The Peace Prize-winning country on the brink of civil war

Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB

Here, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his wife Zinash Tayachew are cheered on the balcony of the Grand Hotel in Oslo in December last year.

They were in Norway because the Prime Minister was going to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Abiy Ahmed made peace with neighboring Eritrea and started the democratization of Ethiopia.

But now the country is in the Horn of Africa, northeast Africa, on the brink of a civil war. Here a policeman watches the blood donor queue. The blood will be donated to the security forces in the fighting that is now taking place.

– Peace work is the biggest task ahead of me after taking office as prime minister, Abiy Ahmed told the press corps at Erna Solberg’s prime minister’s residence in December last year.

Back in the capital Addis Ababa, Abiy Ahmed was greeted by tens of thousands of people shouting slogans in support of the prime minister.

After six months in office, Abiy Ahmed secured an agreement with neighboring Eritrea, which ended hostilities after the 1998-2000 war.

But since then, reports have often referred to rising tensions within the country, with around 110 million people.

– This is not Syria. This is not Yemen. It’s of an entirely different magnitude, former US diplomat Payton Knopf tells the AP of the situation in the country.

Controversy intensifies

This week, these reports come from Ethiopia:

• Monday: Ethiopia continues its air strikes against insurgents in the Tigray region and there is no indication that peace talks are starting. Hundreds of civilians may have been killed in a massacre in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, according to Amnesty.
• Tuesday: The government offensive in Ethiopia has forced thousands of people to flee across the border into Sudan. Hundreds of people have died in the clashes, according to government sources.
• Wednesday: In the space of two days, nearly 10,000 Ethiopians have fled to Sudan, according to local authorities. In the coming days, many more are expected to follow.
• Thursday: Hundreds of Ethiopians were willing to donate blood to security forces participating in the offensive in the Tigray region, where thousands have fled the fighting.
• Friday: The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights calls for a full investigation into possible war crimes in Ethiopia following reports of killings of civilians in the Tigray region.

Addis Ababa word Tigray

– It’s hard to know what has happened in the last few days, except now it’s a civil war, says lead researcher Jon Harald Sande Lie of the Norwegian Institute for Foreign Policy (Nupi).

On Thursday, the renowned Foreign Affairs magazine published an article in which they write that the country is on the brink of civil war. Another big-name magazine, Foreign Policy, wrote the same thing four days ago.

Sande Lie has investigated Ethiopia. For almost a year a possible civil war has been predicted in the country. The conflict escalated in August after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed postponed scheduled elections due to the pandemic.

Critics of the prime minister believe he is using the pandemic to stay in power longer, says Sande Lie.

Subsequently, the state of Tigray in the north of the country held its own elections, to government protests.

– Thus, there is a democratically elected parliament in the Tigray region, which is not recognized by the central authorities. At the same time, the authorities of the Tigray region do not recognize the central authorities, as they have not held their elections. Therefore, there is a mutual distrust between the two, says the researcher.

The background is that Tigray village politicians dominated the Ethiopian government for almost 30 years before Abiy came to power in 2018. Following this, Abiy has introduced reforms that have reduced the influence of this group, and the Liberation Front Tigray People (TPLF) is also very critical of the peace agreement Abiy signed with Eritrea, for which he received the Peace Prize.

The central authorities of the capital have closed the lines of communication with the Tigray region, both internet, telephone lines and roads. Also, the power is partially gone. In recent weeks, it has turned into an armed conflict. Sande Lie describes a confusing situation:

– Central authorities attacked bombs in Tigray. But before that, there was a massacre in western Ethiopia, where it is disputed who was behind it. The Tigray authorities annexed federal military equipment located in the region, and carried out their choice independently of the jointly planned elections.

From Yugoslavia to the United States

The Tigray authorities feel marginalized and no longer share the Prime Minister’s view on Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is a federation of states, in a system comparable to that of the United States. States have a certain form of internal independence, is the description of Jon Harald Sande Lie.

– What would you say about the Nobel laureate Abiy Ahmeds in less than two years in power?

– It has been conciliatory and divisive. In the past, the country was more like Yugoslavia, under a strong leader who suppressed differences. Abiy Ahmed has implemented democratic reforms and then more disagreement has emerged.

For the state of Tigray, the situation now seems difficult in several sectors and it is not a fact that the conflict will stop at the border.

– The national authorities fear that Tigray will become independent, in addition, a large part of the federal military equipment is located in the Tigray region, as a consequence of the country’s historical conflict with Eritrea. The problem is that Tigray is now in conflict with Eritrea in the north and Addis Ababa in the south, says lead researcher Jon Harald Sande Lie in Nupi.

The international community now fears that the conflict will escalate further. Ethiopia is the country in Africa that hosts the majority of the continent’s refugees. Just under a million refugees live there. Now, the future of its citizens and Ethiopians is up in the air.

Neighboring Sudan is preparing for 200,000 Ethiopian refugees to arrive in the country, AP reports.