Ethiopia. The farce of the humanitarian truce. Risk of a second attempted of invasion of Tigray.
On March 24, Amhara regime declared an indefinite humanitarian truce in order to facilitate humanitarian assistance to the Tigray under siege from December 2020. Unfortunately, this truce seems an act of pure propaganda aimed to buy time to reorganize the federal army and attempt a new invasion of Tigray and an offensive against the OLA in Oromia. The attempt to resolve the conflict militarily is made difficult by the internal divisions between Premier Abiy, the nationalist leadership Amhara and the Eritrean dictator who are triggering animplosion of the Prosperiry Party, illegally in power in Ethiopia.
On 24 March, the Ethiopian Amhara regime declared an indefinite humanitarian truce to facilitate the dispatch and delivery of humanitarian aid to Tigray following a siege and a humanitarian assistance embargo decreed by the same regime in December 2020. Addis Ababa regime asked Tigray armed forces to withdraw from the occupied territories in the nearby Amhara region.
The democratically elected government of Tigray, represented by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front — TPLF, has declared that it will join the truce and will implement a cessation of hostilities only on conditions of seeing concrete acts of full humanitarian assistance to the 7 million Ethiopian citizens of the “rebel” region. Despite this request to which the regime has not given due assurances, the ongoing fighting on the front in the Afar region has stopped. The regular army of Tigray (Tigray Defense Forces — TDF) is withdrawing its forces from Abala, Megale, Nerhale and Konneba but keeps them in the nearby Amhara region despite having given orders not to implement offensives but to respond only in case of attack . TDF mainly controls some areas in the Wag Himora and North Gondar areas of the Amhara region.
The first humanitarian convoys were able to enter Tigray ten days after the declaration of the truce, on Saturday 2 April. There are only 13 trucks full of medicines, medical equipment, emergency food and water pumps. It is the first convoy to reach the region since September 2021. The World Food Program has reported that it has delivered the first shipment of fuel to Mekelle, the capital of Tigray. About 47,000 liters.
UAE has sent 30 tons of medical supplies and food aid to Addis Ababa to be delivered in Tigray. It should be noted that UAE is fully involved in the Ethiopian conflict with supplies of weapons, Chinese Wing Loong war drones and technicians for their remote piloting. Humanitarian actors agree that the first aid assistance, even if encouraging, is not sufficient to stem the humanitarian catastrophe created by the regime in the framework of the genocidal plan against the people of Tigray.
The humanitarian truce declared by Ethiopian Premier Abiy was welcomed with enthusiasm and uncritically by the European Union engaged in an absurd cold war with Russia and happy to receive news about fragile glimmers of peace from a war far worse than that of Ukraine one where Brussels was not able to impose peace since November 2020 despite the fact that the European Union is one of Ethiopia’s main economic partners.
Less enthusiastic and more critical reactions came from the United States, which approved the S3199 law on peace and stabilization of Ethiopia on March 31st thanks to the positive opinion of Congress and the Senate Foreign Relations Commission. The law provides tools for investigating crimes against humanity committed during the conflict which, let’s not forget, has not ended. According to Senator Jim Rich, the newly passed law provides the tools to blame all parties involved in the conflict for committing atrocities. The law also focuses on the role of disinformation and on foreign actors in the conflict.
“Not all the parties to the conflict have signed the ceasefire or agreed to come to the negotiating table and the road to peace and national reconciliation in Ethiopia is long. This legislation sends a strong message that Congress is still serious about accountability and conflict resolution », said Senator Risch.
The Ethiopian peace and stabilization law is also a terrible instrument of war aimed at destroying the now collapsed Ethiopian economy and bringing about the fall of the Amhara regime. In fact, the law will sanction Ethiopian and Eritrean political and military leaders, will eliminate American financial assistance to the Ethiopian government and will make it almost impossible for the Amhara and Eritrean regimes to access loans from international agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The Addis Ababa regime has avoided any comment at the moment but the nationalist and fascist Amhara parties have not spared harsh condemnations to US President Biden. They claim that Ethiopia is a sovereign State that will never submit to the will of the American Senate. They equiperate the sanctions previously adopted and the harsh law S3199 to a terrorist act in favor of the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Army, invoking the protection of Russia and China. Political mistake as it has maddened Biden focused on total war against Russia all over the planet.
American sanctions could further tighten thanks to the intense work of Egypt which is openly asking the United States and the European Union to recognize the genocide taking place in Tigray by applying the total economic and arms embargo to the regimes of Eritrea and Ethiopia. At the moment, the Cairo request has found the full support of the United States and Great Britain who are pressing the European Union. If the genocide in Tigray will be internationally formalized, it would open the doors not only to economic warfare but also to the possibility of prosecuting the Ethiopian Premier, the Amhara leaders, the Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki and, ultimately, would justify any armed intervention.
The United States Institute for Peace says the truce offers an opportunity to stop the war that created an unprecedented humanitarian disaster and come to the rescue of millions of civilians, including women and children, who have been forced to abandon their homes, left without basic services and subjected to horrendous violence. Despite this, the Institute warns that there is still no trace of a written agreement of the truce verbally declared by the Amhara regime and accepted by the TPLF. The written agreement is not a formality but an obligatory step to start the peace talks and verify the real intentions of the warring parties.
“Getting an agreement will require building trust between the warring parties through concrete and sustained steps. It will be essential to open total and unconditional humanitarian access to Tigray and Afar and allow the IDPs return. These steps will require follow-up and monitoring by political and military leaders. Communication and respect from the security forces on the ground will be required”,states the United States Institute for Peace.
Unfortunately, various regional and international observers, as well as American and Sudanese intelligence reported strong movements of troops of the Ethiopian Federal Army (ENDF) on the border with Tigray. ENDF troops are positioning themselves in the cities of Kogo, Bathi and Sekota in the Amhara and Afar region. Strong concentrations of tanks and heavy artillery are also reported.
The reasons for this mobilization at the same time as the verbally announced truce are not clear. Is it a defensive or an offensive mobilization?
Some observers say this new large-scale military mobilization is part of a plan to launch the second invasion of Tigray. Others disagree with these analyzes and argue that Ethiopian troops are deployed along the borders to strengthen defenses in the event of a military offensive by the regular Tigray army.
There is a real risk that the humanitarian truce is just a move to take time to permit to regroup the Ethiopian and Eritrean military sectors to continue the conflict by launching an offensive against Tigray in the hope of annihilating the TPLF. Military observers report the concentration of Ethiopian and Eritrean troops also in the vicinity of Oromia, suspecting the intention of launching a simultaneous military offensive against the Oromo Liberation Army which now controls over 50% of Oromia and is located 100 km from the capital Finfinee ( Addis Ababa in Amharic).
At the moment, about 90,000 Ethiopian soldiers are reported to be ready to launch the attack on the Tigray, supported by about 40,000 Eritrean soldiers. Another 30,000 are on alert to launch the offensive in Oromia. Despite this massive invasion force, these two new offensives seem more like a desperate act by Premier Abiy to win the war than a resolving military the conflict. “The 110,000 soldiers of the federal army are in fact new recruits often enlisted by force and poorly trained. Abiy is making the same mistake he made in June 2021 when his army was wiped out in Tigray. He believes it is enough to enlist hundreds of thousands of young people, arm them to the teeth and throw them at the enemy. This is a suicide tactic as it completely ignores the importance of training which, as we all know, takes a long time”, explains a Ugandan military adviser under protection of anonymity.
The probable offensives in Tigray and Oromia, if they are realized, come at a critical moment for Premier Abiy Ahmed Ali. The political alliance between Amhara’s political elite and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy begins to weaken.
The Abiy-Amhara alliance saw its first setback in late December last year, when Prime Minister Abiy’s government halted the military operation and decided not to enter Tigray after inflicting Tegaru forces and to the OLA a disastrous military defeat thanks also to the drones of the Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iran and China. At the time, the decision not to pursue the forces of the TDF to destroy them was violently contested by nationalists in Ethiopia and by the Amhara diaspora who wanted to deal the fatal blow to the Tigray.
The alliance received its second blow in January of this year, when the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed released the leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Top leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) such as Sebhat Nega, Kidusan Nega, Abay Weldu, Mulu Gebregzihaber, Abadi Zemu and Kiros Hagos were granted amnesty and were released from prison. Some Amhara politicians and members of the diaspora, including Andargachew Tsige and Tamagne Beyene, opposed this decision.
Relations between Prime Minister Abiy’s federal government and Amhara’s political elite further deteriorated after the Amhara Regional Army and the Ethiopian Federal Army launched an operation to disarm the Fano militia. Several members of Amhara Fano’s militias were killed in Gojjam and Wollo during the ongoing operation. Amhara Prosperity Party leaders such as Gedu Andargachew, the National Movement of Amharas (NAMA) and Eskinder Nega’s Balderas party opposed military operations against the FANO militia. It is now beyond question that the tens of thousands of FANO militiamen will participate in the invasion of Tigray if Premier Abiy does not recognize them as legitimate defense forces and continues hostilities against them.
Now the majority of Amhara nationalists accuse the Ethiopian Premier of treason and double-dealing. The Prosperity Party is splitting into pro and anti Abiy factions, in danger of shattering. The National Movement of Amharas (NAMA) and Eskinder Nega’s Balderas party (both proponents of purely Nazi policies) are gaining ground among the more than 20 million Amhara living in Ethiopia and the diaspora in the West by forcing the nationalist Amhara leadership to choose whether to support the emerging neo-Nazism or Abiy Ahmed Ali.
The situation is aggravated by the clashes on the border between the Amhara and Oromia reasons. Local officials from the two regions issued statements on the clashes involving the Oromo security forces (loyal to Premier Abiy) and the Amhara FANO militias. According to initial information received from credible sources, a convoy of the Oromo security forces and the federal police was ambushed by the Amhara FANO militiamen near Fentaleworkda, in Oromia. A total of 26 Oromo security officers and two federal police officers were killed.
Fentaleworkda is located in eastern Shewa, in the Oromia region. It shares a border with the Amhara region. Last year in this area, more than a dozen of Kereyu Oromo’s elders were killed out of court by the Oromia security forces on the orders of the Ethiopian Premier. In these conditions, how it will be possible to launch a resolute military offensive against the Oromo Liberation Army is an enigma that not even the Child Emperor Abiy is able to answer.
