11-15-2020, 10:28 PM
*** 16-Nov-20 World View -- Ethiopia civil war escalates sharply as Tigray Region attacks Eritrea
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Ethiopia civil war escalates sharply as Tigray Region attacks Eritrea
****
![[Image: g201115b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g201115b.jpg)
Map of Horn of Africa showing Tigray Region of Ethiopia (VOA)
The ethnic civil war in Ethiopia escalated sharply on Saturday when
the army of the Tigray ethnic group fired missiles at the airport in
Asmara, the capital city of the Eritrea, bringing Eritrea into
Ethiopia's civil war.
The Tigray ethnic group occupies the Tigray region in northern
Ethiopia, with Eritrea on its northern border, and Sudan on its
western border. Ethiopia's federal government, headed by prime
minister Abiy Ahmediat of the Oromo ethnic tribe, is located in the
capital city Addis Ababa in central Ethiopia. For the last few weeks,
government forces have been attacking Tigray with missiles and
militias. The militias are mostly ethnic Amharas. The Amhara region
is directly south of the Tigray region.
Over 20,000 refugees from Tigray have abandoned their homes and
belongings and have fled into Sudan to refugee camps along the border
to escape the violence. Sudanese officials have said that as the
fighting escalates, they expect to see 200,000 refugees.
At the same time, terrorist groups from ISIS and al-Shabaab have been
entering Ethiopia from Somalia and, according to Ethiopian officials,
plotted to attack various parts of the country, seizing the window of
opportunity opened by the conflict in the Tigray region.
Ethiopia is a hotbed of tensions between different ethnic groups.
There are already growing clashes between other ethnic groups in other
parts of Ethiopia, and there are fears that waves of refugees will
cross into Kenya and Somalia, possibly destabilizing the entire
region.
The Tigray attack on the airport in Asmara, Eritrea, was something of
a surprise, and puzzled analysts since it seems to have no purpose
except to provoke a retaliatory attack by Eritrea on Tigray.
However, Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of the Tigray People’s
Liberation Front (TPLF), says that the airport was a "legitimate
target," since it was being used by Ethiopian forces. "As long as
troops are here fighting, we will take any legitimate military target
and we will fire. We will fight them on all fronts with whatever
means we have," he said
Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmediat, launched military operations
in Tigray two weeks ago after he accused local authorities of
attacking a military camp in the region and attempting to loot
military assets. The TPLF denies the charge and has accused the prime
minister of concocting the story to justify deploying the offensive.
On Sunday, the Abiy government rejected any calls for a ceasefire:
<QUOTE>"With unwavering commitment we will see this project
through to the end ... As a sovereign nation, Ethiopia reaffirms
its capability and resolve to manage ... its own rule of law
operation without any external intervention. ...
The Federal Government of Ethiopia is asserting its constitutional
mandate to uphold the rule of law according to the laws of the
land."<END QUOTE>
With Abiy unwilling to consider a ceasefire, with the Tigrays
attacking Eritrea, and with tens of thousands of refugees pouring into
neighboring countries, observers are concerned that this could
escalate into a full-scale war in the Horn of Africa.
****
**** The rise of prime minister Abiy Ahmediat
****
![[Image: g201115c.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g201115c.jpg)
Map of Ethiopia showing internal Regions (Bloomberg)
Ethiopia's last generational crisis war (1975-1991) was a protracted
war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) against the
vicious Marxist Derg military government in Addis Ababa, which
climaxed in 1991 when they finally toppled the TPLF. The Tigrays are
only 6% of Ethiopia's population but they dominated Ethiopia's
government for decades, following the 1991 victory.
The Oromo ethnic group, of which Abiy is a member, and the Amhara
ethnic group are the two largest ethnic groups in Ethiopia. During
the generational Awakening era, mass protests by these two groups
targeted the Tigray coalition government, resulting in a "velvet coup"
that brought Abiy to power as prime minister. At the same time
Ethiopia and Eritria signed a peace deal ending a bitter border
dispute between the two countries.
Shortly after that, Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize, which is always
laughable these days. The TPLF says that, since then, Abiy's
government has systematically persecuted Tigrays since he took office.
After Abiy became prime minister in April 2018, several high-ranking
TPLF officials were prosecuted for human rights abuses and corruption.
The TPLF responded by accusing Abiy of targeting them in a politically
motivated campaign.
When Abiy’s government delayed this year’s general elections until
2021, citing Covid-19, the TPLF accused the prime minister of using
the pandemic to hold on to power beyond his mandate. The TPLF then
unilaterally held regional elections in September. The federal
government refused to accept the results, and this led to the federal
government's military attack on Tigray.
Abiy apparently expects a quick victory against the Tigrays, but
analysts point out that the TPLF remains a fighting force of up to
250,000 battle-hardened troops. Furthermore large elements of the
Northern Command leadership of the national Ethiopian army are
Tigrays, meaning that Abiy cannot expect full loyalty from the army.
****
**** Generational history of Ethiopia and Eritrea
****
![[Image: g160613c.gif]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g160613c.gif)
Horn of Africa
These two countries have been linked since at least the second century
AD.
Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the 4th century, and was a tribal
society ruled by emperors until the 1800s. However, a split between
Ethiopia and Eritrea occurred in the 700s with the rise of Islam and
the Arab trade along the Red Sea, and what is now Eritrea became part
of the Islamic Empire, and later the Ottoman Empire.
Italy colonized the region in the 1860s, in the so-called Scramble for
Africa, so named because after it was discovered in the 1850s that
malaria could be controlled with quinine, England, Belgium, France,
Portugal, Italy, Spain and Germany all competed with each other to
colonize different parts of Africa.
In 1869, the Suez Canal opened, connecting the Red Sea with the
Mediterranean Sea, and Italian shipping firms became active. Large
stretches of Eritrea's coastline were acquired from the local sultans
and transferred to Italian control. By the mid-1880s, the Italian
army moved into Eritrea, displacing the Ottomans, and challenging the
Ethiopian empire.
In 1889, Menelik II rose to the position of Emperor of Ethiopia. The
"Italian-Ethiopian War" (1889-1896) was a generational crisis war for
Ethiopia. Menelik inflicted on Italy the most humiliating and bloody
defeat ever experienced by a colonial power in Africa. In the
outcome, Italy retained Eritrea as a Red Sea colony, populating it
with thousands of Italian settlers, developing road and rail
transport, but doing little to improve the lives of Eritreans.
Ethiopia gained independence, and by 1914 and the beginning of WW I,
all of black Africa except Ethiopia and Liberia were European
colonies.
By 1935, Eritrea was a colony of Italy, and Ethiopia had a new
emperor, one who had taken the title Haile Selassie, meaning "Might of
the Trinity," emphasizing the fact that Ethiopia was a largely
Christian country.
In October 1935, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered an invasion
of Ethiopia, partly in revenge for Italy's humiliating defeat in 1896.
Mussolini announced the establishment of a new Italian empire,
including Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, under the name Italian East
Africa. Haile Selassie fled the country.
When Mussolini brought Italy into World War II on Hitler's side, in
June 1940, Haile Selassie won the cooperation of Britain in launching
a counterattack against the Italian forces in Italian East Africa. By
1941, Haile Selassie was once again emperor of Ethiopia. After the
war, the United Nations made Eritrea a part of Ethiopia, an autonomous
federal province with its own constitution and elected government,
something that the Muslims in Eritrea strongly opposed.
From the above description, one can see that although World War II was
a generational crisis war for Italy and Britain, with part of the war
fought on Ethiopian soil, it was not a crisis war for Ethiopia itself.
In fact, with the previous crisis war having climaxed in 1896, this
was a generational Unraveling era for Ethiopia. In such an era (like
America in the 1990s), there is little appetite for war among the
general population, except perhaps for quick police actions. Although
Ethiopia and Eritrea changed hands several times during the WW II time
period, the fighting was mostly between foreign armies, and did not
heavily involve the local population.
In the mid-1950s, the region entered a generational Crisis era, and
the fault line between Muslims and Christians began to inflame. In
1958, Eritrea's Muslim leaders formed the Eritrean Liberation Front
(ELF), consisting mainly of students, intellectuals, and urban wage
laborers. Low-level warfare continued throughout the 1960s.
In the 1970s, the Eritrean independence movement took another turn
with the formation of a powerful Marxist offshoot of the ELF, the
Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). Haile Selassie was toppled
in 1974, after which factional warfare began to increase.
This might have led to a full-scale generational crisis war, but there
was a major development: In 1977, the USSR allied with the Ethiopian
government, took control of Eritrea's Red Sea ports, and provided
Ethiopia's government with huge supplies of arms, enough to suppress
the EPLF guerrillas.
The guerrilla war fought by Marxist rebels against the well-armed
Ethiopian government climaxed in May 1991 with the collapse of
Ethiopia's government, coincident with the collapse of the USSR.
Eritrea finally declared independence. By that time, there were
500,000 refugees that had fled to refugee camps in Sudan, and they had
to be resettled in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
In 1998, a new border war broke out between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
This was a non-crisis war, with a quality very similar to World War I,
where trenches were dug, mines were laid, and bodies of dead soldiers
were strewn about. Of the 400,000 men who fought on both sides,
50,000 soldiers died.
A peace deal in 2000 ended the two-year border war, but it was never
fully implemented, and a new peace deal was signed in 2018.
Sources:
Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Ethiopia, Tigray Region, Eritrea, Asmara,
Abiy Ahmediat, Oromia Region, Amhara Region,
Tigray People’s Liberation Front, TPLF,
Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, al-Shabaab, Derg,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Italy, Scramble for Africa, Suez Canal, Red Sea, Italian-Ethiopian War,
Menelik II, Haile Selassie, Benito Mussolini,
Italian East Africa, Eritrean Liberation Front, ELF,
Eritrean People's Liberation Front, EPLF
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Ethiopia civil war escalates sharply as Tigray Region attacks Eritrea
- The rise of prime minister Abiy Ahmediat
- Generational history of Ethiopia and Eritrea
****
**** Ethiopia civil war escalates sharply as Tigray Region attacks Eritrea
****
Map of Horn of Africa showing Tigray Region of Ethiopia (VOA)
The ethnic civil war in Ethiopia escalated sharply on Saturday when
the army of the Tigray ethnic group fired missiles at the airport in
Asmara, the capital city of the Eritrea, bringing Eritrea into
Ethiopia's civil war.
The Tigray ethnic group occupies the Tigray region in northern
Ethiopia, with Eritrea on its northern border, and Sudan on its
western border. Ethiopia's federal government, headed by prime
minister Abiy Ahmediat of the Oromo ethnic tribe, is located in the
capital city Addis Ababa in central Ethiopia. For the last few weeks,
government forces have been attacking Tigray with missiles and
militias. The militias are mostly ethnic Amharas. The Amhara region
is directly south of the Tigray region.
Over 20,000 refugees from Tigray have abandoned their homes and
belongings and have fled into Sudan to refugee camps along the border
to escape the violence. Sudanese officials have said that as the
fighting escalates, they expect to see 200,000 refugees.
At the same time, terrorist groups from ISIS and al-Shabaab have been
entering Ethiopia from Somalia and, according to Ethiopian officials,
plotted to attack various parts of the country, seizing the window of
opportunity opened by the conflict in the Tigray region.
Ethiopia is a hotbed of tensions between different ethnic groups.
There are already growing clashes between other ethnic groups in other
parts of Ethiopia, and there are fears that waves of refugees will
cross into Kenya and Somalia, possibly destabilizing the entire
region.
The Tigray attack on the airport in Asmara, Eritrea, was something of
a surprise, and puzzled analysts since it seems to have no purpose
except to provoke a retaliatory attack by Eritrea on Tigray.
However, Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of the Tigray People’s
Liberation Front (TPLF), says that the airport was a "legitimate
target," since it was being used by Ethiopian forces. "As long as
troops are here fighting, we will take any legitimate military target
and we will fire. We will fight them on all fronts with whatever
means we have," he said
Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmediat, launched military operations
in Tigray two weeks ago after he accused local authorities of
attacking a military camp in the region and attempting to loot
military assets. The TPLF denies the charge and has accused the prime
minister of concocting the story to justify deploying the offensive.
On Sunday, the Abiy government rejected any calls for a ceasefire:
<QUOTE>"With unwavering commitment we will see this project
through to the end ... As a sovereign nation, Ethiopia reaffirms
its capability and resolve to manage ... its own rule of law
operation without any external intervention. ...
The Federal Government of Ethiopia is asserting its constitutional
mandate to uphold the rule of law according to the laws of the
land."<END QUOTE>
With Abiy unwilling to consider a ceasefire, with the Tigrays
attacking Eritrea, and with tens of thousands of refugees pouring into
neighboring countries, observers are concerned that this could
escalate into a full-scale war in the Horn of Africa.
****
**** The rise of prime minister Abiy Ahmediat
****
Map of Ethiopia showing internal Regions (Bloomberg)
Ethiopia's last generational crisis war (1975-1991) was a protracted
war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) against the
vicious Marxist Derg military government in Addis Ababa, which
climaxed in 1991 when they finally toppled the TPLF. The Tigrays are
only 6% of Ethiopia's population but they dominated Ethiopia's
government for decades, following the 1991 victory.
The Oromo ethnic group, of which Abiy is a member, and the Amhara
ethnic group are the two largest ethnic groups in Ethiopia. During
the generational Awakening era, mass protests by these two groups
targeted the Tigray coalition government, resulting in a "velvet coup"
that brought Abiy to power as prime minister. At the same time
Ethiopia and Eritria signed a peace deal ending a bitter border
dispute between the two countries.
Shortly after that, Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize, which is always
laughable these days. The TPLF says that, since then, Abiy's
government has systematically persecuted Tigrays since he took office.
After Abiy became prime minister in April 2018, several high-ranking
TPLF officials were prosecuted for human rights abuses and corruption.
The TPLF responded by accusing Abiy of targeting them in a politically
motivated campaign.
When Abiy’s government delayed this year’s general elections until
2021, citing Covid-19, the TPLF accused the prime minister of using
the pandemic to hold on to power beyond his mandate. The TPLF then
unilaterally held regional elections in September. The federal
government refused to accept the results, and this led to the federal
government's military attack on Tigray.
Abiy apparently expects a quick victory against the Tigrays, but
analysts point out that the TPLF remains a fighting force of up to
250,000 battle-hardened troops. Furthermore large elements of the
Northern Command leadership of the national Ethiopian army are
Tigrays, meaning that Abiy cannot expect full loyalty from the army.
****
**** Generational history of Ethiopia and Eritrea
****
Horn of Africa
These two countries have been linked since at least the second century
AD.
Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the 4th century, and was a tribal
society ruled by emperors until the 1800s. However, a split between
Ethiopia and Eritrea occurred in the 700s with the rise of Islam and
the Arab trade along the Red Sea, and what is now Eritrea became part
of the Islamic Empire, and later the Ottoman Empire.
Italy colonized the region in the 1860s, in the so-called Scramble for
Africa, so named because after it was discovered in the 1850s that
malaria could be controlled with quinine, England, Belgium, France,
Portugal, Italy, Spain and Germany all competed with each other to
colonize different parts of Africa.
In 1869, the Suez Canal opened, connecting the Red Sea with the
Mediterranean Sea, and Italian shipping firms became active. Large
stretches of Eritrea's coastline were acquired from the local sultans
and transferred to Italian control. By the mid-1880s, the Italian
army moved into Eritrea, displacing the Ottomans, and challenging the
Ethiopian empire.
In 1889, Menelik II rose to the position of Emperor of Ethiopia. The
"Italian-Ethiopian War" (1889-1896) was a generational crisis war for
Ethiopia. Menelik inflicted on Italy the most humiliating and bloody
defeat ever experienced by a colonial power in Africa. In the
outcome, Italy retained Eritrea as a Red Sea colony, populating it
with thousands of Italian settlers, developing road and rail
transport, but doing little to improve the lives of Eritreans.
Ethiopia gained independence, and by 1914 and the beginning of WW I,
all of black Africa except Ethiopia and Liberia were European
colonies.
By 1935, Eritrea was a colony of Italy, and Ethiopia had a new
emperor, one who had taken the title Haile Selassie, meaning "Might of
the Trinity," emphasizing the fact that Ethiopia was a largely
Christian country.
In October 1935, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered an invasion
of Ethiopia, partly in revenge for Italy's humiliating defeat in 1896.
Mussolini announced the establishment of a new Italian empire,
including Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, under the name Italian East
Africa. Haile Selassie fled the country.
When Mussolini brought Italy into World War II on Hitler's side, in
June 1940, Haile Selassie won the cooperation of Britain in launching
a counterattack against the Italian forces in Italian East Africa. By
1941, Haile Selassie was once again emperor of Ethiopia. After the
war, the United Nations made Eritrea a part of Ethiopia, an autonomous
federal province with its own constitution and elected government,
something that the Muslims in Eritrea strongly opposed.
From the above description, one can see that although World War II was
a generational crisis war for Italy and Britain, with part of the war
fought on Ethiopian soil, it was not a crisis war for Ethiopia itself.
In fact, with the previous crisis war having climaxed in 1896, this
was a generational Unraveling era for Ethiopia. In such an era (like
America in the 1990s), there is little appetite for war among the
general population, except perhaps for quick police actions. Although
Ethiopia and Eritrea changed hands several times during the WW II time
period, the fighting was mostly between foreign armies, and did not
heavily involve the local population.
In the mid-1950s, the region entered a generational Crisis era, and
the fault line between Muslims and Christians began to inflame. In
1958, Eritrea's Muslim leaders formed the Eritrean Liberation Front
(ELF), consisting mainly of students, intellectuals, and urban wage
laborers. Low-level warfare continued throughout the 1960s.
In the 1970s, the Eritrean independence movement took another turn
with the formation of a powerful Marxist offshoot of the ELF, the
Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). Haile Selassie was toppled
in 1974, after which factional warfare began to increase.
This might have led to a full-scale generational crisis war, but there
was a major development: In 1977, the USSR allied with the Ethiopian
government, took control of Eritrea's Red Sea ports, and provided
Ethiopia's government with huge supplies of arms, enough to suppress
the EPLF guerrillas.
The guerrilla war fought by Marxist rebels against the well-armed
Ethiopian government climaxed in May 1991 with the collapse of
Ethiopia's government, coincident with the collapse of the USSR.
Eritrea finally declared independence. By that time, there were
500,000 refugees that had fled to refugee camps in Sudan, and they had
to be resettled in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
In 1998, a new border war broke out between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
This was a non-crisis war, with a quality very similar to World War I,
where trenches were dug, mines were laid, and bodies of dead soldiers
were strewn about. Of the 400,000 men who fought on both sides,
50,000 soldiers died.
A peace deal in 2000 ended the two-year border war, but it was never
fully implemented, and a new peace deal was signed in 2018.
Sources:
- Abiy Ahmed and the future of Ethiopia (Al-Jazeera, 15-Nov-2020)
- War crimes feared in Ethiopia’s Tigray, Amnesty reports massacre (Al-Jazeera, 13-Nov-2020)
- Ethiopia: Investigation reveals evidence that scores of civilians were killed in massacre in Tigray state (Amnesty International, 12-Nov-2020)
- Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict explained in 500 words (Al-Jazeera, 10-Nov-2020)
- Tigray conflict threatens to ‘catalyse’ tensions elsewhere in Ethiopia (France24, 12-Nov-2020)
- In Escalation of Ethiopia War, Tigray Leader Says His Forces Fired Rockets at Eritrea (Reuters, 15-Nov-2020)
- Rockets Hit 2 Airports in Ethiopia's Amhara State (VOA, 14-Nov-2020)
- Ethiopia Names New Leader for Restive Tigray Region (VOA, 13-Nov-2020)
- UN Rights Chief Alarmed by Reports of Massacre in Ethiopia's Tigray Region (VOA, 13-Nov-2020)
- Ethiopia: How the Tigray conflict escalated (News24, 16-Nov-2020)
- Ethiopia arrests 14 Al-Shabaab, ISIS terrorists (The Nation, Nigeria, 15-Nov-2020)
- Fears of regional conflict in Horn of Africa after rocket attacks on Eritrea (Guardian, London, 15-Nov-2020)
- Tigray Confirms Eritrea Strike as Ethiopia Conflict Spreads (Bloomberg, 15-Nov-2020)
- Tigray confirms shooting missiles at Eritrea (AP, 16-Nov-2020)
- Rockets from Ethiopia's Tigray region hit Eritrea capital: diplomats (AFP, 15-Nov-2020)
- Ethiopians fleeing to Sudan describe airstrikes and machete killings in Tigray (Reuters, 15-Nov-2020)
Related Articles:
- Ethiopia's prime minister Abiy Ahmediat escapes grenade attack at massive rally (24-Jun-2018)
- In a surprise, Ethiopia accepts peace deal with Eritrea (06-Jun-2018)
- Ethiopia chooses an Oromo leader, as Kenya has farcical confrontation with the courts (30-Mar-2018)
- Thousands of Ethiopian Oromos flee into Kenya, threatening regional stability (15-Mar-2018)
- Ethiopia declares state of emergency after shock resignation of prime minister (17-Feb-2018)
- Ethiopia declares extraordinary six-month state of emergency (10-Oct-2016)
- Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war (14-Jun-2016)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Ethiopia, Tigray Region, Eritrea, Asmara,
Abiy Ahmediat, Oromia Region, Amhara Region,
Tigray People’s Liberation Front, TPLF,
Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, al-Shabaab, Derg,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Italy, Scramble for Africa, Suez Canal, Red Sea, Italian-Ethiopian War,
Menelik II, Haile Selassie, Benito Mussolini,
Italian East Africa, Eritrean Liberation Front, ELF,
Eritrean People's Liberation Front, EPLF
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
