Alwaght- For more than a year now, a devastating war has been ravaging Tigray region of Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country with 115 million population. Conflict is unfolding, large number of casualties have been reported, and the prospect of peace remains dim.
In recent days, the rebel forces have sped up their movement towards Addis Ababa, the populous capital of the country and hosting city of the African Union headquarters and threatened that they will overthrow the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a Noble Peace Prize winner whose soldiers are now accused of war crimes. Ahmed called on the citizens to take up arms and fight the rebels who “are dragging the country to perdition.”
The future of the Ethiopian government is so uncertain that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) refused to publish a forecast for the country's economic situation in its latest World Economic Outlook report. In addition to organized crimes against civilians, malnutrition and famine threaten the lives of thousands, said a UN report.
Who are Tigray People’s Liberation Front and why did they rebel?
The Tigray People’s Liberating Front (TPLF) is a militant organization that was founded in mid-1970s by Tigrayan ethnic group. The group which is isolated by the central government, was founded to fight the Marxist military dictatorship.
Amhara and Oromo ethnic groups account for over 60 percent of the Ethiopian population but the Tigrayans, as the third largest, are between 6 to 7 percent of the country’s population. However, the TPLF turned into the biggest insurgency group in the country, ultimately leading an alliance that toppled the government in 1991. Meles Zenawi, the group’s leader, held the power from 1991 to 2012, the year he died of illness. The Tigray-controlled government systemically cracked down on the opposition and torture was an ordinary practice in the prisons.
The anti-government protests that began in 2016 paved the way for Abiy Ahmed to assume PM post in 2018. He was a former intelligence officer in the government controlled by TPLF, which ruled Ethiopia for nearly three decades. After taking the post, he decided to eliminate the group's power and influence in Ethiopia through political reforms, an arrangement that angered the group’s leadership. His government launched an anti-TPLF purge campaign, accusing some of them of corruption and human rights violations.
The group retreated to its bastion Tigray region in the mountains of northern Ethiopia. In the summer of last year, it moved towards autonomy with the holding of regional parliamentary elections. Reacting to their move, the central government cut off the region’s budget.
Last year, TPLF forces attacked a federal military base in Tigray. The Tigrayan forces said they carried out the attack preemptively in preparation for a possible attack by federal forces. Following the strike, the PM ordered military counteraction.
Ahmed deployed Amhara fighters in southern Tigray in boost to the army forces. Then forces from neighboring Eritrea, a former enemy to Ethiopia, were dispatched to northern Tigray to fight the rebels alongside the Ethiopian army.
Federal forces and their allies quickly took control of Mek’ele, the capital of Tigray and other cities, forcing the TPLF and its armed supporters to flee to rural and mountainous areas.
However, earlier this summer the war moved a different course, with the government forces sustaining a huge defeat and retreating from Tigray. Several thousands of the government troops were captured by the Tigrayans. The government setback proved that despite the 2020 defeat, the Tigrayans preserved their military power. The International Crisis Group said at the beginning of war last year that the TPLF controls a complex of security forces that reach 250,000 armed men. Another issue that turned the tide in the TPLF favor is its alliance with the Oromo Liberation Front which declared war on Abiy’s government in May 2021.
As insurgents advanced on Addis Ababa in early November, the PM declared a state of emergency and urged all citizens to take up arms to defend the capital.
Ethnic dispute and confidence crisis
Tigray dispute has its roots in the tensions descending to older generations in Ethiopia. The country is made up of 10 regions and two cities which have considerable autonomy in terms of having regional police forces and militants.
No valid observer believes that war and military conflict is a lasting solution to end the crisis in the broken-apart country. However, there are big obstacles blocking the path to peace. Since the beginning of the conflict, the opposite sides delegitimized each other. The central government insists that it is fighting a terrorist group. In January, it stripped the group of its status as a legal party and in May banned it as a terrorist organization. On the opposite side, the rebels do not recognize the July general elections that led to Ahmed retaining his post and deem pointless any dialogue for peace.
