Ethiopia. Sudan. A breath away from the war.
The civil war in Tigray is slowly bringing Ethiopia to the brink of balkanization and regional war. The clash for political and economic control between the TPLF and PM Abiy Ahmed Ali risks becoming uncontrollable and unleashing other ethnic crises. Added to this is the unresolved question of the water resources of the Nile and the mega dam GERD. The current tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia could be the spark of the first water war in Africa.
2020 does not end well for the Ethiopian people. In the country of the Queen of Shaba, something much worse than the Covid19 pandemic has hit: the end of the democratic dream and the reforms that the young Prime Minister has made the whole world believe since the first days of his office in 2018. After the first promising gestures: release of political prisoners, end of state of emergency, opening to press freedom, return permit for banned opposition leaders, peace with Eritrea, Abiy Ahmed Ali plotted against the ruling coalition, forced the TPLF to get out, engaged in a ruthless repression against the Oromo, postponed the elections citing Covid19 health needs and launched a crazy offensive against the Tigray.
Far from being over, the conflict in Tigray has all the potential to trigger a regional war and the balkanization process of Ethiopia. The news of an escalation of the territorial dispute comes to confirm. Ethiopia has warned Sudan of a probable military offensive if Sudanese troops do not stop expanding into Ethiopian territories. In an interview in Amharic with the Ethio FM 107.8 radio station, Ambassador Dina Mufti, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, openly threatened Khartoum. “Sudan should not take Ethiopia’s silence out of weakness. Our forces are on standby 24/7 and are ready to defend our sovereignty ”.
In response, the Sudanese army has taken full control of the disputed border territories of Al-Fashqa. The news was confirmed by Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-Din at a press conference. “Sudanese army has taken control of the entire border with Ethiopia. What we have done is to restore the ownership of our land which has always been Sudanese ”.
The territories of Al-Fashqa have always been disputed between the two countries but they belong to Sudan without a shadow of a doubt. It was under the first decade of the Islamic dictatorship of Omar El Bashir that Ethiopian peasants began to occupy the lands of Al-Fashqa. For political convenience, the dictator tolerated their presence which over the years became so significant that it became the majority ethnic group in the region. The inevitable conflicts with the local population over the available resources led to a permanent situation of ethnic conflicts supported by the respective governments.
The border war was avoided in the 2000s by freezing the problem. A joint Ethiopian Sudanese force was ordered to keep Al-Fashqa a neutral zone and to prevent their respective guerrillas from continuing the ethnic war. This hibernation process was interrupted by the Sudanese army which occupied the disputed territories last November taking advantage of the war in Tigray. The threat of a counter-offensive by the Ethiopian army was taken seriously, given the deployment of troops and vehicles along the border ordered by the Sudanese Armed Forces General Staff.
In a separate statement published in English on the same day, Foreign Affairs spokesman Mufti said his government is committed to reactivating existing mechanisms to reach a negotiated solution to border issues. “We believe that an unnecessary escalation will only worsen the situation and create unnecessary tensions in the border area and interrupt the daily activities of our peoples living in the area.” Contradictory declaration that does not reconcile with the threat of counter-offensive that sounds so much like an ultimatum addressed to Sudan.
Considering that this second statement was not reproduced in the Amharic language, it is reasonable to assume that the federal government has decided to use the well-known tactic of “colonial resistance”. Official declarations are recited in Western languages to please the “whites” but the declarations in the national language are the only ones to have any value.
The military escalation in the disputed Al-Fashqa area is in fact already underway. Clashes have already occurred between the two armies about 10 days ago in Sudanese territory. The hostilities put an end to the mediation attempts of the African Union, which is based in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister recently called for Sudanese troops to be withdrawn and Ethiopian farmers to be compensated, citing vandalism and looting of their products.
Prime Minister Abiy accused third parties of creating tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia. Although he did not name the alleged “conspiratorial” governments, the allusion to Egypt is obvious. Cairo has no interest in opening a direct confrontation with Ethiopia but the fact remains that the Abiy Administration, in the management of the GERD mega dam, represents a direct threat to the economy, agriculture and life of the Egyptians. cause of the drastic lowering of the water level of the Nile. The option to tear down the dam with an air and missile raid has currently been put on standby. The raid would resolve the dispute but the act of aggression, the ecological catastrophe produced, the loss of thousands of human lives, would be more than enough sentences to which General Al-Sisi would not be able to answer. Better a “proxy war” using Sudan.
Certainly there are strong diplomatic pressures in place from the United States and the European Union as one thing is an ally (Egyptian) who smuggles the weight of Turkey and blocks its expansionism in the Mediterranean and Africa, another is a country like the Egypt going to war against another key country and ally of the West: Ethiopia. Western diplomatic pressures are taken into account by General Al-Sisi but are, unfortunately, interpreted by the Ethiopian Prime Minister as an act of weakness by Washington and Brussels. An interpretation that pushes Ethiopia to unilateral actions on the mega dam of the GERD that damage the Egyptian and Sudanese economies and populations.
The umpteenth example of “Ethiopian tricks” came on December 30 when Dina Mufti, former Ethiopian ambassador to Egypt and spokesperson for the foreign ministry, said that since 2007 Egypt has been trying to hinder the realization of the GERD on the Blue Nile to distract public opinion from internal problems. This declaration comes just as the opening of dialogue between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan on the exploitation of the water resources of the sacred river. Various regional experts assume that the declaration is part of a strategy by the Ethiopian Premier to scuttle any possibility of a peaceful solution and compromise to defend national economic interests. Ethiopia has had an endemic shortage of foreign currency for 25 years. Almost 80% of future electricity production will be exported to other African countries, especially East Africa to obtain hard currency.
The Egyptian response was immediate. The Foreign Ministry condemned this statement as a blatant provocation, reads a statement released Thursday 31 December by the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Ahmed Hafez. The statement focuses on recalling the internal problems of Ethiopia: the conflict in Tigray, the instability of Benishangul (where nearly 200 defenceless people were massacred a week ago) and the constant tensions in the Oromia region and with Sudan.
The Sudanese government, in order to prevent its approach to the problem of the water resources of the Nile from being interpreted as bellicose, told Reuters (through a senior military official) that there are no hostile intentions towards Ethiopia, stressing however that the he objective of the military operation on the border of eastern Sudan is to regain control of 2.5 million acres of agricultural land. At the moment there are no new clashes between the two armies but a small incident is enough and Ethiopia risks starting 2021 with a regional war, in addition to the devastating conflict in Tigray, which is still ongoing.
The much feared war for the Nile has actually already begun. “As difficult negotiations over GERD and the Blue Nile threaten to lead to conflict with Sudan and Egypt, the online war took off in early 2020, posing real problems for traditional diplomacy. Both governments, through social media, place nationalistic sentiment above the solution of the dangerous dispute. This makes it more difficult to reach a satisfactory compromise for all parties involved. Online warfare is so effective that their respective public views tend to reject poor agreement results, increasing the chance that online tensions and attacks will turn into open warfare in the real world, “says senior political scientist Ayenat Mersie.
2020 for Ethiopia was the year that confirmed the theory expounded a year earlier by Florian Bieber (Luxembourg political scientist, historian and professor working on inter-ethnic relations, ethnic conflicts and nationalism, focusing mainly on the Balkans) and Wondemagegn Tadesse Goshu, assistant professor at the College of Law and Governance Studie at the University of Addis Ababa. The two experts had hypothesized the risk that Ethiopia would become the next Yugoslavia. In November 2020, Bieber and Goshu re-examined the issue, arguing that once “violence becomes the only means of dealing with disputes, it is difficult to stop, and demands for autonomy quickly escalate to demands for independence.” The two experts compared the current situation in Ethiopia to the first days of fragmentation in Tito’s Yugoslavia.
At a distance of Two months after the start of the conflict in Tigray it can be said that the plans of the Ethiopian Prime Minister have encountered difficulties and he is now forced to take corrective measures. By promising lands in Tigray to the Amhara Abiy encouraged Amharic expansionism. Unfortunately, in Ethiopia people are still right on an ethnic basis and territorial conquests. Now he must try to contain it. How it must contain all the outbreaks of revolt of other regions and ethnic groups that are already glimpsed on the horizon.
In order to avoid several conflicts on the same times P.M. Abiy has announced that the administrative and regional elections (postponed last August) will be held in June 2021. Abiy hopes to survive by arriving at the election date as the saviour of national unity with his party: the strengthened Prosperity Party. In the event of an electoral victory, all the bloody internal politics would be legitimized.
During the early stages of the military offensive in Tigray, the feds failed to prevent the exodus of refugees to Sudan. It is thanks to this exodus that the international community became aware of the horrendous crimes committed by federal troops, Eritrean mercenaries and fascist Amhara militias. Rape, extrajudicial executions, massacres, ethnic cleansing. An all too well documented dossier that weighs like a sword of Damocles on the head of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
There is also the dilemma of humanitarian assistance. Until now, access to the United Nations and NGOs has been prohibited to prevent the discovery of the crimes committed, the presence of Eritrean troops and the continuation of the conflict despite the declaration of victory pronounced by the Prime Minister on 28 November. Evidence of the crimes may now have been erased, although embarrassing refugee testimonies remain but the conflict is still ongoing and various territories are not under the control of the Addis Ababa government. How to admit reality having proclaimed victory? At the moment only the International Red Cross and a delegation from the United Nations have managed to enter Tigray but under heavy armed escort and only in the only two cities that the feds control 100%: Mekelle and Shire.
Regarding the presence of the Eritrean troops, news comes from diplomatic sources that the Ethiopian Prime Minister has requested their withdrawal, after the clear stance of the United States against the presence of Eritrea in Tigray. The news is also confirmed by Ethiopian sources. Regional observers fail to understand the reason for the decision taken. Unsustainable international pressures or the tranquillity and security of having the situation under control by annihilating the Tigray People’s Liberation Front as the government has always supported?
Regardless of the real reasons for the progressive withdrawal of Ethiopian troops, two details should be noted. The withdrawal began only after the mass deportations of 80,000 Eritrean refugees who fled the horrors and abuses of the bloodthirsty Asmara regime. Eritrean troops can cross the border again if needed in the future. Their presence and the ferocity demonstrated in the first phase of the Tigray conflict seriously undermined Abiy’s popularity both internally and internationally.
While it is still unclear whether Eritrea’s military intervention will be compensated with the “gift” of Tigray territories, the colonization plan of the “rebel” region that favors the Amhara is now evident. The areas of Raya, where Alamata is the main city and other areas close to the Amhara region to the south, are effectively administered by Amhara officials and officers. They are border areas with mixed populations (Tigrigna and Amhara) that would have been illegally annexed to Tigray by TPLF when it overthrew the Stalinist regime of Meghistu Hailmariam’s DERG in 1991.
All of these areas are now ruled by an Amhara administrator and protected not by the army or federal police but by the Amhara militias who supported the army to oust the TPLF forces. “We do not want to live with the people of Tigray, who do not know our culture or our traditions” is the slogan of the Amhara politicians. This seems to be the prelude to ethnic deportations in order to ensure a mono-ethnic situation favorable to the Amhara in the disputed areas.
“The Amhara colonization of parts of Tigray will strengthen the TPLF’s intention to sustained resistance in the form of guerrillas.” Warns expert political scientist William Davison. By allowing the Amhara (the second most important ethnic group that gave birth to a long dynasty of Emperors after Menelik I won the Hundred Years War during the Zemene Mesafint (Age of Princes 1755–7855), managing to unify the country) Prime Minister Abiy risks opening the Pandora’s box of ethnic violence in Ethiopia. All regions have territorial disputes. Disputes that should be stifled in the bud as the young Premier always flaunts national unity and the concept of a “One Nation, One People”.
If these territorial claims are analysed from a general point of view, they appear absurd. It is as if the Lombardy region were claiming border areas with Piedmont, declaring itself ready to unleash a conflict to obtain them. Unfortunately, these claims in Ethiopia make sense since each region considers itself a state in itself within the Federation. To this is added the archaic mentality of Ethiopian politicians, based on the control of the land and the demographic increase of one’s ethnic group to strengthen it. The problem is secular and corrodes the concept of national unity. The joke is that rivalries between regions are encouraged (in the case of the Amhara) by the one who in 2018 had sworn to put an end to the ethnic mentality that divides the country to create a strong Ethiopia where every citizen could express himself and fulfill himself regardless of the ethnicity of membership.
