Mereja Forum

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Ethiopia’s Looming Insurgency
Ethiopia could be falling apart as its stalwart ally the U.S. remains entangled and distracted.

There is danger in falling into the role of alarmist and too easily rolling out comparisons to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, which marks one of America’s most tragic foreign policy failures. But there is an equal danger in holding back from making that comparison when it is cried out for. The worsening situation in Tigray, now enduring for more than 100 days, offers a case in point of this critical conundrum.

Ethiopia’s civil conflict broke out on Nov. 4—conveniently coinciding with the seizure of the world’s attention by the U.S. election—when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive against the country’s northernmost region in response to attacks directed by the area’s largest party, Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), on federal military bases housing government troops.

Others argue these attacks had been a preemptive strike by the TPLF against the build-up of federal forces clearly preparing for an offensive after months of feuding between Abiy’s government and the leaders of the TPLF. Tensions have simmered between the two sides ever since Abiy came to power in 2018 and launched a broadside of sweeping reforms that pushed the TPLF, which used to dominate Ethiopian politics, to the sidelines.

At the heart of the political clash are differing ideological views over the type of federation Ethiopia should be and the balance of power within it: Abiy favors a more centralized state while the TPLF demands protection for regional autonomy (something that may sound familiar to Americans). The pivotal question, over which the shadow of Rwanda especially hangs, is about the role ethnic groups should play in the country’s current ethnically-based federal system. In addition to its ruthless rule, one of the reasons the TPLF became so loathed during its more than two decades in power was the fact that Tigrayans only number about 6 million people out of Ethiopia’s 110 million total population, which includes the much larger ethnic groups, the Oromo and Amhara.

Once Abiy—who is Oromo—gave the order to go kinetic, the Ethiopian military advanced swiftly. Abiy declared victory after capturing Tigray’s regional capital Mekelle on Nov. 28, with the TPLF forces and its political leadership seemingly routed. But nothing in Ethiopia ever has been, is, or could be that neat and simple.

“There is no doubt that the TPLF has suffered serious losses during this conflict, including some of its senior leaders,” says Matt Bryden, director of Sahan, a research think tank focused on the Horn of Africa. “But the TPLF also enjoys key strategic advantages, including the support of much—if not most—of the Tigrayan population, mountainous terrain that favors the defender, and a large, well-disciplined force.”

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