According to a report by Robert Malley, President and CEO of International Crisis Group, published on Foreign Policy, the War on Tigray is one of the 10 conflicts the world should watch in 2021:
Source: Quartz Africa | By Zecharias Zelalm
An Ethiopian-American investor and his partners are on the brink of pulling off an elaborate scheme that may unfairly take advantage of Ethiopia’s long-held ambitions to build its own oil & gas industry and become energy independent.
Nebiyu Getachew, 48, chief executive of GreenComm Technologies, a Virginia-based energy firm, signed a $3.6 billion deal with Ethiopia’s ministry of Mines and Petroleum on April 28 to construct an oil refinery in Ethiopia’s oil-rich Somali region.
But checks reveal little evidence GreenComm Technologies and its key executives have the expertise or experience to take on this major project. The company has no known industry credentials and has been delisted from the Virginia corporate database on two occasions, likely for failure to pay company registration fees on time. Read more
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.
– The TPFL broadcaster Dimtsi Woyanen (DW) reports victories by the TPLF including over the ENDF 4th brigade moving from Adwa through Edaga Arbi. The TPLF claims it ambushed them in Zongi, and 124 soldiers were killed, and 114 captured, as well as weapons, ammunition, vehicles and a 507 rocket.
– The TPLF also claims that it has captured ENDF colonel Alemu Semie, commander of the 4th brigade.
– Eritrean troops were blocked on the way from Ahsea around Ziban Guila, carrying large amounts of looted property. They took many casualties and were forced to turn back.
– According to DW the ENDF aligned forces are committing atrocities on civilians in Gijet, southern Tigray through heavy bombardment and killed 21 youth, including a 7 year old child.
– The economist has published an article which argues that there is mounting evidence of an Eritrean presence in Ethiopia. This “makes it harder to bring peace to Tigray”.
– Eight hundred ENDF and Eritrean troops have gathered at the Trans Ethiopia PLC camp in Mekelle. They reportedly retreated from Agula and May Mekden. Their commander is severely wounded.
– Eritrean soldiers in Tigray have reportedly only passed through, and have not occupied any positions.
– Pictures show that medical equipment and pharmacies of health centers in Wukro, Negash, Idagahamus and Adigrat towns were completely destroyed and looted – allegedly by Eritrean troops.
– Tsedale Lemma (Addis Standard) states that: “No armed conflict in the world, much less politically complex as the one in Tigray, has ever been resolved without a roundtable negotiated settlement.”
– The Ethiopia crisis has a direct impact on South Sudan since Ethiopia is the major contributor of UNMISS and UNISFA-Abyei. Ethiopia is the head of the Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangement Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (CTSAMM) and has a reasonable contribution of forces under CTSAMM. The crisis in Ethiopia is affecting its ability to engage with South Sudan.
– Refugees report they were hunted down by militia trying to escape to Sudan fleeing without anything.
– A Dutch humanitarian organization ZOA staff member is killed in Tigray, Ethiopia. The 52 year old staff member was murdered during the recent conflict while on duty in Hitsats refugee camp.
– United Nations Human Rights Chief, Bachelet, demands access to the whole of Tigray.
– Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summons the Ethiopian chargé d’affaires to Cairo to clarify statements by the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson on Egypt’s internal affairs.
– An AU initiated negotiation on the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is scheduled for Sunday. Agreement was almost reached in 2020, but fell through. The outcome of the negotiations will be influenced by the dispute on land-ownership at the Ethiopia-Sudan border, fueling conflict.
– The UN has reiterated its Human Rights chief’s demands for access to the whole of Tigray.
– Article in Foreign Affairs points out that PM Abiy is facing a legitimacy issue with ethnic tensions rising all over Ethiopia, causing a precarious situation. The article finds the conflict in Tigray is not over.
– US Council on Foreign Relations writes that misinformation and suppression of free speech erodes the credibility of PM Abiy.
– Sources state that the church in Yeha, an archeological site, was looted, allegedly by Eritrean troops.
– Sources state that the school in Yeha, where many were taking shelter, was bombed. No information on casualties. Eritrean troops reportedly moved from Adwa through Yeha without occupying it.
– Sources state that there were killings in the village of Tashi (27-29/12). Federal soldiers started killing young men in the settlement area after they did not receive information about the whereabouts of TPLF leadership and militias. Tashi is located near Samre, where fighting has been taking place.
– Money transfers via Western Union and Moneygram are possible in Mekelle since 29/12. It is not clear whether people can access their regular accounts.
– Internet and mobile services remain cut in most of Tigray. While services have been partially returned to Mekelle, large areas of Tigray remain cut off.
– VICE reported on interviews with refugees in Sudan stating that civilians were not warned, prepared and protected. Civilian houses and people in their homes were shelled during the bombardment.
– In another interview, a refugee from Tigray in Sudan reported seeing people killed and “slaughtered”, he saw many dead bodies on the way and stated that many died on the way.
– VICE also reported that militias are blocking refugees from Tigray to reach Sudan. Refugees are now crossing Sudan through the Eritrean border with Sudan and also through Ethiopian farmlands.
– Over 20 Eritrean refugees fleeing from tigray, were arrested by federal police in Addis Ababa (30/12).
– The Ethiopian Red Cross reported that 207 people were killed in the attack at around 04:00 local time (23/12) in the village of Bekoji in Bulen county in the Metekel zone (Benishangul-Gumuz region).
– ENDF chief now in charge of Benishangul-Gumuz, says 50 perpetrators of the massacre are captured.
– 97.000 people have been displaced as a result of ethnic violence in Benishangul-Gumuz.
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.
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/12/30/evidence-mounts-that-eritrean-forces-are-in-ethiopia
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1ukq3h-fUshA0a0ZDcSI22WHbfC6PnKtX&shorturl=1&ll=26.16920359729128%2C-14.51459589999999&z=2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_wWwfTso7I&feature=youtu.be
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2020/12/29/the-murky-politics-behind-the-metekel-massacres/
https://twitter.com/UNGeneva/status/1344323612694568961?s=08
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2020-12-30/abiy-ahmeds-crisis-legitimacy
https://www.cfr.org/blog/amid-misinformation-and-suppressed-free-speech-ethiopian-conflict-erodes-abiys-credibility
https://youtu.be/9bAOhqV8bWU
War and Ethnic Discrimination Could Be the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s Undoing.
Source | Foreign Affairs | By Nic Cheeseman and Yohannes Woldemariam
In early November, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed began a military offensive against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, an estranged regional government that once dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition. Abiy’s forces swiftly captured major cities in Tigray, inflicting heavy causalities on the TPLF and sparking fears of a wider conflict that could extend well beyond the country’s borders.
Now, Abiy insists that the war in Tigray is over. He claims that his forces won a decisive victory over the TPLF and that reports of a continuing insurgency are false. The prime minister has even resumed his normal calendar of official events, traveling to northern Kenya earlier this month to open a new border post with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta—and no doubt to reinforce the impression that Ethiopia has returned to business as usual.
The reality in Tigray is very different. Ethiopian forces now hold much of the region, but they do not enjoy total control, and many TPLF leaders and fighters remain at large. One of the reasons that Ethiopian forces were able to capture the regional capital of Mekelle so quickly was that the TPLF had already pulled many of its fighters back and dispersed them across the region’s rural areas and mountainous hinterlands. The TPLF came to power in 1991 by using guerilla tactics against the Derg regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Now, it has reverted to those practices and appears to have launched a series of small-scale attacks against Ethiopian forces, although it is impossible to know how frequent or effective these attacks have been because Addis Ababa has imposed a news blackout on the region.
Another sustained and bloody insurgency is impossible to rule out. A Tigrayan uprising could also prove contagious, invigorating or even fusing with rebellions in other parts of the country. And even if Ethiopian forces eventually succeed in eliminating the TPLF, deep popular resentment at the prime minister’s perceived aggression will continue to fester, giving rise to a new generation of anti-Abiy leaders who will do everything in their power to resist Addis Ababa.
Beyond Tigray, the war has accelerated what was already a creeping crisis of legitimacy for Abiy. Less than three years after embarking on democratic reforms and one year after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the Ethiopian prime minister finds himself on a war footing and governing more through coercion than through compromise. With no unifying narrative to legitimize his authority and with international support wavering, Abiy may find the fallout from the Tigrayan war much harder to manage than the war itself.
Abiy was quick to claim that the people of Tigray celebrated their “liberation” by Ethiopian troops. In fact, the military offensive humiliated the TPLF and in doing so, stoked Tigrayan nationalism. For 28 years before Abiy came to power, the TPLF had dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition, known as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), while fiercely defending Tigrayan autonomy. Abiy’s selection as prime minister in 2018 broke the TPLF’s hold on power and stripped away many of its privileges. As a result, Abiy’s attempts to subdue Tigray militarily and to bring its government under his control have engendered deep antipathy toward the central government.
Abiy’s regime made matters worse with a campaign of systematic discrimination. While its forces were storming Tigray, Addis Ababa set about removing Tigrayan officials from embassies, from the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, and even from the national airline. According to Human Rights Watch, Tigrayans living outside of Tigray are increasingly being harassed, including through arbitrary raids on their homes by the security forces. Even Ethiopia’s own Human Rights Commission has said that it is “gravely concerned” about the ethnic profiling of Tigrayans, “manifested in forced leave from work and in stopping people from traveling overseas including on work missions, for medical treatment or studies.”
Beyond Tigray, the war has accelerated what was already a creeping crisis of legitimacy for Abiy.
The perception that Addis Ababa is punishing Tigrayans around the country will no doubt fuel the insurgency. But the TPLF faces an uphill battle against the Ethiopian state. TPLF fighters became experts at guerilla warfare during the conflict that toppled the Derg, but Abiy’s government is a much stronger opponent—and the international environment is much less favorable to Tigray than it was in the 1980s. Back then, the TPLF had the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front as an ally. Now, Eritrea is an independent country that sees the TPLF as an enemy. Tigrayan leaders also find themselves sandwiched between Eritrea and Sudan, with no easy access to an international border through which to secure access to weapons and supplies.
These constraints do not mean the TPLF’s efforts are doomed, but they do mean that an insurrection is likely to be low grade and prolonged—and that its effectiveness will partly depend on the TPLF’s ability to form alliances with other insurgent groups in order to stretch thin the Ethiopian army. And Tigrayan resistance is likely to extend beyond the battlefield. Regardless of whether the TPLF can sustain a potent insurgency, Abiy’s military campaign and his regime’s discrimination against Tigrayans will solidify political resistance to federal government control in Tigray for at least a generation. In the absence of consent, Addis Ababa will have to rule through repression.
The Ethiopian government’s discrimination against Tigrayans and its efforts to centralize power threaten Abiy’s legitimacy throughout the country. The EPRDF professed to respect the autonomy of each of Ethiopia’s major ethnic groups, going so far as to enshrine the groups’ rights to self-determination in the constitution. The EPRDF often failed to live up to that promise, as protests in Oromia and elsewhere demonstrated in recent years. But along with impressive state-led development, the principle of ethnic federalism gave the government a powerful narrative to sell both at home and abroad.
Abiy disbanded the EPRDF in favor of a new political vehicle, the Prosperity Party, whose first act was to suppress a region demanding greater autonomy. The prime minister sought to bolster support for that offensive by holding mass rallies that played on popular anger at the TPLF’s years of ascendancy in the EPRDF. At times, the TPLF has inadvertently aided Abiy’s campaign of vilification, most notably when it fired rockets into the nearby Amhara region. But Abiy’s government also worked assiduously to stoke anti-Tigrayan sentiment in order to justify its military incursion into the northern region.
Those tactics will complicate any effort the prime minister makes to resurrect the legitimizing principle of ethnic self-determination. Abiy could still attempt to revive his reform agenda and hold democratic elections that have been much delayed due to the pandemic—and perhaps due to Abiy’s concern that they might return unfavorable results. Western donors and some of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups would welcome such a move. But Abiy will have a hard time credibly reclaiming a narrative of democratic reform given that his military assault on the TPLF came just months after his security forces were accused of committing widespread human rights abuses during security operations in the Amhara and Oromia regions. Moreover, continued reform—and the reduction in central government control that would entail—would leave Abiy vulnerable to additional challenges from rebel groups and opposition parties.
Abiy could therefore choose instead to reassert the dominance of the central state and expand the security forces to stamp out resistance. He would be able to draw on his anti-TPLF narrative to legitimize such an approach—this time arguing that no group should ever be allowed to act as if it is more important than the collective and labeling those that do so terrorists. Many of Abiy’s critics believe that deep down, he wishes to centralize power but knows that doing so would explode the bargain that has held the country together for the last three decades, triggering new insurrections and exacerbating existing conflicts.
Even outside Tigray, it is already clear that Abiy has failed to establish effective control over Ethiopia’s vast territory. Despite hailing from the Oromia region, the prime minister has failed to quell the unrest there or in the regions of Western Wolega and Benishangul-Gumuz. Along with the continued fighting in Tigray, long-running rebellions and regular clashes between rival ethnic groups in these regions offer an important reminder of the difficulty of maintaining political stability in Ethiopia—and of the fact that every government that has sought to maintain power through force alone has eventually been overthrown.
Whatever Abiy chooses to do, he will come under additional pressure from beyond Ethiopia’s borders. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki provided military support for Abiy’s offensive in Tigray and expects to be rewarded. Afwerki harbors deep personal hostility toward TPLF leaders and will likely seek to dissuade Abiy from pursuing a negotiated settlement with them.
But if Abiy decides to keep Afwerki happy by continuing to keep his foot on the throat of the Tigray region, hounding the TPLF militarily and preventing aid from reaching those in need, the exodus of refugees into neighboring Sudan will exacerbate tensions with that country. Already, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has attempted to mediate a cease-fire between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government. And in what appears to be a bid to gain additional leverage, Sudanese troops have reportedly moved into the Al Fashaga Triangle, a disputed territory between Sudan and Ethiopia.
Whatever Abiy chooses to do, he will come under additional pressure from beyond Ethiopia’s borders.
Continued Ethiopian military action in Tigray (and tolerance for Eritrean interference there) would also complicate relations with Western donors who have invested around $5 billion in Ethiopia since 2018. Although the United States and European countries have historically overlooked Ethiopia’s human rights violations because of its developmental success and its support for U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the region, the high-profile nature of the Tigray conflict has given some donors pause. The European Union recently decided to delay releasing budgetary aid to Addis Ababa—in part because of mounting frustration over Abiy’s refusal to allow aid agencies to respond effectively to the growing humanitarian crisis in Tigray. The current U.S. administration remains staunchly behind Abiy, but the next one may be more circumspect, since President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to place greater emphasis on human rights and could be more concerned with Eritrea’s role in the conflict.
Ethiopia is too strategically important for Western nations to consider completely cutting off aid. But even a modest reduction in international assistance would be a significant blow in the context of the pandemic and the attendant economic downturn. For all the country’s vaunted progress over the last two decades, Ethiopia remains heavily dependent on aid, with overseas development assistance covering more than half the central government’s expenditures.
To date, the government news blackout has prevented a full picture of the events in Tigray from reaching the outside world. Those reports that have trickled out, from journalists who have interviewed refugees and corroborated their stories, indicate that both sides have committed widespread human rights violations. When the dust begins to settle, the trickle of bad news is likely to become a flood, increasing pressure on the international community to rethink its support for Abiy and to open an independent investigation into whether his forces have committed crimes against humanity. Should such an investigation lead to significant reductions in foreign aid, private investors could begin to scale back their involvement in Ethiopia as well. That loss, in turn, would deepen Abiy’s crisis of legitimacy, potentially threatening his grip on power regardless of whether he responds with repression or reform.
A country that once seemed to hold great promise for peaceful democratization has descended into conflict. Here’s what could happen next.
In December 2019, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was in Oslo receiving the Nobel Peace Prize; less than a year later, he was commanding Ethiopian troops in battle against the country’s former dominant party—the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Shepherding an ethnically diverse country with a federalist system through a transition to democracy was always a daunting task. But as a spate of political assassinations and growing demands from ethnonationalist groups gave way to open conflict in the northern Tigray region in November, Ethiopia’s future is looking increasingly bleak, with some analysts warning that there is a risk of Yugoslav-style disintegration. Foreign Policy has followed the country closely in recent years, featuring the views of Ethiopian writers and regional experts from a range of perspectives.
Here are five of Foreign Policy’s key stories on Ethiopia from 2020.
by Ayenat Mersie, Sept. 22
The war in Tigray has received most of the attention this year—but there is another taking place in cyberspace, as Ayenat Mersie argued in September. As fraught negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile threatened to lead to conflict with downstream countries like Sudan and Egypt, the online war took off—posing concrete problems for traditional diplomacy. “[S]urging nationalist sentiment means that it’s harder for officials to agree to, and for the public to accept, compromise,” Mersie wrote. “[M]uch of the online rhetoric remains maximalist, even rejecting items that have already been unanimously decided … raising the possibility that the online tensions and attacks may not subside anytime soon.”
by Florian Bieber and Wondemagegn Tadesse Goshu, Nov. 18
In January 2019, Florian Bieber and Wondemagegn Tadesse Goshu wrote presciently that Ethiopia could become the next Yugoslavia. In November, as war raged in Tigray, they revisited the issue, arguing that once “violence becomes a means to address disputes, it is hard to stop, and demands for autonomy quickly escalate toward claims for independence,” likening the current situation to the early days of fragmentation in Tito’s Yugoslavia and offering recommendations for a constitutional way out.
by Kassahun Melesse, Nov. 19
When conflict broke out in Tigray on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, many outside observers assumed it was a battle over autonomy between the country’s ousted old regime and Abiy’s new government. Kassahun Melesse argued that, in fact, the TPLF’s goals had much more to do with maintaining control of the economy. “[W]hat’s at the heart of the ongoing conflict are Abiy’s economic and political reforms and the unrelenting pace at which they were unveiled—moves that TPLF leaders perceive as unacceptably threatening to the economic and political dominance they have long enjoyed and the considerable influence they still wield across Ethiopia,” he wrote.
by Hailemariam Desalegn, Nov. 24
In late November, Ethiopia’s most recent former prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, took to these pages to criticize some of his former colleagues in government from the once dominant TPLF—referring to the group’s leadership as “nothing more than a criminal enterprise” while taking the international community to task for “the assumption of moral equivalence” between the two sides. Equating the TPLF and the Ethiopian government would, he wrote, lead “foreign governments to adopt an attitude of false balance and bothsidesism. Facts and details regarding the true nature of conflicts and the forces igniting and driving them are frequently lost in international efforts to broker peace deals that often crumble as soon as they have been signed.”
by Teferi Mergo, Dec. 18
The war in Tigray is merely the latest battle in a long-running conflict over history and memory, Teferi Mergo argued this month. “By and large, the Tigray war is part of the same debate that has plagued Ethiopia since its foundation as an empire state: whether Ethiopia is an exceptional country that ought to be governed in a more centralized manner or one that needs to be ruled as a decentralized polity,” he wrote. And in order to resolve the conflict, Mergo insisted, the incoming U.S. administration must eschew short-term thinking and instead “use this historical opening to rebalance its foreign policy toward the country, with the view of serving as an impartial arbiter of the conflicts between the two sides.”
Source: Council of Foriegn Affairs | Michelle Gavin
As 2020 draws to a close, the terrible toll of the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region is coming into sharper focus. The human costs continue to mount; the United Nations estimates that 1.3 million people need emergency assistance as a result of the conflict, and over 50,000 people have fled to neighboring Sudan. Eritrean refugees that had fled to Ethiopia have reportedly been attacked, in some cases forcibly repatriated. UN agencies remain unable to access some areas with humanitarian relief. And despite the federal government’s assertion that the military operation ended in late November, some fighting clearly continues. The overall number of civilians killed remains unknown. The toll on regional stability will only become apparent over time, but it is already clear that Sudan’s fragile transition is suffering new perils as a result of the conflict in Ethiopia.
Prime Minister Abiy’s credibility is also among the losses. His claims in late November that not a single civilian was killed in the military assault on Tigray were contradicted by desperate testimonials that emerged despite the state’s attempt to impose a total communications blackout across the region. Ample, alarming evidence belies Abiy’s repeated denials of the involvement of Eritrean forces in Ethiopian territory. Journalists are being beaten and harassed, presumably for reporting the truth and sullying the rosy rhetoric from the leadership in Addis Ababa.
This loss of credibility may seem insignificant compared with the numbers killed, wounded, and displaced, but it is grave nonetheless. Ethiopia had long played an important stabilizing role in the region, and it had been emerging as a leading voice on behalf of the continent as a whole in important global discussions. Around the world, leaders embraced the vision of a stable, prosperous, inclusive, and accountable Ethiopia—a state strong enough to stand up for African interests and for shared global norms. But now the international community has reason to doubt the veracity of Abiy’s words and to second-guess his intentions—hardly a solid basis for fruitful partnerships. The cost, calculated in missed opportunities, could be staggering.
AP, NAIROBI, Kenya — A Dutch aid group said Wednesday that one of its staff members was “murdered” at a refugee camp during the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, bringing the number of humanitarian workers killed during the nearly two months of unrest to five.
ZOA International did not say when the 52-year-old staff member was killed at the Hitsats refugee camp, part of a network of camps hosting nearly 100,000 refugees from Eritrea close to the Eritrean border. The group did not immediately respond to questions, including about who it thinks is responsible for the death of its worker.
ZOA International said it was “deeply shocked” by the killing in the conflict between Ethiopian forces and allied militias and forces of the Tigray region, whose leadership dominated the country’s government for nearly three decades before being sidelined by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed since 2018.
The killings of four other workers for humanitarian organizations were reported on Dec 11. The International Rescue Committee said it was trying to confirm details around the killing of a colleague in the Hitsats camp.
Separately, the Danish Refugee Council said three staffers who worked as guards at a project site were killed. It was not clear where, but the group also supports Eritrean refugees.
The fate of the refugees, and the alleged involvement of Eritrean forces in the conflict, have been a major source of alarm since the fighting in Tigray began on Nov. 4 and the region was cut off from the outside world. Thousands of the refugees fled the camps, but Ethiopia’s government earlier this month said it was sending them back, causing international shock.
Even now, communications and transport links have not fully resumed, and the United Nations and other aid groups have expressed concern about reports of ongoing fighting in the weeks since Abiy declared victory.
While international aid reached at least two of the refugee camps last week, it is not clear whether Hitsats can yet be reached.
Ethiopia’s government has denied the persistent allegations of Eritrean forces’ involvement in the fighting, while the United States has said it believes Eritrean forces are active and called it a “grave development.”
The Eritrean government, described by watchdogs as one of the world’s most repressive, has remained largely silent.
“Eritrea’s detractors continue to indulge in mindless invective against the country,” Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel tweeted Wednesday, without providing details.
No one knows how many thousands of people, including civilians, might have been killed in Ethiopia’s conflict. More than 50,000 people have fled into Sudan as refugees.
A U.N. World Food Program spokesperson this week said the agency had no confirmed reports of people dying from hunger in the two refugee camps its representatives finally reached last week, but called the situation there “dire.”
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
The Tigray armed conflict is happening in a context of increasing humanitarian needs resulting from protracted food insecurity, displacement, recurrent and new disease outbreaks and the persisting desert locust infestations, thus further accentuating the complexity and existing vulnerabilities of the population in Tigray and bordering Regions of Amhara and Afar. Tigray Region hosts 855,000 people targeted in the HRP 2020 (750,000 non-displaced people, 100,600 IDPs and 5,600 IDP returnees), 99,900 refugees and over 1 million PSNP clients of which 250,000 receive regular direct support. In addition, hundreds of thousands of people have fled the conflict and are displaced within Tigray, from Tigray to Amhara and Afar Regions, and crossing international borders to Sudan.
The updated Humanitarian Response Plan for Northern Ethiopia aims to mobilize a response to sustain relief assistance to the already existing 950,000 HRP beneficiaries and refugees present in Tigray and provide protection and assistance to the estimated 1.3 million newly impacted people by the on-going crisis. The Plan targets a total of 2.3 million people, of which over 75 percent are children and women, and 18 percent are people with disabilities, with a multisectoral requirement of US$ 116.5 million. The outstanding funding stands at US$ 63.4 million.
Read more infographic on OCHA’s website.
Their presence will make it harder to bring peace to Tigray.
Source: The Economist
First come muffled sobs, gradually growing louder with each new voice that joins the chorus. A woman in a black shawl begins to wail, her body rocking towards the portrait of a smiling young man in the middle of the room. Abraham was 35 years old when he was shot, says an older brother who is hosting mourning relatives on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Last month armed men arrived at the family home in Adwa, a town in the northern region of Tigray. By then many of the town’s residents had fled, but not Abraham, who had a young child and a sick, ageing father. When the gunmen tried to steal two of the family’s trucks, Abraham resisted. He was shot dead on the spot, in front of his father.
According to his family, Abraham’s killers were from Eritrea, a neighbouring country whose troops have been fighting alongside Ethiopian government forces against the recently-ousted rulers of Tigray. There is little reason to doubt their claim. Although phone lines to Adwa have been cut since the fighting started in early November, they know what happened to Abraham from a family friend who met his father, as well as neighbours who escaped to Mekelle, the regional capital.
Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, has consistently denied enlisting the help of soldiers from Eritrea, the gulag state next door. But Abiy’s denials ring hollow in the face of a growing number of claims like those of Abraham’s family, as well as by foreign diplomats and governments. In December America said reports of Eritrea’s involvement were “credible” and urged it to withdraw. Belgian journalists who made a rare trip into Tigray found video footage apparently showing an Eritrean tank loaded with plunder.
Exposing Eritrea’s involvement matters because both governments have gone to such lengths to deny it. Abiy told António Guterres, the secretary-general of the un, that no Eritrean soldiers had entered Ethiopia. His government says Tigray’s now-renegade ruling party, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (tplf), made fake Eritrean uniforms to spread misinformation. Eritrea’s foreign minister told Reuters that Eritrea was not a party to the conflict.
Others say that Eritrea’s involvement is not only real but highly significant. It won independence from Ethiopia in 1993. The two countries fought a bloody border war in the late 1990s followed by two decades of low-level conflict that ended with a peace deal in 2018 (for which Abiy won the Nobel peace prize in 2019). Much of the fighting was along Tigray’s border, leading to bitter enmity between Eritreans and the tplf.
This bitterness may explain the destruction that Eritrean forces have left in their wake. They are accused of killing civilians, looting, laying waste to farmland and abducting some of the 100,000 Eritrean refugees who had fled their own totalitarian government and sought safety in camps in Tigray.
Using foreign troops to fight a war on his own soil besmirches Abiy’s reputation and will complicate efforts to pacify Tigray. “The government will never admit it,” says an Ethiopian analyst. “Because they know they could never justify it to the Tigrayans.”
Awet Tewelde Weldemichael, an Eritrean academic at Queen’s University in Canada, says that in recent weeks there seems to have been a phased withdrawal of Eritrean troops. If true, it might suggest Abiy has had enough of them. Or it might mean that Issaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s dictator, is confident that his old foes in the tplf have been routed. Although fighting is reported to be continuing in several parts of Tigray, the tplf leadership—thought to be holed up somewhere in the mountains—has been mostly silent for weeks. On December 18th the Ethiopian government offered a reward worth the equivalent of $260,000 for information on their whereabouts.
It is not just Eritrea that has a stake in Ethiopia’s civil war. Clashes between Sudanese forces and militias from Amhara, a region to the south of Tigray, have turned deadly in recent weeks. They are fighting over a large slice of fertile farmland that is within Sudan’s borders but long occupied by Amhara farmers. Shortly after the war began in Tigray, Sudanese troops moved into positions that had previously been held by the Ethiopian army. Since then each side has accused the other of upping the ante. On December 22nd Ethiopia’s deputy prime minister accused Sudanese forces of looting. Sudan’s information minister countered by accusing the Ethiopian army of taking part in border attacks. Talks and a visit to Addis Ababa in December by Abdalla Hamdok, Sudan’s prime minister, have failed to resolve the matter.
These tensions are unlikely to blow up into a full-scale war between the two states. But if the border conflict is not resolved, Sudan could prolong the fighting in Tigray by, for instance, turning a blind eye to arms and other supplies crossing the border. That would be a headache for Abiy, whose forces are already overstretched trying to locate the tplf’s guerrilla forces while also battling armed insurgents and quelling inter-ethnic fighting elsewhere in the country.
On December 23rd more than 200 civilians, mostly Amharas, were massacred by heavily armed ethnic militiamen in the western region of Benishangul-Gumuz. Similar incidents have been reported in western Oromia in recent weeks. Ethnic Somalis and Afars in the country’s east are also trading deadly blows. Ethiopia, already a tinder box, risks igniting a wider conflagration across the Horn of Africa. ■
Susan Stigant, director of Africa Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, testified on December 3, 2020 at the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organization’s hearing on “The Unfolding Conflict in Ethiopia.” Her expert testimony as prepared is presented below.
Chairwoman Bass, Ranking Member Smith and members of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the unfolding situation in Ethiopia. The timing for this hearing is critically important given the serious deterioration in the country’s internal peace and stability, the risks that recent developments pose to regional and international peace and security, and the potential dangers of both to U.S. interests. If Ethiopia spirals down into further violence and fragmentation, the entire region will be severely impacted.
I am the director of Africa Programs at the United States Institute of Peace, although the views expressed here are my own. The U.S. Institute of Peace was established by Congress over 35 years ago as an independent, nonpartisan national institute to prevent and resolve violent conflicts abroad, in accordance with U.S. national interests and values. The Institute’s Africa Center leads the engagement in sub-Saharan Africa and deepens, elevates, and expands the Institute’s commitment to stem violent conflict in a region vital to American interests and that have global impacts.
A military confrontation between the federal government of Ethiopia and the regional state of Tigray, in the country’s north, began November 4 and quickly escalated. The ruling party of Tigray, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which once led the ruling party coalition that preceded the Abiy government, claims that it launched a pre-emptive attack on the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) Northern Command. The federal government responded with an operation to regain control of the regional state and apprehend the TPLF leadership, which now stands accused of acts of treason. More than 40,000 refugees have fled into eastern Sudan. There is little information about the death toll or internal displacement, but initial reports suggest heavy casualties and human suffering.
The conflict between the TPLF and the federal government was not unexpected, nor did it occur in a vacuum. Political transitions rarely move forward with consistent, one-directional progress. It is normal that there will be resistance to reforms, both from those who previously held power and those who see a path towards power under a new dispensation. It is normal that there will be fundamental debates about the nature and shape of the state. It is normal that the legacy of a system based on exclusion and repression over decades requires sustained, generational efforts to forge justice, genuine inclusion, and agreement on how communities can share a common future.
Amidst escalating tensions and failed efforts of dialogue, it is also unsurprising that both parties would view the exercise of force as the logical, effective, and even a necessary decision in the short-term. However, all of our best thinking, practice and knowledge underlines that violence does not work in the medium to long-term. This knowledge has forged consensus about the imperative of prevention in U.S. policies and assistance, and this approach needs to be at the center of U.S. policy and partnerships with Ethiopia. We know that violence is costly – in unquantifiable human consequences, economic losses, investments in humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping interventions, risks of radicalization, and opportunities lost. For Ethiopia, this is not an abstract, theoretical practice. It is grounded in the country’s own history and the people’s lived experience. These reverberations resulting from the violence have provoked core questions about the trajectory of the transition and should provoke a fundamental re-assessment of U.S. policy.
Disagreement over the postponement of the anticipated August 2020 elections set the stage for the crisis. The National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) determined in March 2020 that voter registration and other critical steps could not be completed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That decision had broad support from political forces in Ethiopia. The decision by the House of Federation to extend the mandate of the prime minister and the parliament did not enjoy political consensus. When the Tigray region decided to proceed with organizing the state-level elections in defiance of the federal government and without the engagement of the NEBE, another step was taken towards November’s violence.
The story is, of course, more complicated than postponed elections or COVID-19. The tensions between the federal government and the TPLF reflect broader, unresolved debates about Ethiopia’s transition and federal arrangements. Past mechanisms for political dialogue were no longer fit for this purpose amidst rapid political reforms, and parties with diverging views or resistant to the reforms either opted out of or were not included in new forums. The federal government has detailed more than a dozen efforts to engage the TPLF through dialogue; however, none of these overcame fundamental obstacles. The tensions are also anchored in unaddressed reports, documentation and legacy of corruption, human rights abuses and state repression under the TPLF’s leadership in the previous regime, along with allegations that the TPLF has been fomenting some of the disorder, violence and chaos during the transition period.
Solely focusing on what is going on today in Tigray risks obscuring broader concerns about violence, democratic backsliding, and repression elsewhere in the country. Even before the Tigray crisis, the International Organization on Migration recorded that more than 1.8 million people had been displaced in 2020. By July, Amnesty International had reported that at least 15,000 people had been arbitrarily arrested and detained as part of the government’s crackdown on armed attacks, violence and following protests in Oromia. In the weeks leading up to the crisis, the federal government reorganized security institutions, including the ENDF, and several prominent political figures and journalists were jailed.
As a horrific example of the type of violence in Ethiopia that has become all too common, on November 1, ethnically targeted killings left at least 54 people dead in a schoolyard in the Wollega zone of Oromia state. Throughout western Ethiopia, communal violence has only increased since 2018. An attack on a bus in Benishangul-Gumuz in western Ethiopia left at least 34 people dead on November 14 and marked the latest in an unrelenting pace of violence. In southern Ethiopia, tensions remain high, as the consequences of the model of ethnic federalism continue to unfold.
The Ethiopian transition is taking place against the backdrop of a fundamental geopolitical shift in the Horn of Africa and stretching across the Red Sea, as outlined in a recent report by the Senior Study Group on Peace and Security in the Red Sea Arena convened by the U.S. Institute of Peace. In the last five years, the geopolitical landscape of the Red Sea arena has been fundamentally reshaped. The Horn of Africa is now an integral part of and in fact the link among the security systems of the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, and the Mediterranean. Middle Eastern states are asserting themselves in the Horn of Africa in ways unprecedented in at least a century, and the Red Sea arena is becoming increasingly militarized. The export of Middle Eastern rivalries into the Horn of Africa—with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and Egypt contesting Turkey and Qatar for dominance—risks fueling instability and insecurity in an already fragile, volatile, and conflict-prone region.
The federal government announced on November 28 that it had completed military operations and would turn its attention to “rebuilding what has been destroyed, repairing what has been damaged and returning those who have fled.” For its part, the TPLF withdrew from Mekelle and vowed to “fight…to the last” asserting that “this is about defending our right to self-determination.” Given the TPLF’s experience in waging an insurgency from the mountains of Tigray, it is too easy to breathe a sigh of relief and move onto a “post-conflict” phase. Indeed, silencing the guns – on all sides — needs to remain the priority in the short term to avoid the intolerable costs of war.
Amidst a communications blackout and lack of independent reporting, it is difficult to ascertain the full human and humanitarian impact of this conflict. More than 40,000 refugees fled Ethiopia into eastern Sudan. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has requested $147 million to support the initial response. Access to nearly one million Eritrean refugees living in Tigray has been blocked over the course of the conflict, and it appears that large numbers of Ethiopians have been displaced internally and will require additional humanitarian support. This comes at a critical point in the harvest season and could have a ripple effect on food security for the months ahead, already exacerbated by the locust plague. In late November, the International Committee for the Red Cross reported that local hospitals and health facilities in Mekelle were running “dangerously low on medical supplies to care for the wounded as well as other mounting medical needs and conditions.”
The targeting of individuals or groups on the basis of ethnicity comes at a great cost. Amnesty International and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission have investigated and documented horrific violence in Mai Kadra in Tigray. Independent investigations are needed to document the experience of those who fled the country and violence. Early indications suggest that the patterns of violence are widespread and complex. Reports of targeting of ethnic Tigrayans through restrictions on travel and removal from civil service and military posts have raised alarm bells with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. An escalating narrative of dangerous speech and division risks continued cycles of violence and deep damage to the fabric of Ethiopian society.
Even prior to the fighting, the International Monetary Fund forecast a growth rate of 0% for 2021, down from 9% GDP growth in 2019. Under immense pressure from the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy will depend on expanding foreign direct investment and advancing discussions about debt relief. Ongoing violence will almost certainly distract from the economic imperatives that underpin the political transition. The violence also risks curtailing private sector investment and may lead international partners to call into question large-scale partnerships with the World Bank or other institutions.
Ethiopia has and continues to play a central regional leadership role: a founding member of the United Nations and African Union, a leading contributor to peacekeeping, and the seat of the continental body for peace and security. Narratives – some false – about the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Somalia are already fueling uncertainty in the lead up to Somalia’s elections and at a moment when the U.S. Administration has indicated that it will draw down its military engagement there. The flow of refugees into eastern Sudan adds stress to a fragile transition and region. The resort to violence by all parties without activation of the African Union’s own architecture missed an opportunity to exercise and underline the hard-won norms of peace and security. This may very well ripple into future conflicts. Attacks on the Eritrean capital by the TPLF and the allegations of reorganization of Ethiopian troops in Eritrea and even Eritrean troop involvement point to a regionalization of the conflict.
Ethiopia stands at an inflection point, and U.S. policy needs to be recalibrated to reflect that reality. The resistance to or disagreement with reforms by the TPLF and other parts of the political, social, and economic establishment is to be expected. Indeed, resistance and debate are fundamental features of democratic transitions. The challenge before the Ethiopian leadership is to develop a strategic approach to address that resistance without falling into the trap of continued cycles of violence. For the United States government, centering policy around the tenets of prevention, political inclusion and legitimacy enshrined in the Global Fragility Act as well as anchoring Ethiopia in the broader Horn of Africa and Red Sea Arena provide the best foundation to support the aspirations of the Ethiopian people for their transition.
Despite the escalation, I believe that there is a shared desire – by the federal government, the TPLF, the political opposition, the African Union and U.S. partners in the EU and beyond – to avoid the horrible costs of violence and support the possibility that a democratic, peaceful Ethiopia offers. Based on this, I would like to offer recommendations in three policy areas for the U.S. Administration and the continued leadership from this Committee:
With the escalation of conflict, calls for dialogue have been deeply polarizing and civic space has closed. The federal government has expressed its concern that dialogue or negotiations with the TPLF would accord equivalence, promote impunity, and impose an unworkable power sharing arrangement. However, the need for dialogue extends beyond the Tigray crisis. Detention of journalists, political opposition leaders, and civic activists who have voiced dissent with the reform process fuel concerns that the country is sliding back into closed, authoritarian tendencies. As a November 5 statement by USIP’s Senior Study Group on Peace and Security in the Red Sea Arena warned that neither an inclusive political dialogue nor free and fair elections can “be possible while many of the country’s most prominent political leaders remain in prison.”
Structures and mechanisms for inclusive conversations are needed to safeguard the democratic transition. Ethiopians need to discuss and agree what formats are needed and ways to include those who agree and, more importantly, those who disagree. In other transitions, local and regional dialogue, peace committees and interparty advisory councils have helped to defuse tensions. Civic group have forged coalitions to mobilize peaceful support for a reform agenda and bridge resistance by former and aspiring elites. The African Union envoys and the broader African Peace and Security Architecture can and should be called upon to support these dialogues.
The U.S. government needs to underline in public and private messaging the support for freedom of expression, space for independent journalism, and the need to expand conversations to those who have diverging views. The U.S. government can also express its strong interest in preventing violence through the activation of multiple, reinforcing mechanisms for inclusive conversations. Existing assistance programs in support of the transition and democratic development can be activated to support conversations about what inclusion means and ways that confidence can be built towards dialogue.
Let me conclude by elaborating on this last point in the specific context of Ethiopia. Congress provided clear guidance and leadership on the imperative of prevention through the adoption of the Global Fragility Act. This approach aligns with a broader consensus that a healthy state-society relationship, anchored in accountable, inclusive governance is the most consistent predictor of stability and peace. This all sounds rather theoretical in the abstract. But the crisis in Ethiopia highlights the very real human consequences, the implications for regional stability and the risks of violence and even extremism if we fail to support transitions in line with our own commitments and best practices.
While it is not for the United State to dictate to Ethiopia how to resolve fundamental questions of governance and its constitutional order, the United States does have an interest in ensuring the integrity and stability of the Ethiopia state, that the aspirations of Ethiopia’s citizens for democratic reforms are channeled into a political discourse not suppressed through violence, and that Ethiopia contributes to the stabilizing rather than further destabilizing the volatile Horn of Africa. The United States can and therefore should consider its bilateral relationship with Ethiopia in a manner that accounts for the events of the last month and brings to bear the benchmarks, tools, and approaches in the Global Fragility Act.
Congress can play a vital role in laying out the principles that could form the basis for the new bilateral relationship between the United States and Ethiopia that must by necessity emerge—a bilateral relationship that minimizes the likelihood of state fragmentation and the further internationalization of Ethiopia’s multiplying conflicts.
The views expressed in this testimony are those of the author and not the U.S. Institute of Peace.
This testmony was first published on USIP