{"id":179611,"date":"2026-10-19T14:31:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=179611"},"modified":"2026-10-19T14:31:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:31:05","slug":"alliance-for-survival-rejects-rubios-separatist-and-terrorism-descriptions-urges-washington-to-take-a-balanced-stance-on-ethiopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/179611","title":{"rendered":"Alliance for Survival Rejects Rubio\u2019s \u201cSeparatist\u201d and \u201cTerrorism\u201d Descriptions, Urges Washington to Take a \u201cBalanced\u201d Stance on Ethiopia\u2019s War"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

The Alliance for Survival\u2019s statement on Marco Rubio\u2019s remarks, dated Oct. 18, 2026, as posted on X by the Amhara Fano National Movement\u2019s foreign affairs office. [Alliance for Survival statement via @AFNM_FA on X]<\/em><\/p>\n

The Ethiopian Peoples\u2019 Forces Alliance for Survival, the coalition of armed and political groups fighting the federal government, has rejected U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s description of the forces attacking inside Ethiopia as \u201cseparatists\u201d and of strikes on government military sites as terrorism, and has asked Washington to take what it called a balanced position on the war.<\/p>\n

The one-page statement, dated Oct. 18 and bearing the alliance\u2019s seal, was posted on X at 7:07 p.m. ET on Sunday by the foreign affairs office of the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM), one of the coalition\u2019s members. It said the alliance was \u201cperturbed by the unfortunate statement\u201d Rubio made \u201cin an interview with C-Span\u201d on the conflict. The remarks it was answering were given to reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Saturday night, according to the State Department transcript, before Rubio left for Uzbekistan and India.<\/p>\n

Asked how high the risk of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea was, Rubio had said, \u201cYou have these separatists that were attacking inside of Ethiopia. You had an Ethiopian response to it. You see troops surging on both sides of the border as a result of that.\u201d Addressing the Ethiopian side, he added that \u201cwe understand the challenge you\u2019re facing from these separatists, and obviously no one is supportive of terrorism and the terrorist attacks that came against them, drone attacks against their own capital,\u201d while urging the authorities in Addis Ababa to be \u201cwise and measured\u201d so the crisis does not become a broader war. Rubio did not name any group.<\/p>\n

The alliance answered in two points. On the first, it said \u201cthe military acts of self-defense that the AFS has been compelled to undertake are not aimed at, or prompted by, separatist objectives to fragment and balkanize our country,\u201d and that they came \u201cas a last resort when all sincere endeavors for peaceful reconciliation, including on the basis of the Pretoria Agreement, were rebuffed and totally jettisoned by the ruling regime.\u201d Calling the movements separatist, it said, \u201cis legally inaccurate and politically inappropriate.\u201d The coalition said its aim is \u201cto usher in an inclusive democratic transition to arrest the descent to fragmentation, bring peace and stability and chart our country\u2019s future on the basis of the wishes of all its citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the second point, the statement said that \u201cclassifying certain AFS military operations that target the military installations of the adversary as \u2018terrorism\u2019 is unwarranted as it portrays a skewed picture of the reality.\u201d It accused the regime in Ethiopia of using \u201cextensively more advanced weapons not only against military targets but also in densely populated civilian areas under our control,\u201d and warned that the label \u201cwill only embolden the regime to pursue its war agenda with impunity and foreclose all efforts for a peaceful resolution.\u201d It closed by urging the United States \u201cto pursue a balanced and constructive stance on the whole conflict so as to contribute to enduring peace in Ethiopia.\u201d Addis Standard, which reported the statement on Monday, said it could not independently verify the alliance\u2019s allegations about the use of weapons in civilian areas.<\/p>\n

The statement did not address the drone attacks on Addis Ababa that Rubio mentioned, and it did not say which member groups had approved it. The alliance\u2019s formation was announced on Sept. 20 in a statement read on Tigrai TV by Zemene Kassie, chairman of the AFNM, and Addis Standard lists its members as including the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF), the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) and the AFNM, among other groups. The Ethiopian federal government had not responded publicly to the statement by Monday afternoon. A State Department spokesman, responding to questions from Mereja<\/a>, said the United States reiterates its call for Ethiopia and Eritrea to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of their neighbors, and that the message has been delivered privately and publicly to both sides over the last six months. The spokesman said Rubio spoke with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Oct. 14 to stress those messages, Mereja reported.<\/p>\n

The exchange came as Independent Arabia asked in a Monday headline whether Rubio\u2019s remarks were \u201cpaving the way\u201d for the opposition to be designated as \u201cterrorist.\u201d Nothing in the State Department transcript points to a designation, and the department has announced none.<\/p>\n

On X, the statement and Rubio\u2019s words drew sharp and divided responses in several languages. Sherin Helal (@sherinhelal555<\/a>), whose bio describes her as an Egyptian writer and researcher, wrote in Arabic that \u201c\u0627\u0644\u062a\u062d\u0627\u0644\u0641 \u0627\u0644\u0625\u062b\u064a\u0648\u0628\u064a \u0645\u0646 \u0623\u062c\u0644 \u0627\u0644\u0628\u0642\u0627\u0621 \u064a\u0644\u0642\u0646 \u0648\u0632\u064a\u0631 \u0627\u0644\u062e\u0627\u0631\u062c\u064a\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0623\u0645\u0631\u064a\u0643\u064a \u062f\u0631\u0633\u0627\u201d (\u201cthe Ethiopian Alliance for Survival teaches the U.S. secretary of state a lesson\u201d), arguing that Rubio had failed to distinguish between \u201c\u0627\u0644\u0627\u0646\u0641\u0635\u0627\u0644\u064a\u064a\u0646\u201d (\u201cseparatists\u201d) and liberation fronts. An Amharic-language account, @7AntRise<\/a>, took the opposite view in a long post, writing that Rubio\u2019s \u201c\u1308\u1295\u1323\u12ed\u201d (\u201cseparatist\u201d) label \u201c\u1260\u12a5\u12cd\u1290\u1275 \u120b\u12ed \u12e8\u1270\u1218\u1220\u1228\u1270 \u12a5\u1295\u1302 \u12e8\u1270\u1233\u1233\u1270 \u134d\u1228\u1303 \u12a0\u12ed\u12f0\u1208\u121d\u201d (\u201cis based on fact, not a wrong label\u201d), and pointing to the alliance\u2019s own language about deciding the country\u2019s future through popular and constitutional dialogue. Thomas C. Mountain (@thomascmountain<\/a>), whose bio says he lived and reported from Eritrea from 2006 to 2021, wrote that Rubio \u201cshot US in the foot by condemning Ethio Alliance for Survival as separatist and terrorists.\u201d Maebel Kiflay (@kiflaymaebel1<\/a>) posted a Tigrigna rendering of Rubio\u2019s remarks with a video clip, opening with the line that Rubio had called the forces attacking in Ethiopia \u201c\u1270\u1308\u1295\u1338\u120d\u1272\u201d (\u201cseparatists\u201d). Replying to the AFNM foreign affairs post, an account posting as @Abethegreat28<\/a> asked in Amharic whether Ethiopians in North America would quickly put a clear position to Rubio \u201cor waste time on analysis.\u201d Translations from Arabic, Amharic and Tigrigna are Zegabi\u2019s. Zegabi has not verified the claims made in these posts.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n