Can Abiy Ahmed prevent the disintegration of Ethiopia?

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how Abiy Ahmed, the young, fresh-faced Ethiopian Prime Minister went from winning a Nobel Peace Prize to becoming a war monger within the space of eleven (11) months. I argued that the Norwegian Nobel Committee was fooled by Abiy’s rapprochement with the Eritrean dictator, Isaias Afwerki, thinking the move was for genuine peace for the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea. In reality though the rapprochement was just to isolate and hem in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) on all sides. On November 4, while the attention of the world was focused on the US, Abiy, in collaboration with Eritrean troops launched a brutal military war on Tigray to topple the TPLF and suppress the Tigrayan people whose elite has governed Ethiopia for more than 30 years but willingly handed over power to Abiy, an ethnic Oromo, in a spirit of national reconciliation. To give cover to the troops and enable their atrocities, Abiy ordered electricity and all communications and internet services to be cut in Tigray and prevented all journalists and humanitarian workers access to the region.

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With the initiative now firmly in the hands of TDF and with Abiy’s determination to continue to blockade the region, secession cannot be ruled out

Of course, before long, credible accusations of massacres, ethnic cleansing, extrajudicial killings, widespread looting and rape, food blockade, stoppage of all farming activities including ploughing, planting, or harvesting and the killing of livestock and looting of farm equipments began surfacing. It was clear the Ethiopian troops and their Eritrean collaborators are not just determined to brutally suppress Tigray, but also deliberately instigate a famine and use starvation as a weapon of war.

However, what I did not see coming two weeks ago was the stunning reversal of fortunes in the battlefield. In fact, due to the media and communications blackout of the region, no one expected it. After all, Mr Abiy had said upon launching the military operation that it would last only for about two weeks. Then, barely a month later, he declared victory but said Ethiopian troops were engaged in mop up operations to root out all the remaining Tigrayan fighters hiding in the mountains. But the few reports emanating from the region indicate that fighting has continued in the region since then.

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Then last Monday, out of the blues, Mr Abiy declared a unilateral ceasefire. According to him, it was for humanitarian reasons and to allow crops to be planted. But the lie was exposed when remnants of Ethiopian troops quickly abandoned the region, pausing, as The Economist puts it, “only to dismantle telecommunications equipment and raid a UN office.” Other accounts say they also raided and emptied the banks and food stocks from the few aid agencies that had been allowed into the region. The ceasefire was apparently an effort to mask the defeat of its troops and allow them to retreat.

After the gains made by Ethiopian troops in the first few weeks of the fighting, aided by Eritrean troops and fighter jets, the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF), took to the hills, just like their grandfathers (in the successful insurgency against the Derg communist dictator of the 1980s) and their fathers before them (in the two years border war with Eritrea). The resistance gathered strength and many more Tigrays joined the rebellion as the atrocities committed by the Ethiopian and Eritrean troops became known. Even opponents of the TPLF quickly joined the TDF guerrillas since they knew they faced torture and murder if caught by Ethiopian troops. In a way, they were fighting for their lives and their survival as an ethnic group. The desperation by Abiy and Afwerki to conquer the region by sheer cruelty equally resulted in a determined, disciplined and unusually courageous fight-back Ethiopian and Eritrean troops were neither prepared for nor expected.

In two weeks of fierce fighting in June and led by very determined and highly skilled military veterans, the TDF inflicted one of the worst defeats ever suffered by the Ethiopian armed forces. The TDF killed, captured or put out of action more than half of Ethiopia’s army’s combat capabilities. It annihilated five full army divisions on June 22 and repeated the same feat on three more reinforcement divisions sent in by Abiy shortly after. Eritrean troops have since withdrawn from the towns they occupied and if the TDF makes good on its pledge to march to Asmara, the Eritrean capital, Afwerki is unlikely to survive a second war with the TPLF.

To confirm the total route of Ethiopian troops, the TDF, on Friday, July 2, paraded over 6000 captured Ethiopian prisoners of war through the regional capital.

Also, since Ethiopia pulled out of the Mekelle, the region has experienced electricity, telecommunications and internet blackouts. A key bridge providing access over the Takeze River was also destroyed by retreating Eritrean troops and Amhara Special Forces, key allies of Mr Abiy. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday that getting aid into Tigray is now “more difficult” – and all the difficulties (engineered by Ethiopian troops and its allies) are not signs of a humanitarian cease-fire, “but of a siege”.

This stunning victory by the TPLF has changed projections in the regions. If the Ethiopian government continues to blockade Tigray, the TDF, energised by the capture of most Ethiopian weaponry and with its morale very high, could decide to fight to break the blockade to access the Sudanese border or even toppling Isaias Afwerki, the Eritrean dictator.

Much more consequential is the popular sentiments for secession in Tigray. With the initiative now firmly in the hands of TDF and with Abiy’s determination to continue to blockade the region, secession cannot be ruled out. Also, if the TPLF declares independence, it may spell the end to Ethiopia’s fragile ethnic federation, just like Yugoslavia’s. This is besides the border skirmishes with Sudan and the looming threat of war with Sudan and Egypt over the filling of the massive hydropower dam on the Nile. With Abiy’s bellicosity, it’s difficult to see how he can keep Ethiopia united and prevent a war with his neighbours.

While the United Nations is frantically trying to bring the warring parties to the negotiation table, the African Union has predictably ruled itself out as an impartial arbiter by its unflinching support for Abiy’s aggression.