Sudan is racked with a brutal civil war that’s displacing millions. Rwanda and the Congo are threatening one another over alleged support for insurgent groups in each other’s nations. The last thing Africa needs is more bitter conflict that destroys the lives of innocent people. But the recent announcement of a port deal between Ethiopia and Somaliland could spiral into another humanitarian crisis that the continent can’t handle.
Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world. Their import-based economy is severely bottlenecked by their unfortunate geographic position, as they must pay their neighbor, Djibouti, for access to their port. The port, which handles 95 percent of Ethiopia’s trade, is rented for over $1 billion annually. Ethiopia only exports $4 billion every year.
This flaw pushed Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to sign a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway region of Somaliland. The deal would give Ethiopia land to build a naval base and access to the port of Berbera. In return, Ethiopia would become the first state to recognize the sovereignty of Somaliland and, to a less important extent, give them a share of Ethiopia Airlines. Somalia, which has denied the sovereignty of Somaliland since it declared independence in 1991, is furious.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has called the port deal illegal, while Ahmed insists he is only seeking sea access for his country. If he is truly looking for better port access, then he must recognize the implications of his trade deal and back out of it.
Ahmed has been aggressive in his attempts to centralize power in Ethiopia since becoming prime minister in 2018. After delaying the 2020 election, he waged war on the Tigray ethnic group, one of many self-governing groups in Ethiopia, after they held their own election in September 2020. The Tigray region is allowed to hold its own elections under the 1995 Ethiopian constitution, yet hundreds of thousands died in Ahmed’s conflict. He detained political opponents and arrested journalists who were reporting on the Tigray War, likely because of the horrifying violence and destruction committedby his Ethiopian National Defense Forces.
After the end of the Tigray War in 2022, a United Nations investigation concluded that all sides of the conflict had committed war crimes. Ahmed is not the only guilty party, but the war didn’t begin until his aggression in the Tigray region.
Armed conflict aside, he’s tried to set up a port in Somaliland before. In 2019, he bought a stake in the development of the Port of Berbera but failed to make payments due to the strain of the Tigray War.
Despite what his time in office might lead you to believe, Ahmed isn’t stupid. He knew exactly how Somalia and other nations would react to his deal because he’s tested these waters before. He can pose that he only wants the new port to save money for his country, and that he only wants the naval base to protect Ethiopia’s sea trade, but he knows the implications of this deal — which makes it even scarier that he went through with it. He doesn’t care what anybody else thinks and is willing to escalate these tensions if it means securing the deal.
Hassan announced, “If Ethiopia insists, Somalia will resist,” a vague statement with threatening implications. Because his nation does not recognize Somaliland, Hassan views the establishment of a naval base at Berbera the same way President Joe Biden would view the development of a Chinese naval base at the Florida Keys.
But is he right to condemn this deal so strongly, or is he over-exaggerating in favor of his own nation’s cause? University of Massachusetts political science Professor MJ Peterson weighed in. In this case, she told me it will be unlikely that Ethiopia recognizing Somaliland will matter, as it’s not just Somalia they’re acting against.
“The leasing of land for a naval base is a sovereign act, and therefore Ethiopia has gone against the AU and the United Nations, both of which have stated that Somalia should remain as one country,” Peterson said. By engaging with the breakaway state in this manner, she argued, Ethiopia has already committed the regional sin of informally recognizing Somaliland.
The United States shares the position of the AU and the UN and sends considerable funding to Somalia’s military, which is mainly used to combat the dangerous al-Shabbab terrorist group. It has also strengthened diplomatic relations with the country since they established a new constitution in 2012. Should Somalia become entangled in a conflict with Ethiopia, the U.S. will likely send millions in humanitarian aid and defense assistance. It’s not out of the question that U.S. troops could be deployed to defend Somalia, either.
But it isn’t U.S. tax dollars we should be concerned about. We are at a rare and brief moment in this situation. The snowball has begun to roll, but only words have been exchanged. If armed conflict begins because of this spat, it is the people of East Africa that will suffer the most.
It’s important to note that this deal is not legally binding; it’s simply an agreement between two parties. There is still time to right this wrong. We cannot allow Ahmed to continue to escalate. He is not afraid of war and doesn’t value the lives of innocent people. The region and the continent will be completely reshaped by an East African conflict, with millions of lives in danger of getting caught in the crossfire. We don’t want to look back in the future and wish something had been done to prevent this escalation.
Owen Ray can be reached at [email protected].
