Eritrea Needs Real Lobby Power, Diplomatic Muscle, and Media Strategy to Defeat Anti-Eritrean Disinformation
The urgent need for stronger advocacy:
For years, coordinated misinformation and disinformation campaigns have targeted Eritrea’s people, its sovereignty, its multi-ethnic society, and its history. These narratives damage the country’s international standing, distort facts, and leave Eritrea reactive rather than proactive on the global stage. The solution is straightforward but urgent: Eritrea must build professional lobby capacity, expand diplomatic influence, and invest seriously in public relations and media.
Professional lobbying in key capitals
Professional lobbying in key capitals is essential. Eritrea should hire experienced lobbyists and public-affairs firms in Washington, D.C., London, Berlin, the Scandinavian capitals, Rome, Moscow, and Beijing. These advocates must actively promote Eritrea’s legitimate interests, challenge hostile claims in real time, and cultivate relationships with political parties across the spectrum. Strong, consistent engagement with lawmakers and policymakers is the only reliable way to counter entrenched negative narratives.
Mobilizing the diaspora through gatherings
Eritrean communities in North America, Europe, and the Middle East regularly organize large cultural, national, and fundraising gatherings. These events should be deliberately used to finance professional lobby work and to invite lobbyists, elected politicians, and representatives of political parties as guests of honor. By bringing decision-makers into direct contact with the diaspora, Eritrea can promote its standing, correct false narratives face-to-face, and build genuine people-to-people relations that strengthen long-term diplomatic support.
The critical role of the diaspora
The Eritrean diaspora has a critical role beyond funding. Organized diaspora networks can raise resources, support professional advocacy efforts, and press for the removal of unjust sanctions. They should also work to strengthen constructive ties with partners in China, Russia, India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other African states that respect Eritrea’s independence and internal affairs.
Building an effective media strategy
Media strategy is equally important. Eritrea needs to expand its own media capacity while building partnerships with international platforms that reach wider audiences. Cooperation with outlets such as Daily News Egypt offers a practical opportunity: Eritrean writers can publish on the country’s politics, its views on the Red Sea and East Africa, and its relations with Ethiopia. Engagement with CGTN, RT, Sputnik, and carefully selected Western outlets can help ensure more balanced coverage.
The problem of non-Eritreans speaking for Eritrea
The current imbalance is striking. Non-Eritreans—figures such as Martin Plaut, Kaja Kjetland-Vol, William Davison, and Matt Bryden—routinely speak about Eritrea on international panels and channels like Al Jazeera and TRT, while Eritrean voices are rarely given equal space. The same pattern appears on Wikipedia, where editors with clear Ethiopian political affiliations have altered pages on Medri Bahri, the independence struggle, and the Badme conflict in ways that contradict even official U.S. State Department historical records.
Concrete examples of anti-Eritrean misinformation
Concrete examples of the misinformation problem are easy to find. In 2016 a fabricated story claiming Eritrea had legalized or mandated polygamy between 2014 and 2016 spread widely across African and international media; the claim was false, and Eritrea’s Penal Code has long prohibited polygamy. During the Tigray conflict (2020–2022), images of the 1999 Ethiopian bombing of the church in Adi Keih (Adi Jeyh), Eritrea, were repeatedly presented by activists as evidence of Eritrean air-force strikes in Tigray. Fact-checkers including AFP Fact Check and PesaCheck exposed these recycled photographs. Broader coverage of Ethiopia–Eritrea relations frequently amplifies one-sided Ethiopian narratives while downplaying Ethiopia’s own record of invasions, support for armed groups inside Eritrea, and repeated threats to Eritrean sovereignty and Red Sea access. More recently, officials and media linked to Ethiopia’s Prosperity Party have promoted the claim that Eritrea’s independence was a “historical mistake” and that Eritrea occupies Ethiopian territory—rhetoric that further fuels hostility.
The path forward
These patterns will not correct themselves. Eritrea must hire professional lobbyists, deepen diplomatic partnerships, empower its diaspora through organized gatherings, and ensure that Eritreans themselves shape the narrative in international media. Only then can the country effectively counter disinformation, defend its sovereignty, and build more constructive relations with the rest of the world.