Ethiopia’s Tigray Conflict Is Dominating Africa Headline News

 

Ten­sions in Ethiopia’s north­ern Tigray region have gone from talk­ing about the poten­tial for con­flict into what is now the after­math of a war between the country’s fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in Addis Aba­ba and the region­al gov­ern­ment in Tigray. An esti­mat­ed six mil­lion peo­ple live in the Tigray region. 

Since fight­ing began on Novem­ber 4, a Unit­ed Nations (UN) report on Novem­ber 30 says an esti­mat­ed 100,000 Tigrayans have fled the region into neigh­bor­ing Sudan. The UN says that many Eritre­ans, already refugees in the Tigray region, are caught up in the con­flict as well. The UN is appeal­ing for $147 mil­lion to assist these refugees. Fight­ing inten­si­fied in recent days and hun­dreds are feared miss­ing or killed, accord­ing to Human Rights Watch. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions to the region were cut off by the government.

Ethiopia is con­sid­ered the African continent’s sec­ond-most pop­u­lous nation with more than 110 mil­lion peo­ple. Elliot Smith of the Amer­i­can busi­ness chan­nel CNBC wrote on Novem­ber 17:

“Africa’s sec­ond-most pop­u­lous nation has been one of the fastest grow­ing economies in the world so far this cen­tu­ry, con­sis­tent­ly post­ing dou­ble-dig­it per­cent­age annu­al growth in GDP (gross domes­tic prod­uct). How­ev­er, in the wake of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, the IMF has slashed Ethiopia’s 2020 growth fore­cast to 1.9% from 6.2% — and this was before the unfold­ing events in Tigray.” 

At the cen­ter of this con­flict is the Tigray Peo­ples Lib­er­a­tion Front (TPLF) which is seek­ing auton­o­my from the gov­ern­ment in Addis Aba­ba. The region is led by Debret­sion Gebremichael, a for­mer rebel leader. The orga­ni­za­tion was formed in 1975. It even­tu­al­ly mor­phed from an armed resis­tance against the author­i­tar­i­an lead­er­ship of Haile Selassie, whom they helped depose, into the polit­i­cal lead­er­ship of Ethiopia for almost 30 years. That strug­gle to estab­lish a foothold, the rise to pow­er, left in its wake much destruc­tion, suf­fer­ing, and anguish. This includes the famines of the 1980s. That’s accord­ing to Jason Burke, writ­ing for The Guardian.

With sup­port from Eritre­an forces, we are told by The New York Times, that the TPLF seized con­trol of the gov­ern­ment in Addis Aba­ba, on May 28, 1991. Through a com­bi­na­tion of suc­cess­ful tac­tics and coali­tion form­ing, the TPLF, along with oth­er par­ties, estab­lished the Ethiopi­an People’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Demo­c­ra­t­ic Front (EPRDF), which ensured their long stay in pow­er. The gov­ern­ment was dom­i­nat­ed by Tigrayans.

The TPLF was dis­played from pow­er when Abiy Ahmed, of a mixed Oro­mo and Amhara back­ground, was appoint­ed prime min­is­ter in 2018. The pow­er­ful influ­ence of the Tigrayans on Ethiopi­an life was quick­ly cur­tailed after Ahmed became prime min­is­ter. Before then, it was the late Prime Min­is­ter Meles Zenawi, as well as his suc­ces­sor, Hale­mari­am Desalegn, both of the EPRDF coali­tion of par­ties, that ruled the coun­try from 1995 until 2018.

The Media Loves Bad News — It’s Good for Business

Just as fight­ing esca­lat­ed, with the bomb­ing of the Tigray cap­i­tal Mekelle by the gov­ern­ment, the news cov­er­age quick­ly increased, eclips­ing cov­er­age of pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in Ghana, as well as reports of a surge in coro­n­avirus cas­es in the continent.

At a local lev­el, Ethiopi­ans in the dias­po­ra, many unable to con­nect with fam­i­ly back home, came out to demon­strate and plead for help about what was tak­ing place. This hap­pened in many US cities, includ­ing Den­ver, Col­orado, and Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton. Reports about what was tak­ing place, and its impact on the local pop­u­la­tions quick­ly gained entry into the night­ly rou­tine of Amer­i­can TV sta­tions. The report­ing of a demon­stra­tion in Den­ver on Novem­ber 23 became a point of con­tro­ver­sy after lead­ers of the Col­orado Ethiopi­an Com­mu­ni­ty filed a com­plaint with the sta­tion man­ag­er of Den­ver-based CBS affil­i­ate, KCNC, to ques­tion what they said was the “inac­cu­rate” report­ing of the Novem­ber 23 protest held in Den­ver. On their Face­book page, the group the Col­orado Ethiopi­an Com­mu­ni­ty says they are dif­fer­ent from the Ethiopi­an Com­mu­ni­ty of Col­orado, whose mem­bers they say car­ried out the demon­stra­tion. In their news report, KCNC Den­ver did not make this distinction. 

Oth­er Africa Sto­ries Ignored by US Media 

In the time­frame when ten­sions began build­ing, cul­mi­nat­ing in war in Tigray, pres­i­den­tial elec­tions occurred, and results were announced in Ivory Coast and Ghana. While these elec­tions had their own issues, the oppo­si­tion boy­cott in Ivory Coast and alleged irreg­u­lar­i­ties in Ghana, the specter of large-scale hos­til­i­ties fol­low­ing these events was min­i­mal. But for a jour­nal­is­tic enter­prise that sees no ben­e­fits in what just hap­pened, this was­n’t news at all. Yet the con­ti­nent took much beat­ing and bad rap fol­low­ing the Kenya elec­tion cri­sis in 2007 and 2008.

The Tigrayan Dias­po­ra Push­ing for Action 

The Tigrayan com­mu­ni­ty in Amer­i­ca, when com­bined with the greater Ethiopi­an com­mu­ni­ty, is per­haps one of the largest and most vocal African dias­po­ra groups any­where around the world. Their influ­ence on Amer­i­can busi­ness, media and polit­i­cal life is beyond measure. 

The peo­ple with pow­er in Wash­ing­ton and in US state cap­i­tals under­stand how this can impact them, for bet­ter or for worse. This is why many in Wash­ing­ton have been quick to call on the gov­ern­ment in Addis Aba­ba to resolve the sit­u­a­tion quick­ly. The incom­ing Biden admin­is­tra­tion already has issued a warn­ing to the Abiy gov­ern­ment about the human­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion and the need to pro­tect civil­ians. The call to action from the Tigryan com­mu­ni­ty, direct­ed at US elect­ed offi­cials, has also flood­ed social media since these ten­sions began building.

Abiy Ahmed — From Nobel Lau­re­ate to Crim­i­nal Leader

When Ahmed ascend­ed to the pin­na­cle of lead­er­ship in Ethiopia, he quick­ly won many friends in Wash­ing­ton. He was young, charis­mat­ic, and ready for change.

After con­sol­i­dat­ing his pow­er, he quick­ly mend­ed some fences, such as resolv­ing a long dis­pute with the neigh­bor­ing coun­try Eritrea. The move was praised around the world. My col­league, Joshua White wrote about Ethiopia’s détente with Eritrea when it happened.

Mean­while, Eyder Per­al­ta, Nation­al Pub­lic Radio (NPR) Africa cor­re­spon­dent in Nairo­bi, Kenya, did not waste any time cast­ing Abiy in this light as he did with this Novem­ber 29 sto­ry. The Tigray deba­cle was the sub­ject of his broad­cast on All Things Con­sid­ered, the much-beloved dri­ve-time Amer­i­can net­work radio pro­gram. Per­al­ta is a con­sis­tent crit­ic of many African lead­ers he likes to frame as “dic­ta­tors” and who he says have been in pow­er for too long. He often uses his reports on NPR to crit­i­cize them for fail­ing their own people. 

A His­to­ry of War, Famine, and Starvation

The images of Ethiopi­an and Eritre­an chil­dren on the streets, unable to fend for them­selves, often­times with­out clothes and eat­ing out of emp­ty bowls, adorned the cov­ers of Newsweek and Time mag­a­zine dur­ing the 1970s and ’80s. The civil­ian casu­al­ties in the cur­rent con­flict and the flood of refugees stream­ing into neigh­bor­ing nations bring back the memories.

The Tigray con­flict is the sub­ject of much dis­cus­sion not just in Amer­i­can pol­i­cy forums, but also on the minds of ordi­nary Tigrayans, Eritre­ans, who them­selves suf­fered the con­se­quences of drought, war, and star­va­tion dur­ing the years when fight­ing in their home­land was the norm. A lot of them left Ethiopia. They are now lead­ers in oth­er nations around the world. Many of them do not want to see this repeat­ed again.