All Is Not Quiet on Ethiopia’s Western Front

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How Addis Ababa deals with ethnic violence in the region of Benishangul-Gumuz will determine the country’s future.

BY Foreign Policy | TOM GARDNER  

On Dec. 22, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed visited the vast lowland territory of Metekel in Ethiopia’s far western region of Benishangul-Gumuz, the so-called homeland of five indigenous ethnic groups of which the most populous are the Berta and the Gumuz. It was his first known visit to Metekel, a strategically important area that includes the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and which has been afflicted by an endless string of gruesome, ethnically targeted massacres in recent months. “The desire by enemies to divide Ethiopia along ethnic & religious lines still exists,” Abiy tweeted following a meeting with local residents and officials. “This desire will remain unfulfilled.”

The next day, more than 200 people—ethnic Amharas, Oromos, and Shinasha—in the village of Bekoji were slaughtered by heavily armed men from the local Gumuz ethnic group in a devastating raid that began at dawn. “No value added,” an angry resident of Assosa, the regional capital, told me over the phone after Abiy’s visit. “He came for nothing.”

The trip to Metekel came a little less than a month after Abiy declared victory in the northern region of Tigray, where Ethiopia’s armed forces have been battling the country’s erstwhile ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which dominated Ethiopian politics for decades before it was sidelined by Abiy. Yet that war is not over: Fighting persists in several places, and more than 50,000 people have so far fled to Sudan. The TPLF, whose leadership withdrew to the mountains on Nov. 28, continues assaults against a coalition of Ethiopian federal troops, militiamen from the neighboring Amhara region, as well as an unconfirmed number of soldiers from Eritrea to the north.

While the Tigray war rumbles on, violence elsewhere is spreading to an extent the central government cannot ignore.

But the visit to Metekel was a sign that while the Tigray war rumbles on, violence elsewhere is spreading to an extent the central government cannot ignore. Numerous civilians in Wollega, the far west of Oromia, Abiy’s home region, were killed last month, amid fighting between government forces and Oromo insurgents (who have also suffered hundreds of casualties in recent weeks). The government blamed the rebels for carrying out a massacre of at least 19 civilians. As in Metekel, many of these victims were ethnic Amhara living as minorities in the region.

In both territories, the army has been deployed to restore order: The government of Benishangul-Gumuz called for federal assistance four months ago, following a series of killings that began on Sept. 6. (Federal troops were first sent to Wollega in early 2019.) Prefiguring an approach that would soon be taken on a much larger scale in Tigray, security operations reportedly have also involved Amhara regional security forces, which crossed over the border into Metekel.

The deployment of such regional forces—well armed and ethnically exclusive—is a troubling feature of recent conflicts throughout Ethiopia, but Abiy’s extensive reliance on Amhara troops in Tigray, and to a still limited extent in Benishangul-Gumuz, highlights their growing importance to his security strategy, a development viewed with skepticism by some, including those in his own Oromo camp, who resent their ascendancy.

The fighting in Benishangul-Gumuz has since fragmented, with elements of the local regional security apparatus siding with Gumuz militiamen against the federal army and the line between Gumuz combatants and civilians blurring. “The response of the federal army is to take action on all Gumuz because they can’t identify terrorists from civilians,” a driver working for the regional government forces in Metekel told me.

The bloodshed is also increasingly grisly. Witnesses in Metekel report summary executions, the slaughtering of babies, and the disemboweling of corpses by Gumuz militias. Calls for stronger military measures, particularly from Amhara, are growing louder. In early December, Amhara’s chief of police said he had requested permission from the federal government to intervene in Benishangul-Gumuz. A few days later, a spokesperson for the Amhara regional government warned that if massacres continued, then the state would begin a “second chapter” of the war in Tigray—this time in Benishangul-Gumuz. In October, the country’s deputy prime minister, who is ethnic Amhara, called for Amharas in Benishangul-Gumuz to arm themselves. On Dec. 24, Abiy said he was sending even more troops to the region.

Formally incorporated into the Ethiopian Empire in the late 19th century, Benishangul-Gumuz has long been a frontier space between more powerful neighbors: the Sudanese to the west, highland Ethiopians to the northeast, Oromos to the south. Its indigenous populations—of which the Gumuz, Berta, and Shinasha ethnic groups are the largest—were prey to slave-raiding from all three for centuries and treated as racial inferiors for many years after.

Under Ethiopia’s 1995 constitution, which was largely devised by the TPLF, Benishangul-Gumuz was granted a degree of formal autonomy, with leaders drawn from the local elites. The Benishangul-Gumuz constitution, revised in 2002, designated five ethnic groups as “owners” but excluded the many Amharas, Oromos, Tigrayans, and Agaws who are deemed residents, not citizens.

The Benishangul-Gumuz constitution, revised in 2002, designated five ethnic groups as “owners” but excluded the many Amharas, Oromos, Tigrayans, and Agaws who are deemed residents, not citizens.

They are permitted to vote but cannot, in effect, run for elected office—though they are represented to varying degrees in the local bureaucracy. This makes explicit what is only implicit in the federal constitution: a division between “natives” and “outsiders” whose formal rights, in particular to land, are unequal.

Some of these so-called outsiders were settled in the region in the 1980s, as part of the then-military government’s response to the droughts and famines of that decade. But recently their ranks have swelled, with migrants from the densely populated highlands looking for untouched land or work on commercial plantations; Benishangul-Gumuz is one of the few places in Ethiopia where it is still possible to acquire sizable tracts.

In Metekel, this typically meant Gumuz being pushed out by Amharas and Agaws, many of whom were later evicted in turn; in Kamashi, in southern Benishangul-Gumuz, the pressure came from the Oromos of Wollega. The construction of the GERD in Metekel, close to the border with Sudan, has created new jobs and resources that largely benefit non-Gumuz groups; at the same time, though, it has accelerated the scramble for preeminence in the region.

Seen from a longer view, low-intensity violence is less the exception than the norm. Benishangul-Gumuz was also plagued by rebellion and communal conflict in the early 1990s, an era that shares similarities with the messy shift that began in 2018.

Typically, violence was between so-called settlers (known locally as qey, or “light-skinned”) and the indigenous groups, but it also occurred among the so-called outsiders—Oromos, Amharas, Tigrayans, Agaws—too: The brief occupation of Assosa in 1988 by the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) resulted in a massacre of around 300 Amhara peasants. In 2018, after the OLF returned from exile at Abiy’s invitation, there was a renewed bout of violence between the Oromos and Gumuz over land and resources in Kamashi, which includes rich gold deposits. Scores of people died, and some 150,000 were driven from their homes.

But now the violence is a matter of national importance and not only because of its exceptional scale and intensity. It is also an essential part of the arsenal of allegations deployed by the federal government to justify military intervention in Tigray. This was spelled out in a Nov. 12 statement from the prime minister’s office, which claimed that the “hidden hands of the TPLF” were behind killings of civilians in all corners of the country as part of a plot to destabilize the new administration.

A TV documentary produced by the federal police and broadcast on state-owned channels four days earlier was more specific. It claimed that individuals including a Tigrayan businessman in Metekel had been paid by one of the TPLF’s founders, Abay Tsehaye, to organize Gumuz militias and attack Amhara civilians in the region. At other times, the federal government has claimed that the violence has been orchestrated to interrupt the construction of the GERD, a source of tension between Ethiopia and downstream Egypt that Abiy believes the TPLF has tried to exacerbate.

Such notions are also pervasive within the region itself. “The TPLF are the ones disturbing everything, everywhere,” a resident of Assosa told me in October. As in other peripheral parts of Ethiopia, including neighboring Gambella, the relative underdevelopment of Benishangul-Gumuz has long accorded outsiders disproportionate economic power and influence.

The TPLF’s dominance of the previous ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, and its related patronage networks before 2018 meant Tigrayans were particularly prominent. They owned some of the largest agricultural investments, especially in Metekel, while TPLF-owned or affiliated businesses enjoyed a substantial share of subsidiary contracts in, for instance, the construction sector (as they commonly did elsewhere in Ethiopia).

The fact that the region’s president, Ashadli Hasen, a Berta, was appointed in 2016 and has not been replaced gives an illusion of continuity. But in reality TPLF influence in the region has waned since 2018. Several Tigrayan investors have had their licenses revoked for failing to develop their agricultural leases (a pattern seen elsewhere in the country), while others—reportedly including a wealthy hotel owner in Assosa, according to local sources—have been arrested. Tigrayans are also less prominent in the local bureaucracy than they once were. All this suggests that the carnage in Metekel may be less the result of deliberate sabotage by the TPLF than of a chaotic rush to fill the vacuum that it left behind.

There is, however, little doubt that Amhara civilians have borne the brunt of the bloodshed. Gumuz militias have reportedly told their victims that they would be killed for not respecting orders to leave their region.

“In terms of population, the Amhara are the second most populous in Benishangul-Gumuz. In terms of influence, the Amhara are the most influential, especially in the towns. In terms of the economy, they play a leading role. All these factors contributed to the killings. Why? Because the indigenous populations think the resources are controlled by ‘others,’” a senior Amhara official told me in November.

But it is also clear that violence has gone the other way, too. In 2019, some 200 Gumuz (and Shinasha) were allegedly killed by Amhara militias following tit-for-tat clashes on the Amhara side of the disputed border between the regions, which locals in Benishangul-Gumuz complain went unreported and unpunished. “The government kept silent. They didn’t take action against those who committed that crime,” said Zegeye Belew, a student in Assosa. “Nobody speaks about that genocide.”

During Abiy’s visit, a Gumuz participant in the meeting alleged that Amhara militias and youth groups were “blindly invading” the region in order to grab the land. “They want to chase us away. They’re saying the Gumuz are Sudanese,” he said. “The people of Gumuz were belittled in the past. But now we’re told that we should be exterminated.”

So far the federal government appears to have avoided picking sides. In his speech in Metekel, the prime minister implicitly acknowledged that both sides were at fault and advised neither to pursue revenge. But he also warned the Benishangul-Gumuz leadership that he would take further action if they failed to keep order and indicated that they should heed lessons from what happened in Tigray. On Dec. 23, the regional government said it had arrested several senior Gumuz officials for alleged complicity in the conflict, including the region’s deputy police chief. More than 1,000 people have been arrested and will be detained for three to six months without trial, according to the police.

But should the violence go on much longer, Abiy may find it increasingly difficult to resist pressure from Amhara leaders to take firmer action.

Abiy may find it increasingly difficult to resist pressure from Amhara leaders to take firmer action.

This might, in an extreme scenario, mean giving a green light to the Tigray approach: a full-scale intervention by federal troops, supported by further Amhara security forces, with the goal of removing the regional leadership and installing a regime more amenable to them. Alternatively, Amhara nationalists, whose clout has grown since the start of the war in Tigray, might insist on annexation of parts of Metekel, which they regard as historically theirs.

This is already the case in disputed parts of western and southern Tigray, which—following bloody battles, atrocities, and at least one possible war crime (reportedly by a TPLF-linked militia)—are now effectively under Amhara administration. Benishangul-Gumuz leaders have made it clear that they believe this to be their neighbor’s intention in Metekel, too. “The Amhara people are trying to make Metekel their own,” said a local journalist in Assosa. “So the owners are protesting.”

Such an approach might stamp out attacks on Amharas and other minorities in Metekel. But it would create serious political difficulties for Abiy, not least among his Oromo allies who fear he has already ceded too much to Amhara irredentism and worry the next step is a wholesale rewriting of the 1995 federal constitution.

This controversial document has plenty of support in Oromia and other parts of southern Ethiopia, for ostensibly guaranteeing ethnic self-rule after what those supporters regard as a century or more of Ethiopian imperialism with Amharas at the helm. But it is loathed by many Amharas for its perceived failure to guarantee their rights and security in parts of the country where, for historic reasons, they are settled in large numbers.

Equally, should Amharas be seen to acquire too much of an upper hand in Metekel, Oromos within and outside the ruling party may seek to step up their own demands in Kamashi or even give tacit support to the activities of Oromo insurgents in parts of Metekel itself, thereby turning Benishangul-Gumuz into a proxy battleground between Ethiopia’s two largest ethnic groups.

While Abiy might resist the demands of Amhara nationalists over Metekel, that would risk jettisoning increasingly important allies; he is also under pressure from them to take a stronger line in an increasingly bloody dispute with Sudan over its international border with Amhara. In recent days, federal troops are reported to have been redeployed from Tigray to the Sudan front, where they are again alleged to have fought alongside Amhara militias in a string of clashes around the disputed Fashqa triangle.

These developments are straining already stretched military resources and risk bogging the country down further in interethnic warfare. The alternative would be the sort of all-inclusive national dialogue that puts everything on the table: territorial boundaries, rights and access to land, the political representation of minorities, as well as justice for past crimes. Whichever path is taken, the consequences will be profound and lasting.

Tom Gardner is a journalist based in Addis Ababa, covering Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

 

The Trouble With Ethiopia’s Ethnic Federalism

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The reforms by the country’s new prime minister are clashing with its flawed Constitution and could push the country toward an interethnic conflict.

Source: NYT Opinion | Mahmood Mamdani

Abiy Ahmed, the 42-year-old prime minister of Ethiopia, has dazzled Africa with a volley of political reforms since his appointment in April. Mr. Abiy ended the 20-year border war with Eritrea, released political prisoners, removed bans on dissident groups and allowed their members to return from exile, declared press freedom and granted diverse political groups the freedom to mobilize and organize.

Mr. Abiy has been celebrated as a reformer, but his transformative politics has come up against ethnic federalism enshrined in Ethiopia’s Constitution. The resulting clash threatens to exacerbate competitive ethnic politics further and push the country toward an interethnic conflict.

The 1994 Constitution, introduced by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front governing coalition, recast the country from a centrally unified republic to a federation of nine regional ethnic states and two federally administered city-states. It bases key rights — to land, government jobs, representation in local and federal bodies — not on Ethiopian citizenship but on being considered ethnically indigenous in constituent ethnic states.

The system of ethnic federalism was troubled with internal inconsistencies because ethnic groups do not live only in a discrete “homeland” territory but are also dispersed across the country. Nonnative ethnic minorities live within every ethnic homeland.

Ethiopia’s census lists more than 90 ethnic groups, but there are only nine ethnically defined regional assemblies with rights for the officially designated majority ethnic group. The nonnative minorities are given special districts and rights of self-administration. But no matter the number of minority regions, the fiction of an ethnic homeland creates endless minorities.

Ethnic mobilization comes from multiple groups, including Ethiopians without an ethnic homeland, and those disenfranchised as minorities in the region of their residence, even if their ethnic group has a homeland in another state.

Ethnic federalism also unleashed a struggle for supremacy among the Big Three: the Tigray, the Amhara and the Oromo. Although the ruling E.P.R.D.F. is a coalition of four parties, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front representing the Tigray minority has been in the driving seat since the 1991 revolution. The Amhara, dominant before 1991, and the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in the country, complained they were being treated as subordinate minorities.

When the government announced plans to expand Addis Ababa, the federally run city-state, into bordering Oromo lands, protests erupted in 2015. The Amhara joined and both groups continued to demand land reform, equal political representation and an end to rights abuses.

Prime Minister Haile Mariam Desalegn, who took office in 2012 after the death of the long-term premier and Tigray leader Mr. Zenawi, responded brutally to the protests. Security forces killed between 500 and 1,000 protesters in a year. Faced with a spiraling crisis, the ruling E.P.R.D.F. coalition appointed Mr. Abiy, a former military official and a leader of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization — a constituent of the ruling coalition — as prime minister.

Mr. Abiy’s reforms have been applauded but have also led to greater ethnic mobilization for justice and equality. The E.P.R.D.F.’s achievement since 1991 was equal education for girls and boys, rural and urban, leading to greater prominence of women, Muslims and Pentecostal groups.

The recent reforms of Mr. Abiy, who was born to a Muslim Oromo father and an Orthodox Amhara mother and is a devout Pentecostal Christian, have further broadened political participation to underprivileged groups.

Mobilization of ethnic militias is on the rise. Paramilitaries or ethnic militias known as special police, initially established as counterinsurgency units, are increasingly involved in ethnic conflicts, mainly between neighboring ethnic states. A good example is the role of the Somali Special Force in the border conflict with the Oromia state, according to Yonas Ashine, a historian at Addis Ababa University. These forces are also drawn into conflicts between native and nonnative groups.

Nearly a million Ethiopians have been displaced from their homes by escalating ethnic violence since Mr. Abiy’s appointment, according to Addisu Gebregziabher, who heads the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.

Fears of Ethiopia suffering Africa’s next interethnic conflict are growing. Prime Minister Abiy himself is constantly invoking religious symbols, especially those linked to American Protestant evangelical megachurches, and has brought a greater number of Pentecostals into the higher ranks of government.

Ethiopians used to think of themselves as Africans of a special kind, who were not colonized, but the country today resembles a quintessential African system, marked by ethnic mobilization for ethnic gains.

In most of Africa, ethnicity was politicized when the British turned the ethnic group into a unit of local administration, which they termed “indirect rule.” Every bit of the colony came to be defined as an ethnic homeland, where an ethnic authority enforced an ethnically defined customary law that conferred privileges on those deemed indigenous at the expense of non-indigenous minorities.

The move was a response to a perennial colonial problem: Racial privilege for whites mobilized those excluded as a racialized nonwhite majority. By creating an additional layer of privilege, this time ethnic, indirect rule fragmented the racially conscious majority into so many ethnic minorities, in every part of the country setting ethnic majorities against ethnic minorities. Wherever this system continued after independence, national belonging gave way to tribal identity as the real meaning of citizenship.

Many thought the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, representing a minority in the dominant coalition, turned to ethnic federalism to dissolve and fragment Ethiopian society into numerous ethnic groups — each a minority — so it could come up with a “national” vision. In a way it replicated the British system.

But led by Mr. Zenawi, the T.P.L.F. was also most likely influenced by Soviet ethno-territorial federalism and the creation of ethnic republics, especially in Central Asia. Ethiopia’s 1994 Constitution evoked the classically Stalinist definition of “nation, nationality and people” and the Soviet solution to “the national question.”

As in the Soviet Union, every piece of land in Ethiopia was inscribed as the ethnic homeland of a particular group, constitutionally dividing the population into a permanent majority alongside permanent minorities with little stake in the system. Mr. Zenawi and his party had both Sovietized and Africanized Ethiopia.

Like much of Africa, Ethiopia is at a crossroads. Neither the centralized republic instituted by the Derg military junta in 1974 nor the ethnic federalism of Mr. Zenawi’s 1994 Constitution points to a way forward.

Mr. Abiy can achieve real progress if Ethiopia embraces a different kind of federation — territorial and not ethnic — where rights in a federal unit are dispensed not on the basis of ethnicity but on residence. Such a federal arrangement will give Ethiopians an even chance of keeping an authoritarian dictatorship at bay.

Mahmood Mamdani is the director of Makerere Institute of Social Research in Uganda, a professor of government at Columbia University and the author of “Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism.”

 

Mr. Mamdani is the director of the Institute of Social Research at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and a professor at Columbia University.

05/01/2021 News and Commentary

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Ethiopia in Crisis

Ethiopia’s total debt reached 51% of its GDP

Ethiopia’s total domestic and foreign debt has reached 54.7 billion US Dollar (2.01 trillion birr)  (50.8 percent of the country’s GDP), according to a recent government debt statement.

Source: Reporter 

Desert outbreak in Ethiopia caused 356, 286 metric tonnes of cereal loss

In a joint assessment report by the Ethiopian government and FAO, the desert outbreak in Ethiopia alone caused 356, 286 metric tonnes of cereal loss, along with the destruction of 197,000 ha of cropland, and 1.35 Million ha of pasturelands.

Source: Space in Africa. Satellite Imagery for the Locust Invasion Crisis in Eastern Africa.

Update: The outbreak of desert locusts could reduce production by 3.8 million quintals (ተከስቶ የነበረው የበረሃ አንበጣ ወረርሽኝ የ3.8 ሚሊዮን ኩንታል ምርት ቅናሽ ሊያመጣ እንደሚችል ተጠቆመ።)

ምንጭ: Reporter

4.5 million people seeking urgent humanitarian assistance in Tigray

According to the Interim government of Tigray, more than 4.5 million Tigrayans (of which roughly half are children) are seeking urgent humanitarian assistance. There are also 2.2 million IDPs within the region.

Source: ETV Tigrigna on Facebook

2.3 Million Children Without Access To Humanitarian Aid

“Following the recent crisis in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, an estimated 2.3 million children have been left without access to necessary humanitarian aid. Critical medical supplies provided by international organizations, including vaccines, emergency medications, and sanitation items, are likely running low, as communication and transportation into the region is limited. … About 45% of those crossing the border into Sudan are children. Those remaining in Tigray are currently living without electricity, and running water.”

Source: The Organization for World Peace

Tigray is an ideal staging post for an insurgency

In 2020 Ethiopia plunged into chaos. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, fresh off a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize win, has declared war on the restive province of Tigray. The government claims that the military operation ended after the capture of the Tigray capital, but there are fears that a gorilla conflict will drag on. The region is an ideal staging post for an insurgency, featuring rugged mountain terrain as well as the “gateway to hell”, the Danakil Depression. This sparsely populated desert is one of the lowest and hottest places on earth.

Sources: Explorers Web “The World’s Most Dangerous Places”

TPLF will likely continue to exist as a low-intensity insurgency and many local actors will reject the Ethiopian-appointed state leadership.

Source: Stratfor, 2021 Annual Forecast

ENDF graduated newly trained members

The new recruits were drawn from various parts of the country trained in various military techniques in Tolay, Hurso, & BirSheleko training camps.

Source: EBC News on Facebook

GERD and the HoA

Russia to Establish Navy Base in Sudan for at Least 25 Years

Russia has signed an agreement with Sudan to establish a navy base in the African nation for at least a quarter century, part of Moscow’s efforts to expand its global reach.

Source: Military.com

Pompeo signs order removing Sudan from terror sponsors list

Egypt’s leader meets US treasury chief ahead of Sudan visit

The office of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said in a statement the president and US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin discussed mutual and regional issues, including the latest developments in talks with Sudan and Ethiopia over a disputed dam that Ethiopia is building over the Blue Nile River.

Source: Arab News

Egypt has agreed to reopen airspace with Qatar

 … to end a three-year rift between Qatar, GCC states and Egypt

Source: Doha News

President Trump’s late pullout appears to put politics over antiterror strategy

Since Islamic State lost its physical caliphate in Syria and Iraq, unstable parts of Africa have become more appealing for jihadists looking to claim territory and plot attacks on the West. ISIS has a small presence in Somalia but the greatest threat is al-Shabaab.

Source: WSJ

The U.S. Withdraws from Somalia (Podcast).

Discussing President Trump’s decision to withdraw American force from Somalia.

Source: Long War Journal

The Evolution of the Islamic State Threat in Africa 

Abstract: The annus horribilis Islamic State Central suffered in 2019, during which the group lost the last stretch of its “territorial caliphate” in Iraq and Syria and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed, does not appear to have had a discernible impact on the overall operational trajectory of the Islamic State threat in Africa. Post-2019, the Islamic State’s West Africa Province sustained around the same high level of violence while Islamic State provinces in Libya, Sinai, and Somalia remained pernicious, though generally contained, threats. In some parts of Africa, the group grew as a threat. Both wings of the Islamic State’s new Central Africa Province as well as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara wing of the Islamic State’s West Africa Province escalated their violent campaigns post-2019. The Islamic State’s province in Algeria remains effectively defunct, and though the Islamic State affiliate in Tunisia failed to conduct major attacks, it remained active. As the authors stress in this article and an upcoming book, the overall resilience of the Islamic State in Africa should not be a surprise; it underscores that while connections were built up between Islamic State Central and its African affiliates—with the former providing, at times, some degree of strategic direction, coordination, and material assistance—the latter have historically evolved under their own steam and acted with a significant degree of autonomy.

Source: Combating Terrorism Center

Situation Report EEPA HORN No. 46 – 5 January 2021

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Europe External Programme with Africa is a Belgium-based Centre of Expertise with in-depth knowledge, publications, and networks, specialised in issues of peace building, refugee protection and resilience in the Horn of Africa. EEPA has published extensively on issues related to movement and/or human trafficking of refugees in the Horn of Africa and on the Central Mediterranean Route. It cooperates with a wide network of Universities, research organisations, civil society and experts from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and across Africa. Key in-depth publications can be accessed on the website.

Military situation (as confirmed per 4 January 2021)

● Clashes between Ethiopia and Sudan ended last week, after the Ethiopian army withdrew away from the border.

● More sources are saying that the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) is retreating from rural areas in Tigray towards the capital Mekelle. This corroborates earlier sources.

● Fighting continues to take place around Mekelle. Shelling has been observed near Hagere Selam, 50 kilometers from the regional capital.

● Civilians are afraid of ENDF soldiers as they are said to take revenge on civilians after losing a battle.

● Mechanised infantry of the ENDF is being moved to Tigray, and is heading to Mekelle.

● Satellite pictures show that many fields surrounding the ENDF Northern Command HQ have been burned. In total 12 ha of land has been set on fire.

Regional situation (as confirmed per 4 January 2021)

● The negotiations on the GERD dam between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have collapsed after Sudan did not attend. Sudan wants to give a greater role to AU experts and observers to facilitate negotiations and reconcile opinions. The EU, US, and AU are observing the talks.

● A Sudanese radio station has reported that Amhara militias kidnapped and killed herders in Sudan. A source told the radio that “the incident is just part of a series of killings and kidnappings carried out by Ethiopian shifta gangs, supported by Ethiopian government forces.”

● The Sudanese government has opened a new refugee camp for Tigrayan refugees. This new camp, in Gedaref state, has a capacity of 30 thousand. 500 refugees are being transferred every day.

● An outbreak of coronavirus in one of the refugee camps has slowed down the transfer of refugees to the new camp.

● Egypt and Sudan have increased cooperation to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood. It includes training in the tolerance of Islam, promoting anti extremist discourse, and a joint missionary convoy.

Situation in Ethiopia (as confirmed per 4 January 2021)

● FEWSNET, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, released its outlook for the coming months (up to May 2021), predicting large food insecurity across Ethiopia. Half the territory will be in the stress or crisis phase. Current and programmed international humanitarian aid are already included in the model.

● In Tigray, food security will likely remain at crisis levels until May.

● Swarms of locusts have caused large scale damages between October and December. Up to 60% of crops were lost as a result. Many eggs are now hatching in the Somali region. They will remain a threat in the coming months.

● FEWSNET predicts below average rainfall in most regions. This will likely result in smaller crop yields and have a negative impact on food security. Low rainfall also encourages locust swarm formation.

● The Amhara Chief Commissioner of Police, Abere Adamu, has given a speech on the involvement of Amhara forces in the conflict with Tigray. According to him, Amhara special forces played an important role in positioning ENDF forces prior to the conflict. The President of Amhara was allegedly also aware that a conflict was going to take place.

● Amhara continued playing an important role in coordinating and guiding ENDF forces, he stated.

● The Amhara Commissioner also said that “deployment of forces had taken place in our borders from east to west. The war started that night, after we have already completed our preparations” implying that the involvement of the Amhara special forces had been prepared and was well on the way before the start of military operations on 4 November 2020.

Situation in Tigray (as confirmed per 4 January 2021)

● A preliminary report by the interim Tigray administration has been released on the damages of the conflict in the region. According to their assessment 4.5 million people need humanitarian assistance. Many houses have been completely destroyed, and 2.2 million people have been internally displaced (IDPs). Half of these IDPs come from Western Tigray.

● The status of 78% of the health facilities in Tigray is unknown. Many of the hospitals have been potentially destroyed or pillaged.

● At the start of the conflict Tigray counted 40 hospitals and 296 ambulances. The report assesses that only 31 ambulances, in four hospitals, remain. The remaining ambulances were stolen or destroyed.

● The University of Mekelle has at least partially been looted. Pictures show that the offices of the College of Veterinary Medicine have been destroyed.

● A delegation from Mekelle University is reportedly in Addis Ababa negotiating the future of the university. Discussions are taking place about the functioning of the university and the take over of Adigrat University students and staff. Future international partnerships are also being discussed.

● Many people in Mekelle fear leaving their houses. They fear being forcefully conscripted into the army.

● Checkpoints have been set up in Tigray, complicating movement in the area.

● A source has said that 150 civilians have been killed by Eritrean soldiers near Nebelet town. This would include 4 muslims guarding the local mosque (at Adi Argudi).

International Situation (as confirmed per 4 January 2021)

● The British minister for Africa, James Duddridge, has said that the UK government is deeply worried about the situation in Tigray and the wider region. The British government continues to raise the importance of the respect for human rights with the Ethiopian government. The UK also works with other regional actors to find a peaceful solution.

Disclaimer:

All information in this situation report is presented as a fluid update report, as to the best knowledge and understanding of the authors at the moment of publication. EEPA does not claim that the information is correct but verifies to the best of ability within the circumstances. Publication is weighed on the basis of interest to understand potential impacts of events (or perceptions of these) on the situation. Check all information against updates and other media. EEPA does not take responsibility for the use of the information or impact thereof. All information reported originates from third parties and the content of all reported and linked information remains the sole responsibility of these third parties. Report to info@eepa.be any additional information and corrections.

Links of interest

https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/eastern-sudan-herder-killed-by-ethiopian-militia
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/12/egypt-sudan-train-imam-religious-muslim-brotherhood.html
https://addisstandard.com/news-analysis-amhara-region-police-chief-reveals-how-regions-police-force-guided-federal-steel-clad-mechanized-forces-to-join-war-in-tigray/
https://www.davidalton.net/2021/01/04/in-a-letter-from-the-africa-minister-james-duddridge-mp-he-says-we-are-deeply-worried-about-the-risks-the-conflict-poses-to-civilian-lives-access-to-tigray-remains-restricted/
https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/desert-locust-bulletin-507-4-january-2020

Ethiopia is set to end its $3.6 billion oil deal with a controversial US firm after probe

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Source: Quartz Africa | By Zecharias Zelalm

Senior officials at Ethiopia’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum say the government is set to rescind an agreement with a US-based self-described energy firm after an investigation by Quartz Africa revealed the company had no petroleum industry expertise or technical credentials.

“We are in the process of canceling our agreement with the company,” says Dr. Koang Tutlam, Ethiopia’s state minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, in a statement sent to Quartz Africa.

GreenComm Technologies, a Virginia-based firm run by an Ethiopian-American former car dealership employee, Nebiyu Getachew, was poised to oversee the construction of a $3.6 billion oil refinery in Ethiopia’s Somali region, after entering into an agreement with the Ethiopian government on April 28.

That agreement had followed at least two years of talks between the entity and the Ethiopian government that included examination of the company’s profile by prominent members of the ministry and an Ethiopian state-run oil firm.

“GreenComm wanted the Ethiopian government to put forward a $100 million letter of credit because they sought to get billions from lenders. But we refused to give in.”

But the investigation revealed the company had made misleading statements about its capabilities and its connections as part of an elaborate scheme. It portrayed itself as an industry leader despite having never completed an oil-related project anywhere, and despite the company being delisted from the Virginia state corporate database when it signed the deal on April 28.

After Quartz Africa’s story was published one local social media user drove to the company’s listed address in Virginia, and found empty office space, with no sign of an extraction company in the area.

Many ordinary Ethiopians at home and in the diaspora were concerned GreenComm had managed to get through the Ethiopian government’s vetting process despite multiple red flags.

Quartz Africa’s Dec. 22 story on the Ethiopia oil deal.

When probed about the agreement earlier this year, Ethiopia’s minister of Mines Takele Uma told Quartz Africa he was unaware of GreenComm’s existence, saying he had “no clue.” His predecessor, Samuel Urkato who has since gone on to become Ethiopia’s minister of Science and Higher Education, acknowledged the existence of the deal when reached by phone, but refused to speak any further, hanging up and ending the call with Quartz Africa.

However, with the revelations made public, ministry representatives have been far more open to addressing press inquiries on the matter. According to Dr. Koang Tutlam, whose office is under minister Takele Uma, there had been resistance to allow GreenComm to operate coming from within the ministry.

“Although the so called GreenComm Technologies project preceded most of us at the ministry, some of us were skeptical about their genuineness from the beginning,” Dr. Koang tells Quartz Africa. “As such, some of us worked hard to prevent the [government] entering into a commitment that would cost the country.”

Koang says the parties agreed to commence with a one-year feasibility study period, before any construction would begin. GreenComm executives, he says, were very keen to pursue a huge advance before delivering any work.

“First, the company wanted the Ethiopian government to put forward a $100 million standby letter of credit, which we learned was because they sought to get billions from lenders. But we refused to give in, despite immense pressure from some heavy quarters.”

Dr. Koang declined to clarify who he meant by “heavy quarters.” However, another official, Mulugeta Damtew Seid, head of state agency Ethiopian Mineral, Petroleum and Biofuel Corporation (EMPB), told Quartz Africa company officials had taken the matter to the Foreign Ministry and even the prime minister’s office. Mulugeta also identified prime minister Abiy’s former chief of staff and Ethiopia’s current ambassador to the US, Fitsum Arega, as having lobbied on GreenComm’s behalf.

Although Fitsum Arega has not previously responded to Quartz Africa’s queries, in  a series of social media postings in response to the story, the ambassador wouldn’t confirm or deny his proximity to GreenComm Technologies, but stated that no deal had been struck to allocate the company with funds. Instead, he claimed, the agreement was solely to assess the feasibility of the project.

“As this study is a private sector foreign direct investment initiative,” Ambassador Fitsum wrote, “no financial resources are committed or promised by the Ethiopian federal or regional government for its implementation.”

Local media reports and statements by the company however, suggest the agreement went beyond a study agreement and that it had actually encompassed the refinery’s construction. Reports stated the American company had recruited Korean construction giant Hyundai Engineering and Construction to assist with its implementation. Hyundai later clarified that this was false and that it had refused an offer to collaborate jointly with GreenComm Technologies after establishing that the company had no active operations.

But Dr. Koang told Quartz Africa that after growing concerns, GreenComm included a clause in their April 28 agreement, obligating the company to deposit a $5 million performance bond as insurance. Something, he says, the company failed to do.

“We are canceling the agreement, but we are also taking legal measures against the company for its failure to release the performance bond,” Dr. Koang explained. “Rest assured, Ethiopia has not lost a penny and wasn’t about to lose anything.”

Greencomm Technologies had first pitched the oil refinery project to the Ethiopian government in 2018, as part of a joint endeavor with the Texas-based Innovative Clear Choice Technologies (ICCT) firm, which similarly had no credentials and was dissolved by February 2020.

Dr. Koang Tutlam was part of the team of officials that studied the joint pitch in 2018. Two years later, there was suddenly no further mention of the existence of ICCT, but this didn’t hinder the remaining company’s ability to hash out a deal.

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የአገሪቱ አጠቃላይ የውስጥና የውጭ ዕዳ 2.01 ትሪሊየን ብር መድረሱን መንግሥት ይፋ አደረገ

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ምንጭ | ሪፖርተር | ዮሐንስ አንበርብር

የዕዳ መጠኑ ከአገሪቱ አጠቃላይ ምርት (ጂዲፒ) 50.8 በመቶ እንደሆነ ተመላክቷል

የኢትዮጵያ አጠቃላይ የአገር ውስጥና የውጭ ብድሮች ዕዳ 2.01 ትሪሊየን ብር መድረሱን፣ ሰሞኑን የወጣው የመንግሥት የዕዳ መጠን መግለጫ ይፋ አደረገ።

የገንዘብ ሚኒስቴር ሰሞኑን ይፋ ያደረገው አጠቃላይ የዕዳ መጠን መግለጫ ሰነድ፣ እ.ኤ.አ. እስከ ሴፕቴምበር 2020 ድረስ ኢትዮጵያ ያለባትን አጠቃላይ የአገር ውስጥና የውጭ ብድሮች ዕዳ የሚገልጽ ነው።

በዚህም መሠረት ማዕከላዊ መንግሥት በቀጥታና መንግሥት በሰጠው የብድር ዋስትና የመንግሥት የልማት ድርጅቶች ከአገር ውስጥና ከውጭ ምንጮች ተበድረው ያልከፈሉት አጠቃላይ ዕዳ 54.7 ቢሊዮን ዶላር እንደ ደረሰ ሰነዱ ያሳያል።

ከአጠቃላይ 54.7 ቢሊዮን ዶላር ውስጥ 28.99 ቢሊዮን ዶላር የሚሆነው ከውጭ የብደር ምንጮች የተገኘ ሲሆን፣ ይህም ሰነዱ በተዘጋጀበት ወቅት በነበረ የብር የውጭ ምንዛሪ ተመን ተሰልቶ 1.06 ትሪሊየን ብር እንደሆነ ሰነዱ ያመለክታል።

ከተጠቀሰው 54.7 ቢሊዮን ዶላር ውስጥ፣ ከውጭ አበዳሪዎች የተገኘው ተቀንሶ የሚቀረው 25.7 ቢሊዮን ዶላር ደግሞ ለአገር ውስጥ የብድር ምንጮች የሚከፈል የአገር ውስጥ ዕዳ እንደሆነ ሰነዱ ያስረዳል። ለአገር ውስጥ የብድር ምንጮች መከፈል፣ ያለበት ዕዳ ይህ የዕዳ መጠን ሰነዱ በተዘጋጀበት ወቅት በነበረ የብር የውጭ ምንዛሪ ተመን ተሠልቶ የቀረበ ሲሆን፣ በዚህ ሥሌት መሠረት የአገር ውስጥ የመንግሥት ዕዳ 945 ቢሊዮን ብር እንደሆነ ተጠቅሷል።

አጠቃላይ ከሆነው 54.7 ቢሊዮን ዶላር የአገር ውስጥና የውጭ የዕዳ መጠን ውስጥ 30.6 ቢሊዮን ዶላር የሚሆነውን በቀጥታ ማዕከላዊ መንግሥትን የሚመለከት ሲሆን፣ ይህም የአጠቃላይ ዕዳው 56 በመቶ ነው።

ከአጠቃላይ የዕዳ መጠን ውስጥ ማዕከላዊ መንግሥትን የሚመለከተው ከተቀነሰ በኋላ የሚቀረው 24.1 ቢሊዮን ዶላር፣ ወይም የአጠቃላይ ዕዳው 44 በመቶ የሚሆነው የመንግሥት የልማት ድርጅቶች ዕዳ ነው።

ከአጠቃላይ የዕዳ መጠን ውስጥ 25.7 ቢሊዮን ዶላር ወይም 945 ቢሊዮን ብር የሚሆነው ከአገር ውስጥ የፋይናንስ ተቋማት የተወሰደ ሲሆን፣ በአመዛኙም ከኢትዮጵያ ንግድ ባንክ የተወሰደ መሆኑን ሰነዱ ያመለክታል።

ከተጠቀሰው የአገር ውስጥ ዕዳ 525 ቢሊዮን ብር የሚሆነውን ያበደረው የኢትዮጵያ ንግድ ባንክ እንደሆነ ማስረጃው መረዳት ተችሏል።

ጠቅላይ ሚኒስትር ዓብይ አህመድ (ዶ/ር) ከጥቂት ወራት በፊት ይህንኑ ሁኔታ ለሕዝብ ተወካዮች ምክር ቤት ማስረዳታቸው የሚታወስ ሲሆን፣ በወቅቱ ባደረጉት ንግግርም መንግሥታቸው ተግባራዊ ማድረግ የጀመረው የኢኮኖሚና የፋይናንስ ዘርፍ ሪፎርም ፈጥኖ ባይደርስ ኖሮ፣ የኢትዮጵያ ንግድ ባንክ የመውደቅ አደጋ ተጋርጦበት ነበር ማለታቸው አይዘነጋም።

መንግሥት እያደረጋቸው ከሚገኙ ሪፎርሞች መካከል የመንግሥት የልማት ድርጅቶች፣ ከኢትዮጵያ ንግድ ባንክ ተበድረው ያልከፈሉትን ዕዳ ቀስ በቀስ ወደ መንግሥት ማዘዋወር አንዱ ተግባራዊ መደረግ የጀመረ የመፍትሔ አማራጭ መሆኑን ሪፖርተር ያገኛቸው ሌሎች መረጃዎች ያመለክታሉ።

ከአጠቃላይ የአገሪቱ ዕዳ ውስጥ ለውጭ አበዳሪዎች የሚከፈለው 28.99 ቢሊዮን ዶላር ወይም 1.06 ትሪሊዮን ብር ግን አለመክፈል የሚቻልበት ሁኔታ ዝግ በመሆኑ፣ የኢትየጵያ ደግሞ በማክሮ ኢኮኖሚ መዛባት ውስጥ በመውደቁ፣ ለመንግሥት ከፍተኛ የራስ ምታት ሆኗል፡፡ መንግሥትም ይኼንኑ ሕመሙን ሳይሸሽግ በተደጋጋሚ ጊዜ ሲገልጸው መቆየቱ ይታወሳል።

ይኼንን የውጭ ዕዳ የመክፈያ ጊዜ እንዲራዘም ከመደራደር ውጪ የመክፈሉ ግዴታ የማይለወጥ እንደሆነ ባለሙያዎች ይገልጻሉ። ይህንን የውጭ ዕዳ ኢትዮጵያ መክፈል እንደማትችል ከተረጋገጠ ደግሞ አገሪቱን ጥቁር መዝገብ ውስጥ እንድትሰፍርና በቀጣይ የውጭ ብድር ፍላጎቷ በር የሚዘጋ ሁኔታን ሊፈጥር እንደሚችል ባለሙያዎች ያስረዳሉ።

የውጭ ዕዳን ሙሉ በሙሉ ማሰረዝ አስቸጋሪ መሆኑን የሚገልጹት ባለሙያዎቹ፣ የቀደሙ የኢትዮጵያ መንግሥታት በአሁኑ ወቅት ከፈረሰችው ሶቪዬት ኅብረት ተበድረው ያልመለሱት ዕዳ፣ አሁንም ድረስ በዓለም የገንዘብ ድርጅት (አይኤምኤፍ) የኢትዮጵያ የውጭ ዕዳ ተብሎ እስካሁን ተመዝግቦ እንደሚገኝ ይገልጻሉ።

አገሪቱ ካለባት የውጭ ዕዳ ውስጥ ብቻ የመንግሥት ልማት ድርጅቶች ድርሻ 36 በመቶ መሆኑን ሰነዱ የሚያመለክት ሲሆን፣ 54.7 ቢሊዮን ዶላር ከሆነው አጠቃላይ የአገሪቱ የአገር ውስጥና የውጭ ዕዳ ውስጥ 44 በመቶው ወይም 24.1 ቢሊዮን ዶላር የሚሆነው የመንግሥት ልማት ድርጅቶች ዕዳ እንደሆነ ይጠቁማል።

አጠቃላይ የመንግሥት ዕዳ የኢኮኖሚ ዕድገት መለኪያ ከሆነው አጠቃላይ የአገር ውስጥ ምርት (GDP) 50.8 በመቶ እንደሚሆን መረጃው ያመለክታል። ከዚህ ውስጥ የመንግሥት ልማት ድርጅቶች የአገር ውስጥ ዕዳ ለብቻው ከአጠቃላይ የአገር ውስጥ ምርት አንፃር 12.5 በመቶ ድርሻ ይዟል።

የአገሪቱ የውጭ ዕዳ አማካይ የመክፈያ ጊዜ 15 ዓመት መሆኑንም መረጃው ያመለክታል።

04/01/2021 – News and Commentary – Tigray War

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Tigray conflict renewed. Sudan refugee crises spiked. 

“The flow of Ethiopian refugees fleeing an armed conflict in Tigray into Sudan has increased over the past few days as the violence has flared up, Sudanese authorities said on Monday. … The number of those fleeing due to the armed conflict, which was renewed between the two parties in recent days, has increased … A total of 61,458 Ethiopians have entered Sudan since the conflict broke out in early November.”

Source: La Prensa Latina

Access to Tigray remains restricted. UK deeply concerned.

“We are deeply worried about the risks the conflict poses to civilian lives and Ethiopia’s overall stability. … Access to Tigray remains restricted.”

Source: African Minister, James Duddridge MP

Interim Mayor of Mekelle admits presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray

“Interim Mayor of Mekelle city, Ataklti Haileselassie, admits presence and participation of Eritrean forces in Tigray war” amid consistent denial by officials both in Addis Ababa and Asmara.

Source: Addis Standard

Amhara police chief admitted preparations already completed before the war brokeout on November 4

Amhara region police chief, Commissioner Abere Adamu, reveals how region’s police force guided federal steel-clad mechanized forces to join “war” in tigray.

Commissioner Abere also revealed that Amhara regional state had “already done [its] homework,” and “deployment of forces had taken place in our borders from east to west. The war started that night after we have already completed our preparations,” he told an audience to several rounds of applause.

Source: Addis Standard

A tripartite talk on GERD resumed, negotations to be held on January 10, 2021.

A tripartite talk on Renaissance Dam resume amid political tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia and border conflict between Sudan and Ethiopia. This week’s talks will pave the way “for the resumption of tripartite negotiations on Sunday January 10 in the hope of concluding by the end of January”, Sudan’s Water Ministry noted.

Source: DW

Sudan boycotted the tripartite ministerial meeting today

“Sudan boycotted the tripartite ministerial meeting held on Monday to discuss the disputed issues regarding the Ethiopian Dam. The meeting was held in the presence of water resources ministers from both Egypt and Ethiopia. … Sudan boycotted the meeting after it had received no response to its call for a bilateral meeting with the experts and observers of the AU on Sunday.”

Source: Daily News Egypt

“Never miss a good chance to shut up.” ― Will Rogers

 “An advisor to occupants of the prime minister’s office for over two decades, Arkebe Oqubay, is vying for the top job at a UN agency.”

Source: Africa Intelligence

The Future of Warfare in 2030

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Source: RAND research

Overview

Who will the United States fight against and who will fight with it? Where will these future conflicts be fought? What will future conflicts look like? How will they be fought? And why will the United States go to war? This report is the overview in a series that draws on a wide variety of data sets, secondary sources, and an extensive set of interviews in eight countries around the globe to answer these questions. The authors conclude that the United States will confront a series of deepening strategic dilemmas in 2030. U.S. adversaries—China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorist groups—will likely remain constant, but U.S. allies are liable to change, and the location of where the United States is most likely to fight wars may not match the locations where conflicts could be most dangerous to U.S. interests. The joint force will likely face at least four types of conflict, each requiring a somewhat different suite of capabilities, but the U.S. ability to resource such a diverse force will likely decline. Above all, barring any radical attempt to alter the trajectory, the United States in 2030 could progressively lose the initiative to dictate strategic outcomes and to shape when and why the wars of the future occur. To meet future demands, the joint force and the U.S. Air Force should invest in more precision, information, and automation; build additional capacity; maintain a robust forward posture; and reinforce agility at all levels of warfare.

Key Findings

The list of U.S. adversaries is likely to remain fixed, but the list of U.S. allies is likely to change

  • China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorist groups will remain top U.S. adversaries.
  • China’s growing influence likely will alter the list of U.S. allies in Asia as countries hedge against Chinese power.
  • In Europe, traditional U.S. allies’ will and capacity to exert force, particularly overseas, will likely decline.

Location of U.S. conflicts can be parsed by likelihood or by risk

  • Three major regions—the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East—are all likely areas for the next war; the Middle East appears most likely, although the Indo-Pacific might pose the greatest danger.

Future conflicts will probably stem from four basic archetypes, namely

  • Counterterrorism,
  • Gray-zone conflicts,
  • Asymmetric fights, and
  • High-end fights

Four overarching trends could shape when and why the United States might go to war

  • U.S. ability to use sanctions in lieu of violence will decline as U.S. and allied economic power declines in relative terms.
  • The rise of strongmen across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East could decrease checks and balances and create incentives for future conflict.
  • As American adversaries become more assertive and push up against U.S. allies’ redlines, the United States could be faced with the difficult choice of entering into a war it does not want or abandoning an ally.
  • External forces could generate conflict, such as accidents and inadvertent escalation, a crisis resulting from climate change, or conflict over scarce resources.

Recommendations

  • Future conflicts will likely place a premium on being able to operate at range. Staying outside adversaries’ missile ranges and basing from afar both could be important factors, and the U.S. military should invest in these capabilities.
  • The United States should invest in increasing military precision to avoid the legal and political backlash that comes with civilian casualties.
  • All branches of the military will need to enhance their information warfare capabilities, especially for gray-zone operations.
  • Because of the trend toward greater use of artificial intelligence, the military will need to invest in automation.

Situation Report EEPA HORN No. 45 – 4 January 2021

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Europe External Programme with Africa is a Belgium-based Centre of Expertise with in-depth knowledge, publications, and networks, specialised in issues of peace building, refugee protection and resilience in the Horn of Africa. EEPA has published extensively on issues related to movement and/or human trafficking of refugees in the Horn of Africa and on the Central Mediterranean Route. It cooperates with a wide network of Universities, research organisations, civil society and experts from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and across Africa. Key in-depth publications can be accessed on the website.

Military situation (as confirmed per 3 January 2021)

● The Federally appointed provisional mayor of Mekelle, Mr. Atakilti Haileslassie, has urged for the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean Troops from Tigray. This is the first time Ethiopian Federally appointed officials have officially admitted that Eritrean soldiers are involved in operations in Tigray.

●  Eritrean military captain Gubssa Kahsay has died. Sources in Tigray state he died during operations with Tigray Defence Forces in Tigray. In Eritrea, EritTV broadcasted his death caused by illness. In the past few weeks, at least five high ranking Eritrean military have died from illness, according toauthorities.

● Report of shooting among Ethiopia National Defense Forces (ENDF) soldiers in a meeting held at Meles Zenawi Academy in Mekelle, Tigray. Federal Ethiopia Prosperity Party military officials ordered federal police and military forces, who are patrolling Mekelle, to fight the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) in mountainous areas where TDF are engaging guerilla warfare. Forces refused to take the order and argued they came to Mekelle to keep peace, order and arrest TPLF leadership; not to engage in a fight with TDF. Dozens were wounded and are receiving medical treatment at Ayder Hospital.

● ENDF formations are reportedly gathering around Mekelle, Tigray, and surrounding towns (including in Qwiha, where shots were fired on 3 January).

● Sudanese military intelligence has said it has arrested 45 TPLF fighters arriving in Sudan.

● Eritrean soldiers in Tigray select people with relatives abroad. They select them by offering people to call relatives. Those with relatives abroad are then detained. The relatives overseas are subsequently extorted for money, with the threat that the relatives will be killed. This has been reported in Rama and other places. Eritrea is involved in abductions for ransom extortion in Sudan and Libya and previously in Egypt.

● Report of severe violence against women: “countless number of women” are victims of physical and sexual abuse and rape, including gang rape. Some of these acts are aggravated by other forms of brutality like shooting victims or mutilating them with knives.

● In Mekelle many women are asking for a post pill as a precaution for avoiding unwanted pregnancy.

● Report that women are kidnapped and taken by armed forces from different parts of the region without any information of their whereabouts. Call made for urgent investigation.

● Unconfirmed report that ethnic Tigray Ethiopians in peacekeeping missions abroad have been redeployed to the Ethiopian-Sudan border and that two Eritrean divisions are surveilling this
operation.

Regional situation (as confirmed per 3 January 2021)

● The Sudanese army deputy of staff has said that Sudan will restore sovereignty over the entire al-Fashqa region which is occupied by ethnic Amhara Ethiopian farmers.

● The dispute over the area of the al Fashaqa on the Ethiopia-Sudan area is rooted in colonial times. Land in use by Ethiopian farmers belongs to Sudan. A compromise was reached in 2008: Ethiopia would acknowledge the legal status of the border, while Sudan would allow the Ethiopian farmers to live there. The status of the agreement has recently been challenged.

● The Egyptian President Al-Sisi has spoken with the Sudanese Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, Al Burhan, stressing “Egypt’s support to Sudan across all fields”.

● An agreement reached between the US and Sudan. The US will provide 111 millionUS$ to pay off bilateral debt, 120 million US$ to help pay the IMF, and 700 million US$ for budgetary assistance.

● The Sudanese finance minister announced the aid would help Sudan to clear its arrears with the World Bank, and make it eligible for the IMF Highly Indebted Poor Countries Programme.

● Negotiations on the Ethiopian GERD dam restarted Sunday under chairmanship of . Representatives of the AU, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan, were in attendance. The meeting was held virtually. The meeting collapsed because Egypt refused to accept a paper put on the table for discussion.

● According to the Ethiopian State Broadcaster Fana, most of the issues regarding the filing and annual operations of the dam are agreed. The differences are about future water development projects on the Abbay Basin and on the “co-relations between the GERD Guidelines and Rules “.

● The number of Tigrayan refugees in Sudan has grown to 61.000. It is estimated 1200 pregnant women are in the camps.
● Refugees in Um Rakoba camp clashed. There have been high tensions between refugees of different ethnic groups. According to the Sudantribune, aid workers have been avoiding these camps as a result.

Situation in Ethiopia (as confirmed per3 January 2021)

● There are concerns about the increase in violence in Ethiopia. The number of massacres that have been taking place in the last months has been increasing in regularity. The Federal government is being confronted with multiple crises at once.

● The OLF, an insurgency mainly fighting in the region of Oromia, has reportedly “graduated” hundreds of new fighters. Recent months have seen a surge in violence in the region.

● Electricity is still not available in the vast majority of Tigray. Satellite images show many towns without lights.

International Situation (as confirmed per 3 January 2021)

● The UNHCR is concerned about the reported forced repatriation of Eritrean refugees from Addis Ababa to Tigray. Many Eritreans fleeing the conflict in Tigray have been forced to return to the camps they
left in november. UNHCR is requesting access to all facilities at which refugees are being held.

● The ENDF has left the Shire area, where the Eritrean refugees in Tigray are hosted, reportedly under control of Eritrean troops and this area is not safe for Eritrean refugees who fled Eritrea.

● It was further announced that Eritrean refugees will not be allowed outside of camps without a pass.

Links of interest

https://www.africanews.com/2020/12/31/sudanese-army-retake-border-area-with-ethiopia/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55476831
https://sudantribune.com/spip.php?article70283
https://sudantribune.com/spip.php?article70287
https://www.awashpost.com/2021/01/02/mounting-violence-in-ethiopia-exposes-deepening-fault-lines-and-leadership-crisis/

The Potential Impact Of Us Troop Withdrawal For The Future Of Somalia

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The decision of the outgoing Trump administration to pull out US troops from Somalia by 15 January has come at a particularly critical period for the East African region. This could have broader security and humanitarian implications, threatening the progress of the past decade and leaving the country exposed to the influence of regional actors. 

Source: Global Risk Insight

The changing security landscape and the limits of Somalia’s military dependence

On 4 December 2020, President Trump announced the withdrawal of the US from Somalia by 15 January 2021. This decision serves the administration’s stated goal of reducing US presence globally, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. Specifically, the US is expected to withdraw all of its 700 troops in Somalia, which mainly have been tasked with providing training and conducting counterterrorism missions against al-Shabaab and IS. It is expected that the US forces will continue conducting airstrikes against al-Qaeda’s affiliate, al-Shabaab, operating from the US stations in nearby Kenya and Djibouti. In fact, the majority of US forces in Somali will be redeployed to these two neighbouring countries. 

In November 2020 the country’s greatest security guarantor in the region, Ethiopia was caught into a one-month internal conflict with its own breakaway region of Tigray, exposing Somalia’s security dependence. Prioritising the conflict in its own territory, Addis Ababa withdrew its own troops from its neighbouring state in order to redeploy them in the fight against Tigray People’s Liberation Front.  Following Ethiopia’s withdrawal of its non-AMISOM forces (approximately 600 troops) from Somalia, Trump administration’s decision could leave a disastrous security vacuum.

Even though 80% of governmental employees are employed in Somalia’s security sector, the local community, sub-federal authorities and the national government itself have historically relied on the role of militia groups in the fight against insurgents or terrorists. These state-aligned groups of militias have often taken advantage of their importance by exercising abusive power and control at local level. Absent of the US military presence in Somalia, and given the reduced Ethiopian military footprint, the complementary importance of these groups to the Somalian official security forces could increase, sustaining a culture of impunity and questioning the rule of law and the long-term stability.

The local political context and the security situation

The withdrawal of US troops from Somalian soil takes place during a peculiar period for Somalia. Firstly, Somalia is expected to hold both parliamentary and presidential elections in the next two months. A standoff between the ruling party and the opposition groups has currently stalled the electoral procedure. Initial deadlines have already been missed. The public is increasingly losing faith in the electoral process as competing interests between federal and regional authorities and groups could threaten the current fragile balance.

Secondly, the state of Somalia is currently fighting against both Al-Shabaab in its southern and central regions, and the Islamic State in Puntland, a self-administering entity since the late 1990s. Even though Al-Shabaab officially holds control of less territory compared to 2011, the organisation is increasingly pervasive across Somalian territory, including in Somaliland and Puntland. It is currently in charge of a parallel system of governance, relying heavily on the extraction of money, crops and other resources from the rural population in the areas of its control. Bombing attacks against civilians and suicide attacks launched in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, by Al-Shabaab have intensified in 2020. Since 2010, it has been responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 civilians. Indeed, the US withdrawal means a blow for the Somali forces – in both psychological and operational terms –  at a critical stage in their fight against these terrorist groups and their efforts to secure the Horn of Africa.

Regional competition and intra-national divisions

As the US is stepping out of the country, regional powerful actors are vying for greater influence, adding Somalia to their broader geopolitical calculations. Thus, Somalia has become a theatre of the regional competition in the Gulf between the competing blocks of Turkey and Qatar on the one side, and Saudi Arabia and UAE on the other.

Turkey, one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with Somalia following the termination of its civil war in 2011, was among the key contributors to the humanitarian relief efforts during the drought of the same year. Since then, Ankara has expanded its presence both commercially and militarily.  Additionally, Mogadishu was one of the few regional capitals choosing to abstain from the blockade against Qatar imposed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE and Bahrain in 2017. Since then, Qatar has politically and diplomatically backed Somalia’s current president and has pledged significant economic support, mainly through financial and infrastructural aid. Currently, Doha is moving ahead with the construction of a new port in the central Somalian town of Hobyo.

On the other hand, UAE maintains military presence in Somaliland, a non-recognised self-declared country internationally considered to be part of Somalia, while Saudi Arabia has recognised Somaliland’s passports. Moreover, the UAE has cultivated ties with opposition parties and other federal states within the country, mostly through its own economic aid and investments. For the time being, the influence of the two regional blocks in Somalia has been restrained.

Finally, with regards to the US interest and the broader geopolitical implications, the withdrawal could also allow China, a country maintaining a naval base in neighbouring Djibouti and increasingly concerned about further potential instability in the Horn of Africa due to its ambitious geo-economic projects. Filling the void, Beijing could choose to step up its maritime security cooperation with US partners present in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Similarly, the US strong presence in the area has so far prevented Russia from establishing a naval base in the Horn of Africa. However, the current developments could embolden Kremlin’s reported plans of establishing their own base in Somaliland’s port of Berbera. 

Interstate regional competitions through proxies and the support of opposing local parties in intra-state power plays could prove detrimental to the country’s fragile internal unity, undermining years of state-building efforts. Additionally, Somalia’s state structures, including the local police and the security forces, are struggling in the fight against phenomena of endemic corruption and fiscal mismanagement. Given these chronic problems, underpaid governmental forces are subject to foreign influence, bribing and infiltrations, providing foreign actors with a fertile ground for maneuvers.

The examples of proxy wars in a variety of different ongoing conflicts (Yemen, Syria, Libya), largely driven by the geopolitical aspirations of regional powerhouses, could serve as a cautionary tale for Somalia, a country characterised by ethnic divisions. Overall, the vacuum created by the US withdrawal could render Somalia into an increasingly geopolitically  contested  arena.

The volatile situation in the Horn of Africa and the upcoming Biden Administration

Hence, the international community needs to pay closer attention to the Horn of Africa. Past experience has shown that societal unrest and conflicts – both inter-state and intra-state ones- in this region are closely interconnected. Presently, it remains unclear whether the upcoming Biden administration will reverse the withdrawal decision.  Nevertheless, the capacity of the Somalian state to exercise monopoly of control remains highly relied on the US’ high profile alignment with its government in the security sphere. A resurgence of terrorist groups such as Al-Shabaab in Somalia remains more likely in 2021, following the US withdrawal and could result in another humanitarian and refugee crisis with a potential spillover of violence.