Sea Control - Sea Control 514 - Explaining Ethiopia's Port Deal with Samir Bhattacharya

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

Link: Understanding Ethiopia’s port deal with Somaliland and its geopolitical implications, by Samir Bhattacharya, ORFOnline, January 25, 2024. 

Hey folks, it's Jared. My guest today is Samir Bhattacharya, and he's going to explain the details and geopolitical impacts of Ethiopia's recent port deal with Somaliland. This episode was edited and produced by William McQuiston. Here at SimSec, we aim to further international maritime security through an exchange of ideas and the rigor of critical thought and writing. If you haven't already, please check out simsec.org for new articles on the most important maritime topics. If you'd like to contribute to the discussion, check out the Write for SimSec tab to learn how you can submit articles for publication. And now, Kimber's Men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security.

Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is Samir Batacharia, and we're going to discuss an article he wrote that was published in ORF Online entitled Understanding Ethiopia's Port Deal with Somaliland and Its Geopolitical Implications. So, Samir, welcome. Could you tell the audience a little bit more about yourself, please? Hey, thank you, Jared. Thank you for this introduction. I'm so happy and glad to be part of this initiative of yours. And it's a very timely topic, so I'd be very happy to talk on this. I am Samir Bhattacharya, and I work in ORF.

ORF is a very renowned international think tank in India. It's based in New Delhi. And over here, I work on geopolitics issues around the world, particularly focus on Africa and those issues mostly which have implications for India. So, yes, I am very happy to be here again, and I am looking forward to our discussion. Well, thank you for coming on. As a reminder to the listeners, all opinions are our own and not reflective of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. We'll timestamp this as well. So we are recording this on Sunday, March 10th. So if anything is happening related to this and Samir and I are not discussing it, the reason is it hasn't happened yet.

We'll jump right in here. I don't think a lot of our audience is following this development. So can you explain to us the substance of the agreement between Ethiopia and Somaliland? Sure. So, you see, the first day of this year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somaliland, which is a breakaway region of Somalia, they signed a deal. Through this deal, Ethiopia, which is a landlocked country, it will get access, direct commercial and military access to Red Sea. So, basically, Somaliland has some coastline of about 800 kilometers. And in that coastline, Somaliland is going to lease Ethiopia a small portion of 20 kilometers for 50 years.

And in return, what Somaliland will get is a formal recognition. As I said, it's a breakaway region. So in that way, Ethiopia is going to become the first African country to recognize Somaliland as a sovereign nation. In addition, Somaliland will also get some stakes in Ethiopia's national carrier, Ethiopian Airlines. So this deal, which looks apparently a very good deal on both sides, but it has a lot of geopolitical implications. And that is why this topic is very important. Why was having a port so important for Ethiopia? Oh, sure. So, you see, Ethiopia is a landlocked country and its port access, its conundrum for Red Sea, it dates back to 20 years of border war with Eritrea.

When Eritrea was together, Ethiopia had the access to sea, but once Eritrea got separated, they lost the access. So right now, all the trade that Ethiopia is doing, it's going through the Djibouti port. But then Djibouti port charges Ethiopia something around 1.5 billion annually. So it is a very, very big amount for a middle income country like Ethiopia. And they are definitely looking for exploring different options to export their goods, to have a sea access. So, in fact, Ethiopia tried to access sea in Somalia also. Then they tried with Port Sudan, but then nothing worked out. So finally, probably Ethiopia with this deal, now that they have got the access to sea, it's like a very big win for Ethiopia. so i'll ask a follow-up question that before we move on to kind of like the questions that we had discussed beforehand up what is ethiopia importing and exporting via that port i'm not

familiar with their economy really so see ethiopia's economy is mostly agricultural so it exports agricultural products but then because as it is a landlocked country so everything each and everything they have a from the Addis Ababa there is a corridor there is a highway which goes till to up to Djibouti port and in fact as you are aware last year there was last two years in fact those Tigray war and everything which was going on they were blocking this road so the whole economy of Ethiopia is dependent on that road and Djibouti port so it's quite obvious that Ethiopia is looking for alternatives. And you mentioned some of the alternatives that they pursue, but could you explain a little bit more thoroughly what Ethiopia tried to address the

issue of port access? Yeah, so Ethiopian ministers, they visited some ports in Kenya, in Lamu port, they were very interested that they can jointly invest and develop that port, and then they can use that port but that deal did not fructify then they were eyeing this port sudan since 2005 but and they actually made some deal with dp world also but and to acquire 19 percent stake of barbara port but again ethiopia could not pay on time and then deal went off so it has been quite some time that ethiopia in somalia somalia the country itself ethiopia was uh the port's name are confidential but there are reports that ethiopia was looking to develop four ports in somalia but again the and but that time somalian prime minister was different and now their

president was different now they have different president so this current government of somalia is not as friendly as the one before so the deal probably fell through so right now they see this Barbara Port as their, in Somaliland, is their best option to have sea access. So you mentioned right in the articles where the geopolitical impacts here. What is the impact of the agreement for East Africa and for the Indian Ocean region? Yeah, so see, first of all, Somaliland is a breakaway region for Somalia. Although it's separated from Somalia since 2005, Somalia still considers it as its own territorial integrity. So Somalia and Ethiopia, they have a very bitter history of war, Ugandan war, the memory of that war is still fresh. So Somalia is obviously not

happy. They have already called this deal as void and null. But I don't think Somalia is going to a OR immediately but then Somalia has asked African Union to take some steps so going forward Somalia is going to put pressure definitely put pressure on this so that this deal gets cancelled but then this deal is not going to be limited if this deal goes through it will not be limited between Ethiopia and Somalia many other countries will be involved so for example Djibouti obviously Djibouti is not happy because they used to earn a lot it was a very big portion of their economy 1.5 billion which they are going to lose now there are talks that if Ethiopia gets access to this port they will keep some military they will activate their military they have to some extent

reactivate reactivating so they will keep some military ships in that port and it is very close to Eritrea so obviously Eritrea will not be happy now one country that is very happy with this deal is uae uae is going to uae is fighting over the influence in red sea region for quite some time and this vote will give its increase its influence in the region so when it uae it's winning obviously it means two other countries saudi and turkey which are losing in their battle of influence so these two countries along with egypt they are also pushing arab leagues and other Arab countries to go against this deal. And countries like US, UK, they also have said that Ethiopia should withdraw from this deal and, you know, make peace. But then Ethiopia is not ready

to talk. So, so far, it is a situation which is still developing because the deals, what is inside the deal, what are the exact words, we don't know. The deal is not public yet. So, we don't know how it's going to play out in the future, but how the way it stands, it might again start as some kind of a proxy war. So I did have a follow-up question about what the UAE is doing there. What is the UAE's interest in that area? Because it's not immediately obvious when you look at a map about what they would be doing there. Is it about the flow of trade? Is it about they're receiving the Ethiopian agricultural products, or is this more just about doing something to inconvenience the Saudis? Not really, not really. So UAE and Saudi has been

very good friends in that region. Their interests always converged. Since the Saudi's national security policy in 2049, their interests slightly diverged. But even then, And UAE, the DP world, it's one of the most renowned port developer. And it was actually working with, some time ago, it was working with Djibouti also. But Djibouti unilaterally cancelled that deal. So UAE has its first interest, its DP world. Second interest, it will have more. Red Sea region is through which probably more than 50% world trade passes through that Bab al-Mandeb.

So having a port in that region will give UAE much more influence, you see. And with Saudi, not really, but yes, in comparison to Turkey, it will have, because Turkey is also trying to get access in that region. So further down in the article, you mentioned a potential Ethiopian fleet. Does Ethiopia, who's a landlocked country, does it have a fleet at this point or is it maneuvering to get one? where are these military ships coming from? Yeah, so you see, up to 1993, when Eritrea got independence, Ethiopia had a very strong army. Probably, if not South Africa, then Ethiopian Navy was the best navy in Africa, if it was not South Africa. But then once Eritrea got independence, it became landlocked. Obviously, there was no question of keeping the navy. They

disbanded the navy but in 2018 when abi came to power he started talking about restoring the navy that the priorities of national security has changed and in the state-linked fana broadcasting corporate abi ahmed in fact said that taking into account the current first changing world socio-economic and political situation in ethiopia we must increase our national security So in that context, there are reports that for the last four or five years, Ethiopia has commercial ships. It has about nine or ten commercial, eleven commercial ships, but they don't yet have some Navy. But they have a maritime college. They have this maritime culture.

And there are reports that France has been, France is a very strong maritime country, maritime power. France has been helping Ethiopia for the last five years to develop the naval force. So in a way, I would say the fact that France is helping Ethiopia, it is also a recognition that, yes, Ethiopian Navy is going to be a reality. I'm sorry, that's all that we have time for today. I'd like to thank my guest, Samir Bhattacharya. Samir, where can we find you online and what else are you working on? Oh, so sure.

So right now I'm working, there are so many things happening across the country. So I'm also working something on in the other part of Africa, where Alliance of Sahel States, it's like kind of Africa's Brexit. So how these things will going to play out. And, you know, this all three countries, it's very interesting because all these three countries which are which is making alliance, the all three are landlocked and we are talking about navies so even if the alliance goes through where will they they need a partner which has a sea so which country is going to join them next it is probably guinea and there are there were some rumors in between that there is a coup in nigeria so so some some interesting things are going on in that part of africa i'm working on

that and also you know the as I said the geopolitics so BRICS is going to this year BRICS is going to take place in Russia so how India is what is India's position what we are going to do how India and Africa then there is Uganda which is NAM leadership although the NAM itself as an organization is dead organization but the concept of non-alignment has turned into multi-alignment and how this multi-alignment is going to play out in in the light of gaza crisis the ukraine crisis and maybe very soon there will be i don't don't know people are talking about taiwan crisis it is not a war but it is definitely a crisis already the way chinese fleet is moving so these are the things i am studying and i am available on very much active in my twitter

it's called Samir Apolitical, Africanist Samir Well Samir, thank you again for joining us to listeners, thanks for tuning in we'll see you next time Thank you © transcript Emily Beynon

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