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Observers have described the ongoing Tigray conflict as a taste of déjà vu and an impending balkanization. The second-most populous African country is being driven toward deep turmoil by its political leaders. Events of the past weeks are clear indications that the two major warring parties, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian federal government, and their allies must heed the calls for peace before they plunge the country into another Libya-like state.
The crisis started on 4 November 2020 when prime minister Abiy Ahmed ordered military operations in the Tigray region. He said he did that in response to TPLF rebels’ attack on a military base. The action was a culmination of many months of feuding between the Abiy-led Ethiopian central government and TPLF leadership.
Since 1994, Ethiopia has run a federal system, with different ethnic groups leading the political affairs of 10 regions. The TPLF prided itself as one major political party most instrumental in setting up this system. It led the coalition that presided over Ethiopia from 1991 following the exit of a military regime. The four-party coalition brought up many developments and stability to the east African country, but there were also concerns of human rights violations and suppression of dissent voices.
This growing murmurs later escalated to a full-blown protest that caused a major political reshuffle which ushered in Abiy Ahmed as the current prime minister in 2018. Within his short term at the helms, Abiy made significant reforms that earned him national and international admiration and acclaim, including a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. His radical reform programmes and liberalised politics brought an end to the long-existing territorial conflict with neighbouring Eritrea.
But as his popularity grew for these laudable accomplishments, key Tigrayan political leaders felt sidelined and perceived his style as a move to centralize power. The rancour escalated in September 2020 after Tigray held its regional election in defiance of the central government’s postponement of national elections.
In its reaction, the central authority stopped funding to Tigray, an action that the latter perceived as a “declaration of war.” Sadly, what began as a power tussle has now resulted in a seemingly unending conflict with thousands of deaths, displacements, and many other humanitarian ramifications.
A few days ago, as the TPLF rebels and their allies drew closer to the capital, PM Abiy travelled to the frontline and avowed to lead Ethiopian troops into battle himself. “We won’t give in until we bury the enemy,” he said.
In response, a spokesperson for TPLF accused that Abiy’s leadership “chokehold on our people” and also vowed to continue the rebels’ “inexorable advance.” This ego-driven adamance from both sides is why the year-long conflict is biting so hard on the country.
A joint investigation by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reveals all parties in the conflict have committed violations that may amount to war crimes.
While the exact economic and humanitarian ramifications of the conflict is hard to assert, there is glaring evidence of devastatingly worrisome downturns. Thousands of people have been killed, including children who died by starvation. It has escalated the refugee crisis in East Africa, as more than 60,000 people have fled Ethiopia to neighbouring countries, and around two million people are internally displaced.
The OHCHR report also reveals indiscriminate attacks against civilians, appalling gender-based violence against women and girls, and other human rights and refugee rights abuses. More than nine million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance in the Tigray, Afar, and Amhara regions. The much-needed aids have been slow in coming. In August, the United States international development agency accused Abiy’s led government of “obstructing” access to Tigray at a time food houses were “virtually empty.”
“This shortage is not because food is unavailable, but because the Ethiopian government is obstructing humanitarian aid and personnel, including land convoys and air access,” USAID chief Samantha Power alleged.
In late November, the first aid convoy (around 40 trucks) in more than month entered the Tigray region. Ever since then, over 200 trucks have reached the region, but the UN says there is still a need for 100 trucks a day to meet the local population’s most basic needs.
The international community have called on both sides to toll the line of peace, but neither appears to be willing to listen. Abiy seems to be nursing a suspicion that the international community is plotting to remove him, as his government described efforts by foreign powers as meddling. He, therefore, seems to have settled for a winner-takes-all approach in the conflict. The TPLF and its Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) also appear to see no value in negotiations, especially considering its recent wins against the central power.
The United States and the European Union had once suspended aids to Ethiopia in a bid to see the conflict come to an end, but the sanctions are now being withheld to give rooms for negotiations to bear fruit. The African Union (AU) has also been making diplomatic moves at the continental level. But meddling in the crisis is an unusual ally to the Ethiopian government, Eritrea, whose officials and institutions have played destabilising roles in the conflict. The US recently sanctioned the Eritrean army for its peace-undermining roles in the crisis.
PM Abiy’s journey from enviable international admiration to condemnation has been quite swift, and so is Ethiopia’s exemplary status from a peaceful, progressive nation to a war-torn country. Its deep sense of independence as the only uncolonized nation in the continent and its recent political reforms and economic strides make Ethiopia Africa’s pride. Many countries in the horn and Africa-wide look up to it for leadership. Its highly ambitious economic growth has also been cited as a model worth emulating by other countries.
Sadly, the year-long conflict has battered the country’s economy and derailed its political trajectory. Fear also grows that the country could become a Libya of East Africa, especially as striking similarities can be drawn between the two countries both in terms of growth and conflict-induced fall.
Much like Ethiopia, Libya was one of the fastest-growing economies on the continent and regarded among Africa’s wealthiest countries until the 2011 uprising that led to a civil war and foreign military intervention. Today, the once oil-rich prosperous country is now a shadow of itself, a socioeconomic retarded nation, and a den of human trafficking and modern slavery.
The Tigray conflict could also be called a taste of déjà vu, especially as the conflict took a similar fashion to the Eritrea bloody breakaway from Ethiopia three decades ago. Thousands of Eritreans paid the ultimate price, and many other human costs were recorded in the self-determination crisis that lasted between 1961 to 1991.
Both sides, the Ethiopian federal government and TPLF, have displayed sheer vigour and recorded successes in the conflict. Therefore, compromise from either side at this moment may appear as a sign of weakness to their followers. But given the witnessed human tolls and the impending turmoil, such a compromise should rather be seen as a show of strength and not the other way round.
It is high time leaders from all sides of the conflict met at the negotiation tables and reached a peaceful deal for posterity’s sake.
The discussions shouldn’t end at just achieving a ceasefire but rather encompass agreement on mutually beneficial power-sharing formula at the regional and central levels, reconciliations of conflicting historical narratives, and settling territorial disputes and grievances causing and exacerbating armed crises in the country.
Olusegun Akinfenwa is a correspondent for Immigration Advice Service, a law firm based in the UK and offering immigration services globally, including the US citizenship and immigration application process. Most of his work revolves around spreading awareness about the harsh socio-political realities confronting African society, with a view to bringing lasting solutions to them.
