January 12, 2025
The following article, Eritrea Is the North Korea of Africa: America Must Act, is a naked call for regime-change against the nation of Eritrea. The author advocates for the incoming administration of President Trump, to support so called democracy movements to overthrow the government of President Isaias Afwerki. If the Trump administration were to follow this perilously foolish advice, it could result in igniting a catastrophic destabilization of the Horn of Africa that would affect the entire continent. Potentially hundreds of thousands of Africans could die from military combat, starvation, and disease, with even more Africans becoming refugees. This is a dangerous trap being set for President Trump, which he must reject. If he does not, the people of the most populous continent will hate him, and U.S.-African relations will be severely damaged for decades.
With this essay, Michael Rubin is exposing himself as a reckless fool, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), as a treacherous ally of the incoming administration, threatening the stability of East Africa. Both Rubin and AEI reveal themselves as tools of the West’s rules-based order.
Reject Madness
Look at a map! Look at the nations contiguous to Eritrea and its neighbors in the East African region. Hundreds of millions of Africans could be affected by such an irresponsible action as regime-change.
Sudan-48 million people, is experiencing a horrible internal war, threatening to destroy the nation of Sudan, sending millions of Sudanese fleeing into neighboring nations. Ethiopia-125 million people, after surviving a two year war that killed hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians (2020-2022) is suffering internal strife as the government continues to battle ethnic-nationalists over the last two years. South Sudan-11 million people, has been virtually a failed state since its independence in 2011. Somalia-18 million people, the government is struggling to achieve stability, battling al Shabaab for nearly two decades. Kenya with 55 million people, Uganda with a population of 46 million, and Djibouti with one million, would not be immune from an externally motivated removal of President Afwerki. It is sheer madness for Rubin and AEI to encourage regime-change in such a turbulent region. Either Rubin and AEI have no understanding of the dynamics of this region, and/or they are completely oblivious regarding the ill-fated consequences their proposal for U.S. sponsored regime change.
Eritrea’s coastline that borders the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, is a strategic trade route, which the rules-based order wants under the control of a more pliable leader than President Afwerki, who is deemed too independent.
The article is filled with assertions and only one sighted source, Eritrea’s ambassador to South Sudan. Comparisons are made to Zimbabwe, which was also a target of failed attempts at regime-change; North Korea, one of the nations listed in the “axis of evil”; and Saddam Hussein, whose nation was invaded by the West, which led to the creation ISIS. Of course, Russia and China are not left out of Rubin’s diatribe. Although Eritrea has been subject to various sanctions over the decades, Rubin and AEI advocate additional sanctions, empowering and funding opposition groups for the removal of Eritrea’s President.
Rubin encourages pressuring allies of Eritrea, and invites the involvement of the National Endowment of Democracy, notorious for instigating regime-change across the globe, and judged by many to be an asset of the CIA. Rubin writes:
The State Department should make clear to the United Arab Emirates that it should cease its partnership with Africa’s most destabilizing state, one which is increasingly a partner for China. It might also convene, perhaps in conjunction with the National Endowment for Democracy, a “Future of Eritrea” project to identify and assess the areas of greatest need upon Isaias’ exit.
Human Development, Not Rules
It should be clear to any honest observer that overthrowing the government of Eritrea is not in the interests of Eritreans, nor the over three hundred million Africans living in East Africa-one third of the continent’s population. To deliberately inflict such harm and hardship on an African population that is already suffering from extreme poverty, is evil.
The core of the problem with Rubin and AEI, is their perverted worldview. More accurately, their demented belief structure, which is anti-human. Their diseased ideology views the world as composed of zero-sum relationships in a static universe. Only winners and losers, or victors, and victims exist according to this worldview. Or, as the saying goes, “you are either with us or against us.” Neither human beings, nor the physical universe, are organized in this fixed structure. Rather, it is change, transformation, development, negative entropy, and human creativity, which actually governs the human race and our universe. The ideological obsession of the rules-based order mind-set, which steers the actions of both U.S. political parties, and the self-destructed Biden administration, is the real danger to the wellbeing of the people of our planet. Not Afwerki, Mugabe, Hussein, China, Russia, and North Korea.
If we know, as we readily should: human beings are the only species endowed with the power of creative mentation, and nations are composed exclusively of humans. Thus, it is elementary that all foreign policy should be governed by the principle of development for the human race, not the so called rule of order dictated by Western institutions. U.S. policy has been driven by the insistence of imposing its so called rules and structures of democracy on the Global South. Ignoring that the most important principle is the promotion of life, which necessitates economic growth. When other nations, such as China, form a bond with African nations grounded in economic development, they are attacked by the rules based order and labeled a dangerous enemy. Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has been vilified, for among other strategies, his 2013 initiation of the Belt and Road Initiative and continuation of the successful, Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
In the last six decades, only U.S. President John Kennedy has shown a genuine concern for collaborating with African leaders to promote economic development.
Rather than initiating programs and visions to foster economic growth in the Horn of Africa, as I have for the last decade, U.S. governments had fueled the flames of conflict. Most egregiously: 1) the Biden administration’s de facto support for the Tigrayan army’s attempt to militarily remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from his elected leadership of Ethiopia; 2) Biden’s refusal to support the most important project for economic growth in East Africa, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
Not to be out done by Biden, the adherents to the rules-based order are proposing that the new Trump administration, should ignite the Horn of Africa, with U.S. support for Eritrea regime-change. How will that help Africans living in that region? It will not! Did the U.S. supported regime-change and assassination of President Gaddafi help the people of Libya and North Africa? Did the overthrow and murder of Saddam Hussein help the Iraqi people and the Middle East?
President-elect Trump has said that he rejects unnecessary foreign interventions by the U.S. If so, he should dismiss this murderously insane scheme, and work with me to bring peace and prosperity to the region through economic integration of the Horn of Africa.
As is the case with other African nations, I do not support all of Eritrea’s policies. However, thoughtful people of good will, should be able to understand the extreme harm that regime-change against the current Eritrean government would cause on the African continent. We should act, free from prejudice and the colonial past, to recognize the evil of the rules-based order, and unequivocally defend Eritrea from their assault on Africa..
Dr. Michael Rubin, Eritrea Is the North Korea of Africa: America Must Act,
Below, you can read my earlier posts on this topic:
US-West Rules Based Order In Denial Regarding BRICS & Africa
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, and also publishing on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World
