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The repercussions of signing a memorandum of understanding between… The breakaway region of Somaliland Ethiopia is communicating regionally and internally, and observers believe that Addis Ababa’s latest move will result in the formation of a tripartite alliance between Somalia, Eritrea, and Egypt to encircle it and put pressure on it to prevent it from finding a foothold in the waters of the Red Sea.
On the other hand, society in the breakaway Somaliland region is experiencing a state of sharp division over the understanding concluded by the region’s president, Musa Bihi Abdi, with the Ethiopian prime minister. Abiy Ahmedunder which Ethiopia recognizes the independence of the region, while the latter gives it the opportunity to obtain a naval port and military base.
In reference to the map of alliances that the Somali president is working with Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud According to her plan, his plane landed on January 8th at Asmara International Airport in the Eritrean capital for a two-day working visit.
A common concern
The choice of Eritrea as Sheikh Mahmoud’s first foreign destination since the outbreak of the crisis did not go beyond the scope of expectations, as the Ethiopian desire to access the sea represents a common factor of concern for Mogadishu and Asmara, whose relations with Addis Ababa are experiencing muted tension, which reached its peak with the statements of the Ethiopian Prime Minister in which he affirmed his country’s right to obtain… On a sovereign port on the Red Sea.
The Eritrean Ministry of Information responded to Ahmed without announcing his name, stressing that it would not be drawn “into such alleys and platforms,” while sources spoke of military reinforcements on the country’s southern front, as a precaution against an Ethiopian attack on the Eritrean port of Assab.
The signing of the memorandum of understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland did not allay Asmara’s fears, especially after the statement issued by the Ethiopian Prime Minister, who said that Addis Ababa had lost its access to the sea as a result of a “historical and legal error” after a civil war and foreign conspiracies, and that the Ethiopian government had been working for years. to correct this error.
These phrases did not find a good echo in Eritrea, as they were interpreted as a reference to its independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a war that lasted 3 decades, which led to making Ethiopia one of the largest landlocked countries in Africa.
Develop relationships
On the other hand, Somali-Eritrean relations have witnessed remarkable development in recent years, as Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud signed a memorandum of understanding with President Isaias Afwerki in July 2022 related to strengthening defense and security cooperation.
Observers expect that the next stage will witness greater development of Somali-Eritrean relations, and that areas of cooperation between the two parties will expand.
Somali political analyst Nour Gedi believes that it is likely that there will be a unification of the positions of Asmara and Mogadishu regarding many files related to foreign policy, especially regional ones.
Gedi adds – to Al Jazeera Net – that his country opened its first embassy in Eritrea in November of last year in order to strengthen diplomatic relations between the two countries.
For his part, the specialist in the affairs of the Horn of Africa, Muhammad Khair Omar, considers that the Somali ambassador to Eritrea, Omar Idris, is one of the senior diplomats in his country, and that he is one of the main keys to developing Somali-Eritrean relations.
Military-security cooperation
In his statement to Al Jazeera Net, Omar confirms that according to information received from Somalia, Mogadishu considers its forces trained in Eritrea to be the best it has, adding that the Somali government is investing in Eritrea to train more soldiers.
Since the era of former Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo (2017-2022), Asmara has begun training thousands of Somali soldiers on its territory, as the first batches of them returned in late 2022, and reports indicate that they formed an important part of the forces involved in the war that Mogadishu is waging against the movement. Young people since the middle of last year.
It is expected that the training missions carried out by Asmara in the next stage will form the nucleus of a greater expansion of security and military cooperation between the two parties, and that the escalation of the conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia may lead to them resorting to proxy wars against each other.
According to this scenario, Muhammad Khair Omar expects that Somalia will provide support to Ethiopian opposition groups, especially the Oromo Liberation Army in southern Ethiopia, while Eritrea’s support for the Fano Amhara militias in its north increases.
The Ethiopian government is fighting a number of rebel military factions, most notably the Oromo Liberation Army, which issued a statement following the signing of the memorandum of understanding in which it stressed the need for such steps to take place with the approval of the federal government in Mogadishu, calling on Somaliland to respect the principle of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia in the agreements it concludes.
Egypt’s return to the Horn of Africa
In conjunction with this, many indicators suggest that Cairo will join this alliance, as its voice was loud in rejecting the Ethiopian memorandum of understanding with Somaliland.
A statement issued by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry stressed the need to fully respect Somalia’s sovereignty and stress the right of its people “exclusively” to benefit from its resources, warning of the danger of movements and actions that undermine stability in the Horn of Africa.
Muhammad Khair Omar explains this position by saying that competition was a feature of the Egyptian-Ethiopian relationship, and that Cairo does not want a strong Ethiopia with access to the sea, given the raging dispute between the two countries over the Renaissance Dam, which Cairo sees as a threat to its water security.
The Somali-Ethiopian crisis represents an opportunity for Egypt to reposition itself within the Horn of Africa region, in which Cairo has gradually lost many of its allies and factors of power to the benefit of Ethiopia.
The developments of the raging war in Sudan are raising alarm bells in the decision-making centers in Cairo, especially with the continued progress made by the Rapid Support Forces, which are close to Ethiopia, at the expense of the Sudanese army, which threatens the emergence of a hostile alliance on its southern borders.
In this context, Egyptian diplomacy was active, as a high-level delegation headed to Mogadishu following the signing of the memorandum, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry arrived in Asmara one day after the Somali president left, and met with President Afwerki on January 11 of this year.
The Eritrean Ministry of Information said that the two sides discussed the importance of consultation and coordination between them in facing the current regional and international challenges.
Division in Somaliland
In a parallel context, society in Somaliland is experiencing a sharp division regarding the position on signing the memorandum of understanding with Ethiopia, as Defense Minister Abdul Ghani Mahmoud Atiyi announced his resignation from his position in protest against the agreement, calling for confronting the project to lease a marine area to Ethiopia.
The regional capital, Hargeisa, also witnessed demonstrations in support of the agreement as a step towards achieving long-awaited recognition, and on the other hand, others came out denouncing it in the Odel area, which contains the maritime site that is intended to be leased to Addis Ababa.
Some observers believe that the tribes inhabiting that region are concerned that the agreement will be followed by the migration of millions of Ethiopians to Somaliland for trade, which may result in a demographic change given that the population of the region does not exceed 4 million, while the number of Ethiopians is expected to reach 150 million. In less than a decade.
Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Mogadishu, Sayed Wali Abdi, believes that the interactions inside Somaliland have not yet taken their final form as a result of the scarcity of details available about the terms of the memorandum of understanding, which prompts many parties in the region to be skeptical and wait for clarifications from the ruling administration.
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Abdi attributes the massive demonstrations in various cities adjacent to the coast to the fact that their residents belong to tribes that do not believe in secession from Somalia, in addition to accepting the lease of their lands to Ethiopia, adding that the resignation of the Minister of Defense is part of this mood rejecting the recent agreement.
Abdi indicates – in his statement to Al Jazeera Net – that Djibouti, which was affected by the memorandum of understanding, may have a direct influence on the minister in making the decision to resign by virtue of his kinship with Djiboutian President Mohamed Omar Guelleh, and that the latter, by this means, is putting pressure on the Somaliland administration to reverse its decision.
Djibouti represents the main outlet for Ethiopia’s exports and imports, a reality that threatens to change if Hargeisa and Addis Ababa succeed in reaching an agreement.
