By refusing to lift the siege, Ethiopia’s leaders made renewed war in Tigray inevitable

 

While the two sides blame each other for the resumption of hostilities, Ethiopian authorities are utilizing the siege to strangle Tigray and had been preparing a new offensive long before 24 August.

 

The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF6th )'s and 8th infantry divisions, along with the 2nd, 6th, and 8th mechanized divisions, launched a "extensive offensive" against Tigrayan positions on August 24 at 5 a.m. local time in the direction of Chube Ber, Janora, Gubagala, Yalow, Alamata, Bala, and Bisober, according to Tigray's Central Command.

 

In contrast, the Ethiopian Government Communications Service said that “at 5 am today [the TPLF] has attacked the Eastern Front from Bisober, Zobel and Tekulshe direction.” It added that “by carrying out such measure, [the TPLF] has effectively broken the ceasefire”, and claimed Ethiopia has “a legal, historical and moral obligation to save the country.”

 

One thing is certain despite contradicting reports: the tenuous ceasefire has been broken and violence has restarted.

 

This effectively puts an end to the "peace process," but it is still unclear whether the Tigrayan government's announcement on September 11 that it is prepared to "participate in a strong peace process under the auspices of the African Union" would alter the course of events.

 

The evidence shows that the Ethiopian government was preparing for this renewed offensive.

 

Even during the so-called humanitarian ceasefire, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared on 24 June, Ethiopia was quietly preparing for war by recruiting, training, and rearming. Reyot Media reported that, on 28 June, 113 containers laden with weapons, including 100,000 Kalashnikovs, 2,000 sniper rifles, and millions of ammunition rounds arrived in Djibouti.

 

Tigrayan forces warned of renewed conflict following ENDF’s 15 August hour-long barrage on their defensive positions around Dedebit, a town in northwestern Tigray, using tanks and heavy artillery.

 

Federal authorities had also ramped up their vitriolic propaganda campaign against Tigray’s government. On 19 August, Billene Seyoum, Abiy’s press secretary, accused aid agencies of arming Tigray forces under the guise of delivering humanitarian assistance and said that money is being funneled into the TPLF’s coffers—presumably by aid agencies.

 

In a 20 August article in the Ethiopian Herald, a state-owned daily newspaper, government officials also vowed to “bury” the “power-crazed” TPLF “soon”.

 

Soon after, social media users posted videos purporting to show Ethiopian soldiers being driven toward Tigray.

Ethiopia Troops Seen Moving Toward Tigray

BREAKING: While the world is busy voicing its support for AU’s peace efforts in #Ethiopia, buses carrying soldiers were seen in Kobo heading towards #Tigray. This comes after Ethiopia bombarded Tigrayan forces around the town of Dedebit. pic.twitter.com/26iUEMEota

— Yonas Nigussie (@Yonigussie) August 20, 2022

 

Debretsion Gebremichael, the president of Tigray, issued a warning on August 23 regarding a "looming military invasion on Tigray" and blamed the international community for not doing anything to stop it.

 

Debretsion also demanded that the Ethiopian federal government uphold its legal responsibilities, such as restoring basic services to Tigray, permitting unrestricted humanitarian access, withdrawing foreign forces from Tigray, putting an end to ongoing war crimes, seeking justice for war crimes committed, and restoring Tigray's prewar borders.

 

Hussein Nura, a resident of Kobo―an Amhara town near the border with Tigray that the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) swiftly captured after fighting resumed―told the New York Times by phone that Amhara militias began pouring into the area on 23 August.

 

“Last week, I saw Amhara special forces and Fano (militia) heading to the front by bus,” another Kobo resident told Reuters.

 

Three more locals in the Kobo area confirmed to Reuters that ENDF troops, Amhara Special Forces, and Amhara Fano militias had been seen moving days before violence began.

 

On August 24, just hours after the ENDF made a statement threatening to punish anyone discovered revealing "secrets of the army," fighting broke out. Additionally, it issued a cautionary note saying that "publishing on the operations of the adversary" would "disturb the normal lives of our people."

 

Since then, the ENDF has conducted numerous airstrikes on Mekelle, one of which is said to have struck a playground and killed seven people.

 

On the Tigrayan side, preparations were also being made for resumption of the combat after its commanders declared they were ready to end the siege militarily or through diplomacy.

 

On 24 August, the day fighting broke out, the federal government claimed to have downed an airplane coming from the direction of Sudan carrying weapons to the Tigrayan forces. Federal authorities accuse Sudan of supporting TPLF, an allegation Khartoum denies.

 

Government duplicity

For Tigray’s leaders, the federal government’s refusal to restore basic services and allow unfettered humanitarian access in the region is the biggest reason why fighting has resumed.

 

On 28 July, Redwan Hussien, the Prime Minister’s National Security Advisor, said that the government “is ready to talks anytime, anywhere (and) talks should begin without preconditions.”

 

Ethiopian authorities have maintained that they were not able to restore basic services to Tigray without further arrangments as they otherwise feared for the safety of the workers who would be sent to Tigray.

 

However, Tigray’s government called their bluff by providing the international community with a letter to be passed to the federal government guaranteeing the security of anyone who would be sent to Tigray to restore those services.

 

With this security assurance, there should be no barrier to the start of service restoration, the EU and US envoys stated in a joint statement on August 2. But the federal government changed the rules once more by insisting that a negotiated ceasefire must be reached before Tigray's essential services can be resumed.

 

Given that a negotiated ceasefire would undoubtedly take months to implement, this was a blatant evidence that Addis Abeba was not truly interested in peace. The misery of millions of Tigrayans is being used by federal authorities in an effort to extort concessions from Tigray's administration by using humanitarian supplies and basic amenities as bargaining chips.

 

In their statement following their visit to Mekelle in late July, the EU and US envoys called for the “swift” restoration of basic services in Tigray, unfettered humanitarian access, the lifting of restrictions on cash, fuel, and fertilizers, and for federal authorities to facilitate access to the newly established International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia.

 

However, the Ethiopian government chastised them for failing to “press for unequivocal commitment for peace talks” and accused them of siding with TPLF.

 

Continued siege

 

Tigray’s government indicated to the EU and US delegations that they would break the siege militarily if Ethiopia doesn’t agree to unfettered humanitarian access, the restoration of basic services, and a reversal of the unconstitutional Amhara takeover of Western Tigray.

 

Ambassador Wondimu Asaminew, part of the Tigray delegation that met with the envoys, said that they had made it clear to them  that “this is the last chance for peace.”

 

Subsequently, Tigray’s government refused to receive a delegation led by the African Union’s High Representative for the Horn of Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo. They told him that they were not interested in empty talks anymore as they only wanted to hear a definite answer to the EU-US envoys’ promises to facilitate unfettered humanitarian access and the swift restoration of basic services.

 

Ethiopia further escalated the situation by delaying and denying a permit to another aid convoy. As a result, in the weeks prior to hostilities restarting, there was little to no movement of humanitarian convoys towards Tigray.

 

On 19 August, the World Food Programme (WFP) said that the nearly two-year war in Tigray has left almost half the population of the region in “severe” need of food aid. According to the UN agency, despite the delivery of some food aid to the region, malnutrition rates have “skyrocketed” and are expected to worsen.

 

The number of people in need of food aid has increased to 89 percent, up from 83 percent in January, and the number of people in "severe" need of food aid has increased from 37 percent in January to 47 percent in August, despite the resumed movement of humanitarian convoys on 1 April. Aid workers are finding it difficult to distribute the food aid due to a lack of cash and fuel.

 

The UN reports that approximately 1.8 million liters of fuel have entered the area overall since 1 April, but it is projected that two million liters of fuel are needed per month for humanitarian activities, including fuel for convoys carrying aid into and out of Tigray.

 

The government of Tigray is alleged to have dispatched armed men to steal more than 500,000 gallons of fuel from the WFP complex in Mekelle. Officials from Tigray, however, insisted that they were merely returning the more than 600,000 liters of fuel that had already been lent to the World Food Program.

 

Only 1.4 million people in Tigray have been reached so far (about 25% of the population) due to a lack of fuel, and fewer than 20% of the fuel and 15% of the money required for humanitarian operations have been permitted entry.

 

Consequently, across Tigray, half of the pregnant or lactating women as well as a third of children under five are malnourished, leading to a spike in stunting and maternal death.

 

The UN Humanitarian Air Service flights accounted for more than 60 percent of all medical supplies brought into Tigray. However, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the airlifting of these life-saving critical supplies into Mekelle has actually slowed instead of increasing to accommodate the increase in demand.

 

Teame Aredom, Head of the Tigray Food and Drugs Administration Office, said that less than five percent of the needed medical supplies have so far made it to Tigray. He added that less than 2.5 percent of the vital drugs, less than ten percent of essential drugs, and around fifteen percent of non-essential drugs have reached Tigray.

 

Hospitals and NGOs are not getting the critical medical supplies that they requested, as the bulk of the medical shipments thus far have been masks, gloves, and sanitizers. No critical drugs, including cancer treatments, anesthetic drugs, antibiotics, and supplies needed for dialysis treatment, have reached Tigray.

 

AU’s weakness

This latest fighting is the result of the failed peace initiative put forward by the AU and its envoy Obasanjo.

 

At the outset of the war, the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, expressed his support for the Ethiopian government’s so-called “law enforcement operation” in Tigray.

 

At the beginning of June, Obasanjo claimed that the AU is taking the conflict seriously and that he was making progress “very slowly but steadily” on unfettered aid access to Tigray. Unfortunately, that remained elusive.

 

The AU’s unrealistic expectation of an imminent diplomatic breakthrough has been proven wrong. Tigray spokesperson Getachew Reda, in an open letter, recently wrote that “a negotiated ceasefire and a comprehensive political settlement are nowhere closer to being achieved now than they were at the time of Mr. Obasanjo’s appointment a year ago.”

 

Any peace process that isn’t in touch with the realities on the ground is destined to fail. However, for obvious reasons, Abiy considers the AU as his ally.

 

According to Crisis Group’s William Davison, Ethiopia insists on AU-led negotiations because it feels that the AU doesn’t have much coercive power at its disposal and, therefore, feels that it is a weak mediator that can be manipulated more easily.

 

Because of this, the Ethiopian government hasn't done anything concrete to show that it truly wants peace, other than the odd piece of deceptive rhetoric.

 

Obasanjo didn't address the siege, the extent of the suffering in Tigray, or the need to restore basic amenities in his statement to the AU Peace and Security Council.

 

He neglected to highlight the Tigrayan government's May release of more than 4,200 Ethiopian POWs as a confidence-boosting step ahead of the envisaged peace talks.

 

Instead of reciprocating this goodwill gesture by releasing the thousands of innocent Tigrayans detained in concentration camps across Ethiopia solely because of their ethnic identity, the federal government actually denied that it ever had prisoners of war in Tigray.

 

Most astonishingly, Obasanjo recommended that the AU Commission extends a “formal invitation to the Republic of Eritrea to join the ongoing AU-led efforts aimed at lasting diplomatic solutions to the conflict between the Government of Ethiopia and the TPLF.”

 

The AU’s willingness to involve Eritrea made a mockery of justice and accountability, and it significantly increased the distance between the two warring parties.

 

The government of Tigray is not fundamentally opposed to AU mediation efforts. Instead, their concern is on the legitimacy of the AU and the objectivity of its representative, Obasanjo.

 

Debretsion stated on August 23 that he did not view the AU as fair and unbiased brokers in the Tigrayan conflict, "but we, in theory, respect AU's function as a continental body in seeking African solutions to African problems."

 

The Tigrayan administration declared on September 11 that it would support an authentic AU-led process with internationally recognized monitors monitoring the execution of agreements and mediators who might be accepted by both parties.

 

Because the AU lacks the same influence over Ethiopia as the international community does in terms of the military, diplomacy, and finances, the execution of pledges may not be ensured unless the AU collaborates with the international community.

 

The war on the Tigrayan people must end, and the underlying political issues that sparked the conflict must be resolved. To do this, the international community must take decisive action.

 

The ability of Tigray to end the siege militarily should not be understated by the international community. Now that Tigray has a legitimate army, the TDF, it may launch "strategic offensives" to lift the siege in addition to protecting the country.

 

Debretsion has warned that if the international community fails Tigray again, “they will find themselves bystanders to the biggest and most dangerous state failure in Africa with tremendous ramifications for the region and beyond.”

 

By Yonas Nigussie Via  Ethiopia Insight