NEWS, STORIES AND REPORTS of internal feuds have rocked major countries on the eastern flank of Africa for nearly four years like in a relay race, with one happening after the other. Tales of killings, human displacement, food crises of famine proportion, epidemics, disruption of medical services, school closures, economic doldrums and power vacuum were being reported almost daily, with the increasing uncertainties dogging the affected countries. On November 3, 2020, the war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a regional ruling party, was launched by the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. This, as it later turned out to be an Ethio-Eritrean offensive, was in the failed attempt to subdue the militia of the TPLF, which dominated national politics for nearly three decades before Abiy became PM in 2018.
Actual fighting began on November 4, 2020, with PM Ahmed ordering a military response to what he referred to as a “traitorous” attack on federal army camps in Tigray. The war, which was primarily fought in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, was initially intended to be over within two weeks or thereabouts, according to PM Ahmed. It lasted two full years, ending only on November 3, 2022, leaving behind traces of humanitarian and political crisis, with no clear resolution in sight even after the end of the field battle as reminiscence of the ethnic dimensions will be hard to erase all across Ethiopia.
While the clashes lasted, Ethiopian forces and TPLF were engaged in frenetic cyber war as the rivals were relentlessly spreading false claims to control narratives on the conflict. For instance, a statement from Omna Tigray, a regional organisation, described it this way: “To declare the genocidal war on Tigray a “civil war” involving only those within Ethiopia is a gross misunderstanding of reality. A substantial amount of the responsibility for the atrocities committed against Tigrayans during the war lies with non-Ethiopian actors collaborating with Ethiopia, including (but not limited to) China, Eritrea, Iran, Somalia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).”
Whatever dream of unity PM Ahmed had prior to his attacks on TPLF was buried in the invasion of Tigray which morphed into protracted and gruesome conflict. Clearly, PM Ahmed vowed to bury foes as state of emergency was declared over Tigray conflict in which millions of people were displaced, thousands killed, and reports of human rights violations became rampant in what became a civil war fought mainly in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Investigations revealed, however, that all sides involved in conflict have committed abuses in the war.
It was clear that PM Ahmed was both naive and hasty in his onslaught against the TPLF, despite his collaboration with Eritrean forces against the TPLF as benefits of hindsight would prove. In a post on his personal Twitter (now X) handle @AbiyAhmedAli, published at 8:50 am, November 10, 2020, PM Ahmed gleefully wrote this: “Our law enforcement operations in Tigray are proceeding as planned: operations will cease as soon as the criminal junta is disarmed, legitimate administration in the region restored, and fugitives apprehended & brought to justice — all of them rapidly coming within reach.” As he plunged headlong into the Tigray offensive, he missed the time-honoured cautionary message of Niccolò Machiavelli that “Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.”
So, unfortunately, it took PM Ahmed five months to realise that this war will be “difficult and tiresome.” This was a proof of indiscretion in the first place. The inevitable happened. While the war lasted, Ethiopia was plunged into chaos, with fleeing civilians seeking refuge in neighbouring Sudan in particular. Many people died either directly due to killings by the warring parties or from the consequences of the hostilities that exposed many to squalor, infections and hunger.
The protracted war was a huge setback for Ethiopia as social and economic indices nosedived. It was such that interventions by external mediations — for the most part — have proved ineffectual as the United Nations’ and the African Union’s efforts to help end the war proved abortive while grave humanitarian crisis was unfolding in Ethiopia. According to a publication by Dr. L. Lewis Wall, titled: “The Siege of Ayder Hospital: A Cri de Coeur From Tigray, Ethiopia,” published in PubMed Central, a medical journal, the “use of rape, starvation, and the destruction of healthcare infrastructure by the Ethiopian government violates the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions.”
From the first month, in November 2020, the war was multidimensional as Ethiopian federal government invaded its northern region of Tigray, aided by the government of Eritrea and ethnic Amhara militias, pillaging the schools, destroying the transportation infrastructure, burning crops, killing livestock, and looting the health care system. Deaths of civilians were in thousands, often through extrajudicial executions. Thousands of Tigrayan women were raped. Tens of thousands of Tigrayans fled to Sudan as refugees. Hundreds of thousands faced famine and millions more were internally displaced
PM Ahmed may have won the battle against Tigray but not the war. There are obviously more dimensions of internal wars he has probably overlooked, ignored or chose to keep aside for expediency. Ethiopia may yet boil again as crisis could erupt from another pressure point. According to Africa Report, a magazine, “Ethiopia’s civil war in Tigray is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to conflicts ravaging the country. It has put in the shadows another dirty conflict in Oromia. Given that the region ranks well above Tigray when it comes to population, size, and wealth, the intensifying insurgency/counter-insurgency occurring there is more critical.”
For now, at least, Ethiopia seems to have some respite. Although Ethiopia’s federal government and the separatist authorities of Tigray agreed to a ceasefire in November 2022 during talks in South Africa, the consequences of the war have lingered. The guns may have gone silent, at least for a year and a half now, conditions in Tigray are yet to fully return to normal. Last November, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the humanitarian situation remains critical. Over one million people were estimated to have been internally displaced and 1.5 million might require food assistance. In what looked like a stand against surreptitious continuation of the crisis, the UN has reportedly warned of ongoing atrocities, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mixed feelings trailed the first anniversary of the Pretoria Ceasefire agreement among the people of Tigray, according to one Daniel Semungus, a lecturer at Mekelle University. “The suffering of internally displaced people continues to affect us all,” Semungus said, although he added that some progress had been made as “the internet is restored” and the children are are now going to school, people can access health care facilities and there has been a resumption of all forms of transportation.” It was observed, however, that many people in Tigray continue to demand the full implementation of the peace agreement signed in 2022.As at November of 2023, parts of Tigray were reportedly still under siege as most of the Erob district were still controlled by the Eritrean army,” according to a local observer. The Alliance of Civil Society Organisations of Tigray (ACSOT) claimed that the peace agreement signed has not yet been fully implemented. “The federal government is not doing enough to keep its promises,” Yared Berha, head of Tigrayan Civic Society, told DW, a German news medium last November.
African pundits and international relations experts who have been analysing the Russian invasion of Ukraine for over two years and Israeli invasion of the Gaza strip for nearly a year have largely been absent on the invasion of Tigray by Ethiopia’s federal government. Media coverage of the invasion has been relatively scanty, probably making it look comparatively less of a crisis. But a July 2022 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tigray war depicted the scale of crisis a year and a half into the hostilities. It reported then that “humanitarian situation across Northern Ethiopia is extremely concerning, with more than 2.6 million internally displaced people (IDPs), over 240,000 returnees and more than 97,000 refugees & asylum-seekers in the Afar, Amhara and Tigray Regions.” On how the war progressed while it lasted, the UNHCR added that, “nearly two years into the conflict, the overall security situation remains complex and fluid, hindering the effective delivery of lifesaving aid to the most affected populations. Humanitarian needs have increased dramatically, with millions in urgent need of food and other critical assistance.”
What PM Ahmed called it “an internal matter” ended up having enormous international repercussions with growing international concerns over the victims of the war and the effects on their lives. The same Ahmed, after five months of spirited denials since the onset of the war, eventually acknowledged the presence of Eritrean forces in Tigray, while openly rejecting foreign “interference.” His intention, according to diplomatic and security sources, was to crush his opponents in Tigray. But in doing so, he did not want mediation from any source. Now that, in two full years, enormous human lives, time and economic resources have been wasted in a war that only ended on negotiating table rather than subduing Tigray, it could be asked at this point what trophy PM Ahmed has won from his military adventure in which — at some point — he personally went to the battlefield to direct? How does he account for the erroneous move that did not hand him any clear victory, but rather slowed down the progress of Ethiopia? Does this provide any lesson for those engaging in armed skirmishes elsewhere in Africa? How will Africa make any progress when avoidable wars are embarked upon? What message does the Ethiopian war in Tigray send to other countries in Africa? For a nation that hosts the continental headquarters of the African Union, PM Ahmed’s invasion — in retrospect — was an ill wind that blew nobody any good.
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