Ethiopia’s Peace Prize-winning leader sets a course for civil war
ETHIOPIA’S Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader has ordered troops into the northern region of Tigray after an attack on a military base, putting the country on a path to possible civil war.
Abiy Ahmed won the prize last year after introducing sweeping political reforms and attempting to broker peace with neighbouring Eritrea. But the last 12 months have also seen a crackdown on dissent and spiralling ethnic tensions, including a stand-off with separatists in the restive Tigray area.
Early yesterday, his government announced that “the last red line” had been crossed, forcing a military confrontation after “months of continued provocation and incitement”.
It followed an alleged attack on an army base in Tigray, which borders Eritrea, in which the region’s ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front attempted to steal artillery and military equipment.
Heavy fighting, including artillery fire, had broken out in the region, Reuters reported.
Dr Yohannes Woldemariam, an academic political expert on the Horn of Africa, said: “This is an existential crisis for Ethiopia. It could mean state collapse. The whole region will be affected, from refugees to destabilisation.”
As prime minister, Mr Abiy declared a state of emergency in the region for six months, and internet and mobile networks were shut down, according to internet monitor Net Blocks.
The Tigrayan minority had been the dominant force in the government from 1991 to 2018, when Mr Abiy came into power. Since then, tensions have been rising. The liberation front left the ruling coalition in January and organised regional elections in September in defiance of a federal decision to postpone all votes due to the pandemic.
For much of its history, Ethiopia has been ruled by dictatorial, centralised governments which have kept the East African nation one of the poorest on earth. In 2018, Mr Abiy, at 42, became the youngest ruler in Africa and introduced a series of liberalising reforms.
The government freed thousands of political prisoners and urged exiled activists and journalists to return home. Nobel Prize judges credited him with bringing to an end the decades of conflict that had left 80,000 people dead.
But ethnic clashes have again sprung up. Over the past week alone, armed rebels slaughtered 54 people, mostly women, children and the elderly, in the troubled Oromia region and clashes between two states over a border dispute in the east left 27 dead.
The army has been accused of carrying out human rights violations including the rape and murder of those suspected of supporting the rebels.
Resentment toward Mr Abiy’s administration has also been fuelled by complaints from Tigrayan leaders that they have been targeted in prosecutions, removed from top positions and broadly scapegoated for the country’s woes.