Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2019, is waging a violent war against the Tigray separatists. In this tragic conflict, he made at least three major mistakes, according to François Lafargue, professor of geopolitics.
Since the fall of 2020, the Ethiopian army faces an insurrectional movement, Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (FPLT), which calls for a large autonomy for the province of Tigray (north of the country). Almost a year after the start of hostilities, this crisis, whose human toll could stand at several tens of thousands of deaths, is in the process of becoming a regional conflict with the outcome still uncertain.
At first glance, it may seem rather surprising that the Addis Ababa government has not, for almost a year now, been able to reach a theater of operations that is all in all confined to the province of Tigray (around 50 km2, i.e. 5% of the country's surface area), to overcome Tigray Defense Forces (FDT), whose members are, for the most part, from the security forces of the province of Tigray, deserters from the federal army and members of the FPLT political party.
Ethiopia, however, has one of the most operational armies from sub-Saharan Africa, framed by men seasoned by long years of confrontation against the former Marxist regime of Mengistu (1977-1991).
In the spring of 2021, Ethiopia was the third contributor of United Nations peacekeepers, with nearly 5 troops and civilian personnel deployed, primarily in the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan, on missions UNISFA (United Nations Interim Security Force for Abiyé) and UNMISS (United Nations Mission in South Sudan). In parallel, Ethiopia participates in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), with 4 men on the ground today. However, this 300-strong army appears helpless in the face of a guerrilla war that has little outside support. How to explain it?
A inefficient military apparatus weakened by the dismissal of many Tigrayan officers
After the overthrow of the Mengistu regime in 1991 and the coming to power in Addis Ababa of the Tigrayan Meles Zenawi, former head of the FPLT, who will lead the transitional government until 1995 before being elected prime minister, the Tigrayan minority gets hold of most of the levers of the state apparatus and, in particular, of military and security structures. The post of chief of staff of the army will be occupied for thirty years by three Tigrayan personalities, including Samora Yunis (2001-2018).
After the death of Meles Zenawi in 2012 and the accession to the post of prime minister of Hailemariam Desalegn, originally from the south of the country, the Tigrayan minority (which represents 6% of the population), very present, it has been said, in the security apparatus, and also in the economy, has seen its role diminish. At the same time, the protest movements are growing against an increasingly authoritarian regime. NGOs like Human Rights Watch denounce the frequent recourse by the Addis Ababa regime to arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings.
In February 2018, Desalegn resigned. His successor Abiy Ahmed, departs as soon as he took office, many of the Tigrayan executives, controversial but well versed in military affairs. Some are even brought to justice in the name of the fight against corruption or for criminal reasons, such as Getachew Assefa, the former head of the Ethiopian intelligence and security services (NISS).
The Tigrayan elite had supported the coming to power of Abiy Ahmed, perceived, by his profile (with Oromo and Amhara origins) as a man of consensus, who nevertheless would not question the role of the Tigrayans in the state apparatus. But the new prime minister is gradually choosing to emancipate himself, considering that the central place in the public affairs of the Tigrayan minority was no longer justified.
These dismissals weaken the military institution. Today, if all the officers of Tigrayan origin serving in the federal army are not separatists, their loyalty appears however doubtful, and they are excluded from the command of operations. A large majority of the soldiers of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (FNDE) have mainly carried out law enforcement missions, and have never experienced the ordeal by fire, being too young to have fought against Eritrea between 1998 and 2000.
In addition, if the FNDE ranks second in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of troops, and tenth in terms of budget, and if Ethiopia has notably acquired 200 T-72 tanks from Ukraine in 2011, Addis Ababa's operational resources were limited and aging (its aviation was limited to about fifteen MIG-21s and ten SU-27s), according to the data from the SIPRI organization.
The rugged relief of the Tigray region, made up of high mountains (the capital of Tigray, Mekele, is located at 2 meters above sea level), offers an impregnable sanctuary to the insurgents, who move in commando formation of a few men and very often at night. Aviation is of little use in a region that does not present strategic targets to destroy (military bases or ammunition depots); In addition, Ethiopian officials seek to avoid causing many civilian casualties among the local population, and therefore avoid resorting to massive bombing. Local airports are sometimes the only means of transporting military forces and represent a prime target for the Tigray Defense Forces. In addition, the airmobile means of the army are insufficient to ensure rapid movement of troops.
The Ethiopian army is able to lead offensives (perhaps with the help of drones of Chinese manufacture, launched by the United Arab Emirates from the territory of Eritrea), but the occupation of the conquered land was difficult. The state of the roads is deplorable, the torrential rains in summer often make them impassable, and the advance of the infantry is slow and dangerous through the mountain passes.
An asymmetric conflict waged like a mass war
In a counterinsurgency war, the objective is to "win hearts and minds", to use the phrase attributed to British General Gerald Templer. The people of Tigray are very weary after four decades of war (against the military regime of Mengistu, then against Eritrea) and do not necessarily approve of the bellicose and separatist discourse of the leaders of the PFLT. But the atrocities (mass rapes, looting and destruction of villages) perpetrated by Eritrean troops, engaged in combat alongside those of Ethiopia, led her to settle down de facto alongside the insurgents, whose number is estimated by theInternational Crisis Group to about 250.
Abiy Ahmed's mistake is that he failed to isolate the Tigrayan rebels from the civilian population. The support given by the farmers of Tigray to the insurgents is also justified by the fear of land expropriation for the benefit of foreign investors. The Ethiopian government has in fact conceded thousands of hectares of arable land to foreign agribusiness groups, particularly Indians and Saudis, for the past twenty years. in order to develop export crops.
In the 1970s, the FPLT was a Maoist-inspired guerrilla group whose members had received military training in the People's Republic of China. This aid is explained by the context of strategic rivalry with the Soviet Union, then an ally of the military junta in power in Addis Ababa. Living alongside the peasants like "a fish in the water" to use Mao Zedong's aphorism and encircle the towns through the countryside remains the leitmotiv insurgents. Acquired reflexes during the years of struggle return, all the more easily as the main executives of the FPLT, like the former Prime Minister of Tigray Debretsion Gebremichael, spent their youth in the bush.
Finally, the FPLT was able to equip itself with armaments by looting the military bases located in the province and by recovering the weapons of the vanquished. The soldiers of the regular army hardly have the same determination. Originating from other parts of the country, mainly from the region Amhara neighbor, they compensate for their meager pay by systematic looting, in particular of livestock and material goods.
An intransigence that irritates the international community
Abiy Ahmed's third mistake is to have remained hostile to requests from humanitarian organizations and the international community to be able to travel freely to Tigray, and to have denied for several months the atrocities committed by his army and his Eritrean ally.
Westerners had initially thought that the armed intervention of the FNDE would be brief and would remain an internal affair, which would hardly arouse international emotion. Abiy Ahmed enjoyed rather favorable credit in Europe and the United States, thanks to his reconciliation efforts with Eritrea (which earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019) and by its desire to continue the economic transformation of his country.
But the accumulation of evidence of massacres, the forced displacement of populations and fears of famine in the region, reminiscent of tragedies of the years 1984-1985, forced the Security Council to get more involved. But its action is paralyzed by the divisions between, on the one hand, China and Russia (who see the Tigray issue as an internal crisis that only the Addis Ababa government can resolve) and, on the other hand, Western nations, more determined to take sanctions against the Ethiopian government to encourage it to start talks with the rebels.
In July 2021, Janez Lenarcic, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, denounced the difficulties in delivering international aid to the civilian populations of Tigray, victims according to him of a real seat and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell has called Union to take sanctions - a step that Washington has already taken in visa ban some Ethiopian and Eritrean officials.
Three possible routes
But did Abiy Ahmed lose the war? Three scenarios emerge:
The "peace of the brave", which would result in a statute of broad autonomy granted to the province and material compensation paid to the victims of the atrocities, in exchange for the Tigrayans renouncing the armed struggle. Abiy Ahmed was comfort by its recent victory in the legislative elections (its formation, the Prosperity Party, obtained three quarters of the seats in Parliament). A victory to be qualified since the election was marred by fraud and punctuated by multiple violence and calls for boycott on the part of certain political movements.
All-out war, in the hope of securing the surrender of the seditious. But how could Abiy Ahmed claim to defeat the FPLT, which had succeeded in defeating the formidable war machine of Mengistu, supported by the Soviet Union, Cuba and East Germany? A nuance is needed, however: at the time, the FPLT was not caught in a pincer movement as it is today, since the Popular Front for the Liberation of Eritrea (which seized power in 1993 in Asmara) was fighting against its sides and dealt severe blows to the opponent.
An internationalization of the crisis, encouraged by neighboring countries. Egypt, the Republic of the Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan are concerned about the commissioning of the Renaissance dam, which could negatively affect their water supply. These three neighbors would not take a dim view of Ethiopia's weakening. This internationalization could result in the deployment in Tigray of a foreign interposition force, and ultimately in the recognition of a certain sovereignty of the Tigray region, which would pave the way for the demands expressed by other minorities in the country. , like the The Oromos.
For various reasons, the great powers, be it the United States, the European Union or China, have little interest in breaking up the federation of Ethiopia. We must therefore hope for a more active commitment on their part to put an end to this painful political and humanitarian crisis.
Francois Lafargue, Professor of geopolitics and international economics, PSB Paris School of Business - UGEI
This article is republished from The Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.