Beyond setting the record straight, the briefing highlighted a broader issue: the international community’s historical role in exacerbating regional instability rather than promoting peace. Instead of upholding justice and international law, global powers have repeatedly undermined Eritrea’s sovereignty and emboldened aggression in the region. As tensions now escalate across the Horn of Africa, the international community must finally do what it has long failed to – stand up for justice, condemn violations of international law, and take a firm, principled stance against aggression.

Denying and ignoring Eritrea’s right to self-determination

The international community’s harmful actions toward Eritrea have deep historical roots. After World War II, the Eritrean people’s aspirations for independence were sacrificed for geopolitical interests. Following Italian colonization and a period under British administration, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia against the wishes of its people. This decision was driven by Western strategic interests, as articulated by John Foster Dulles The International Community Must Finally Shoulder its Role in a September 1952 speech to the UN Security Council:

“From the point of justice, the opinions of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interest of the United States in the Red Sea basin and considerations of security and world peace make it necessary that the country be linked with our ally, Ethiopia.”

As Ethiopia systematically dismantled the federation and forcibly annexed Eritrea, the international community remained utterly silent, failing to condemn these blatant violations of Eritrean rights and international law. Over decades, the international community ignored Eritreans’ calls for self-determination, forcing the country to endure Africa’s longest war without international support or intervention. In fact, not once throughout nearly a half-century until 1991 did Eritrea, the scene of Africa’s longest war and victim of some of the grossest violations of human rights, figure on the agenda of the UN. In the forward of the Proceedings of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of People, convened in 1980, it was declared:

“No important struggle – be it in terms of military intensity or in terms of political impact – is so poorly known, indeed ignored, as is that which the Eritrean people have been engaged in for 20 years.”

Similarly, the following year, a decade before Eritrea would eventually gain independence, the International Commission of Jurists stated that:

“Of all the people who, since the Second World War, have been the victims of Great Power rivalries and ambitions, perhaps the one with the greatest claim for consideration is the people of Eritrea. Nevertheless, no nation has yet been willing to raise the issue of the rights of these people in the United Nations. The truth is that the ‘Eritrean question’ is a source of embarrassment both to the UN itself and to almost all ‘interested parties’”.

Following Eritrea’s formal admission into the UN in 1993, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki addressed the General Assembly, reflecting on the years of neglect:

“[The years of] deafening silence pained our people. It also gave a free hand to the aggressors, thereby prolonging our suffering and increasing the sacrifices we had to make. But it neither shook our resolve nor undermined our belief in the justness of our cause and the inevitability of our victory. As an Eritrean proverb says: ‘The rod of truth may become thinner but it cannot be broken.’ Indeed, justice has finally prevailed. This is a source of hope and happiness not only for the Eritrean people, but for all those who cherish justice and peace.”

Continued hostility and double standards

Eritrea’s struggle did not end with independence. From 1998 to 2000, it faced a war of aggression designed to overthrow the government, reverse its independence, and seize large swathes of its territory, including along the Red Sea, by force. Despite the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission’s “final and binding” rulings, the international community allowed Ethiopia to maintain for almost a decade, its illegal military occupation of Eritrean lands and launch repeated large-scale military attacks. In fact, rather than condemning Ethiopia’s violations, Western powers rewarded the aggressors instead. Ethiopia, under the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), received substantial foreign aid, mostly in budgetary and other fungible forms, and debt forgiveness while being positioned as a Western ally.

Compounding matters, at the behest of Western powers and their regional proxy, a series of punishing sanctions were imposed on Eritrea, despite the lack of any solid evidence for the claims and allegations raised. These measures not only hampered Eritrea’s nation building efforts and the potential for regional cooperation, they also emboldened hostile actors. Even after the original justifications for the sanctions were debunked, they remained in place for years, reflecting a broader agenda of containment and control rather than genuine concern for peace and stability.

Beyond political interference, Eritrea has also been the target of relentless and coordinated media campaigns designed to vilify and demonize the country while obscuring the real sources of conflict and instability in the region.

The time for a principled stance is now

 Today, sabre-rattling and rising tensions surrounding the Red Sea pose a serious threat to regional stability. Now is the time for the international community to begin to rectify its long history of failure. Rather than issuing hollow and toothless statements or maintaining a false “both sides” narrative, the international community must firmly and unequivocally condemn those violating international law, fueling tensions, and threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of others.

Justice and peace demand nothing less.

March 21, 2025