While the Rest of the World Has Its Eyes Elsewhere, the Ethiopian Tigray Conflict Explodes

 

"Every Nation, Nationality, and People in Ethiopia has an unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession." The 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia, Article 39.1

The “House of Federation” shall have the right to "order Federal intervention if any State [government], in violation of [the] Constitution, endangers the constitutional order." Article 62.9.

There’s so much hardship, violence, climate change and disease all over the world, political polarization, the Afghanistan debacle, plus a pandemic that is getting much worse from a combination of (1) self-righteous anti-vax/anti-maskers who either do not appreciate the threat or believe that they have personal “rights” that trump the rights to the health of others and (2) nations with a complete paucity of vaccines at all. There is so much “bad” on the planet, who would notice a “little” conflict over the Africa’s Ethiopian Tigray national region, pictured above? Eritrea is immediately north of that red Tigray national region. 

Tigray is constitutionally noted as “region 1” within Ethiopia, holds just over 7 million people, and is primarily an impoverished agricultural area with substantial political clout.  “In early November 2020, a conflict between the Tigray Region, involving the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) and the Ethiopian federal government began, in which Eritrea, Somalia and the UAE [United Arab Emirates] also took part on the side of the Ethiopians, rapidly escalating into the Tigray War and destabilizing the region.” Wikipedia 

So here is a thumbnail of what this conflict is all about, one that has already resulted in thousands of deaths and more than a few atrocities from all concerned (Wikipedia continues): “The Tigray War… is an ongoing civil war [in which the]  Special Forces of the Tigray Regional government are fighting the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), the latter being aided by the Ethiopian Federal Police, regional police, and gendarmerie forces of the neighboring … regions with the involvement of the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF). The Tigrayan Special Forces received reinforcements from defecting ENDF soldiers and civilian volunteers; they were integrated into the Tigray Defense Forces. All sides, particularly the ENDF and EDF, have [been accused of committing] war crimes during the conflict. 

“In 2019, allegedly to distance [Ethiopia] from ethnic federalism and ethnic nationalist politics, prime minister Abiy Ahmed merged the ethnic and region-based constituent parties of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition and several opposition parties into his new Prosperity Party. The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a politically powerful entity that had dominated Ethiopian politics for 27 years as a repressive regime through a one-party dominant system, refused to join the new party. The TPLF then alleged that Abiy Ahmed became an illegitimate ruler because the general elections scheduled for 29 August 2020 were postponed to 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The TPLF, led by its chairman Debretsion Gebremichael, went ahead with regional elections in Tigray in September 2020 in defiance of the federal government, which then declared the Tigray election illegal. 

“After a long build-up of Eritrean and Amhara forces on Tigray's borders, the actual fighting between the TPLF and the Ethiopia-Eritrea-Amhara alliance began with the 4 November attacks on Northern Command bases and headquarters of the ENDF in Tigray Region by TPLF-aligned security forces and with counterattacks by the ENDF in the Tigray Region on the same day, that federal authorities described as a police action. The federal forces captured Mekelle, the capital of Tigray Region, on 28 November, after which Prime Minister Abiy declared the Tigray operation ‘over’. The TPLF stated in late November that it would continue fighting until the ‘invaders’ are out, and on 28 June 2021 the Tigray Defense Forces retook Mekelle. 

“Mass extrajudicial killings of civilians took place during November and December 2020… At least 10,000 people have died, and war rape [seems to have] become a ‘daily’ occurrence, with girls as young as 8, and women as old as 72, raped, often in front of their families. Peace and mediation proposals included an early November African Union (AU) mediation proposed by Debretsion and refused by Abiy; an AU trio of former African presidents who visited Ethiopia in late November; an emergency Intergovernmental Authority on Development summit of East African heads of government and state that met in late 20 December 2020 in Djibouti; and peace proposals on 19 February by the TPLF and on 20 February by the National Congress of Great Tigray (Baytona), Tigray Independence Party (TIP) and Salsay Weyane Tigray (SAWET). Due to the onset of the war, a deep humanitarian crisis has developed.”  

Not pretty from any perspective, made more ironic in that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy had previously been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The seemingly conflicting provisions of the Ethiopian constitution cited above have simply made a bad situation simply horrible. All this ultra-violence in the middle of a pandemic.

What has the United States been doing about this escalation of civilian extermination? Sanctions and now more sanctions: “The United States on Monday [8/23] imposed new sanctions over Ethiopia’s deadly Tigray conflict as hundreds of thousands of people face famine conditions under a government blockade the U.S. has called a ‘siege’ and fighting spreads into other parts of the country.

“The Treasury Department in a statement said the chief of staff of the defense forces of neighboring Eritrea, Filipos Woldeyohannes, was sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for leading an entity accused of ‘despicable acts’ including massacres, widespread sexual assault and the executions of boys. The statement again calls on Eritrea to remove its soldiers from Ethiopia’s Tigray region permanently… Scores of witnesses have described to The Associated Press abuses such as gang-rapes, the destruction of health centers, the burning of crops and forced expulsions. Eritreans were often accused of some of the worst abuses. Ethiopia's government denied their presence in Tigray for months.

“‘The (Eritrean Defense Forces) have purposely shot civilians in the street and carried out systematic house-to-house searches, executing men and boys, and have forcibly evicted Tigrayan families from their residences and taken over their houses and property,’ the new U.S. statement said.” Associated Press, August 23rd. 

In the end, we seem all to be living with a currently unconquerable disease, desiccating rising global temperatures and a seeming tolerance of polarized political violence everywhere (including the United States). These overwhelming negative trends have redefined the 21st century for the worse. We can choose to be different and tolerant, but that appears to be an increasingly rare political choice.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as Americans become mired in our own pain and missteps, it is interesting to note that political distress has become a globally increasingly acceptable “way of the future”… and it simply does not have to be that way if we choose otherwise.