The prospects of the 2-year Ethiopian civil war are devastating. With less media attention, the second wave of violence is far more bloody and destructive. The international community has voiced deep concerns. The United Nations, the US, and other states called on belligerents for immediate ceasefire to prevent further ethnic cleansing, destruction of villages, famine, and mass expulsion of refugees. Northern Ethiopia has seen the worst of the war’s horrific implications since its outbreak in November 2020. The ceasefire agreement, which survived for just 5 months since May, came to an end on August 24 when the pro-federal troops and the anti-federal rebels plunged in bloody clashes on the eastern borders of Tigray. The Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) this round managed to advance towards Amhara and Afar regions. Neighbouring Eritrea, for which the war in Tigray poses an existential threat, has is reported to have been involved in the war on occasions, further complicating the prospects for future attempts at another ceasefire. Thus, Eritrea’s role in the ongoing war has been recognised by the mediators, a sentiment voiced Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria and appointed envoy by the African Union, who said Eritrea would have to be part of any future negotiations.
Failure of the Ceasefire
The two sides have blamed one another for ceasefire failure. Yet latest reports by Western diplomats have revealed that Ethiopian military and its Amhara militias allies, locally known as Fano, had been gathering large troops around Kobo in the weeks leading to the violence breakout. Meanwhile, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had been recruiting far and wide and had been replenishing its supplies, in what seems to have been in preparation for the looming clashes. Last year, TPLF managed to cease equipment left behind by the pro-federal troops. Latest reports have indicated TPLF may have procured new equipment as well, which was revealed when Ethiopia’s airforce shot down a plane carrying arms that crossed the borders from Sudan.
The TPLF militias learned a hard lesson when they failed to enter the Ethiopian capital last year. Thus, the militias strategy has changed. The TPLF are securing the region and a passage to Sudan to ensure supplies continue to flow. The clashes, therefore, are being concentrated in the western side of the region, known for its fertile soil, making the region a strategic goal for the TPLF. Also, if the anti-federal militias manage to penetrate Amhara, the breakthrough would uplift the morale if its fighters and weaken their opponent’s position, allowing them to control the highway linking the north and south regions. Yet the militias movement towards the south would expose them to Ethiopia’s air forces. Finally, if the rebels manage to capture the capital and overthrow Abiy Ahmed’s government, they would be put under mounting international pressure, and their ability to form a new government is highly unlikely.
Negotiations Behind Closed Doors
President Abiy has appointed Demeke Mekonnen as head of the peace committee last July. Several meetings took place between Seychelles and Djibouti, where the anti-federal groups had 2 key demands:
1. Lift the siege on the region:
This has been potentially accepted by President Abiy. US special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Mike Hammer, said basic services such as electricity, banking services, and telecommunications had to be restored immediately, and that humanitarian support be allowed without restrictions.
2. Full withdrawal of Eritrean forces:
Confirming Eritrea’s involvement in the war is TPLF’s claim that Eritrea shelled the region where TPLF troops where on standby. Yet Eritrean government did not refute these claims, casting more suspicion over its involvement in the war. That, combined with Obasanjo’s invitation extended to Eritrea’s government, confirm the latter’s involvement in the war.
The ongoing negotiations have been sponsored by US Special Envoy Mike Hammer on the one hand, and Kenya’s former president, Uhuru Kenyatta, on the other. The most pressing aim for the negotiations is to reach an immediate ceasefire. Yet the TPLF are weary of Obasanjo, accusing him of religious bias to President Abiy’s Pentecostalism background, and therefore prefer international mediators. Ethiopia, however, has always flagged the mantra, African solutions to African problems. Obasanjo has on many occasions asserted that he is the only chief negotiator in the ongoing conflict in Tigray, highlighting the important role the AU is playing in mediations.
Implications
The knock-on effect of the war in Tigray goes beyond the region, with deep ramification on the entire continent, which may be summarised as follows:
1. Violence spreading in Ethiopia:
Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), an ally of TPLF, have been accused of committing serious crimes against hundreds of civilians. The OLF, which demands autonomy for the region, controls many villages and wider parts of the region. In turn, OLF has accused government forces of killing civilians from Oromo and Nuer tribes. But President Abiy is more concerned about other, more radical militias, namely Fano, which are against negotiations and aim for a crushing defeat to obtain a total rule of the region. Other terrorist groups have been thrown into the mix, including Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab, which has been carrying violent attacks in the region, including Ethiopian territory in July, to expand its reach in the Horn of Africa, plunging the country into a vicious and endless circle of violence.
2. The rising human cost of war:
It is hard to predict the number of casualties of Tigray’s ongoing war. What is known is that more than 2 million people have been displaced; thousands of Ethiopians are at the risk of life-threatening famines, according to latest UN reports. The Tigray for over 2 years has been without electricity or basic services like banking, fuel or clean water. Ethiopia’s economy has shrunk by 4 in 2022 according to World Bank estimates. The civil war has accelerated Ethiopia’s inability to pay its national debts, having asked to reschedule its repayments estimated at $28.4 billion. But the US has asked debtors to stop from dealing with Abiy’s government, which might lead to further inability to implement debt reforms that would secure additional funds to the financially desperate country, funds that has not been received yet.
3. Tensions on Sudan borders:
In December 2020, Sudanese forces took advantage of the ongoing unrests and took control of al-Fashaga region, a fertile agricultural land and forms a disputed region between Ethiopia and Sudan. Despite international efforts for de-escalation, tensions continue in al-Fashaga. Ethiopia has claimed that Sudan has used Tigray refugee camps to launch attacks into its territory. Addis Ababa sees Sudan implicit in supporting rebel forces, rising the tensions between the two neighbours, especially following the latest incident where a plane crossing the border from Sudan was shot down by Ethiopia, as mentioned above.
4. Freezing Renaissance Dam negotiations:
Politically, the return of the civil war has exacerbated the tensions around Ethiopia’s unilateral decision to commence the third stage of filling the dam. Abiy government’s nationalist hardline has made any practical negotiations difficult, complicating the situation further, and leaving Cairo and Khartoum little alternatives to protect their water security.
5. Threatening the peace with Eritrea:
The peace treaty between Eritrea and Ethiopia could fall apart if Abiy’s government is overthrown. Between Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki and the ant-federal rebels is an ongoing existential war that would drive more bloodshed in the region.
6. Worsening instability in Somalia:
The ailing circumstances of Somalia could worsen by the civil war in Ethiopia. While the Somali Armed Forces struggles to re-establish security, deprived of its human assets, thousands of Somali soldiers who had been trained in Eritrea were sent to Tigray region and never return to Somalia yet.
7. Breakdown of security coordination with Somaliland:
A trusted counterterrorism partner, the autonomous region has enjoyed strong relations with Ethiopia. However, Abiy’s alliance with the federal Somali government under Farmaajo in 2018 has weakened the levels of cooperation with Somaliland. The war in Tigray, moreover, rendered the Ethiopia-Somaliland relations practically nonexistent, especially in area of security.
Towards Effective Mediation
The situation seems to have reached an impasse. The TPLF has demanded the blockade–which it has labelled a war crime–to be lifted as a precondition to any restart of negotiations; the federal government now label the TPLF as a terrorist group. A solution to exit the current deadlock is needed more than ever. Under the current efforts sponsored by the AU led by Obasanjo, and the Kenya-US initiative, little progress, if any, could be expected: Kenya is busy with a new president, and the US is distracted, indeed consumed, by the ongoing war in Ukraine. According to US Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken, there are no real alternatives for the opponents besides the unconditional return to the negotiation table.
Thus, many questions ensue from here: when could a ceasefire brokered; how could negotiations restart, with whose mediation, and by which parties? As Alex de Waal, puts it, “there is no military solution to the war”.
Tigray is an archetype of a ‘zero-sum’ situation. Everyone is a loser. As AU efforts fail, academics are calling for a Dayton Agreement-style solution to the Tigray conflict. In this case, the power of the mediator plays a crucial role in facilitating a workable agreement among all warring parties, out of the current stalemate. A mediator agreed upon between both sides has to be more than capable of navigating highly complex dynamics, and manage to convince warring parties of agreeing to a ceasefire without breaking it. The ideal mediator might resort to its political, economic, or military weight to enforce agreement terms. Yet in reality, one cannot think of a state that posses all the powers it needs to exercise full influence on all sides. Yet this should not take away from the legitimacy of the negotiator: for failing to mediate an effective ceasefire would have damaging consequences on the entire peace-building process.
Thus, the AU’s inability to broker a practical ceasefire, coupled with a distracted international community by the war in Ukraine, may pave the way for rising regional states to step in and fill the gap left by those players. The United Arab Emirates, for instance, would bring a wealth of experience, having mediating an Ethiopia-Eritrea reconciliation, as well as its peacekeeping role in the Horn of Africa. The UAE, therefore, is in a unique position to be accepted by all warring parties as an effective mediator, and would have the ability to bring all sides to the negotiation table for restart peace talks.
