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set Magazine report Britain’s “The Economist” said Ethiopia is headed for civil war after its prime minister Abiy Ahmed issued a decision to confront the government of the troubled Tigray region in the north of the country.
The magazine claimed that warnings of that war were still looming recently, specifically when a general from the Ethiopian Federal Army traveled to Tigray on October 29 to assume his new post as deputy commander of forces there, but was prevented from entering.
Rumors spread in Mekele, the capital of Tigray, that there were military movements in the neighboring Amhara region and in the northern state of Eritrea. And on November 2, the president of Tigray, disavowing Cyprus, announced that his region was preparing for war.
Already broke
The British magazine says the war may have already started, as evidenced by orders Abiy Ahmed issued to his forces on Wednesday to respond to allegations that the ruling party in Tigray had attacked an Ethiopian army base there.
Abi Ahmed believes that “the red line has been crossed,” he said. Reports indicate that there is an exchange of artillery fire around the town of Mikkeli and on the southern border of Tigray with the Amhara region.
Telephone and Internet networks were cut off in Tigray, while the Ethiopian prime minister declared a state of emergency in the troubled region. It is unclear whether the conflict will be limited to limited skirmishes or will escalate into a full-scale war.
Bitter hostility
The latest escalation came after months of “bitter hostility” between Abiy Ahmed and the leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Tigrayans, which was an armed group before becoming a political party after he led the rebellion to overthrow the regime. Marxist in Addis Ababa in 1991.
For 3 decades since then, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front has had the upper hand in the federal government, before massive protests in 2018 forced the Oromo, who make up nearly a third of the Ethiopian people, to make room. for Abiy Ahmed to lead the country.
The Economist: Abiy Ahmed considers the Tigrayan Liberation Front a subversive group that threatens Ethiopia’s fragile transition to democracy (Reuters)However, according to The Economist, the Abiy Ahmed administration is seen by the TPLF as a “subversive” group working to undermine Ethiopia’s “fragile” transition to democracy.
For its part, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigraya considers Abiy Ahmed as a “usurper” of power and is determined to “destroy the constitution” that guarantees the autonomy of each of the nine regions of the country for ethnic reasons, and It grants each of them the right to separate from Ethiopia.
Accused of conspiracy
When the central government postponed holding nationwide elections earlier this year due to the outbreak of the new Corona virus “Covid-19,” the Tigray People’s Liberation Front accused Abiy Ahmed of conspiring to extend his term.
The dispute culminated last September when Tigray challenged the central federal government and proceeded with its regional elections. Instead of quietly accepting the results, the central government deemed the elections illegal and the Federal Parliament voted to remove the Tigrayans.
The Addis Ababa Ministry of Finance stopped funding the regional government and began sending money directly to local authorities. The ministry was also said to have prevented the payment of social benefits to poor farmers and had tried to prevent investors and even some tourists from traveling to Mekele, the capital of Tigray.
The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front said cutting federal funding amounted to a “declaration of war”, and called on Abiy Ahmed to step down and form a caretaker government in his place.
Although the prime minister has repeatedly ruled out military intervention in Tigray, Parliament ultimately authorized it. According to the British magazine, both sides turned to show their strength and flex their muscles.
The Economist quoted Getachew Reda, leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, as saying: “If Abiy Ahmed wants to end this conflict with war, we will return it to him.”
Multiple conflicts
However, the attraction to the Tigrayans is not the only conflict facing the Ethiopian state, as Abiy Ahmed is also waging a war against armed separatists in the larger Oromia region of the country from which he himself hails.
Abiy Ahmed is fighting to quell popular protests against his government there and elsewhere. In recent weeks, several massacres have been committed, as described by The Economist, most of them in the Amhara region. On the first of this month, gunmen killed dozens of women and children in a schoolyard in western Oromia, according to Amnesty International.
The federal government holds the Tigray People’s Liberation Front responsible for fueling these conflicts by arming and training opposition groups, without showing a single evidence of these accusations, according to The Economist.
On November 2, Abiy Ahmed’s allies in the Amhara region demanded that the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Tigrayans be terminated “completely”. In turn, Parliament indicated that it would designate the Popular Front as a “terrorist” organization.
A risky fight
Abiy Ahmed can hope to reassert his control of Tigray “with a swift blow”, but The Economist believes that there are 3 factors that make fighting with the Popular Front dangerous.
The Economist: The Tigray Front believes that many officers and soldiers of the Ethiopian Army Northern Command will change allegiance or rebel if Abiy Ahmed orders them to fight Tigray (Reuters)The first of these factors is that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front is the best armed and most enlightened of all Ethiopian opposition forces. Although the Tigrayans make up less than 10% of Ethiopia’s population, their paramilitary forces are led by veterans who fought many battles against the Marxist regime and participated in the devastating war against Eritrea between 1998 and 2000.
Tigray officers who were fired from the Federal Army in a purge by Abiy Ahmed are said to have returned to their territory to train new recruits.
The most powerful units in the Ethiopian army.
The second factor that makes the fight against Tigray so dangerous is that the troubled region is the main base for the most powerful Ethiopian army units, with a number of soldiers exceeding half of the entire army.
That base, called the Northern Command, was the most affected by the war against Eritrea. The TPLF believes that many officers and soldiers from the Northern Command will change allegiance or rebel if Abiy Ahmed orders them to fight Tigray.
The third factor is Eritrea. In 2018, Abiy Ahmed ended the cold war between the two countries by signing a peace agreement with the President of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki.
However, Afewerki, who keeps the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Tigrayans (PFLT) a decades-long hostility, did not show much desire for peace with him, instead doubling down on his efforts to drive out his old enemies by courting Abiy Ahmed.
And the Eritrean government announced on October 31 that the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Tigrayans was “on the brink of death.” Eritrean forces are believed to be carrying out “provocative” military maneuvers on its borders with the Tigray region.
But The Economist quoted a Tigrayan activist named Phitsum Burhani as saying they are ready to fight on two fronts.
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