Ethiopia’s Internal Dynamics: The Tigray Crisis
Ethiopia's Internal Dynamics: The Tigray Crisis
After Nigeria, Ethiopia is the second most populated nation with a population of 110 million on the African Continent. At the same time, more than eighty tribal and ethnic groups were met with ideological and identity conflicts. Oromiya, Amhara, Somalia and Tigray are among the dominant ethnic groups in the region. The northern Tigray region, where five and a half million people live, has recently made a name for itself on the scene of the conflict.
Abby Ahmed also gained public support through reforms and a strategy of opening up to the world. One of his key reforms was spearheading a peaceful solution to the border problem, which has long been focused on the territorial dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The success of this reform granted him the Nobel Peace Prize award in 2019.
The National Prosperity Party (PP) was created by the merger of eight regional parties following the abolition of the left-wing Coalition of the Progressive Democratic Front of the Ethiopian People (EPRDF) in December 2019. This was the first incident that resuccitated the conflict between TPLF and Abby Ahmed’s led Federal Government.
The coalition’s leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Meles Zanawi, who died in 2012, declined to join the merged group and described the merger as illegal. The peace deal by Abby Ahmed with Eritrea along the Tigray borders was also negatively received the TPLF.
The Tigray region’s ruling party TPLF, which for the previous quarter of a century or so. After a protests led to a change of power in 2018, TPLF was widely seen as the most powerful body of a political entity in Ethiopia. At the federal level, the TPLF lost a lot of influence and, consequently, caused a bitter fallout between the new Ethiopian leadership led by Prime Minister Abby Ahmed and the TPLF leadership. The TPLF leaders accused the Prime Minister and his allies of scapegoating them for all the problems of the country and of wrongly prosecuting them.
Abby Ahmed created a new national political party, Prosperity Party to replace the former ruling coalition. This was really the seeds that began the conflict in the last three years. This dispute escalated into what is happening rigth now in Tigray region. The degenration of the conflict was a a result of the federal govenment delaying election in the Trigray region last year due to the transmission rate of the COVID19 pandemic. This created a constitutional vacuum where the term of office of all regional government Tigray government’s terms was extended. The TPLF rejected this and said it was unconstitutional they went ahead and ran their own regional election in defiance to the federal authority.
The federal government said that the newly elected Tigray government was illegitimate. The TPLF and Tigray government stated that the federal government had no legal authority in Tigray or elsewhere in Ethiopia as it had overstayed its constitutional mandate.
As disputes become more and more intense, Abby Ahmed announced on 4 November that the Tigray administration launched an operation against Tigray administration on the night of 3 November, after allegedly attacking members of the national military. The TPLF administration, accused of attacking national military units, has indicated that the operation will continue until disarmament is disarmed and a legal administration is established.
On 4 November, as tensions grew increasingly serious, Abby Ahmed declared that the Tigray administration had launched an operation against the Federal State on the night of 3 November, after allegedly targeting members of the national army. They were accused of targeting national military forces. The TPLF administration has stated that the operation will continue until disarmament and a legal administration is set up.
Prime Minister Abby Ahmed declared a state of emergency for 6 months, tasked units and ordered an air attack. Communication networks, telephone connections have been lost due to armed conflict in the region. Abby Ahmed changed his cabinet to reorganize senior military units. He dismissed the army intelligence chief and foreign minister. The central government in Addisababa launched a military operation.
Clause in the Ethopian Constitution is in reference to The Tigray people’s liberation front. Under the clause, Tigray’s administration which was able to peacefully leave the country and declare its independence, is struggling to break ties with the federal government.
The conflict that began in the early days of November is still ongoing, despite the calls for sieze fire the near end of November. Finally, prime minister Abby Ahmed announced a military operation into the city of Mekkele following the siege of TPLF forces. Ahmed said that the final stage of the operation has been reached and that the TPLF forces have been given 72 hours to surrender. A short time later, a reply was received from TPLF forces that they refused to surrender.
There is tension between Tigray regional government powers (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) and the federal government of Ethopia in Addisababa, which began on November 4th and continues to escalate. After Abby Ahmed become the prime minister of Ethopia, the history of the power struggle between the two sides began to emerge. It become glaring when the Prime Minister started building politics on a liberal theory.
The United Nations reported that 27.000 people had left the region and migrated to Sudan. The United Nations has invited forces in the region to peace in order to prevent this migration and conflict from causing a crisis that would also affect political instability and other states. Whether the crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region can reach a solution, it appears to be in line with some regulations and decisions in the country’s internal dynamics.
REFERENCES
The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, ‘’Ethiopia’s Tigray Crisis: Domestic and Regional Implications’’, 15 November 2020, access: 17 November 2020. https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/Lists/ACRPS-PDFDocumentLibrary/The-Conflict-between-Tigray-and-the-Ethiopian-Federal-Government.pdf
BBC News, ‘’ Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: Fears of a march into guerrilla warfare’’ 28 November 2020, access: 29 November 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55065229
International Crisis Group, ‘’Steering Ethiopia’s Tigray Crisis Away from Conflict’’, 30 October 2020, access: 15 November 2020. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/ethiopia/b162-steering-ethiopias-tigray-crisis-away-conflict
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Aljazeera, ‘’Governing party in Ethiopia’s Tigray sweeps regional polls’’, 11 September 2020, access: 23 November 2020. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/11/governing-party-in-ethiopias-tigray-sweeps-regional-polls
Goitom Gebreluel, ‘’Ethiopia’s prime minister wants to change the ruling coalition. Who’s getting left out?’’, The Washington Post, 23 December 2019, acces: 28 November 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/23/ethiopias-president-wants-change-ruling-coalition-whos-getting-left-out/
