The Economist - USA (2020-11-07)

The EconomistNovember 7th 2020 Middle East & Africa 41

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funding amounted to a “declaration of

war”. It called for Abiy to step down and for

a caretaker government to replace him. Al-

though the prime minister had repeatedly

ruled out armed intervention, parliament

recently authorised it. Both sides had

flexed their muscles with military shows of

force. “If Abiy wishes to fight this out, we

will pay him in his coin,” Getachew Reda, a

senior tplfofficial, told The Economistin

late October.

It is not the only conflict tugging hard at

the seams of the Ethiopian state. Abiy is

also waging a war against armed separat-

ists in his own region of Oromia, the coun-

try’s largest. He is struggling to quell popu-

lar protests against his rule there and

elsewhere. In the past few weeks there have

been several massacres, mostly of Am-

haras. On November 1st armed men killed

dozens of women and children in a school-

yard in western Oromia, according to Am-

nesty International.

The federal government claims that the

tplffuels these various conflicts by arm-

ing and training opposition groups,

though hard evidence has yet to be shown.

This, it says, justifies action. On November

2nd Abiy’s allies in Amhara called on him to

finish off the tplf“once and for all”. Parlia-

ment suggested it would declare the tplfa

“terrorist” organisation.

Abiy may be hoping to reassert control

over Tigray with a quick strike. But three

factors make the conflict with the tplfes-

pecially dangerous. First, the tplfis by far

the best equipped and most powerful of

Ethiopia’s opposition forces. Though Ti-

grayans are less than 10% of Ethiopia’s pop-

ulation, the region’s paramilitaries are led

by veterans of both the long struggle

against the Derg and of a devastating war

with Eritrea fought mostly between 1998

and 2000. Tigrayan officers purged by Abiy

from the federal army are said to have re-

turned to Tigray to train and organise new

recruits. Though the constitution allows

each region to have its own security forces,

the prime minister’s office has accused the

tplfof unconstitutionally “arming and or-

ganising irregular militias”.

Moreover, Tigray is also the home base

of the Ethiopian army’s most powerful un-

its, amounting to more than half its sol-

diers. Organised into its Northern Com-

mand, they bore the brunt of the fighting

against Eritrea. The tplf reckons that

many of the Northern Command’s officers

and soldiers would switch sides or mutiny

if Abiy ordered them into battle against Ti-

gray. On November 4th Tigray’s state

broadcaster claimed that many officers and

other ranks had already defected. The fed-

eral government denies it.

The third factor is Eritrea. In 2018 Abiy

ended the cold war between the countries

by signing a peace deal with Eritrea’s age-

ing dictator, Isaias Afwerki, for which Abiy

was awarded the Nobel prize the year after.

But Isaias, whose enmity with the tplf

stretches back decades, has shown little

appetite for peace. Instead, he has stepped

up his efforts to topple his old foes by cosy-

ing up to Abiy. On October 31st Eritrea’s gov-

ernment declared that the tplfwas “on its

deathbed”. Eritrean troops are said to have

been conducting provocative manoeuvres

along the border. “Tigray is preparing for

war on two fronts,” says Fetsum Berhane, a

Tigrayan activist.

Both sides claim to have done all they

can to prevent escalation. “What we want is

to avoid bloodshed,” said Seyoum Mesfin, a

Tigrayan who was a former foreign minis-

ter of Ethiopia, recently in Mekelle. He

stressed that the tplf wanted dialogue, but

with all parties on an equal footing. Abiy’s

office, for its part, claims the government

has “retained a policy of extreme patience”

but that war cannot be prevented by the

“goodwill” of only one side. It insisted the

army was acting to “save the country and

the region from spiralling into instability”.

As both sides edge closer to war, some hear

echoes of 1998. That was when Ethiopia and

Eritrea sleepwalked into a catastrophic

conflict. There is still just enough time for

both sides to wake up.^7

SOMALIA

SOUTH

SUDAN ETHIOPIA

UGANDA KENYA

SUDAN

DJIBOUTI

ERITREA

Red

Sea

Addis

Ababa

Amhara

Tigray

Mekelle

300 km

Oromia

S

uit torn, tie askew, eyes half-shut, Bobi

Wine stood on his veranda and ad-

dressed a crowd. That morning, on Novem-

ber 3rd, the Ugandan pop star had handed

in his nomination papers to run for presi-

dent in elections in January. Moments lat-

er, police smashed the window of his car,

arrested him and pepper-sprayed his face

before driving him home. Bedraggled but

defiant, he greeted his fans. “This is a revo-

lutionary election,” he said. “If it’s a boxing

fight, it has begun.”

Ugandan elections are only loosely

about votes. Yoweri Museveni, the presi-

dent, has ruled since fighting his way to

power in 1986. He needs a contest to legiti-

mise his regime, and uses the army, police

and patronage to make sure he wins. The

opposition hopes to unseat him by open-

ing cracks in his regime. Mr Wine’s struggle

is part election campaign, part call to revo-

lution. “Running against Museveni”, he

tellsThe Economist, “is like running against

all the institutions of state.”

For Mr Wine, whose real name is Robert

Kyagulanyi, it has been a meteoric rise. He

found fame as the “ghetto president”, sing-

ing about social injustice. In 2017 he won a

seat in parliament. Mr Museveni’s acolytes

were busy abolishing a presidential age

limit so the old man could stand again; Mr

Wine joined opposition mps in resisting

the change. The bill passed, but Mr Wine

channelled the energy of the campaign

into a new movement, which he called

“People Power”—a messy coalition of es-

tablished politicians, frustrated graduates

and the hustlers of his ghetto hinterland.

People Power speaks with many voices.

In the flood-prone valleys of Kampala it

sounds like a revolt against the rich. On

university campuses it resembles a youth

rebellion. Activists in the neglected north

frame it as a fight against ethnic exclusion.

“All those are just symptoms of one issue:

misgovernance,” says Mr Wine. At 38, he is

half the incumbent’s age.

The movement was also, at its incep-

tion, a protest against conventional poli-

tics. But in July Mr Wine announced him-

self the leader of an obscure party, which he

renamed the National Unity Platform

(nup). A party structure gave him control

over candidates, a symbol on the ballot pa-

per and a firmer legal footing. Some con-

sidered it a wrong turn. “We are now behav-

ing like politicians,” says Roy Ssemboga, a

former student leader, once close to Mr

Wine, who is running for parliament as an

independent. “We wanted short-term glory

and I think we lost an identity.”

Like other parties, the nuphas become

caught up in Uganda’s transactional poli-

tics. The process of selecting parliamenta-

ry candidates exposed disorganisation and

division. In the central region, where the

KAMPALA

The Ugandan pop star who would be president

Bobi Wine

Sing it loud