A Speech Built on Sand: Exposing Ethiopia's FM Gedion Timothewos’s Gaslighting on Eritrea • Mesob Journal

By any standard of diplomacy, Ethiopian FM Gedion Timothewos’s speech at Addis Ababa University should be taught — not as foreign policy, but as an Olympic-level exercise in historical revisionism, projection, and victim theatrics.

He spoke confidently, but confidence does not disinfect a lie. And this speech? It is a mosaic of selective memory, deliberate omissions, and recycled propaganda meant to shift blame away from Ethiopia’s own destructive choices.

Let’s unpack it — calmly, surgically, and factually.

The Speech Begins with a Lie by Omission

Gedion starts his “history” of Eritrea–Ethiopia relations in the 1950s, as if this story began with a mysterious federation that somehow kept producing conflict. Convenient.

Here’s what he doesn’t dare say:

In 1950, the UN created a federation guaranteeing Eritrea its own parliament, flag, and autonomy.
In 1962, the Emperor of Ethiopia abolished that parliament at gunpoint, annexing Eritrea illegally.
The 30-year armed struggle was not a “cycle of tension”; it was a liberation war against an occupation.

Hiding the original crime is the foundation of his entire narrative. Without that erasure, his speech collapses like a wet cardboard roof.

The Badme Gambit: Half the Truth, None of the Consequences

Gedion recites the Eritrea–Ethiopia Claims Commission’s ruling on jus ad bellum like a priest quoting scripture. Yes, the Commission attributed the start of combat in May 1998 to Eritrean units. Yes.
Eritrea explicitly accepted the EECC’s decision because the Algiers Agreement required both sides to accept all rulings as “final and binding.” Asmara did not appeal, challenge, or reject it.

But he commits the cardinal sin of diplomacy:
he stops the story before the verdict that matters.

The same Algiers Agreement birthed the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), whose binding ruling awarded Badme to Eritrea.

Ethiopia:

accepted it on paper,
rejected it in practice,
froze the ruling,
and held Eritrea hostage in “no war, no peace” for 18 years.

So Gedion’s moral theatrics about “aggression” ring hollow. International law already settled Badme. Ethiopia simply refused to obey it.

That’s the real record.

Ethiopia Didn’t “Rehabilitate” Eritrea — It First Helped Sanction It

The audacity here is astonishing.

Ethiopia spent years lobbying for sanctions against Eritrea based on allegations that the UN itself later admitted had no supporting evidence.

And when sanctions were lifted in 2018 — unanimously — it wasn’t because Ethiopia suddenly “rescued” Eritrea; it was because the global system acknowledged the case had been politically fabricated and legally hollow.

Ethiopia built the wall, painted it, and now wants applause for pointing at the exit.

Projection 101: Accuse Eritrea of What Ethiopia Is Actively Doing

Gedion claims Eritrea meddles in Ethiopia’s internal affairs.

This from a government whose leader:

publicly claims the Red Sea as Ethiopia’s “unfairly lost inheritance,”
signs a legally invalid MoU with Somaliland for a naval base,
threatens neighboring states with “existential” language,
and lectures Eritrea about “economic justice” while floating fantasies of “returning” to the sea.

Eritrean officials, by contrast, repeatedly say:

“We have no territorial claims. We seek no war. A stable Ethiopia is in Eritrea’s interest.”

Gedion calls Eritrea a “proxy.”
Yet Ethiopia — the country hosting Western drones, UAE airlifts, and multi-billion-dollar Gulf influence — has the nerve to label others puppets?

That takes talent.

The “Isayas Doctrine” Fiction — A Strawman Fit for Theatre, Not Diplomacy

The so-called “Isayas doctrine” he introduces is not found in any Eritrean policy, speech, or doctrine. It exists only in the fevered imaginations of Ethiopia’s propaganda class.

Eritrea’s actual doctrine is simple:

Respect sovereignty.
Reject foreign bases.
No external interference.
Regional solutions for regional crises.
Respect International laws

That is the opposite of the Ethiopia-led security clientelism that has defined Horn politics since 7 decades.

Gedion invents a doctrine only to knock it down.
Classic strawman. Classic deflection.

Demonizing Eritrea’s Domestic System to Justify External Ambitions

Calling Eritrea a war machine with “no concern for development” is not analysis — it is a caricature designed to dehumanize. And it collapses the moment you hold it against the record.

How does an allegedly “anti-development” state:

build dozens of dams — large, medium, and micro — even under sanctions and “no war, no peace,” while Ethiopia, awash in donor money, still struggles with basic water security?
drive down child mortality at a rate praised by WHO, outperforming countries with exponentially larger health budgets and endless NGO caravans?
expand rural health coverage to levels unmatched in much of Africa, ensuring that even remote villages have clinics within walking distance — something Ethiopia has not achieved despite three decades of IMF, World Bank, and NGO saturation?
maintain social cohesion and stability through war, sanctions, isolation, foreign pressure, and an 18-year security siege created by Ethiopia’s refusal to demarcate the border — while Ethiopia, the continent’s top aid recipient, fragments under ethnic insurgencies, civil wars, displacement, and state breakdown?
remain self-reliant and debt-free, feeding itself without becoming another IMF-dependent “success story” that collapses the moment donors shift priorities?

These achievements were not purchased with billions in loans or donor conferences. They were built quietly, collectively, inside a sovereign project that chose dignity over dependency and servitude.

Eritrea’s challenges are real — but Gedion’s framing isn’t designed for understanding.
It’s designed to paint Eritrea as so abnormal, so irrational, that international audiences will quietly accept whatever Ethiopia demands next, including “access” to ports.

It’s psychological operations executed with comic incompetence.

The Real Elephant in the Room: Ethiopia’s Obsession with the Red Sea

Despite 20 minutes of gaslighting, this is the core:

Ethiopia wants a corridor to the Red Sea — preferably Assab — framed not as negotiation but as necessity.

Gedion insists:

“The tension is not about Assab.”

Then, in the same breath, calls sea access “existential.”

That’s like setting your neighbor’s fence on fire while insisting you “don’t even like wood.”

Eritrea has no dispute with Ethiopian trade. Ethiopia can use Eritrea’s ports any day —
through lawful, commercial, mutually respectful agreements.

What it cannot do — ever — is use population size, geography, or economic pressure to dilute Eritrean sovereignty.

Assab is not up for ideological reinterpretation.
It is Eritrean territory.
Full stop.

“Restraint”? Ethiopia Is Rehearsing Its Justification, Not Showing Mercy

The darkest part of Gedion’s speech is his claim that Ethiopia has:

“ample grounds” for war
but is generously exercising “restraint.”

When a foreign minister starts listing “legal grounds” for military action, he is not restraining himself.
He is laying out an argument for future escalation.

This is exactly how Ethiopia framed the 1998 war.
It is exactly how it framed military operations in Tigray.
It is exactly how it frames the Somaliland MoU.

Talk peace, prepare conflict, blame the neighbor — this is the pattern.

Eritrea isn’t fooled.
The region isn’t fooled.
And increasingly, neither is the international community.

Integration Is Welcome — Hegemony Is Not

Eritrea has always supported regional cooperation rooted in:

equality,
sovereignty,
mutual respect,
rejection of foreign military presence,
and rejection of imposed “blocs.”

But Ethiopia repeatedly dresses its hegemonic instincts in soft, misleading language.
When Gedion says Ethiopia and Eritrea are “one people,” he is not talking about harmony.
He is talking about blurring borders, diluting sovereignty, and pulling Eritrea into an Ethiopian-centered political orbit that soothes Addis Ababa’s domestic insecurities.

Eritrea didn’t fight for 30 years to become anyone’s “special region,” “economic hinterland,” or sentimental extension of a larger state.
It fought to stand upright — as a sovereign state among sovereign states.

Cooperation? Always.
Respect for sovereignty? Non-negotiable.
But any formula that masks dominance, absorption, or hierarchical relationships has no place in the Horn.

Call it what it is:

Partnership? Yes.
Subordination? Never.

A Speech Built Not for Peace, But for Narrative Warfare

Strip Gedion’s speech of its elegant phrasing and it becomes painfully clear:

He rewrites annexation out of history.
He hides Ethiopia’s refusal to implement the binding border ruling.
He portrays Eritrea as congenital trouble.
He denies Ethiopia’s open Red Sea ambitions.
He manufactures moral ground for Ethiopia to claim “restraint” while warming up the legal case for future action.

This is not a call for peace. It is a cover story for pressure. A narrative for external consumption.
A blame-shifting campaign in the face of Ethiopia’s internal failures and external overreach.

Eritrea has no designs on Ethiopia.
Eritrea has no ambitions to destabilize anyone.
Eritrea’s only demand is the same since independence:

Respect the border. Respect sovereignty. Respect international law.

If Ethiopia wants peace, it knows the path.
If it wants confrontation, no speech — however poetic — will disguise that choice.

Eritrea doesn’t fear rhetoric. Eritrea fears only injustice.
And it will not bow to fantasies dressed as foreign policy.