The Economist November 6th 2021 39
Middle East & AfricaEthiopia’scivilwarA battle for the capital looms
F
ew couldhave imagined it would come
to this. When the civil war began almost
a year ago to the day, Abiy Ahmed, Ethio
pia’s prime minister, promised a swift mil
itary operation to bring to heel the Ti
grayan People’s Liberation Front (tplf), the
ruling party of the rebellious Tigray region.
The goal, he said, was to bring its leaders to
justice for attacking a base that housed fed
eral troops. In less than a month federal
Ethiopian forces, backed by paramilitaries
from the Amhara region as well as troops
from Eritrea, to the north, had captured al
most all of Tigray, including Mekelle, its
capital. tplf leaders disappeared into the
mountains. Abiy declared victory.
Since then the tplf has staged such a
dramatic comeback that it may now be
poised to launch an assault on Addis Aba
ba, the Ethiopian capital and seat of the Af
rican Union. The tplf’s leaders, who con
trolled the central government for almost
30 years until they were ousted after mas
sive protests ushered Abiy into power in
2018, claim they are advancing south at a
speed reminiscent of the last time they
captured the city, as a battlehardenedband of guerrillas three decades ago.
As panic mounted on November 2nd,
Abiy declared a nationwide state of emer
gency and urged ordinary citizens to pre
pare to fight to defend the city, stirring
fears that the capital of Africa’s second
mostpopulous country could turn into a
battleground. America advised its citizens
in Ethiopia to pack their bags.
Whether the rebels are indeed capable
of advancing that far is unclear. In recent
days they have claimed control of Dessie
and Kombolcha in Amhara, both strategi
cally important towns, but they are still
more than 250km (156 miles) from the cap
ital. The tplf also says its forces are
marching east into the Afar region in what
looks like a bid to control the roadandrail
link to Djibouti.
Meanwhile another rebel group, the
Oromo Liberation Army (ola), says it has
joined forces with the Tigrayans and is pre
paring to cut the roads into the capital. The
federal government has not acknowledged
any of this. Communication blackouts in
much of the north make it hard to assess
competing claims.What is not in doubt is that the federal
army is on the back foot. On November 1st,
in a tacit admission that its control of the
town was shaky, the government accused
Tigrayan forces of massacring a hundred
young men in Kombolcha. A day earlier the
regional government in Amhara imposed a
curfew and shut government offices, say
ing that all state resources, including gov
ernment vehicles, should be redirected to
the war effort. In Addis Ababa authorities
ordered residents to register their guns
and organise by neighbourhoods.
Recriminations are already flying. Abiy
has alleged that foreign mercenaries were
fighting alongside the tplf in Dessie. Oth
ers accuse domestic “traitors” of sharing
battlefield intelligence with the enemy.
Dawit Mehari, an Amhara activist, says dis
illusioned Amhara are beginning to point
the finger at the federal government itself.
“Some think that an interest group inside
the government actually wants the nation
al defence force to fail,” he says.
Fearing that ethnic violence could spin
out of control, America has urged the re
bels to halt their advance. “We oppose any
tplf move to Addis or any tplf move to be
siege Addis,” said Jeffrey Feltman, Ameri
ca’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa. Ti
grayans in Addis Ababa are being rounded
up. “People are being kidnapped on the
street,” frets a partTigrayan resident.
Some have asked foreign embassies for
shelter. Yet many observers also worry
about conflict between Oromos and Am
haras, the two most populous groups,A DDIS ABABA
As diplomacy fails and panic spreads, Tigrayan rebels are making a dramatic
push towards Addis Ababa→Alsointhissection
40 ThepartyofMandelastumbles
42 PreservingAfrica’sforests
43 Western Sahara heats up