https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/ethiopia-eritrea-tigray-war/?mc_cid=77ddd48991&mc_eid=dce79b1080
Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tigray Are Back on a War Footing
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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia—A political crisis in Ethiopia’s war-battered Tigray escalated dramatically in March, bringing armed men out onto the streets and raising fears of a fresh conflict in the still-fragile region. At its heart is a power struggle between Debretsion Gebremichael, chairman of the dominant Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, party, and Getachew Reda, Tigray’s interim regional president and Debretsion’s deputy in the TPLF.
But in the background lurks a potentially more explosive dynamic: the escalating rivalry between Ethiopia’s federal government and Eritrea, which united in the war against Tigray in 2020-2022 but fell out over the peace deal that ended it. More than two years later, tensions between the two are spiking over Ethiopia’s quest to end its status as the world’s most-populous landlocked country.
Last year Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed explored gaining sea access through the breakaway Somali republic of Somaliland, but backtracked after a fierce backlash from Mogadishu. Now he appears to have settled on reclaiming Eritrea’s port at Assab, part of the Red Sea coastline Ethiopia lost when Eritrea seceded in 1993—a loss Abiy has termed a “historical mistake.”
Tigray is sandwiched between the rival powers. Its vice president, Gen Tsadkan Gebretensae, has warned that “war seems inevitable” and that Tigray risks “becoming a battlefield for Asmara and Addis Ababa.” Former envoys to the Horn of Africa for the U.S. and the European Union describe the tensions in Tigray as “dry tinder waiting for a match that could ignite an interstate war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.” Meanwhile, Debretsion’s rivals allege his TPLF faction has made contact with Eritrean intelligence—allegations it strongly denies.
Debretsion and Getachew, Tigray’s two key political players, have long had an uneasy relationship. The roots of the current crisis in Tigray, however, date back to the peace deal with Addis Ababa that Getachew signed on behalf of the TPLF in November 2022 in Pretoria, South Africa. In doing so, Debretsion argues, he unilaterally caved in to the federal government’s conditions. “The other side pushed,” Debretsion said in an interview in February. “We expected this. But there should have been a collective decision” before Getachew agreed to the final deal, he added.
For their part, Getachew’s allies say Tigray had little leverage during the negotiations, which took place against the backdrop of fierce fighting and huge battlefield reversals. “Maybe the war should have ended sooner,” said one. Debretsion insists he’s now committed to the peace deal, despite seeing it as flawed, but he adds that there are also “differences” among the TPLF leadership regarding “its execution.”
Tigray’s political crisis has badly destabilized the region, even as tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia linger.
Nearly two and a half years after the Pretoria agreement silenced the guns, most of its key parts have not been implemented. Eritrean troops and forces from the Amhara region still occupy some 40 percent of Tigray’s districts. This has blocked the return of almost 1 million displaced people, who languish in squalid camps. Ethiopia’s military was supposed to take control of Tigray’s international borders, but the federal government’s presence amounts to little more than a few policemen outside the region’s three airports. Efforts to hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable have made little headway. Fresh regional elections are yet to be held. And Tigray is still not represented in Ethiopia’s federal parliament. It limps on in a state of limbo, unable to access donor funds crucial for its reconstruction.
The situation has badly destabilized the region. Debretsion’s TPLF faction, which controls the party apparatus, blames it on the incompetence of Getachew’s interim administration. Competition is also heating up to control Tigray’s lucrative gold deposits and state companies. In August, the TPLF held a congress that expelled Getachew and several members of his Cabinet from the party. Debretsion says they must step down from their positions in the regional government. Getachew’s allies maintain the congress was illegal.
Things reached a boiling point in early March when Getachew tried to fire three top TPLF generals, who he accused of plotting a “coup.” Debretsion’s TPLF faction then took over several districts across Tigray, including the major city of Adigrat. They also seized the mayor’s office and radio station in Mekelle, Tigray’s capital. These military movements sparked panic among residents, who rushed to withdraw cash from banks. Air tickets to Addis Ababa sold out.
“Everyone is concerned about war,” said Tesfasellassie Medhin, the Catholic bishop of Adigrat. “The people do not want more destruction.”
The showdown had been brewing for weeks, but its climax came quickly. Apart from a few isolated clashes, it was largely bloodless. Getachew appealed to the federal government to intervene, which could have sparked an armed confrontation and risked sucking in Eritrea, whose leader—long-ruling President Isaias Afwerki—feels he has unfinished business in Tigray. But Abiy declined to do so.
Getachew is now on his way out, and Debretsion’s faction wants to replace him with Tadesse Werede, the head of Tigray’s regional armed forces and another regional vice president. On Wednesday, however, Abiy appeared to block his nomination, announcing he would instead consider public proposals for Tigray’s new leader. The TPLF blasted his statement as “unacceptable,” accusing Abiy’s government of engaging in “provocative, hostile and destabilizing activities that threaten the survival of the deeply wounded people of Tigray” and “attempting to unilaterally determine” the region’s leadership.
Meanwhile, tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia linger. Abiy has staked his legacy on regaining sea access. Ethiopia’s landlocked status currently eats up $1.6 billion a year in port fees to Djibouti, which handles 90 percent of Ethiopia’s trade. Gaining access to the sea would not only save scarce foreign currency but could boost economic growth by 25 percent to 30 percent, according to Abiy.
The Ethiopian prime minister is unlikely to drop the issue, although he insists he is committed to resolving it peacefully. “Ethiopia has no intention to invade Eritrea to gain Red Sea access,” Abiy told parliament last week. “Our desire is to talk about it under the principle of give and take, in a mutually beneficial manner, and according to commercial law.”
But the warning signs are there. In February, Eritrea ordered a nationwide military mobilization. Its reclusive regime has ruled out giving up Assab port under any circumstances, with its information minister last week describing Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions as “misguided and outdated.” According to Western diplomats who spoke off the record, Eritrea is also trying to destabilize Abiy’s government by assisting rebels in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, where an insurgency is escalating. On March 21, Ethiopia’s military claimed it had killed 300 fighters in two days of fighting. The day before, it claimed that a top Tigrayan general had “encouraged and coordinated” attacks by Amhara rebels, which the TPLF denies.
Meanwhile, if Debretsion’s TPLF faction does take control of Tigray’s regional government, it may feel emboldened to prepare a military strike to reclaim control of western Tigray. This fertile area was seized by Amhara forces during the Tigray war. Its status was supposed to be resolved constitutionally, according to the Pretoria peace agreement. The failure to do so is the main reason for Tigray’s ongoing displacement crisis. An offensive could reignite an internationalized conflict involving Eritrean forces.
Ethiopia has also been moving tanks, troops and military equipment to its border with Eritrea in the arid Afar region. And its state media is making loud claims over Assab. The deployments are small in scale and might be a show of force, calculated to put pressure on Eritrea, as Abiy can ill afford to stretch his forces any thinner. In addition to Amhara, the federal government is battling an entrenched insurgency in Oromia, Ethiopia’s biggest region. That makes the timing bad for a conflict with Eritrea. Yet diplomats fear the consequences of any miscalculation on either side, similar to the skirmishes that inadvertently escalated the border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1998-2000.
An interstate war would be devastating for the Horn of Africa, a region already struggling with internal conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia, said Ahmed Soliman at Chatham House. “Abiy has at least opened the door for some kind of accommodation,” said Soliman. “There is a possibility to de-escalate.”
Hopefully, for Tigray’s and the broader region’s sake, Abiy will seize it.
Fred Harter is a freelance journalist based in Addis Ababa whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The Times of London, The Independent, VOA and the New Humanitarian. He has covered Ethiopia since March 2021 and traveled extensively in every region affected by the 2020-2022 conflict.