Flashback — Conflict in Tigray: reflections on cause and effects
(Introduction for Webinar on ‘Ethiopia in 2021’, at the The Institute of World Politics, Washington, DC, 8 February 2021)
Jon Abbink
We have witnessed a tragic conflict in Northern Ethiopia, derailing a promising course of political change set in in April 2018 with the advent to power of PM Abiy Ahmed.
At issue are:
1. The causes and nature of the armed conflict in Tigray — insofar as can be ascertained now, in early 2021
2. The possible impact and ramifications that this conflict may have on the political transition process in Ethiopia, including on challenges to the upcoming elections, the ‘ethnic-based’ federal model, and on constitutional-legal matters.
I make these remarks as a long-time field researcher in Ethiopia, primarily as an anthropologist having worked in a variety of field sites in the past 2,5 decades. When working in the local-level settings I noticed the problems of the ethnic-based federal dispensation and the growing repressive atmosphere across the country. Even in these settings I saw that everything was ‘politicized’ and generating tensions. It seemed that the Constitution was not much respected, despite its beautifully sounding premises. My gradual conclusion was that ‘ethnic federalism’, while having brought an important measure of recognition of cultural group difference and of ethno-linguistic expression, was not delivering, certainly not on democratic politics and economic equity.
1.When addressing point 1, the war of the past months, we might start by recalling the words of the biblical prophet Hosea (8:7) who said: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” That has been happening with the TPLF: they have called up the forces of war, in light of their aims to dispute the legitimacy of the federal government and to ultimately return to Addis Ababa. Their decline as leading party in the country and their ‘fall from grace’ were, however, precipitated by their own non-democratic, repressive policies in the political sphere and their non-transparent, favouritist ones in the economic domain — and its strategy of conflict seemed to be based on a deep fear of further loss of economic and political privilege.
To get a clear picture of everything regarding this armed conflict is still difficult (and I will not go into the details of it here — important as they are). To really assess what has happened, the antecedents of the conflict and the entire context will have to be studied. Let me just briefly note that with its massive military operation on 4 November the TPLF bears prime responsibility for the conflict — and especially the nature of that grisly night attack on the federal Northern Command shocked the nation. Any national government would have reacted: no country can continue to exist if it allows its armed forces to be slaughtered.
Many international media observers seem to have expected that this armed confrontation would be a neat operation and that ‘negotiations and dialogue’ should be tried a.s.a.p. But a conflict that started like this is not a football match. For most of those media and outside observers it should be fought without any collateral damage, no civilian deaths or humanitarian problems, etc. On this moral high ground and not hindered by deep knowledge of the facts, they quickly found fault, not specifically with the TPLF and its army but with the federal government. Incorrectly.
Even so-called reputable global media were not doing their homework: remarkably many were giving incomplete and unreliable or misleading news on the armed conflict, and they almost always bypassed Ethiopian local media sources and statements — obviously also fed by uncritical pro-TPLF elite spokespersons and opposition websites, including anti-Isayas Eritrean ones. While indeed many things have happened that were problematic, such as the larger-than-expected involvement of Eritrean troops, it is clear that the Ethiopian army showed professionalism and relative restraint. But a war — even one initiated by faulty calculations of the TPLF leadership in Meqele — takes its own, unforeseen violent dynamics. E.g. needless deaths, an estimated 1.7 million people needing food and other aid, economic disruption, breakdown of public facilities, looting, etc. were there. Indeed, humanitarian assistance must be increased. Incidentally, so far ca. 55–60% of aid to the region comes from government stores and, notably, from many gifts of cash and goods from people all over Ethiopia. But much of the damage easily ascribed to the federal army was done by TPLF militias, e.g. the destruction of health facilities and of the communications infrastructure (massive cutting and cleaving of cables).
Most important now is to stimulate a rebuilding of Tigray, economically and politically. The people of Tigray obviously must have a renewed stake in the federation under a hopefully more democratic and transparent regional government. We have to recognize that the past TPLF government was led by a certain elite group of people, economically privileged, well-connected, and over-represented in key sectors of Ethiopian society as a whole. TPLF was not particularly beneficial to its ‘own’ masses in Tigray: the farmers, labourers, small traders, youngsters, etc. In fact the TPLF-linked elite had morphed into a kind of ethno-class, active on the national level, doing very well economically, monopolizing much economic power — and building huge villas, and sending their kids abroad to expensive schools — but not working enough for the general Tigray population. When former TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael was calling in February 2021 for the continuation of so-called ‘heroic resistance’ and for ‘sacrifices’, he did not mean that of his own friends and family but of the common, poorer people of Tigray. There are few indications that they, of their own free will, fall for this rather callous and immoral stratagem.
2.The second point is ultimately the most important: how will the Tigray conflagration impact on the political transition process that started with PM Abiy Ahmed? This is crucial, and we can and must have some trust in the federal government. Tigray should of course be included in the coming parliamentary elections in June 2021 (if possible), and is to be a full and recognized, vital partner in federal Ethiopia and in no way to be disadvantaged. There are voices saying the war has threatened the current federation as a whole and makes it impossible to maintain it. And that the federal government is engaged in centralization at the cost of federation. I think this is incorrect. PM Abiy Ahmed and his government have moved to limit the inordinate economic grip of the TPLF party and business elite on the national economy. But he has not been heard saying that the constitution is to be abrogated or the ethno-regional federation to be terminated; on the contrary. If there is a mandate for that after the elections, he would perhaps aim to redefine and improve it. Certainly the current federation has big problems and was not being properly implemented, not even on its own constitutional principles. In the past decades, political ‘ethnicity’ — yebehéreseb gudday — was made into a business model: a model for aspiring and would-be elites on all levels to create power and jobs for themselves. That is a wrong incentive structure and is very costly, has produced local conflicts based on the ‘territorialization’ of ethnicity, and subverts federal cooperation. The Tigray conflict has led to some premonitions among certain elites in other regions. But eventually a new modus vivendi of cooperation, exchange and synergy must and can be found — Ethiopia is to reinvent itself, preferably with new and better-quality political/regional leaders, a thorough reset of the economic dispensation and better agreements on federal state and regional budgeting. If economic fairness and integration is not achieved, political disagreement, and a race to the bottom, will follow (as we saw in the final year of the TPLF/EPRDF-led regime).
A scenario of Ethiopia as a collection of smaller autonomous (for some dreamers, even ‘independent’) states, sounds somewhat absurd, and would lead such a fragmented ex-Ethiopia to be the plaything of its neighbours Kenya, Sudan, Egypt and perhaps even Eritrea. This is unlikely to happen. But surely, what is needed now is to have the elections held, with solid party debates and deliberations across the spectrum, and reinforcing the reform agenda commenced in April 2018. That agenda provides a framework for opportunities for renewed development and democratization — a framework that the country will not easily find again. Past narratives of ‘historical grievances’ have been utterly repetitive, sectarian and regressive. The future of Ethiopia does not lie in rehearsing the past, but in overcoming it and moving forward.
Notes
(1) A trajectory of obfuscation and deceit has marked them, with many victims, and a skewed economy (despite the GPD growth rate and the new dynamism they have realized). Cf. already: Ivo Strecker, ‘TPLF Strategies of deceit, a reminder’. February 11, 2021 (at: https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2021/02/11/tplf-strategies-of-deceit-a-reminder).
(2) As already mentioned in a report of the (partly government-supported) Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Brief Monitoring Report on the Situation of Civilians in Humera, Dansha and Bissober, of 18 January 2021.
(3) Indeed, in early November 2020 he had allegedly already taken efforts to get his own wife and kids out of Tigray — with the possible assistance of the US Embassy — and he only appeals to the ordinary people of Tigray.
