ETHIOPIA'S DREAM: A SEAPORT

 

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Territoire de la république de Djibouti )Wikipédia, 2023).

Below, you will find an extremely interesting text about Ethiopia's possible future priorities once it became an official BRICS member on January 1st, 2024.

Cleraly, according to that document, there's a wish to initiate a political process aiming to federate the whole Horn of Africa region, which is to say: Ethiopia, Erithrea, Djibouti, and Somalia (including autonomous Puntland and Somaliland). Also, there's a clear and expressed need to find an oceanic outlet for Ethiopia, a country whose economy is booming and whose population will soon triple, reaching more than a third of a billion people in only a few decades. That outlet may take the form of a lease port in any of the other three countries forming the Horn of Africa, possibly through an exchange (possibly against a share to be determine in the Renaissance dam or in the national airline).

Also, the importance of the unicity of the many nations living in more than one country in the Horn of Africa should not be understated. Those included the Somali people (Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti, but also Kenya), the Tigray people (Ethiopia and Erithrea), and the Afar people (Erithrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. The Afar nation, in particular, may become a very important factor in the Ethiopian search for a sea outlet. Afaria covers a large area: most of that nation lives inland, in Ethiopia, while another lives in eastern Erithrea, and a smaller one inhabits the nortern part of Djibouti.

In Djibouti, the Afars share the country with the more numerous Somalis, in the southern part of the territory, mostly (but not uniquely) from the Issa clan, as attested by its former colonial name: Territoire français des Afars et des Issas). There is also a growing Arab (Yemenite) population in the capital city of Djibouti, a strategic port crowded with half a dozen military bases, maintained by Italy, France, Japan, America, China, etc.

Djibouti is also economically important, being the terminus of a brand-new, Chinese-financed railroad leading straight to Addis Abeba, Ethiopia's capital. Let's also mention that Ethiopia is brimming with dozens of new industrial parks filled with factories, very often Chinese-owned.

All in all, it can fairly be expected that, next year, the Ethiopian government will start to focus on creating its own sub-sphere of influence:

• in the Nile Valley (along the axis of the Blue Nile, and also along the axis of the White Nile, the one that lead to the Great Lakes area), and
• in the Horn of Africa, bordering the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean areas.

A special area of concern will be to give Ethiopia direct access to the sea. A negociated lease on Northern Djibouti might just foot the bill, bringing the Afars living there within Ethiopia and, at the same time, opening the door to negociations with Erithrea, about the Afars living in that country. An exchange of land may even be used as a means to gain each governments' approval to that far-reaching scheme.

It is very important to note here that Northern Djibouti is also fated to be one of the landfalls of a gigantic bridge projected to be erected one day, spanning Africa and Asia, more precisely Djibouti and Yemen, across the Bab el Mandeb Strait, serving as the entrance into the Red Sea, as a part of the vast network of silk roads that will crisscross all of Afro-Eurasaia in the coming decades...

Qui vivra verra (comme ils disent à Djibouti).

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https://martinplaut.com/2023/10/14/ethiopia-demands-access-to-the-red-sea/

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PLUS:  @charles.millar3 (Twitter)