Ethiopia shifts closer to disaster

NAIROBI, Kenya – Ethiopia moved Saturday to replace the leadership of the country’s defiant northern Tigray region, where deadly clashes between regional and federal government forces are fueling fears the major African power is sliding into civil war. Tigray’s leader told the African Union that the federal government was planning a “full-fledged military offensive.”

Neither side appeared ready for the dialogue that experts say is needed to avert disaster in one of the world’s most strategic yet vulnerable regions, the Horn of Africa.

The upper house of parliament, the House of Federation, voted to set up an interim administration, giving Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed the power to carry out measures against a Tigray leadership his government regards as illegal. They include appointing officials and facilitating elections.

The prime minister, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, asserted that “criminal elements cannot escape the rule of law under the guise of seeking reconciliation and a call for dialogue.”

Experts and diplomats are watching in dismay as the two heavily armed forces clash. Observers warn that a civil war in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country with 110 million people, could suck in or destabilize neighbors such as Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia.

A statement posted Saturday on the Facebook page of the Tigray government, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, asserted that it will win the “justified” war, adding that “a fighter will not negotiate with its enemies.”