Abiy Ahmed’s Generals and the Old Dream of Eritrea’s Ports

The Old Obsession Dressed as New Policy

Abiy Ahmed has learned to cloak old ambitions in new rhetoric. When he tells Ethiopia that “yesterday’s mistakes will not be today’s,” he isn’t talking about some benign reform. He’s speaking to an obsession that runs through Ethiopia’s modern history: the desire to control Eritrea’s Red Sea ports.

The Ethiopian state has never gotten over 1993, when Eritrea’s independence cut it off from sovereign sea territory. Since then, successive leaders—from generals to prime ministers—have whispered about “restoring access.” Abiy has simply taken that whisper, dressed it up in statesmanlike language, and repeated it louder.

What makes this moment dangerous is not that Ethiopia lacks sea access. It already uses Djibouti for 90% of its trade and has additional agreements with Sudan, Somaliland, and Kenya. What Ethiopia craves is not access but control: the ability to project military power, collect port revenues, and leverage geography as a bargaining chip.

The Military Dream

Abiy’s top generals are not talking about commerce. They are envisioning Ethiopian naval vessels docked on the Red Sea, the tricolor flying over ports that are not theirs. They imagine command posts, garrisons, and “regional security zones.”

To them, the Red Sea is not an artery of trade but a chessboard of dominance. Eritrea, in this vision, is a square to be occupied, a coastline to be folded into their strategy.

The irony is stark: a government that once cried “colonization” now flirts with colonial ambitions of its own. Abiy talks of peace at international summits, but at home he toys with the same imperial script Ethiopia has run for decades.

When he says Ethiopia cannot remain landlocked “forever,” what he really means is Ethiopia cannot remain dependent on deals with neighbors. It wants sovereignty over something that is not its own.

The Dangerous Rhetoric

Abiy frames this ambition as rectifying “yesterday’s mistakes.” But what mistakes is he talking about? Eritrea’s independence? The referendum that gave Eritreans the right to decide their own future?

Calling those democratic choices a “mistake” is not just historical revisionism—it’s a veiled threat. It implies Ethiopia reserves the right to undo them.

This rhetoric is a warning signal to the region: Addis Ababa is once again dressing aggression as necessity. It seeks to frame Eritrea as an obstacle to Ethiopian destiny, rather than a sovereign nation that secured its rights through sacrifice and international law.

The danger is clear: words like these prepare populations for conflict. They normalize the idea that taking what is not yours is not war—it’s “correction.”

The Satirical Reality

Here is the satire of it all: Ethiopia already has sea access. Its ships sail through Djibouti, its goods pass through neighboring ports, its economy breathes because trade routes remain open.

The real problem for Abiy is not access—it’s ego. Access leased or rented is not as glorious as access owned. Ethiopia wants the keys, not the ticket. It wants to sit in the driver’s seat of Red Sea geopolitics, not in the passenger’s seat.

But ambition alone does not redraw borders. International law, history, and Eritrean sovereignty stand in the way. To dress this hunger for control as a national emergency is not clever policy—it’s dangerous nostalgia.

If Ethiopia insists on calling Eritrea’s independence a “mistake,” then Abiy is not correcting history. He is repeating it. And as history has shown, these ambitions lead not to triumph but to ruin.

Ethiopia’s Red Sea obsession is like a gambler begging for a rematch after losing everything at the table. The house remembers, the world remembers, and Eritrea remembers. And in this game, ambition is not enough.