims of Eritrean military mobilization and regional aggression.

What this hearing failed to do—and what the Eritrean Embassy did with clarity—is present facts grounded in international law and history. Eritrea has consistently operated within its own sovereign territory. The claim that it is mobilizing for war is not only false—it is dangerous, feeding into the same geopolitical playbook that has long targeted African nations refusing to submit to foreign influence. The specter of "military aggression" has been weaponized to justify interventions, sanctions, and slander.

Senator Chris Van Hollen’s remarks and Joshua Meservey’s testimony were laced with unverified assumptions and omissions. They ignored the EEBC Arbitral Ruling of April 13, 2002, which clearly recognized towns like Badme as Eritrean territory—land which remained occupied for almost two decades in flagrant violation of international law. As the Embassy stated, Eritrean troops have redeployed following the Tigray conflict and remain within sovereign Eritrean borders.

This is not a fringe detail—it is the core truth deliberately omitted from U.S. narratives.

A Broader Agenda and the Legacy Eritrea Represents

Red Sea Roundtable has long argued that the campaign against Eritrea is not about human rights or regional peace—it is about fear. Fear of a country that refuses IMF loans. Fear of a country that rejects U.S. military bases. Fear of a people whose independence was earned without compromise and who continue to chart a sovereign path.

Eritrea’s defiance is a threat—not to peace—but to the systems that rely on African dependency. President Isaias Afwerki, often villainized in Western discourse, has led a nation that is not for sale. Meanwhile, cultural historians like Alemseged Tesfai have ensured that Eritrea’s story is told by Eritreans, not rewritten through a colonial lens.

That is why the latest Senate hearing and its manipulative talking points must be seen in their full context: as a coordinated narrative attack. The timing of these accusations—so close to Eritrea’s Independence Day—is not accidental. It is an attempt to dim the spirit of a nation that should be celebrated.

Red Sea Roundtable urges all observers, especially within the African and diaspora communities, to read the Embassy’s statement carefully. The truth it outlines is not merely a diplomatic correction—it is a mirror reflecting a broader reality: Eritrea is a sovereign nation under siege not by war, but by propaganda.

And in that battle, we stand unwavering.

– Red Sea Roundtable