Abiy Ahmed is staring down the barrel of what is quickly shaping up to be the “epitome of hell”, an expression the Ethiopian prime minister used shortly after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 to describe what he had seen as a soldier in the border war with Eritrea.
The 1998-2000 war, which had its roots in Eritrea’s fight for independence after the Haile Selassie-led Ethiopian government laid claim to the country in the 1950s on grounds that it historically belonged to the empire before being grabbed by the Italians as their colony five decades earlier, killed thousands of people, caused displacement and splintering of families.
The brutality of the war was enough for Abiy — who was not part of the full-blown conflict but did survive a deadly confrontation between the two countries in 2003 — to end decades of what seemed like an intractable military standoff when he took over as prime minister in 2018.
But in a shameful betrayal of principles that won him the Nobel Peace Prize, Abiy has plunged the country into a civil war, urging civilians in the capital, Addis Ababa, last week to arm themselves against former partners in the war with Eritrea and declaring a state of emergency.
A bit of context is useful. The conflict began in November 2020 when Abiy ordered military action in retaliation to an attack on an army base by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which rules the state of more than 5-million people.
Before the attack, tensions had been simmering for months between the federal government and the TPLF after Abiy outlined a vision to upend the decentralised political system in which each province is constitutionally granted autonomy as well as the right to secede.
What pushed the two sides to the edge was Abiy’s decision earlier in 2020 to delay the general election, citing the Covid-19 pandemic and drawing swift rebuke from the TPLF, which rejected the extension as unconstitutional and held its own regional ballot in defiance of the federal government’s order.
TPLF had hoped the outcome of the general elections would have given Abiy a strong message that his plan to make constitutional amendments to turn the ruling party into a more centralised political force would knock off an important pillar in the management of diversity in a country in which there are nine ethnic-based, autonomous regional states.
When the two sides faced off in November, they thus regarded each other as illegitimate leaders of the Ethiopian people, with the TPLF saying Abiy’s term would have ended had the elections been held, while the federal government deemed the newly elected regional government of Tigray as unlawful.
Since then, almost 7-million people in Tigray and in neighbouring Amhara and Afar have been suffering from the toll of violence, human rights abuses, hunger and the Covid-19 pandemic. Aid that could save lives and head off further catastrophe falls woefully short due to access restrictions and inadequate funding for the response.
What’s more, Abiy’s efforts to crush the rebellion have unleashed a witch hunt against the Tigrayans, some of whom have been arbitrarily arrested, suspended from their jobs and had their bank accounts frozen.
Understandably, agencies such as the UN have expressed deep concern over the state of emergency Ethiopia’s government imposed on Tuesday with “sweeping powers” of detention and military conscription.
It is deplorable that the AU, the headquarters of which are in Addis Ababa, has failed to criticise Abiy despite credible accounts of human rights abuses, including mass killings of civilians and gang rapes of Tigrayan women, let alone put pressure on him to sit down with the TPLF to find a settlement.
The AU even legitimised the June election, saying it met the democratic standards of being free and fair, despite the ballot being held while opposition politicians were in detention, independent media was being harassed and the country was grappling with many ethnic conflicts.
An explanation that the AU is overstretched, dealing with crises from Sudan and Mozambique to Swaziland does not fly, otherwise we would be counting fewer countries with political crises.
The unfolding disaster in Ethiopia is not only an astonishing reversal of fortunes for the Nobel Peace Prize winner but it also shines an unforgiving spotlight on the AU. It is an embarrassing show of missing leadership.
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