by Ghidewon Abay Asmerom:-
When the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded in May 1963, Africa’s leaders faced a stark choice. Should they cling to the colonial borders that had carved up the continent, or risk chaos by redrawing them? Should Africa redraw borders to reflect ethnic, cultural, or historical realities or freeze them as they were inherited at independence. Most leaders had feared that reopening borders would unleash endless wars. No one put this fear better than Malagasy (Madagascar) President Philibert Tsiranana; he urged restraint stating.
“It is no longer possible, nor desirable, to modify the boundaries of Nations, on the pretext of racial, religious or linguistic criteria. ….Indeed, should we take race, religion or language as criteria for setting our boundaries, a few States in Africa would be blotted out from the map.”
Mali’s president Modibo Keïta was equally blunt:
“African unity demands of each one of us complete respect for the legacy that we have received from the colonial system, that is to say: maintenance of the present frontiers of our respective states.”
Two countries dissented. The first, Morocco, claiming it was entitled to Mauritania and Western Sahara, was against the principle of keeping colonial borders as is. It had abstained from voting for keeping the borders as is. Morocco later withdrew from the OAU in 1984 after the OAU seated the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). It only rejoined the African Union (AU) in 2017.
The second, The Somali Republic pressed for uniting all Somali (who were separated by colonial borders into Djibouti (French Somaliland), Italian Somaliland, British Somaliland, Ethiopia’s Somali region, and Kenya’s Northern Frontier District). Its first President Aden Abdulle Osman declared colonial frontiers “the greatest barrier to true unity”.
“History has shown that the most serious obstacle to African Unity originates from the artificial political boundaries which were imposed on large areas of the African Continent by Colonialist Powers. We have seen how traditionally integrated societies were torn apart and how their land was cruelly partitioned to serve the selfish interests of others. It has been suggested by some that any attempt to adjust existing boundary arrangements would aggravate rather than ease the situation. and for that reason, matters should remain as they are.’ We do not subscribe to that view for several reasons.”
And how about Ethiopia? Having already illegally annexed Eritrea seven months earlier, it thundered against any change to colonial boundaries. Prime Minister Aklilu Habte-Wold, speaking for Emperor Haile Selassie, told the first Assembly of the Heads of African States and Governments:
“If we are to rewrite the map of Africa on religious, racial, and linguistic grounds, I am afraid … many States will cease to exist. It is in the interest of all Africans now to respect the frontiers drawn on the maps, whether they are good or bad, by the former colonizers.”
Ethiopia’s objection was never just about Somalia’s claim. The real fear was that the spotlight might turn back on its own empire-building: in collusion with European colonial powers, it had already tripled its size by swallowing up vast swathes of fertile, resource-rich lands in the south, east, and west. Those territories were not Ethiopia’s by right but by conquest, annexed at gunpoint. What Addis Ababa dreaded was that any precedent of revisiting borders could unravel the ill-gotten map it had stitched together through force and foreign backing.
After the debate the OAU endorsed what became Africa’s principle of uti possidetis juris: that the boundaries drawn by colonial powers at the time of independence must remain the international borders of Africa’s states. This was codified in Article III(3) of the OAU Charter (1963):
“Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each State and for its inalienable right to independent existence.”
This was later reaffirmed in the OAU Cairo Resolution AHG/Res. 16(I) (July 1964), which explicitly declared the “respect of the borders existing on their achievement of national independence.”
When the OAU was dissolved in 2002 and replaced by the African Union (AU), this principle was carried forward. The AU Constitutive Act (2000), Article 4(b) states as a founding principle: “Respect of borders existing on achievement of independence.”
For the African Union, inherited borders are not just dusty relics of colonial cartographers. They are the firebreak between fragile peace and continental anarchy. Strip that principle away, and Africa splinters into a thousand shards. No frontier in Africa was drawn to honor ancient kingdoms, ethnic kinship, natural geography, economic justice, or population balance. Every line is an arbitrary colonial compromise.
That is why, since 1964, the AU has enshrined the sanctity of colonial borders in its peace and security frameworks. It rejects any attempt to redraw frontiers by force or fiat. It is why the Union still recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic within its colonial boundaries, despite Morocco’s protests. The rule is blunt but necessary: however arbitrary, however unjust, Africa’s borders are untouchable. Put simply: the 1964 Cairo Resolution and Article 4(b) of the AU Constitutive Act are not up for negotiation. Tear them up, and you don’t just open wounds, you invite the bloodletting of the entire continent.
And yet, sixty years after the OAU’s founding and two decades after its reinvention as the African Union, Ethiopia, the very host of the Union, has become the arsonist of the principle it once swore to uphold. Addis Ababa now threatens to seize an Eritrean seaport by force, waving medieval chronicles as proof that ‘twelve hundred years ago’ it once touched the Red Sea. Its leaders whine that a nation of Ethiopia’s size and population cannot remain landlocked. By that logic, a family with too many children has the right to storm its neighbor’s house and occupy the extra rooms. This is not reason; it is naked aggression, reckless delusion, and a match tossed onto dry kindling.
Ethiopia’s hypocrisy is staggering. Ethiopia once denounced Somali and Moroccan irredentism as reckless. Now it invokes the same logic: history, geography, and necessity to justify annexation. If it is allowed to rip up the rules, others will follow. Uganda and South Sudan could claim Kenya’s coast. Malawi and Zimbabwe Mozambique’s. Mali Guinea’s. The dominoes would fall until Africa collapses back into colonial-era chaos.
In 1963, Ethiopia scorned violating colonial boundaries as a sure path to endless war. In 2025, it baptizes the same madness as national policy. This is not about survival; it is about delusions of grandeur. Not justice, but the old fever dream of expansion. To declare that a ‘great nation cannot remain landlocked’ is not statecraft but sheer arrogance, the rant of a prime minister gone unhinged.
By violating colonial borders, Ethiopia flirts with its own dismemberment. Oromia, Tigray, Sidama, Somali Region, each could become a Sarajevo, each a spark for fratricide. If Addis Ababa thinks might makes right, then it writes its own obituary, a Balkan tragedy replayed on the Horn’s stage. The African Union’s capital will become a monument to hypocrisy and hubris. Ethiopia once warned that tampering with frontiers would plunge Africa into chaos. Now it courts that very abyss. History will record not that Ethiopia was denied the sea, but that it drowned itself in the fire it lit.
For Eritrea, this is no abstract debate. Its sovereignty is bound to its Red Sea coast, won through thirty years of struggle. To speak of Massawa or Assab as bargaining chips is to mock its sacrifice, flout international law, and destabilize the Horn of Africa.
The OAU’s founders understood this danger. President Philibert Tsiranana warned cohesion was Africa’s lifeline. President Modibo Keïta pleaded that unity required accepting the map “as it is.” Ethiopia now spits on the very principle it once enforced.
The African Union cannot remain chained to a host state that has become its saboteur. Addis Ababa, once hailed as an example of Pan-African unity, now threatens the very foundation of continental peace. If Ethiopia insists on torching the principle of inviolable borders, the Union must not sit idly by; it must walk away. To leave the AU in Addis is to reward hypocrisy and gamble with Africa’s fragile cohesion. The headquarters must move to a capital that honors what Ethiopia has betrayed: sovereignty, solidarity, and respect for African borders. Africa’s political center of gravity does not belong in the grip of a would-be hegemon or the lapdog of foreign powers. It belongs in a city that stands for moderation, diplomacy, and balance. Many African capitals can offer what Addis Ababa has squandered: credibility, neutrality, and legitimacy.
Addis Ababa has become the problem. The solution lies elsewhere.
Ghidewon Abay Asmerom
At Red Sea Beacon,
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