Published on : August 30, 2021 14:54 IST
Introduction
Africa’s oldest independent country, Ethiopia, has undergone drastic changes since Mr. Abiy, the Prime Minister, came into power. Part of the Oromo as a member, which is Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, Mr. Abiy made appeals for political reconciliation, unity, and reform in his introductory speech as Prime Minister. This agenda was backed by the great demand of protestors in Ethiopia who felt that the country’s political elite had interfered with the transition to democracy.[i]
The Political Scene
For over twenty years the political scene had been controlled by a consortium of four ethnically based parties, with the Tigrayans (who made up a good 7% of the population) dominating.
During the 1970s and 1980s the Tigray People’s Liberation Front or the TPLF, the Tigrayans party fought a war which allowed them to seize control of the government from a military junta. They became the leading member of the coalition government as a result of the success of the party and took power in the year 1991.
This coalition permitted Ethiopia’s regions to have autonomy however there was still a firm grip placed on the central government which had their fair share of critics accusing it of the repression of any and all political opposition.
As a result, the Prime Minister, Mr. Abiy, decided to dissolve the coalition in the year 2019, however the TPLF refused in opposition to be a part of his recently developed Prosperity Party. In addition to this, there were further instances which escalated the situation more than required.
An example of this would be Tigray’s unprecedented decision to hold their own election last September as an act of defiance against the central government. Both the Tigray and the central government opposed each other and labelled each other as “illegitimate”.
There has been a long-lasting bitterness and hostility present between Eritrea’s government and the Tigray and hence tensions have been on a constant rise.
Tigray brought the argument that the central government had not been tested in national election since the current prime minster Mr. Abiy had been appointed to the table and that the polls held had only been held in certain parts of the country.
The TPLF called out the prime minister, Mr. Abiy, on his “unprincipled” friendship as determined by them with Isaias Afwerki, the Eritrean President, who has been sending troops in support of Mr. Abiy in Tigray.[ii]
Who are the TPLF and the Tigrayans?
The TPLF originated in the mid-1970s as a small militia of Tigrayans fighting against Ethiopia’s military dictatorship, a community that had long been neglected by the central government.
The Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups account for more than 60% of Ethiopia’s population, whereas Tigrayans, the third-largest ethnic group, account for only 6 to 7%. Despite this, the TPLF grew to be the country’s most formidable rebel group, eventually leading a coalition that ousted the government in the year 1991.
With the TPLF at its helm, the rebel alliance became Ethiopia’s ruling coalition.
Meles Zenawi, the TPLF’s leader, governed Ethiopia from 1991 to 2012, during which time the country emerged as a stable government in a volatile area and had substantial economic progress.
However, the government aggressively suppressed political opponents and limited freedom of expression, and torture was prevalent in official detention camps.
The anti-government protests that broke out in the year 2016 was what paved the way for Abiy’s father, Oromo, to take leadership as prime minister in the year 2018. His government proceeded to purge the Tigray officials and then accused them of corruption and human right violations which angered the Tigray leaders.[iii]
The War – 1988 to 2000
From 1998 until the year 2000, the cause behind the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea was the great altercation between the territory that was present alongside their shared border.
This altercation managed to make the headlines in the year 2018 and catapulted a peace treaty between Ethiopia and Eritrea which was signed by Mr. Abiy on the topic of ending the territorial complication. Not long after, the prime minister managed to secure a Nobel Peace Prize.[iv]
Current War
Mr. Abiy (Abiy Ahmed), the prime minister of Ethiopia proceeded to launch an attack against the rebel forces present in the norther Tigray region in November. He then vowed that this fighting and conflict would be over in a few weeks, however that small attach may have really been disguised as the beginning of a war.
On a Monday this year, June 28, the Tigrayan rebels have counterattacked by taking on masses of new volunteers and progressed to enter the regional capital after the Ethiopian forces had retreated.[v]
The Issues Prior to the Political Conflict
The country being Africa’s second-most populous country with around 115 million people was already wrestling demoralizing social and economic challenges well ahead of the political feud between the TPLF and the prime minister.
This in addition to the rapidly increasing ethnic violence in other parts of the country, the war classified as the Tigray war has added fuel to the greatly increasing fears of a broader crisis which has the prospective of tearing Ethiopia to shreds from within. Furthermore, spreading this to their neighboring countries which would then cause the destabilization of the entire Horn of Africa.[vi]
Why did the Prime Minister launch an offensive?
The TPLF withdrew to its stronghold in Tigray, Ethiopia’s mountainous north. Tensions began to rise. Mr. Abiy was challenged by Tigrayans in September when they held regional parliamentary elections that had been postponed across Ethiopia due to the coronavirus outbreak. Ethiopian lawmakers reduced money to the region a few weeks later.
The evening of Nov. 3-4, TPLF powers assaulted a government army installation in Tigray and endeavored to take its weapons. The TPLF has said it had struck preemptively in light of the fact that government powers were planning to attack Tigray. Hours after the fact, Mr. Abiy requested the military offensive into Tigray.
Web and telephone interchanges were confined, and his bureau announced a six-month highly sensitive situation in Tigray. In any case, the Ethiopian military, which was overwhelmed by Tigrayan officials, was isolated, and battling ejected between rival military units inside Tigray, as indicated by American authorities.
Mr. Abiy reinforced his powers by sending volunteer army warriors from Amhara, south of Tigray, who cleared into western Tigray in the midst of allegations of assaults on regular people. Then, at that point troops from Eritrea, Ethiopia’s previous adversary, overwhelmed across the line into Tigray from the north to battle close by Mr. Abiy’s powers.
Government powers and their partners immediately held onto control of Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, and other principal towns, yet the TPLF also, its equipped allies escaped to rustic and rugged regions, where inconsistent battling has proceeded. Aid workers in Tigray say that substantial shelling and weapon fights seethed in five distinct pieces of Tigray toward the beginning of May.
The public authority has confined writers in the locale, making it difficult to check the circumstance.[vii]
The Consequences
Ever since the conflict began, there has been thousands of deaths, 1.7 million individuals displaced and caused numerous atrocities occurring which was not limited to harrowing sexual violence and ethnic cleansing. These were generally committed by the government forces as well as their allies.
In the same month, certain parts of Tigray were deemed to be struggling with extreme famine and a senior U.N. official stated that it was the world’s worse since 2011 when 250,000 Somalis died. As can be discerned, the situation is quite grave.[viii]
Conclusion
Clearly, there is a lot of tension that needs to be resolved within the country itself. The consequences of the war seem to portray that there will be grave consequences for the neighboring countries which will as mentioned before destabilizing quite a bit of the nation. The war is not the only issue the country must tackle, in addition to that they must deal with the social and economic challenges that the country faces while having to tend to the millions of people living within.
[i]“Ethiopia’s Tigray war: The short, medium and long story” (last visited on August 26, 2021).
[ii]“Ethiopia’s Tigray war: The short, medium and long story” (last visited on August 26, 2021).
[iii]Declan Walsh and Abdi Latif Dahir, “Why is Ethiopia at War With Itself” (last visited on August 26, 2021).
[iv]“Ethiopia’s Tigray war: The short, medium and long story”, BBC, 29 June 2021 (last visited on August 26, 2021)
[v]Declan Walsh and Abdi Latif Dahir, “Why is Ethiopia at War With Itself” (last visited on August 26, 2021).
[vi]Declan Walsh and Abdi Latif Dahir, “Why is Ethiopia at War With Itself” (last visited on August 26, 2021).
[vii]Declan Walsh and Abdi Latif Dahir, “Why is Ethiopia at War With Itself”(last visited on August 26, 2021).
[viii]Declan Walsh and Abdi Latif Dahir, “Why is Ethiopia at War With Itself” (last visited on August 26, 2021).