Ethiopia: Conflicts Pull The Country Apart

Ethiopia’s Leader Touts Unity as Conflicts Pull It Apart ETHIOPIA Ethiopia The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention recently sounded the alarm about violence against the ethnic Amhara community in Ethiopia. In an alert, the US-based organization said the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other groups, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), have been systematically raping, displacing and killing the Amhara, who are largely Christian and trace their heritage to the imperial dynasty that ruled the Horn of Africa country from 1270 through the early 1970s. “The killings, the targeting of the youth, the systematic sexual and gender-based violence, the enforced disappearances, and the deliberate destruction of private property showcase a coordinated campaign against the Amhara, intended to destroy their communities and threaten their survival as a people,” it said. And while Abiy and the TPLF have both been accused of targeting the Amhara, they continue to fight each other for control of Tigray, a restive region where TPLF fighters had been in full-scale revolt against the central government before a fragile peace took hold in 2022, one that analysts say is disintegrating. The TPLF ran the country until Abiy took power in 2018. Abiy then won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for ending Ethiopia’s war against Eritrea. In his early years, he won Western plaudits for ushering in political reforms, privatizing state-owned enterprises, spending big on infrastructure, and welcoming foreign investment to stoke an economic boom. IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva recently hailed Ethiopia’s economic progress, noting one of the highest economic growth rates in Africa. And Abiy has more ambitious plans for the country: While Ethiopia has long been associated with famine, the country is now working on becoming self-sufficient in food production. Abiy’s tenure has stoked controversies, however. Critics say he has consolidated power in ways that have favored his Prosperity Party and fellow Oromo, members of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, while cracking down on human rights activists, dissidents, journalists and others who criticize his policies. Critics also accuse the prime minister of stoking division at home to expand his power even as his government boasts that Ethiopia is more united than ever. In fact, analysts say Abiy has been at war with other groups within Ethiopia’s borders for years, which is threatening the fragile unity of Ethiopia. For example, the government has been fighting insurgents in Oromia, Amhara – the country’s second-largest region – and the Somali Region. Meanwhile, Tigray is heating up again. The TPLF recently pushed out government-backed regional leader Tadesse Werede and reinstated the prewar regional council. The move was led by TPLF chair Debretsion Gebremichael, who was the region’s leader during the 2020-2022 war between Tigray and the federal government. Now the Ethiopian government accuses Eritrea, which helped the government during that war and committed atrocities in Tigray, of working with the TPLF. Analysts say another war in Tigray is likely: The peace agreement is disintegrating with the TPLF ouster of Tadesse Werede. Eritrea, which felt betrayed by the 2022 peace agreement, has been supporting the Fano rebels in Amhara and other rebel groups in Oromia. As a result, analysts believe another war with Eritrea is brewing, too, especially because of Ethiopia’s renewed demand for access to the Eritrean port of Assab on the Red Sea, 40 miles from the Ethiopian border. Eritrea accuses Ethiopia of wanting to reverse its secession from that country three decades ago. At the same time, Ethiopia has a strained relationship with Egypt over its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and is in growing danger of becoming a new front in Sudan’s civil war. Analysts say Sudan’s rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) may have a new base of operations in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia, near the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, on Sudan’s eastern border. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have accused Ethiopia of hosting, arming and otherwise supporting the RSF. Analysts say Ethiopia’s growing involvement in Sudan’s civil war may push the SAF closer to Eritrea and Eritrean-backed rebels in Ethiopia. Sudan’s government supported the TPLF during the Tigray war. Commentators say that Ethiopia is in a volatile situation of its own making. “Growing friction between Ethiopia and its neighbors has added to the volatile mix as diplomatic disputes threaten to escalate into proxy fights or even open confrontation,” wrote Foreign Affairs. This backdrop is one reason why Africa Center researchers are wondering if parliamentary elections in Ethiopia on June 1 will yield stability or empower the centrifugal forces that threaten to rip the country apart. The prime minister’s Prosperity Party is expected to win easily in elections analysts say are just a formality. While opposition candidates complain of harassment, the Prosperity Party is running uncontested in 64 of the country’s 547 constituencies. No voting will occur in Tigray and parts of Amhara. Abiy will keep his job, say observers. Whether or not he can keep the country together is another matter.