RAHEL BERHANE

Visited the Asia-Africa Conference Museum in #Bandung, Indonesia, the site of the historic 1955 Bandung Conference, which produced the Ten Principles of Bandung and laid the ideological groundwork for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). As an #Eritrean, the historical irony is profound. In 1952, #Eritrea was federated with #Ethiopia under UN General Assembly Resolution 390 A (V), resolution was engineered by its patrons. Three years later, #Ethiopia attended Bandung, championing sovereign equality, self-determination, and the liberation of colonized peoples. Yet, even as European colonial rule was receding, Ethiopia dismantled #Eritrea’s federal status and annexed the country. #Ethiopia championed freedom abroad while denying it to the Eritrean people. The international community’s acquiescence exposed, and continues to expose, the chasm between professed principles and political practice. Decades of strategic indulgence emboldened successive Ethiopian regimes, fostering the belief that geopolitical importance confers immunity from accountability. External powers cultivated Ethiopia’s image as an “indispensable regional anchor”, too useful to challenge, too important to scrutinize. That halo is fading, and the Prosperity Party (PP) leadership has accelerated its demise. A government that deploys heavy artillery, missiles, tanks, and drones against its own people cannot credibly posture as a guarantor of regional peace while threatening the sovereignty of its neighbours. No state stands above the @UN Charter or acquires rights over another nation’s territory. The international community must also confront its own complicity. Years of appeasement have sustained Ethiopia’s manufactured exceptionalism and shielded its leaders from scrutiny. But strategic flattery cannot indefinitely conceal militarism, repression, or unresolved nation-building challenges. Ethiopia’s painful reckoning is no longer on the horizon; it is unfolding before our eyes. The #HornOfAfrica needs principled diplomacy, accountability, and respect for international law, not strategic indulgence and impunity. #Eritrea’s position remains unequivocal: there can be no meaningful dialogue on future relations without an unequivocal renunciation of the threat or use of force and full respect for #Eritrea’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Bandung’s principles cannot be celebrated abroad while being denied when they constrain one’s ambitions. No geopolitical halo lasts forever. No strategic patronage can erase historical contradictions. And no state can build a durable future by denying others the rights it claims for itself. And, in one final irony…the narcissistic PP leader reportedly travelled to #Russia carrying his book Medemer, his self-styled philosophy of “synergy,” as though Russia’s formidable intellectual tradition needed instruction from Addis Ababa. What does Medemer offer #Russia, and what has it delivered to Ethiopia beyond conflict, repression, and regional belligerence? Perhaps Prime Minister Abiy should explain the gulf between a philosophy of togetherness and a governing practice defined by coercion at home and confrontation abroad.