In recent weeks, senior Prosperity Party officials and their hand-picked “analysts” have been parroting a new talking point: that they have “found no document, no evidence, and no legal testimony” explaining how Ethiopia supposedly “lost its sea window” at the time of Eritrea’s independence. This absurd narrative originates directly from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s toxic speech in parliament, in which he theatrically claimed to be on an “unsuccessful search for documents” questioning the legitimacy of Eritrea’s sovereignty.
This is not confusion. It is a deliberate fabrication that was explicitly stated goal of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali. It is an attempt to manufacture doubt where none exists, a sense of contestation.
Eritrea’s sovereignty does not rest on Ethiopia’s permission, approval, or archival discovery. And Ethiopia cannot “lose” what it never owned.
The Red Sea coastline in question has belonged to Eritrea throughout its recorded history. Any claim suggesting otherwise is a deliberate distortion of history, a violation of international law, and an assault on the Eritrean people’s hard-won right to independence. To dispel these myths, the historical and legal record must be stated and restated clearly.
Eritrea’s independence was secured through a 30-year armed struggle that defeated Ethiopia’s occupying forces in 1991. But the legitimacy of Eritrea’s statehood predates that victory. After World War II, as colonized African nations—Eritrea, Libya, Somalia and others—moved toward independence, the Eritrean people’s views should have been respected. Instead, their fundamental right to self-determination was denied. They were forcibly handed to the Ethiopian monarchy under the deceptive label of “federation.”
Ethiopia went further in 1962, illegally dissolving the federation altogether and annexing Eritrea by force. From that moment, Eritrea’s struggle was not “secession” from Ethiopia—it was a decolonization struggle to restore rights that had been illegally stripped away. The United Nations’ own historical records confirm this fact.
Eritrea’s independence was not an “Ethiopian civil war.” It was a national liberation movement. And when Eritrea became a sovereign state in 1993, it did not require Ethiopia’s blessing—nor does international law demand that any colonial power approve the independence of the people it once ruled.
The referendum of April 23–25, 1993—free, fair, and observed by the United Nations—produced a 99.8% vote for independence. Eritreans had already won their freedom on the battlefield. The referendum was their decision to anchor that victory in international law.
Since 2018, the Prosperity Party—accidental rulers who rose to power by political luck, not legitimacy—has been manufacturing myths to distract from Ethiopia’s spiraling internal crises. Abiy’s “lost coastline” narrative is part of this. It is a dangerous political fantasy built on falsified history, aimed at feeding expansionist ambitions and rallying support around a fabricated grievance.
Everyone in Ethiopia—and the region—understands the catastrophic consequences of such a campaign.
If Ethiopia is to survive its endless internal conflicts, it must abandon these political hallucinations. It must reject fabricated myths, confront its own governance failures, and commit to truth, justice, accountability, and respect for internationally recognized colonial borders.
Anything less is a march toward deeper instability. And no amount of myth-making will change that.