I have been
following Ethiopian politics for over 4 decades and the players are the same.
Even if we dig and dive back in history, we will find the players are the same
and never changed, they are always following the same ethnic lines. Back in the
18th century, Atse Yohannes IV the then emperor of Ethiopia was
trying to expand north towards today Eritrea where it was ruled by local
leaders, he sent Ras Alula who was doing the burning and the killing as he was
advancing across the Eritrean regions. A second bigger army led by Atse
Yohannes himself was marching to invade the Shewa region of Amhara which had
been ruled by Menelik the II from Gondar. While Atse Yohannes was advancing to
Shewa there was an invasion of the Darwish (Mahdya) coming from Sudan. Menelik
was smart. He sent a message to Atse Yohannes saying “how come you are trying
to invade Shewa while the real enemy is crossing the border invading all of us
Ethiopians”, there, Atse Yohannes changed his plan and headed towards the
border with Sudan and in Al Matamma met with the army of Darwish where his army
was defeated and he got killed. Menelik seized the opportunity and led the
Amhara on evading Tigray and entering Aksum defeating Ras Alula who rushed back
to Tigray as Menelik was advancing across Tigray. Menelik expanded to so many
territories’ and regions to create the current Ethiopia. He built his new
capital in the land of Oromia in a place called Finfine, he renamed the place
to Addis Ababa (The new flower) following the advice of his wife. Menelik
wanted to humiliate Tigrayan by depriving them almost from everything. They
became very poor and powerless but never defeated they were always with the
sense of “we will be back one day”. Amhara’s humiliation to Tigrayans did not
stop with Menelik but also continued during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie
and the Derg, probably even worse.
In 1974 Tigrayans
started their revolt against the Derg led by Tigrayans People Liberation Front
“TPLF”. The ground was prepared, and people were ready just they were waiting
for the trigger to be pulled. They fought side by side with the Eritrean fronts
until they defeated the Amhara in 1991 and captured Addis Ababa Menelik’s
capital. The dilemma was whether to rule all over Ethiopia or just to rule
Tigray after separating from the rest of Ethiopia. It was a real issue but
finally they got a solution for that by creating a coalition with the other
ethnical entities and leading the umbrella of the ethnically divided groups, so
by virtue they became the center of power in the coalition for almost 3
decades. During these three decades they were able to transform Ethiopia from a
country producing famines and poverty to a country with the highest growth in
the whole continent of Africa. A country with so many mega projects, so many
new universities and so many other educational institutions. A country where
infrastructure was almost expanding to all over the country, new highways, new
railroads, new bridges, new mega dumps and over all still they were able to
maintain Ethiopian Airline as one of the best airlines in Africa and one of the
top competitors internationally. TPLF through EPRDF did a lot but also, they
oppressed the people to maintain power, they oppressed oppositions and crushed
all movements that were seeking for change and deeming to pose a challenge to
their power. Tigrayans were a minority not more than 5% of the country’s
population and they had always feared losing power to the majority, especially
to the Oromo or to the Amhara. Youth movements from both ethnic groups erupted
almost everywhere demanding for change in power. Although Oromo make the
majority of the country’s population but never had a chance to govern Ethiopia.
Power was always either on Tigray’s hand or in Amhara’s hand. Oromo believes it
is their turn to rule the country, it is their time as their youth kept pushing
hard through demonstrations and though standing firm with their demands
to change the regime until the then prime minister resigned from power
and left the EPRDF to choose a new prime minister. Thinking to give the Oromo a
chance they chose Dr. Aby Ahmed who is half Oromo and half Amhara to lead the
transitional period until a full election is carried over, but Dr. Aby Ahmed
started to have his own agenda and dreams to fulfill. He set free all political
prisoners, allowed and invited all opposition to return home even carrying
their own arms. He connected factions and he presented himself as the man of
peace by reaching out to neighboring countries especially arch enemy Eritrea and
made a deal with Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki. In two short years he was
able to accomplish a lot, he even won the Nobel Peace Prize. But few knew that
he was working with a strict agenda. He was chosen to lead the transitional
period peacefully to election but since he embedded his own dreams and agendas,
now he has to find means and ways to achieve his dreams of being emperor number
six of Ethiopia, the route to that passes by Mekele. He cannot become an
emperor while Tigray still is strong, still in charge of the region and still
has the mighty power of TPLF influencing the dynamic of politics in the entire
Ethiopia. He cannot be an emperor while still EPRDF is in power. Ironically, he
was brought by EPRDF and he was representing EPRDF but now EPRDF is the
obstacle in his way to become Ethiopia’s next emperor. He cannot be emperor
while Ethiopia is still a federal state of divided ethnic groups. His path to
becoming Ethiopia’s next emperor will pass first by dismantling the federal
system and uniting all the ethnically divided regions under one central state
led by one party, for that he will need the Amhara beside him as they were the
advocates to demolishing the federal system. He turned to be more Amhara than
the Amhara themselves, he earned their support as he was advocating Amhara’s
idea of one central government ruling the whole country. His path will pass by
Asmara to build a coalition against the common enemy at least until he becomes
an emperor. He will also need to build his own national party which he did by
creating his Prosperity Party. The Oromo were the first to understand what was
going on and they started to oppose his ideas of bringing Ethiopia back to the
rule of Amhara, they felt that they were cheated as the system is gradually demolishing
federalism and getting centralized under the grip of Amhara. He threw Jahar
Mohamed Oromos opposition leader in prison. Mr. Jahar was advocating for
federalism as the federal system was giving the ethnic regions some margin of
freedom to use their own language and to have their own media and own
parliament.
Dr. Aby Ahmed was
chosen by EPRDF to lead peacefully the transitional period towards full federal
election but instead he declared war against the Tigray region led by TPLF. He
put all the mighty fire power of the federal army plus all the Amhara region
militias to fight against Tigray as well as the full support of Asmara in the
name of applying rules against TPLF. In doing so, Dr. Aby was taking a gamble
to finish the war in a very short time before the American Election is over as
all the attention was being focused on the election and the outcome of the
election. It was not a coincidence to have the two events take place at the
same time. This gamble was lost as TPLF prolonged the war by withdrawing from
the major cities and keeping their force and the fire power intact so they
could control the momentum of when and where to attack. The second gamble was
to silence everyone including African Union, neighboring countries and
international opinion by cutting Tigray from the rest of the world. No power,
no internet and no one from the international media would be allowed to go
there. This gamble also was lost as refugees started to flee across the border
with Sudan by thousands telling horrific stories of war galvanizing the
international attention and that started to fire back to the system of Dr. Aby
Ahmed. The third gamble was to block any local or neighboring assistance or
support to Tigray by silencing them and controlling all information about the
on-going war, but different types of war erupted internally and externally
making him lose that gamble as well. Internally fighting in Benishangul, Afar
and Oromia regions between Amhara and local militias. Externally war with Sudan
in the disputed area of Al-Fashqa.
Dr. Aby’s problem
is that he doesn’t know how to finish this war before he loses everything
including his dreams of being Ethiopia’s next emperor. He’s allying with the
Amhara, but the Amhara have more enemies than friends, fighting against every
neighboring region didn’t earn them the friendship of anyone. There is also the
connection of the Ethiopian regions across the border with the neighboring
countries like the Benishangul with South Sudan, the Ethiopian Somali with
Somalia/Somaliland and the Afar with Djibouti and last the Tigray with the
Tigrinya people of Eritrea. So much in task and so many complications in the
map. It seems also that Dr. Aby forgot the international interest in the area
and the dispute with Egypt over the Renaissance Dump and how that could play as
a factor in the on-going war in prolonging it and weakening the central
government of the country.
The question is,
are we heading to the Balkanization of Ethiopia or will we wetness the reign of
the next Ethiopian emperor?
By M Issa
12/26/2020
