A year ago, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won a Nobel Peace Prize for ending a war with Eritrea. He was hailed as a young leader who would drive economic reform and make Africa’s second-most populous nation more democratic.
Now he has taken a risk that’s left his nation on the brink of a full-blown civil war, threatens stability in the Horn of Africa and may slow the opening up of the Ethiopian economy.
Since Nov. 4, the armed forces of Abiy’s government have been attacking Tigray in retaliation for an earlier assault on an army base that he blamed on the region’s government.
Tension has been building with Tigray for some time. The region’s leaders led a rebellion that ousted the Marxist Derg regime in 1991 and remained highly influential in the country until Abiy came to power in 2018 and set about reducing their influence. That’s led to resentment.
With a military that may number 250,000, battle-hardened Tigrayans whose state lies on the tense border with Eritrea, won’t easily be cowed. Their leader, Debretsion Gebremichael, told Bloomberg this week that they “cannot be beaten.” At least 550 people have died in the fighting. Amnesty International reported on Thursday that unidentified attackers had killed civilians in the region’s town of May Cadera, primarily non-Tigrayans and probably in the hundreds.
“The military offensive is likely to be prolonged and bloody,” Edward Hobey-Hamsher, a senior Africa analyst at U.K. risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, said in a note. “The conflict will prove an expensive distraction from government efforts to address systemic poverty.”
Abiy’s action is looking increasingly rash. While Ethiopia is one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, it’s still among the poorest. Its leader may find that his lack of caution will halt the advances of the last two decades.
Source: Bloomberg
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