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CROWD: Ethiopians on the run attempt to cross the Setit River at the Sudan-Ethiopia border on Saturday. Photo: EL TAYEB SIDDIG / REUTERS
Just a year after the country’s Prime Minister received the Nobel Peace Prize, massacres and a bloody war have broken out in Ethiopia. The UN warns of rising ethnic tensions and a high risk of genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
In recent weeks, an increase in conflict has been reported in Ethiopia, in northeast Africa.
The fighting has been between the Ethiopian federal government and state authorities in the Tigray region in the north of the country. In recent days, neighboring Eritrea has also been embroiled in conflict.
Massacres have already occurred in various parts of the country, and Thursday, UN special advisers announced on the high risk of genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing if conflicts do not subside quickly.
There are reports of an increase in ethnic tensions in the country, with reports of detentions on ethnic and religious grounds, destruction of property, acts of violence, assassinations and hateful rhetoric.
At the same time, civilians are fleeing across the border into neighboring Sudan.
Who is behind the massacres where civilians have been killed with sharp weapons and machetes has not been clarified in the chaotic conditions, and there is scattered information.
– I am afraid that this may end with ethnic cleansing, Kjetil Tronvoll (54), professor of peace and conflict studies at Bjørknes Høyskole, tells VG.
He has studied conditions in Ethiopia for 30 years, since entering the country as an anthropology student during the last phases of the liberation war in the early 1990s, and was arrested until September while visiting the country as an investigator on the events. in Tigray.
PEACE AWARD WINNER: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the people’s tribute from the balcony of the Grand Hotel in Oslo on December 10, 2019. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB
– The conflict is based on two issues
On November 3, at the same time that much of the world was concentrating on the US elections, bloody fighting broke out between federal and state military forces in northern Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is organized as a federal state consisting of ten partially independent states. Tigray in the north is the only state where the ruling party does not rule, Professor Kjetil Tronvoll tells VG.
Explain that the conflict we are seeing now in Ethiopia has been noticed in many ways.
– The conflict is based on two important questions: what is Ethiopia and what should Ethiopia be. This is a war over understanding Ethiopia as a state unit and how that state unit should be organized, says Tronvoll.
When current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, it was on the basis of a popular movement that the TPLF should have less power over the federal government and that the regions should have full autonomy, says Tronvoll.
Ethiopia is made up of some 90 different ethnic groups, with associated complications around language, culture, and geography.
After 1991, Ethiopia broke with the unitary state, because the unitary state was seen as oppressive against other nationalities in the country. Cultural and decision-making authority, says Tronvoll.
– And here is the heart of the conflict. When Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, it was thought that he would continue this model, but after a year, it began to change. He spoke more and more of centralizing power, of Ethiopia as a unit, of being together as one. And these statements may not be so sensational in another way, but they were attitudes opposed to the protest movement that brought him to power, and opposed to the political attitude of the leading Tigray party, TPLF, which therefore broke with the government and entered in opposition.
OPPOSITION: Debretsion Gebremichael leads the opposition party TPLF and the state of Tigray in northern Ethiopia. Photo: EPA
The trigger
In the spring of 2020, elections were to be held in Ethiopia, both at the federal and state levels, but the election was postponed indefinitely until after the crown pandemic.
Normally, a newly elected government should have taken effect on October 5, but since the elections were postponed, the ruling party and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed have remained in power in the country.
The opposition party TPLF has strongly distanced itself from the current ruling party, and throughout the fall the conflict between the central authorities and the state of Tigray has grown.
There have been military reinforcements and troop movements to the border with the Tigray region, prompting the alleged TPLF self-defense attack on November 3.
Since November 3, various acts of war, airstrikes and massacres have been reported, and the UN is now seriously concerned about the escalation of the conflict.
On Saturday, November 14, it became clear that Eritrea had also been involved in hostilities.
WEAPONS: Members of the local militia in Amhara on their way to fight the TPLF in Sanja. Photo: TIKSA STATE / REUTERS
Fear of ethnic cleansing
The UN Special Advisers have strongly recommended to the Ethiopian authorities to do everything possible to calm the situation in the country, as well as to seek help from the international community, the UN and the African Union (AU).
If this does not happen, the risk is high that the conflict will degenerate into genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing, warn the UN special advisers.
And Professor Kjetil Tronvoll fears the reported rise in ethnic tension.
– Ethiopia is a country with a people hardened by war, with great contradictions and ethnic tensions. I fear that this could turn into a protracted war, ethnic cleansing and mutual images of enemies that cannot be broken, if the federal government does not accept negotiations and political dialogue, Tronvoll tells VG.
