There are only three exceptions when thievery is allowed. And Ethiopia is making arguments for all three of them.
1. Before I address that, I want to take a paragraph to address those of you who tell me ተተሓሒዝካዮ ኣለኻ (you are obsessed) when I mention Abiy. First, I am not innately repulsed by Abiy, like many of you who called him as-light-as-a-straw-fan (መሸርፍት) were. Those of you who follow my writings know that I have praised his skills on many occasions, primarily because his opponents underestimate him because of his obsequiousness (ሕጉብግብ::) In fact, it’s a mark of my admiration for his ability to execute, that I may have saturated readers with this topic. Never underestimate the zealous.
2. To his credit, he knows that he has no—none, nienete, nada, sifr, zero, bado—legal basis for his claim on Eritrea’s Port of Assab or any other part of the land or sea that lies north (or east) of the Eritrea-Ethiopia common border.
3. I am not a lawyer, but I number my paragraphs like one, so I can say with authority: Stealing is always illegal.
4. And while there can be no legal argument tor claiming Assab—the highest body, the UN, has a copy of the official map in its Cartographic Unit—there can be a moral argument for claiming Assab. Particularly the moral case for stealing.
5. According to philosophers, there are three exceptions to the imperative against stealing:
A. Survival.
B. Greater Good/Preventing Greater Harm
C. Restitution
And Abiy has made his arguments for stealing sovereign Eritrean territory, Assab, on the basis of all three.
6. Stealing is wrong except when your survival, or that of a loved one, is at stake. No judge or jury will convict a mom who stole a loaf of bread, which is an act of desperation. Similarly, Abiy has made his case for taking Assab on the basis that Ethiopian population will reach 250 million by 2050 and desperately hungry people will do desperate things.
7. Stealing is wrong except when one is trying to avoid a greater harm. That’s why you root for the Good Guys in the movies when they, at a point of a gun, carjack because they are in a race to prevent a ticking bomb. (See also: Speed, Keanu Reeves.) Similarly, Abiy has made two arguments on this:(a) hey, Europe: if you don’t help us get Assab, your borders will be flooded by hungry Ethiopians and (b) you can’t trust poor, under-populated Eritrea with a task as important as Guarding the Red Sea, a pathway that YOU rely heavily on for commerce.
8. Stealing is wrong except when a party is owed restitution for a grave injustice done to them. Somebody steals something from you, and you steal it back. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed–more often, his Prosperity Party cadres–have made that argument: Assab was, in an external and internal conspiracy, stolen from us otherwise there is so much history that proves it is ours.
Brazenly, this is the same argument Emperor Haile Selasse used to get Assab to begin with. He said: Dear UN, your predecessor, League of Nations, turned a deaf ear to us, your fellow members, when we warned against Mussolini’s invasion. Damn, we even gave up slavery to join the League of Nations. You owe us. Emperor Haile Selasse’s nagging was definitely part of the UN’s decision-making process to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia and to turn a blind eye to its annexation.
9. So when the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently said it has reached mid-point in its campaign to convince the World of its urgent need for the Sea, I think it’s reporting on how many countries from its list of targeted countries it has reached. “Never mind how we get to the point of presenting you with a fait accomli of stolen land, when we get there can we count on a sympathetic ear? Every time you feel non-committal, just remember who runs Eritrea. He hates you fiercely.” And Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki dutifully plays the role of villain, addicted to stagnation and antagonization.
10. I think I know what the Government of Eritrea’s strategy against the campaign is, but I am doing all the talking: Ul enta ba’a. What do you think it is?
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