Horn of Africa: New Tensions in Tigray, and New International Political and Media Speculation

In recent days, the renewed tensions between the Ethiopian Federal Government and the administration of the northern state of Tigray have been causing growing concern. First of all, the rumors that often circulate in these cases of foreign troops or troops ready to intervene in Tigray, primarily Eritrean troops, must be denied: the issue is in fact entirely internal to Ethiopia, between the government of the PP (Prosperity Party) of Abiy Ahmed and a faction of the TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) that leads Tigray, and proves the substantial and predictable impotence of the Agreements signed in Pretoria that ended the conflict between the Federal Government and the TPLF of 2020-2022. Those Agreements, signed by the Ethiopian Federal Government and the TPLF, with South Africa, the United States and the African Union as guarantors and observers, have unfortunately encountered numerous obstacles, which have largely thwarted their application; but enforcing them could probably still be a lifeline for the stability of Tigray, Ethiopia and, in turn, the entire region. Eritrea, and others, certainly have no interest in letting them fail, preferring instead that the parties called upon to apply them commit themselves in this direction rather than speculating politically and in the media to internationalize their renewed internal conflicts.

First of all, it must be explained that the TPLF is mainly divided into two large factions, one led by the leader Getachew Reda (TPLF-G), interim president of Tigray, and the other by the leader Gebremichael Debretsion (TPLF-D), who can count above all on the military force, estimated at around 200 thousand fighters. The TPLF-G faction leads Tigray according to a compromise with Addis Ababa that arose precisely with the Pretoria Accords, with the TPLF-D faction meanwhile aiming to carry out a strategy aimed at preventing it from being able to equip itself with its own credible military force, as well as gaining greater internal political influence. In Tigray, as well as within the TPLF itself, there are also other relatively minority factions. In recent days, the TPLF-D faction has been ousting various administrations controlled by the TPLF-G in Tigray with a series of coups; up to this point it would be an internal problem in Tigray, if it were not for the fact that the TPLF-G faction is the one aligned with the Federal Government of the PP, today more than ever hostile to Eritrea, against which in the vain search for a scapegoat the obviously unproven accusation of having moved the hand of the TPLF-D faction is launched.

These accusations alone have largely colonized the web , joining others from outside the TPLF area but still attributable to other internal or international factions, not least Western ones, known for their hostility to the Asmara government: all false, often old accusations chewed over and fished out from the past, but which nevertheless testify to the strong anti-Eritrean activism known by certain political and media circles these days. It is an old script that the Western public, less “vaccinated”, can still easily give credence to; but really, after all these years, it would be best not to let ourselves be too influenced by it. Because if the contrasts and conflicts within the Ethiopian political groups exist, and so do those between Ethiopia and its neighbors, it is even more preferable to frame them in a more correct political reading, rather than giving rise to decidedly unconstructive or even misleading narratives.

The TPLF-D faction does not want Tigray to be transformed again into a front line in a possible military clash between the Ethiopian Federal Government and Eritrea, given that Addis Ababa has recently threatened all its neighbors in the Horn of Africa to gain access to the sea. Previously it was with Somalia, signing with the unrecognized state of Somaliland an MoU to establish a naval and military base in the Berbera area, in exchange for recognition as an independent state; and with Sudan, where equally supporting the RSF against the government of Khartoum one of the Ethiopian hopes was also to create, through the deflagration of its neighbor, access to Port Sudan. With the page closed in Somalia, on which the attention of the United Arab Emirates and Israel, as well as the USA, remains, and the civil war in Sudan almost over with the defeat of the RSF (Rapid Support Forces), always supported by the United Arab Emirates and Israel, Ethiopia has recently returned to polemic with Eritrea precisely over access to the port of Assab, to which it had always had free access before the 1998-2000 conflict. An access, that of Assab, that Addis Ababa wanted to lose by its choice, waging against Eritrea the unmotivated war of aggression of 1998, which ended in 2000 with a heavy defeat for the Ethiopian forces “softened” by the prompt diplomatic intervention and the subsequent 18 years of violation of the border areas, contrary to what was asserted by the UN commission UNMEE and the Algiers Agreements.

In essence, if with the allied TPLF-G faction it would be easier for the Ethiopian Federal Government to militarily confront Eritrea given the relatively greater political control that it would ensure in Tigray, with the more difficult TPLF-D faction it would be more likely that Tigray itself would become the scene of a new civil conflict between the TPLF and the Federal Government. Eritrea does not intend to find itself involved in an internal issue concerning its Ethiopian neighbor, preferring instead to pursue its internal development and its relations with various regional and international partners, as attested for example by the multi-billion dollar agreement signed in recent days with Saudi Arabia for the development of the port of Assab. The Ethiopian Federal Government is in the throes of a serious economic and financial crisis aggravated by the liberalizations imposed by the IMF and the end of USAID funds, of which Ethiopia was among the largest dependents on the continent, with inflation that is devouring the birr whose value in the meantime continues to slide; with growing rivalries between the groups that compose it, as well as with those who in various capacities lead or compete with it for control of various areas of the country, from the FANO in Amhara to the ONLF in Oromia, up to new tensions in Afar and Ogaden, an area so far relatively quieter than the others. Above all, the civil war that at this moment opposes the Federal Government to the FANO, which continues to advance in various areas of the country, is creating continuous and serious suffering for the population in Amhara, constituting for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed much more than a thorn in the side and a mortgage on the stability of his power.

Consequently, it seems more than understandable that the Ethiopian Federal Government seeks in external conflict an escape route from its many and growing internal contradictions; but precisely for this reason no serious and responsible regional or international actor would ever see the point of giving it credence, further fomenting its instability and consequently also the suffering of many of its citizens. If anything, what we should all hope for is that Ethiopia can soon return to better times, for the good of the many peoples who inhabit it and also of its neighbors, who would prefer to maintain a policy of integration and good neighborliness and certainly not of suspicious and conflict; and who would even less like to feel singled out as the usual “scapegoats” for problems for which they have no responsibility.