With the world’s attention fixated on the United States elections, Ethiopia embarked on a civil war last week. In a time span of five days Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the 2019 Nobel peace prize after making peace with Eritrea, ended the democratic transition that he had initiated two years before. In the early hours of Wednesday last week, Abiy ordered federal troops to launch an offensive against the northern region of Tigray, which borders Eritrea and is home to about 6% of the population. Government airstrikes on military positions in Tigray and a telecommunication shutdown began the same day.
Since then, Abiy’s government has purged Tigrayan officials from government positions, mobilised ethnic militias to join the war and rejected international calls for dialogue with leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). On Saturday, Ethiopia’s parliament replaced Tigray’s elected leadership with a caretaker administration. On Sunday, the prime minister appointed some of his close allies as the new heads of national defence, intelligence and the federal police. Until recently, Abiy preached national unity and forgiveness. So why did he start a civil war?
Abiy’s casus belli is an alleged raid on the headquarters of the Northern Command in Mekelle during which, it is claimed, arms were looted and scores killed. The truth is more complicated. First, the war preparations had been underway for weeks. Federal forces and allied troops from other federal states were in fact massed on the border between Tigray and Amhara as early as late October.
*The views of the above article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Africa Speaks 4 Africa or its editorial team.