Ethiopia: To achieve peace, take Eritrea out of the game (The Africa Report)
Posted: 20 Jan 2022, 10:54
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Ethiopia: To achieve peace, take Eritrea out of the game
Since its independence three decades ago, Eritrea has been involved in international conflicts, ranging from minor border skirmishes with its neighbors, such as Sudan, Djibouti and Yemen, to a full-fledged conventional war with Ethiopia. Its notoriety as a regional troublemaker had resulted in the imposition of crushing sanctions lasting several years.
While the Eritrean dictator, with an assist from Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, had sought to rehabilitate Eritrea’s image as a rogue state, Eritrea’s direct involvement in the war on Tigray since November 2020 and the massive human rights violations its forces committed and continue to commit have reaffirmed this well-deserved image.
READ MORE Ethiopia: Why Prime Minister Abiy deserves our respect
Eritrea has lost tens of thousands of its citizens in Tigray not to realise a discernible national objective but to avenge some perceived wrong that Isaias suffered at the hands of Tigrayans and validate his delusions of grandeur as a regional heavyweight.
As international human rights advocates and various institutions have amply documented, the Eritrean military has committed some of the most horrific violations of the laws of armed conflict, such as the brutalisation of civilians, the deliberate destruction of civilian installations, the plundering of private and public wealth, and the use of sexual violence as a tool of war.
Eritrea’s brutal military campaign in Tigray has received the blessing of the Abiy regime and that of the expansionist Amhara elites.
Despite deep, historical animus towards the Amhara, the Eritrean dictator has struck up a tactical alliance with the expansionist Amhara elites, a marriage of convenience facilitated by a convergence of interests.
Isaias sees Tigray as standing in the way of his dream to run wild in Ethiopia in particular and the wider region in general; similarly, Amhara expansionist elites see Tigray as impeding the restoration of a bygone era when unitarism reigned supreme.
In Western Tigray, this rogue state’s military muscle underwrites the annexation of a constitutionally established Tigrayan territory. Eritrea also illegally occupies parts of North-Western and Eastern Tigray.
saias’s alliance with Abiy and the expansionist Amhara elites has two purposes. First, by lending military support to the anti-Tigray coalition within Ethiopia, Isaias seeks to marginalise and ultimately eliminate TPLF and, by extension, Tigray as a potent force in Ethiopian politics.
Isaias has been harbouring revenge fantasies against Tigray for leading the military campaign that ended his dream of becoming the dominant political and military power on the Horn of Africa and beyond.
Specifically, Isaias had been nursing grudges against Tigrayan military and security elites, which he considers to be responsible for his embarrassing defeat on the battlefield and crushing his dream of becoming a regional kingmaker. Second, he would realise his vision of destroying the multinational federal dispensation that the people of Tigray played a major role in midwifing as well as preserving it over the past 3 decades.
All in all, Isaias saw the formation of an alliance with anti-TPLF forces as critical to removing one major stumbling block to his dream of transforming Eritrea into a regional “powerhouse” and breaking up Ethiopia into a number of mutually antagonistic units.
There is a stark irony in the alliance between the expansionist Amhara elites and the Eritrean dictator. On the one hand, Amhara elites rage against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) for presumably blessing Eritrea’s independence. On the other hand, the same rapacious elites have entered into a Faustian bargain with the Eritrean dictator to eliminate a “problematic” domestic rival.
The expansionist Amhara elites have sought to degrade and ultimately destroy Ethiopia’s multinational federalism, vociferously arguing in favour of, and working towards, a unitary system. By contrast, Tigrayans are adamantly opposed to this unitarist vision. A system designed to govern a diverse polity such as ours is bound to have shortcomings.
Ethiopia’s current federal system is no exception. But discarding a fundamentally sound political framework that, nevertheless, needs some tweaking in favour of a unitary system that disregards Ethiopia’s objective conditions is not a solution conducive to long-term peace and stability. The return of a unitary system, by reversing hard-won autonomy and self-administration and self-determination rights, would intensify centrifugal challenges to the central state, in the process unleashing a paroxysm of violence on every corner of the country.
As for Abiy, his alliance with Eritrea has had less to do with “ending” the Ethio-Eritrea war and ensuring regional stability than eliminating a nettlesome domestic rival. The convergence of Abiy’s interest in maligning, scapegoating and neutralising the TPLF and Isaias’s desire to see the TPLF removed from Ethiopia’s political scene led to a marriage of convenience between the authoritarian duo. This marriage of convenience was consummated in a formal agreement to “end” the border conflict between the two countries
Continue reading https://www.theafricareport.com/168873/ ... -the-game/
Ethiopia: To achieve peace, take Eritrea out of the game
Since its independence three decades ago, Eritrea has been involved in international conflicts, ranging from minor border skirmishes with its neighbors, such as Sudan, Djibouti and Yemen, to a full-fledged conventional war with Ethiopia. Its notoriety as a regional troublemaker had resulted in the imposition of crushing sanctions lasting several years.
While the Eritrean dictator, with an assist from Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, had sought to rehabilitate Eritrea’s image as a rogue state, Eritrea’s direct involvement in the war on Tigray since November 2020 and the massive human rights violations its forces committed and continue to commit have reaffirmed this well-deserved image.
READ MORE Ethiopia: Why Prime Minister Abiy deserves our respect
Eritrea has lost tens of thousands of its citizens in Tigray not to realise a discernible national objective but to avenge some perceived wrong that Isaias suffered at the hands of Tigrayans and validate his delusions of grandeur as a regional heavyweight.
As international human rights advocates and various institutions have amply documented, the Eritrean military has committed some of the most horrific violations of the laws of armed conflict, such as the brutalisation of civilians, the deliberate destruction of civilian installations, the plundering of private and public wealth, and the use of sexual violence as a tool of war.
Eritrea’s brutal military campaign in Tigray has received the blessing of the Abiy regime and that of the expansionist Amhara elites.
Despite deep, historical animus towards the Amhara, the Eritrean dictator has struck up a tactical alliance with the expansionist Amhara elites, a marriage of convenience facilitated by a convergence of interests.
Isaias sees Tigray as standing in the way of his dream to run wild in Ethiopia in particular and the wider region in general; similarly, Amhara expansionist elites see Tigray as impeding the restoration of a bygone era when unitarism reigned supreme.
In Western Tigray, this rogue state’s military muscle underwrites the annexation of a constitutionally established Tigrayan territory. Eritrea also illegally occupies parts of North-Western and Eastern Tigray.
saias’s alliance with Abiy and the expansionist Amhara elites has two purposes. First, by lending military support to the anti-Tigray coalition within Ethiopia, Isaias seeks to marginalise and ultimately eliminate TPLF and, by extension, Tigray as a potent force in Ethiopian politics.
Isaias has been harbouring revenge fantasies against Tigray for leading the military campaign that ended his dream of becoming the dominant political and military power on the Horn of Africa and beyond.
Specifically, Isaias had been nursing grudges against Tigrayan military and security elites, which he considers to be responsible for his embarrassing defeat on the battlefield and crushing his dream of becoming a regional kingmaker. Second, he would realise his vision of destroying the multinational federal dispensation that the people of Tigray played a major role in midwifing as well as preserving it over the past 3 decades.
All in all, Isaias saw the formation of an alliance with anti-TPLF forces as critical to removing one major stumbling block to his dream of transforming Eritrea into a regional “powerhouse” and breaking up Ethiopia into a number of mutually antagonistic units.
There is a stark irony in the alliance between the expansionist Amhara elites and the Eritrean dictator. On the one hand, Amhara elites rage against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) for presumably blessing Eritrea’s independence. On the other hand, the same rapacious elites have entered into a Faustian bargain with the Eritrean dictator to eliminate a “problematic” domestic rival.
The expansionist Amhara elites have sought to degrade and ultimately destroy Ethiopia’s multinational federalism, vociferously arguing in favour of, and working towards, a unitary system. By contrast, Tigrayans are adamantly opposed to this unitarist vision. A system designed to govern a diverse polity such as ours is bound to have shortcomings.
Ethiopia’s current federal system is no exception. But discarding a fundamentally sound political framework that, nevertheless, needs some tweaking in favour of a unitary system that disregards Ethiopia’s objective conditions is not a solution conducive to long-term peace and stability. The return of a unitary system, by reversing hard-won autonomy and self-administration and self-determination rights, would intensify centrifugal challenges to the central state, in the process unleashing a paroxysm of violence on every corner of the country.
As for Abiy, his alliance with Eritrea has had less to do with “ending” the Ethio-Eritrea war and ensuring regional stability than eliminating a nettlesome domestic rival. The convergence of Abiy’s interest in maligning, scapegoating and neutralising the TPLF and Isaias’s desire to see the TPLF removed from Ethiopia’s political scene led to a marriage of convenience between the authoritarian duo. This marriage of convenience was consummated in a formal agreement to “end” the border conflict between the two countries
Continue reading https://www.theafricareport.com/168873/ ... -the-game/