Ethiopia on the brink of civil war after Abiy orders to attack Tigray – Quartz

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an attack against the ruling party forces of the Tigray region, one of Ethiopia’s 10 autonomous regions, increasing the likelihood of a full-blown civil war in Africa’s second-largest country. by population.

Abiy accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of trying to attack a military camp of the Ethiopian National Defense Force, describing it as the last “red line” to be crossed. The government has now declared a state of emergency for Tigray for the next six months, restricting the movement of people and blocking communications, including the internet.

“Ethiopia’s National Defense Forces, under the leadership of the command post, have been ordered to carry out their mission to save the country and the region from a spiral of stability,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement. on Wednesday (November 4). .

There has already been a long-running power battle between the Tigrayan forces and the government army for the past two years, each side accusing the other of playing a destructive role in the state. Tension has been especially high after the Tigrayans independently held an election in September that the Ethiopian federal government declared “null and void.”

The Tigray regional government, for its part, has described the federal government as illegitimate and declared that it will not comply with its laws, directives and regulations.

“The outbreak of the armed conflict between the federal government and the regional government of Tigray has been brewing for more than a year,” says Kjetil Tronvoll, one of the few independent observers of the recent Tigray elections and professor of peace studies and conflicts. at Bjorknes University College.

“This was a ‘progressive war’, to use an Ethiopian political term that reflects the deep division between the Abiy Prosperity Party and the TPLF”

There is growing concern that a large-scale conflict in the northern Tigray region could turn south given tensions in other regions. Amnesty International warns that military action would put “many lives at risk” in a country of more than 100 million people.

Frayed Federalism

Some longtime Ethiopian observers argue that the troubles in the Horn of Africa country reflect the more widespread erosion of the country’s federalist form of government rather than specifically a conflict between the national government in Addis Ababa and the Tigrays. .

“It is a crisis of the federal government that manifests itself in Tigray and other regions,” writes Mulugeta G Berhe, principal investigator at Tufts University. “The governance of the federal government has become more an exercise in nautical (staying in power) and less in navigation (reaching a destination) that does not achieve coherent and democratic approaches to address the crisis.

In addition to the escalation of the Tigray crisis, there are ongoing conflicts in the larger populated region of Oromia, as well as in the southern regions.

The TPLF, the party of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who ruled Ethiopia with an iron fist for nearly 17 years (1995-2012), has dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades. He was a powerful voice in the former ruling coalition of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democrats (EPRDF), which was dismantled late last year and replaced by the Prosperity Party led by Prime Minister Abiy, himself an Oromo.

This week, Debretsion Gebremichael, president of the Tigray region, accused Abiy of working with Eritrea to destabilize Tigray and said the region is ready for a possible war with the federal government.

“The Eritrean government is meddling in Ethiopia’s affairs. When the Eritrean government became involved in Ethiopia’s affairs, the federal government turned a deaf ear and failed to protect its citizens as the Eritrean army prepared to launch a war against it in Tigray, he said.

In 2019, Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the two-decade conflict with Eritrea.

Now Abiy is in a war of words with Tigray calling the leaders of the TPLF and its forces “traitors” and that the TPLF-led government has been manufacturing Eritrean army military equipment to implicate the Eritrean government.

The Amhara regional government also pointed the finger at the TPLF leaders, saying that an attack has been launched against the special force in their region.

“The TPLF tried to start a war in areas like Sorqana and Qerqar, but special forces from the Amhara region controlled the situation,” says Temesgen Tiruneh, president of the Amhara region and former intelligence adviser to the prime minister.

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