By Ethiopia is in an imminent border war with the Sudan. Tensions with Egypt and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) are a present danger. Most importantly, Ethiopia is at war with itself.
The conflict in Tigray has been damning and devastating. Oromia has been under undeclared military rule since mid-2018. A hidden war from the eyes of the world has been going in the far-flung reaches of Oromia. Security forces intimidate, imprison, rape mothers and daughters, beat and kill fathers and sons, and burn crops and homes at will. Resistance to escalating crackdown and desire for freedom has driven the Qeerroo (youth) to join the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) in mass. At the minimum, this makes Oromia ungovernable.
Security forces are also committing crimes, with impunity, in other regions of Ethiopia. The Southern Region is in flux. Sidama and Wolaita nations’ demands to govern themselves that only required constitutional due process were met with brute force, killing peaceful marchers in the public square and removing their duly elected leaders from office. The Somali Region has its share of political entanglements. Thousands have fled the conflict in Benishangul-Gumuz seeking refuge in war-torn South Sudan.
The Amhara State is at war with all its neighbors: Benishangul-Gumuz, Oromia, and Tigray. Amhara leaders appear unassailable and unaccountable. Amhara militias are implicated in possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Tigray and Benishangul Gumuz. The Amhara region has but forcibly annexed western Tigray. Amhara leaders, mass media, and activists openly debate seizing and annexing the Gumuz ancestral land. They continually provoke tension in Oromia with baseless claims against Oromo parties, leaders, land, and cities. Through words of attrition against Oromo leaders, culture, and values, some Amhara elites are working to erode the foundation for peaceful coexistence between the Oromo and Amhara communities.
After a brief opening of the political space in 2018, the Ethiopian government has returned to its default of unlawfully detaining political opponents. In Oromia, tens of thousands of political leaders have been jailed, many without due process or arraignment. Those who are arraigned are kept in jail with a series of nebulous charges. Court orders are routinely rejected. Some of the detainees are reportedly held in dark underground rooms. Thus, Oromia remains the largest prison-house.
Citizens are searched and arrested arbitrarily. Some have been executed extrajudicially. Dead bodies are tossed to wild animals. Citizens have no legal recourse for crimes committed against them and their loved ones. The ill-treatment, abuse, and denial of fundamental human rights, including access to medical care, violate UN Human Rights laws.
Ethiopian authorities are prosecuting a ruinous war in Tigray. In an unprecedented move, Ethiopia invited adversarial states and mercenaries to loot, torture, rape, and kill the people of Tigray. Eritrean troops and the Amhara militia are committing crimes of genocidal proportion. Amhara militias and special forces’ role in ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories of Tigray is substantial to foster enmity between the peoples of the two regions for generations to come.
Currently, the Ethiopian government is vehemently drumming about an election it once dubiously postponed now that it has incarcerated all formidable challengers and has weakened the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) through all-out war. The two major opposition parties in Oromia, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), are all but out of the contest. The government made it impossible for OLF and OFC to partake in the election by closing nearly all their offices and incarcerating the majority of their senior, mid-, and lower-level leadership. Of course, no election is being planned in Tigray due to the active war. With Oromia and Tigray out of the mix, the proposed election will leave at least 45 percent of the population without proper representation. By doing so, the government has ensured that Ethiopia will be in prolonged violence for years to come.
The status quo is untenable. For all practical purposes, Ethiopia is already disintegrating.
Reports of atrocities in Tigray reveal only the tip of the catastrophe unfolding in the region. Lootings, sexual violence, including mass rapes, extrajudicial killings, and mass executions, even on holy grounds, have been committed by the Eritrean army with the blessings of the Ethiopian government and its defense force. Authorities allegedly used military drones from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Tigray. Eritrean troops and Amhara militia, and special forces are allowed to commit heinous crimes against the peoples of Tigray.
Needless to say, the crimes committed against Tigray deserve an immediate and lasting political solution. However, treating the war in Tigray as an isolated phenomenon is part of the systematic letdown that runs deep into history. The conflict in Ethiopia is a quest for political hegemony. The systematic mayhem in Tigray is connected to the relentless violence elsewhere in the country. In fact, the proponents of the havoc are trying to use the war in Tigray as a launching pad. Their esteemed prize is a war on Oromia and the Greater South, for they know that Ethiopia will not survive without those nations.
The daily atrocities in Oromia, Tigray, Benishangul-Gumuz, Wolaita, and elsewhere in Ethiopia are overwhelming. Yet, Western powers are standing behind the Ethiopian regime, offering only recycled statements of concern.
Despite the deepening political crises and the rampant abuses of rights, the international community has turned blind eyes and deaf ears to the cries of the afflicted. The sustained struggle of the historically marginalized nations, nationalities, and peoples in Ethiopia is vehemently put down with derogative slurs. Western governments and international organizations such as the UN, World Bank, IMF, EU, AU, and other nations continue to put their weight behind the government in Addis Ababa. These institutional bodies continue to provide financial, military, diplomatic support, and political legitimacy to the Ethiopian government in Addis Ababa.
Furthermore, even western analysts and reporters continue to treat the war in Tigray as divorced from what has been going on in other parts of the country over the last few years. But Why? Let us provide some historical background.
Historical background
Ethiopia, a dependent colonial empire, is an invention of the Amhara rulers with the support from the European colonial powers, namely France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Due to the supply of modern weapons by these European colonial powers, the shift in military capability enabled the Empire to annex Oromia and the Greater South. Furthermore, these powers agreed to maintain Ethiopian hegemony in perpetuity through the Tripartite Treaty of December 13, 1906. The Treaty states:
| Article 1. | France, Great Britain, and Italy shall cooperate in maintaining the political and territorial status quo in Ethiopia as determined by the state of affairs at present existing and by the following agreements. |
| Article 4. | In the event of the status quo laid down in Article 1 being disturbed, France, Great Britain, and Italy shall make every effort to preserve the integrity of Ethiopia. |
Since the signing of the Treaty, the original benefactors and their allies have been faithfully “maintaining” the status quo in Ethiopia. They defend, support, and stand with the successive autocratic Ethiopian governments, regardless of their epic failures and egregious crimes. Long after abandoning their colonial holdings worldwide, retreating home, Western powers continue to sponsor and sustain Ethiopian colonial holdings on Oromia and other nations.
As Bonnie Holcomb and Sisai Ibsa wrote in the Invention of Ethiopia, “each successive Ethiopian regime has had to face and successfully meet three basic requirements to retain power. Each must (1) maintain an alliance with an imperial superpower, (2) provide an adequate basis for the growth and protection of the Abyssinian settler class, and (3) maintain control over a colonized majority within the empire.” Accordingly, Ethiopia has managed to remain in the good graces of the West by employing “a systematic policy of ‘showcasing’” where they present “carefully designed programs and policies which conform to all the formal characteristics necessary to win acceptance, favors, and a partnership with imperial powers but which are facades without base or foundation within the empire.”
Without fail, successive Ethiopian governments and Western powers have played their respective role in a well-rehearsed orchestration to crush the struggles of subjugated nations, nationalities, and peoples annexed by force. Let us cite a few historical examples.
During the Italian Ethiopia war of 1935-36, leaders of the “Western Oromo Confederation” sent a request of protection to the League of Nations through the British. The British Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden, correctly understood that the Oromo, “While not anxious to fall under the jurisdiction of any foreign power, … are determined never again to subject themselves to Amhara rule.” Nevertheless, he refused to forward the Western Oromos’ request to the League of Nations and left them reeling under the Amhara rule.
After the Italian defeat, in 1941, the alliance of Raya Oromo and disgruntled Tigrayan peasants under Haile Mariam Redda’s leadership rebelled, opposing the restoration of Haile Selassie and the tenancy system that the Italians abolished. When the rebels annihilated the government forces, an aerial bombardment by British Royal Air Force quelled the rebellion. Following their defeat, while the aristocratic leaders were treated gently, the Raya and Azebo Oromo were subjected to wholesale land alienation, which partly led to subsequent famines.
The Bale rebellion against the indigenous population’s brutal subjugation by a ruling class of armed Amhara settlers was crushed by indiscriminate violence against civilians, including aerial bombardments using American-made F-15 bombers. In 1968, Haile Selassie sent troops to Gojjam, and the air force bombed several villages and burned houses to intimidate the resistance.
From 1974 to 1991, the Derg regime aligned itself with the communist bloc, bucking the tradition of imperial Ethiopia’s alliance with the West. Ethiopian army spearheaded by Cuban combat troops crushed Oromo and Ogadeni insurgencies using a new arsenal acquired from the USSR in early 1978. Starting from December 1979, Soviet advisors and Cuban troops participated in a poising campaign and bombing water holes and machine-gunning herds of cattle in Oromia and Ogaden. Between March 19-21 of 1981, helicopter and airplane bombing at Gata Warrancha in Sidamo ignited a “wall of flames” using either phosphorous or ethylene, causing at least 20,000 people to flee and over 1,000 (and possibly more than 2,000) dead.
For two decades, the military regime of Mengistu Hailemariam committed atrocities, including the Red Terror, that resulted in the deaths of as many as 500,000 and oversaw one of the bloodiest civil wars in Africa.
In 1991, the West reneged its promise of “No democracy, no cooperation” and embraced the TPLF dominated coalition government that ruled Ethiopia with an iron fist for nearly 30 years. Year after year, Western powers not only backed the TPLF authoritarian rule but also exponentially increased their support. The Ethiopian government used Western support and alliance to harass, intimidate, bind, torture, and kill its opponents. Many in the West stood by former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whom they called a visionary, exceptional leader with an indelible legacy. President Obama went so far as declaring that Zenawi’s successor Hailemariam Desalegn, a democratically elected leader, shortly after Desalegn’s party won 99.6 percent of the seats in parliament.
These examples show that Western governments remain loyal not only to “maintaining” but also to “preserving” the status quo in Ethiopia when it is “disturbed.” Wittingly or unwittingly, Western governments continue to finance, equip, train, and give diplomatic coverage to the Ethiopian killer machine. Ethiopian leaders use this assistance to operate with impunity since their political existence does not depend on the will and choice of the people. The only legitimacy Ethiopian governments needed (still need) is that of its European and American allies.
What shall be done?
If Ethiopia is to survive, a genuine change has to occur. Ethiopia has to decolonize by plucking out Amhara hegemony and policies that nurture repression. Ethiopia needs to commit to laying the foundations for a genuine democratic federation or confederation with strong democratic institutions. Genuine respect for the rights of nations, nationalities, and peoples of Ethiopia to govern their affairs has to take hold. Political leaders should acquire legitimate authority from the governed through a fair and free election. The federal government and its components must drive a mandate to govern through the consent of the governed. To initiate healing, an all-inclusive and genuine dialogue should be conducted by neutral and credible international brokers.
Now is high time for the West and international institutions to open their eyes and ears to the acute circumstances in Ethiopia. They need to appraise that government abuses and crimes go deeper than what the atrocities committed in Tigray portray. The policies and actions of the Ethiopian government have pushed the entire Horn of Africa region to the edge. Short of a peaceful resolution, the impending crisis—humanitarian, civil uprisals, civil wars, food shortage, and immigration—could reach beyond unheard of proportions. Besides, the potential loss of a generation of youth, who make the overwhelming majority of the population, would be a catastrophe. The West cannot afford to continue to squander their positions of influence by legitimizing tyranny in Ethiopia as they did in the past.
Are the nations, nationalities, and peoples of Ethiopia asking the West to fight their fights for them? By no means, no. They want the West to take their thumbs off the scale by cutting support to autocratic governments. They want the West to be honest brokers who advocate for genuine democratic values. They want that any support given to Ethiopia should be conditional on the respect of human rights—both individual and group rights—freedom of the press, opening of the political space, freedom of assembly, and an independent legal system. They want the west to pressure the Ethiopian government to free all political prisoners and lift the ban on independent media houses. They want the West to broker a genuine all-inclusive national dialogue to chart new possibilities for all the peoples of Ethiopia.
The time to act is past due. Without an all-inclusive political dialogue brokered by a credible third party, there may be no tomorrow for Ethiopia. The argument that Ethiopia will crush if the West’s support is cut-off is a pretense. One cannot avoid the free-fall by financing an illegitimate government to loot, abuse, rape, and kill its way out of complex political crises. Ethiopia’s downfall may only be averted through an honestly brokered dialogue to birth a negotiated democratic order. The question is: Will the west keep hindering or help to birth democracy in Ethiopia?
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