The war launched by the Ethiopian government against Tigray is far from over and is affecting the whole region. Millions risk famine and further millions have been forced to leave their homes.
“Thousands of people have been killed since the conflict erupted, 2 million have been forced from their homes and 91% of the population of nearly 6 million are in need of aid, according to the latest report by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs”, news agency Reuters reported.
A team of CNN reporters that was able to pass military checkpoints and enter Tigray, met a large number of Eritrean soldiers in old Ethiopian uniforms. The CNN team’s “interviews with humanitarian workers, doctors, soldiers and displaced people in Axum and across central Tigray, where up to 800,000 displaced people are sheltering, indicate the situation is even worse than feared. Eritrean troops aren’t just working hand in glove with the Ethiopian government, assisting in a merciless campaign against the Tigrayan people, in some areas they’re fully in control and waging a reign of terror”.
This terror includes “an alarming number of women [who] are being gang-raped, drugged and held hostage in the conflict, in which sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war and its use linked to genocide". According to one agency’s estimate, almost one-third of all attacks on civilians involve sexual violence, the majority committed by men in uniform.
“The UN’s humanitarian agency said the same number of people ‘have been without access to electricity, communications and other essential services for more than four months” and suffer “emergency outcomes” — just below “famine” conditions…” according to the International Crisis Group.
The war
The war launched by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abey Ahmed in early November was described as a rapid disciplinary action against the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Tigray, who have been named as traitors. After three weeks of war, Abiy Ahmed declared the war was finished.
It was clear from the beginning that this was not the case. The Ethiopian army relied on military assistance from Eritrea, bordering Tigray in the north. During the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, 1998–2000, Ethiopia was ruled by TPLF and its authoritarian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The peace deal between Abiy Ahmed and Eritrea’s dictator Isaias Afewerki in 2018 rendered Abiy Ahmed the Nobel Peace Prize. Now the deal offers Afewerki revenge on Tigray. This includes regaining areas within the Ethiopian border that after the war the UN decided were Eritrean.
Regional military forces from the Amhara region, with which Tigray has for long had territorial disputes, are also part of the war on Addis Ababa’s side. The dominance of TPLF in Ethiopian governments from the early 1990s till 2018, when Amharans and other ethnic groups in Ethiopia were discriminated against, is now used in propaganda in support of the war against Tigray. The TPLF regime, however, did not act for the benefit of ordinary Tigrayans, but for a thin layer of TPLF leaders and officers, as well as a small elite layer from other ethnic groups.
The heavy involvement of Eritrean and Amhara troops, and their brutal violence mean that the invading military forces lack any social base. Instead, according to the analysis made by the International Crisis Group “The Tigrayan resistance appears to enjoy broad support in the region”. “The Ethiopian government’s scorched earth strategy in Tigray has all but ensured the alienation of most ethnic Tigrayans. It has also ensured that the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) will have no shortage of committed fighters and sympathetic supporters…”, says a war analysis from jamestown.org.
When the attack came, the TPLF, with its strong military experience dating from the 1980s, abandoned its heavy arms, and organised guerilla war renaming itself the TDF. It took control of “rural parts of Central Tigray Zone as well as some areas of Eastern, South-eastern and Southern Tigray Zones and the Tigrayan media regularly report what they describe as victories by these forces over either the Ethiopian or Eritrean armies”, says ICC.
Amhara regional forces hold western Tigray, where Ethiopia has a longstanding border conflict with Sudan. The Crisis Group reports that in the al-Fashaga area “Sudan’s military — taking advantage of Ethiopia’s distraction by the Tigray conflict — moved to control territory it claims Ethiopia occupied from the mid-1990s. The hostilities, which also have drawn in Eritrean forces, are of particular concern to Amhara leaders, as farmers from that region were evicted by Sudan’s incursion”. This area is also key in the conflict between Ethiopia and both Egypt and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which the latter regimes regard as a threat to the Nile.
The regime in Addis Ababa first denied Eritrean forces were involved, then in early April promised that they were about to leave Tigray. None of this happened, and it seems the Ethiopian government and military, even if they wanted, are unable to force them to leave. Eritrean troops are controlling check points, looting transports of aid, attacking hospitals and civilians, especially women. However, Abiy Ahmed’s government needs both them and the Amhara militias.
In one of many similar summaries, jamestown.org concludes “The war in Tigray shows every sign of only becoming more severe (…) A deadly stalemate has taken hold and it is civilians who will suffer most as famine looms”.
Imperialism
Global powers, and US imperialism in particular, fear the loss of the most stabilising state in the Horn of Africa. In Ethiopia itself, there are armed conflicts and ethnic violence also in Oromia, the most populated region and elsewhere. In the region, both Eritrea and Sudan are already involved in the war. Addis Ababa is also where the African Union headquarter is seated.
Ethiopia has long been a close ally of US imperialism, for example in invading and occupying Somalia in 2006. In 2015, US president Obama, praised Ethiopia for its assistance against the islamist al-Shabab. He said the Ethiopian government was “democratically elected” when in fact the ruling coalition led by TPLF, won 100 per cent of all seats in parliament whilst thousands of opposition activists were in prison.
Rapid economic growth in Ethiopia, based on a China-influenced model of an authoritarian state cooperating with multinational companies, also earned Addis Ababa praise by Western politicians.
With the present war and its regional dangers, the Biden administration has imposed sanctions and cut its aid to Ethiopia. Abiy Ahmed, however, has replied by warning the US that it risks losing its local police force.
For now, US imperialism’s relatively weak response will serve to promote a “humanitarian” side of the Biden administration but have no effect on the war.
Stop the war
This war has to be opposed by ordinary Ethiopians of all ethnic groups, as well as workers and young people globally. It is a war for power between the old ruling group, the TPLF, and its successor with Aby Ahmed at its head. He was a former intelligence officer under TPLF rule that came to power in order to divert a growing mass movement of opposition in 2016–17. Demonstrations, strikes and protests shook the old regime, especially since it united Ethiopians in both Oromia and Amhara, the two largest groups.
Abiy Ahmed, who is Oromian, also signalled a change of economic policies, with a plan for mass privatisations. This year, a license to a private telecom consortium was sold for 850 million US dollars. In a few months, a sale of 40 percent of state-owned Ethio Telecom is planned. With 110 million inhabitants, telecom is a mass market. The new course, however, offers no real relief for the economic crisis of the country, now increased by the war.
In this war, both sides have committed massacres and terror attacks, with the Eritrean and Ethiopian armies behind most of them. Deadly attacks and massacres by the TDF are also recorded.
In this situation, the date for already postponed elections have been changed from 5 to 21 June. Nothing will stop Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party from declaring victory. The party was launched in December 2019 as the successor of the TPLF-led front EPRDF, which ruled for almost three decades, 1991–2018. With the war, no real opposition organisations are allowed, in contrast to the first period of Abiy Ahmed, when political prisoners were released and some exiled organisations returned to the country.
Socialists demand an immediate end of the war and full access to any necessary relief food, medicine etc to all affected. For all opposed to the war, the key is to establish multi-ethnic defence against the violence. All connected to the old and the new repressive dictatorial regimes must be purged and held responsible. Democratic organizations of workers, poor farmers and young people are necessary to challenge the ruling elites and form an alternative, taking control of the country’s enormous resources. Capitalism, imperialism and dictatorial elites, have caused the present catastrophe in Ethiopia. The answer is a revolutionary struggle, democratically organised, uniting all ethnic groups at the same time as guaranteeing maximum local autonomy.
