Before the intrusion of European colonialism, Ethiopia exercised free and unimpeded access to the Red Sea through a network of historical ports—Adulis, Tio, Massawa, and Assab—which anchored its role as a seafaring civilization and regional power. From antiquity through the Aksumite era, these ports served as vital conduits of trade, diplomacy, and culture linking the Horn of Africa with the Arabian and Indian worlds.
Yet over time, this sustained maritime access was gradually eroded through foreign invasion, partition, and external interference. The 1993 secession of Eritrea ultimately left more than 120 million Ethiopians landlocked. This encapsulation is not only strategically untenable—it is historically unjust and increasingly ripe for revision.
A Referendum Lacking Legitimacy
The 1993 referendum that formalized Eritrea’s separation from Ethiopia occurred under a transitional government in Addis Ababa dominated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and heavily influenced by its wartime ally, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). The EPLF, in turn, enjoyed covert backing from Egypt, whose long-standing strategic objective has been to control the Nile’s headwaters in Ethiopia and sever Ethiopia’s historic access to the Red Sea—a geopolitical maneuver decades in the making.
This unelected and militarized transitional authority lacked both the legal foundation and the popular mandate to preside over a decision of such national consequence. In essence, the referendum was not the outcome of a transparent democratic process, but rather the culmination of wartime power arrangements brokered between two armed movements. Many Ethiopians view this as a historic heist when their nation was down and out.
Conducted Without a Legal Foundation
The secession process occurred before the ratification of Ethiopia’s 1995 federal constitution—in the absence of any legal or institutional framework capable of authorizing or regulating such a referendum. From a constitutional standpoint, this renders the process procedurally unsound and legally fragile.
Many Ethiopian scholars have since argued that the referendum amounted to a political heist, executed at a moment of state fragility, to permanently dismember the nation.
A Compromised International Oversight
International mediation at the time was far from neutral. Critics point to the role of then–UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a former Egyptian foreign minister, as emblematic of the conflict of interest shaping the process. Before his role at the UN Mr. Ghali nurtured the separatist movements that fractured the nation throughout the 70s and 80s, and then, as UN Secretary-General in the 90s, he wielded the gavel that made it official. Under his watch, a violent, unelected transitional government was allowed to sever Ethiopia from the sea, thus completing the historic heist.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Cairo had supported separatist movements across the Horn as a strategy to weaken Ethiopia’s regional position and consolidate its control over the Nile. Under Boutros-Ghali’s tenure at the United Nations, the 1993 Eritrean referendum proceeded with little scrutiny, despite glaring irregularities and the absence of a legitimate Ethiopian government. The outcome—Ethiopia’s loss of its Red Sea coastline—served long-standing geopolitical interests far beyond the region itself.
A Betrayed Understanding
Ethiopia’s recognition of Eritrea’s independence was predicated on mutual understanding—that Ethiopia would retain free and unhindered access to the sea, particularly through the port of Assab. Instead, this expectation was swiftly undermined. Addis Ababa was met not with partnership but with exclusion, as Eritrea adopted a posture of strategic denial, closing Ethiopia’s historic outlets and leaving it dependent on foreign ports of Djibouti.
The Case of Assab: A Distinct Entity
Compounding the injustice is the status of Assab, which was recognized in 1987 as a semi-autonomous administrative region under Proclamation No. 16/1987, alongside Tigray, Dire Dawa, and the Ogaden. Its inclusion within Eritrea’s new borders lacked legal clarity and ignored both its administrative and demographic ties to Ethiopia. The annexation of Assab was therefore politically motivated and legally contestable under UN convention.
Ethnic Cleansing and Voter Expulsion
Reports indicate that approximately 67,000 residents of Assab—over 90 percent of the local population at the time—were forcibly expelled prior to the referendum. These residents, most of whom identified as Ethiopians, were removed to manipulate the demographic outcome. Such acts fundamentally compromised the legitimacy and fairness of the vote.
The Marginalization of the Afar Coastal Communities
In the Afar coastal territories, both the TPLF leadership in Addis Ababa and the EPLF in Asmara employed combined coercion and intimidation to suppress alternative voices. Historically Ethiopian and deeply tied to the Red Sea littoral, Afar-speaking communities were marginalized from the referendum process and have remained politically suppressed under Eritrean rule ever since.
Historical and Cultural Continuity
Even international organizations such as the United Nations have acknowledged Ethiopia’s historic, cultural, and ethnic ties to the Red Sea, ties that cannot be erased by colonial borders or flawed post–Cold War diplomacy. Ethiopia’s claim is not one of expansionism, but one of restoration—a return to a natural geography and historical balance that predates European-imposed boundaries.
The Plunder of Ethiopia’s Coastal Investments
Following Eritrea’s secession, Ethiopia’s substantial state investments in the ports of Assab and Massawa were left to decay without any form of compensation or restitution. These assets included modern port facilities, road infrastructure, an oil refinery, fuel storage depots, naval bases, and residential areas—all developed through decades of Ethiopian public expenditure to serve as national maritime lifelines. The abrupt loss of these strategic installations inflicted enormous economic and logistical damage. Moreover, dozens of Ethiopian naval vessels and aircraft were seized by Eritrean authorities, effectively expropriated without redress. This systematic dismantling of Ethiopia’s maritime infrastructure deepened the sense of injustice surrounding the secession and further entrenched Ethiopia’s landlocked isolation.
Toward a Just Red Sea Settlement
Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation and the world’s largest landlocked country by population, lies barely 60 miles from the Red Sea. Its exclusion from maritime access is an anomaly of history—politically unsustainable, economically inefficient, and strategically indefensible.
The Red Sea coast today remains sparsely populated and underdeveloped, despite its vast potential for trade and regional integration. Assab, once a bustling Ethiopian port, now stands deserted. Yet it can be revived through diplomatic cooperation grounded in historical justice.
Ethiopia’s quest for access to the sea is not a demand for privilege, but a restoration of rightful equilibrium—a call to rectify a historical wrong and lay the foundation for a more stable and integrated Horn of Africa.
