40 TheEconomistNovember 7th 2020
1F
or severaldays the warning lights had
been flashing red. Early in the morning
of October 29th a general in Ethiopia’s fed-
eral army had flown to the northern region
of Tigray to take up his new position as dep-
uty commander of forces in the region. He
was refused entry. In Mekelle, the regional
capital, rumours swirled of troop move-
ments across the state border in the Am-
hara region, as well as in Eritrea, a country
to its north. Throughout Tigray young men
had been armed and trained. On November
2nd its president said the region was pre-
paring for war.
War may have begun. On November 4th
Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, or-
dered his forces to hit back in response to
what he claimed was an “attack” by Tigray’s
ruling party on a base housing federal
troops. “The red line has been crossed,” he
said. Early reports suggest there had been a
heavy exchange of artillery fire around Me-
kelle and on the border with Amhara. Theinternet and phone networks in Tigray
were cut off. Abiy has declared a state of
emergency in the region. In a television ad-
dress he said the fighting had resulted in
casualties, though he did not say how
many. As The Economistwent to press it was
unclear whether the conflict would be lim-
ited to a brief skirmish or might blow up
into a full-scale war.
The latest escalation comes after
months of bitter feuding between Abiy and
leaders of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation
Front (tplf), an armed group that turned
into a political party after leading the rebel-lion that ousted the Derg, a Marxist junta,
in 1991. Since then, for almost three de-
cades, the tplf called the shots in the fed-
eral government before massive protests in
2018 among the Oromos, who make up
roughly a third of Ethiopia’s population,
forced it to make way for Abiy.
His administration views the tplfas
spoilers who are sabotaging Ethiopia’s
fragile transition to democracy. The tplf,
by contrast, sees Abiy as a usurper deter-
mined to tear up the constitution, which
guarantees self-rule for each of Ethiopia’s
ten ethnically based states—and even the
right to secede. When the central govern-
ment postponed elections earlier this year,
citing covid-19, the tplfaccused Abiy of
scheming to extend his time in office.
The feud came to a head in September,
when Tigray defied the federal government
and went ahead to hold its own regional
election. Instead of quietly accepting the
result, the central government said it was
illegal. The federal parliament voted to iso-
late Tigray’s leaders. The finance ministry
in Addis Ababa stopped giving money to
the regional government and set in motion
plans to send funds directly to local au-
thorities. It is also said to have blocked wel-
fare payments to poor farmers and to have
tried to prevent investors and even some
tourists from travelling to Mekelle.
The tplf said that slashing federalConflict in EthiopiaAbiy’s call to arms
ADDIS ABABA AND MEKELLE
The prime minister confronts Tigray, a restive region that will
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