Ethiopia: A civil war that could destabilize East Africa
The civil war in Ethiopia has now entered its second year, said The Standard (Kenya), and “there’s little hope that it will end anytime soon.” In November 2020, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered the federal military to the northern region of Tigray for what he called a “law enforcement operation” with “clear, limited, and achievable objectives,” after accusing the region’s governing Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of attacking an army base. But the ensuing conflict has been anything but limited. The TPLF, which ruled Ethiopia for nearly three decades before Abiy was elected in 2018, has forged an alliance with eight other rebel groups, and its forces are now marching on the capital, Addis Ababa. This war has killed thousands of Ethiopians, displaced millions more, and left hundreds of thousands living in famine-like conditions. Both sides have massacred civilians and used rape as a weapon of war. “This is clearly a battle for supremacy,” says Harvard University lecturer Christopher Rhodes, “between the current and former ruling powers of Ethiopia.”
Abiy is “both the protagonist and the victim” of this drama, said Pietro Veronese in La Repubblica (Italy). When he came to power in 2018, he seemed like an ideal leader after years of oppressive rule by the ethnic Tigrayan elite. The son of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, Abiy had served in the military and in official civilian roles, and was a member of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo, which had never governed the country before. His first years in office were a flurry of activity: He freed political prisoners and ended two decades of hostility with neighboring Eritrea, earning Abiy the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
But that peace deal left the Tigrayans feeling encircled; Eritrea, their northern neighbor, is an old enemy, one that would end up joining Abiy’s offensive. So, when Abiy postponed elections in the summer of 2020, the Tigrayans feared a power grab and declared he had lost legitimacy, precipitating the war.
This conflict has international implications, said Riccardo Cristiano in Formiche (Italy). Abiy has angered Cairo by building a huge hydroelectric dam on a crucial tributary of the Nile, which could reduce the flow of water to Egypt. The recent military coup in neighboring Sudan is “clearly linked” to Egypt’s need for an ally against Ethiopia. Kenya, Uganda, and Djibouti also have reason to fear Abiy’s Nile schemes—and an interest in who wins the Ethiopian civil war. This combination of “regional geopolitical ambitions and fractious ethnic exclusionism” could throw the whole Horn of Africa into chaos, said Jenerali Ulimwengu in the East African (Kenya). Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1991; if Tigray goes, it could trigger a domino effect among the country’s more than 80 ethnic groups. Somalia is already a failed state, and we can’t afford for Ethiopia to go the same way. Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo is trying to arrange peace talks, and we can only hope the warring parties come to the table. “The future of our continent may depend on it.”