By : ALULA FREZGHI
When Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed stood before his parliament and declared, “It took Eritrea thirty years to separate from us, but it will not take us thirty years to get it back,” I was stunned, not by the bravado, but by the historical distortion. As an Eritrean advocate, I know this is not policy. It is delusion.
Let us be clear: Eritrea did not “separate.” It returned to itself. One cannot separate from what one never was. Eritrea was never born of Ethiopia. Our history is distinct, shaped by Turkish, Egyptian, and Italian colonization, followed by British administration after World War II. In 1952, under pressure from Cold War powers, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia. A decade later, Emperor Haile Selassie unlawfully annexed it, erasing our Nation with the blessing of global powers.
But Eritrea remained Eritrea, in name, in memory, in blood, and in resistance.
Our thirty-year struggle was not for separation, but for restoration. Not for invention, but for recognition. To claim otherwise is to mistake occupation for ownership, and freedom for favor. History knows better. And the Red Sea remembers.
Such rhetoric is not diplomacy. It is desecration. It violates the African Union’s founding principle: the sanctity of borders and the inviolability of nations. Eritrea’s sovereignty is not a theory debated in halls, it is a scar, a scripture, a bloodline. It was written not with ink, but with blood and endurance.
Independence was not borrowed. It was paid for in full, stamped not by signatures, but by sacrifice.
To trivialize that legacy is to spit upon the martyrs who made it. To question it is to stand before the judgment of memory itself.
Eritrea does not seek conflict. But let it be understood: restraint is not weakness. It is wisdom weaponized. We have learned the patience of mountains, the silence of seas, and the discipline of fire.
We will not be provoked into chaos. But we will never bow to fantasy.
Sovereignty is not a loan. It cannot be repossessed by envy, nor rewritten by rhetoric. Eritrea’s independence is not up for negotiation. It is a covenant sealed by blood and endurance.
Let those who dream of conquest remember: empires drown where endurance sails. And those who mistake silence for surrender will one day hear it roar.
Glory to our martyrs. Strength to our people. Even in silence, Eritrea speaks.
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