By Baye T. Asmamaw
After nearly three years long protest – mainly by the Amhara and Oromo people – the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s 27 years of iron and fist rule was demolished and its ringleaders were escorted to Mekelle, Tigray region capital, without any form of accountability only to breed competitive sovereignty with the help of what it then calls “federalist forces coalition” advancing exclusive alternative claims to the control over the central government, and mobilization of a significant segment of population in Tigre. The November 04, 2020 attack on the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) by TPLF was the triggering point in the break out of the civil war.
The de facto condition of competitive sovereignty represents the structural antecedent of war in the sense that war becomes possible whenever it is called up on. Hence, the real danger of the military offensive we now see in Ethiopia is not just only this war but the recurrence unless total abolition of the competitive sovereignty is possible. There is an element of agency in the onset that TPLF and its allies may conclude that renewing armed conflict is preferable to the post-conflict status quo if the conflict is handled through negotiated settlement or other means that do not abolish the contested Ethiopian sovereignty. That means, even after the conflict is set to end the tense situation between the two actors must be replaced by enforceable power-sharing arrangements. The power-sharing arrangements – military, political, economic, and territorial – involve dismantling the organizational machinery of two combatant forces and merging them under the institutions of a single state which in Ethiopia would be very difficult to achieve as the interest of the two groups is mutually exclusive. The more dimensions of power sharing are included in the settlement agreement, the more likely the settlement is to break down into a resumption of armed conflict. Implicit in this argument is the notion that multi-dimensional power sharing could worsen the condition of contested sovereignty.
The second dimension of the war going on in Ethiopia is the fact that it also has ethnic component in it. TPLF is playing “Sons of the soil” card when it is deemed rebellion by most international actors due to the possible war crimes committed at Mai-Kadra, China, Galicoma, Kobo and other areas by its fighters; involved gang rape and sexual violence; the rocket attacks on Gondar and Bahirdar cities and especially the sovereign Eritrean capital, Asmara; and its invasion of Amhara and Afar regions. The fact that TPLF is trying to make the war look like ethnic minority resisting the intrusion into their “homeland” of the state’s authority and an external force from neighboring country is a clear intention to use the Tigray people as shield. War hardens ethnic identity to the point that cross-ethnic political appeals become futile. Ethnic wars also generate intense security dilemmas, both because the escalation of each side’s mobilization rhetoric presents a real threat to the other, and even more because intermingled population settlement patterns create defensive vulnerabilities and offensive opportunities. TPLF is trying extremely hard to take advantage of the ethnicity image. For these reasons, the war in Ethiopia is difficult to conclude through negotiated settlement, and to be more likely to recur, ceteris paribus.
Another way to understand the stakes of the current conflict in Ethiopia is see the goal of the rebels. The rebels spokesperson, Getachew Reda, confirmed to the world that the rebels seek to overthrow Abiy Ahmed’s regime, disintegrate Ethiopia and gain independence from it. They seek to create a new sovereign nation out of a portion of the current territory of Ethiopia. It is difficult to sustain the peace following such secession.
Thus, although the intension of the AU, the US, EU, UN and other international actors to find a possible end to the civil war in Ethiopia through negotiated settlement is much appreciable effort, forcing the central government to sit in a round table with a rebel group labeled terrorist by the country’s House of People’s Representative can only exacerbate the situation by undermining the territorial integrity, unity, sovereignty and homogeneity of the country. Furthermore, the presence of contested sovereignty and secessionist mind set by the rebels makes the recurrence of war intact which would only worsen the humanitarian crisis overtime. The win-win scenario both in terms of averting the unfolding humanitarian crisis and maintaining sustainable peace and security in the horn of Africa would be to put extra pressure on the rebels to immediately withdraw from Amhara and Afar regions, disarm their fighters and allow Tigray region to form a new regional government – under the protectorate of the above-mentioned international actors – excluding those who are now leading the war and bringing accountability for possible war crimes on both sides.
