36 Middle East & Africa The Economist December 18th 2021
Ethiopia’scivilwarBack to the mountains
B
urnt-out tanksandfreshtrenches.
Makeshift fortifications cobbled out of
fieldstone. And litter, everywhere, strewn
by two armies: bullets, bottles, biscuit
wrappers and the muddy pages of a note
book with poetry scrawled in smudged ink.
The fields around Yekaba Terefe’s house
in Gashena, a town at a strategic junction
in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, bear witness
to the twists and turns of the country’s civil
war. For the best part of four months doz
ens of rebels from the neighbouring Tigray
region sprawled themselves on mats in her
cramped living room, exhausted, angry
and hungry. Some, she says, were gentle.
Others were brutal. Soon after they arrived
in August they murdered her husband, ac
cusing him of passing information to the
federal army. Later they stole her crops.
Then, in early December, they retreated—
killing some of her neighbours as they left.
When your correspondent visited
Gashena, the town was back in the hands
of federal troops, who marched in its
streets or sipped tea in its cafés. Heavy ar
tillery pounded rebel positions as ambu
lances raced back and forth. Days later it
fell to the rebels again.
The pendulum in Ethiopia’s civil war
has swung wildly in the year since Abiy Ah
med, the prime minister, sent troops to
crush the Tigrayan People’s Liberation
Front (tplf), the party ruling the northern
region of Tigray. Just weeks after war broke
out Abiy’s troops had taken Mekelle, the
capital of Tigray, and the prime minister
declared victory. But it was illusory. The Ti
grayan forces had merely melted into themountains. In June they returned and
routed the Ethiopian army. By November
they had advanced to within 160km of the
Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, and
seemed set to storm it. Embassies evacuat
ed staff and urged citizens to leave.
This was as far as the tplfgot before the
pendulum swung back in favour of Abiy’s
forces, who recaptured Dessie and Kom
bolcha on the road to Tigray, as well as
Gashena and Lalibela. Abiy’s forces also
pushed the Tigrayans out of most of Afar,
an eastern region that contains critical
road and rail links between Addis Ababa
and the port in neighbouring Djibouti. In
an echo of his earlier declaration, the
prime minister has told several African
leaders that the war is all but over.
That seems premature. The tplftried
to stand and fight—and suffered losses—in
only a few places such as Gashena. Else
where its troops reverted to the guerrilla
tactics that the tplfhad honed in the 1980s
when it toppled the Derg, a communist
dictatorship. Having conserved its forces,
the tplfmay be able to inflict bloody dam
age on Ethiopian troops if they advance
through the narrow valleys and mountain
passes on the road to Mekelle. And it still
seems capable of rapid ripostes such as the
recapture of Gashena and Lalibela.
Even so, the rebels are on the back foot.
Their advance into Amhara and Afar al
lowed them to build their strength with
captured fuel, food and weapons. Yet the
tplffailed to break a government block
ade of Tigray, which since July has received
only 10% of the food needed to preventfamine. With millions at risk of starving,
rebel forces cannot afford to bide their
time. “The tplfcannot sustain a war if it
doesn’t very quickly find a corridor to
neighbouring Sudan or Djibouti,” reckons
René Lefort, a researcher who has known
some of its leaders for decades.
The federal forces, meanwhile, are ex
tending their numerical advantage over
the Tigrayans, who make up about 7% of
Ethiopia’s 115m people. Before its recapture
on December 13th, the streets of Gashena
overflowed with a mixture of federal sol
diers, Amhara militias and thousands of
volunteer fighters known as “Fano” (pic
tured in Lalibela), whose ranks have been
swelled by Abiy’s calls to arms. Their mo
rale was buoyed when Abiy said he would
lead the fight himself. Some militiamen
are not armed and wear plastic sandals and
football shirts, which may be why the tplf
seems to have underestimated them. “After
one year of fighting it was inevitable that a
hardened core of fighters would emerge on
a par with the Tigrayans,” notes another
veteran foreign researcher.
The Ethiopian army is also growing
stronger as it rearms. Since July Abiy is said
to have bought drones and other hightech
kit from the United Arab Emirates (uae),
Turkey, Iran, Israel and China. Air strikes
seem to have devastated the Tigrayans’
heavy weaponry, particularly as the tplf
descended from the mountains towards
the more exposed terrain near the capital.
“Drones changed the fight in our favour,”
says a senior rulingparty official.
Several dangers loom. One is what Alex
Rondos, a former euspecial envoy to the
Horn of Africa, calls the “Syrianisation” of
Ethiopia’s war, as foreign powers meddle
in it. Iran and the uae are backing the gov
ernment, though they detest each other;
the Tigrayans may seek help from Sudan
and Egypt, which are angry about a dam
that Ethiopia is building on the Nile. If the
tplfwere to strike westwards to open a
route to Sudan, this could draw in Suda
nese troops and inflame a simmering bor
der war between Sudan and Ethiopia.
A more immediate risk is that Abiy,
convinced victory is imminent, will decide
to push again into Tigray rather than start
talks. Officially, at least, such folly is not
likely. “We don’t think it is wise to go into
Tigray even if we can,” says a rulingparty
official. “There is a general realisation that
we need a peace plan.” But many in Am
hara, in particular, think otherwise. “If the
central government negotiates with the
tplf, it will be immediately fighting
against the rest of Ethiopia,” warns a Fano
leader in Gashena. As for the tplf, its goal
of removing Abiy remains unchanged. As
long as both sides believe they have more
to gain from fightingthan from talking, the
misery of Ethiopia,andof towns like Gash
ena, will continue.nG ASHENA
The shifting sands of battle can be seen in the fight for a few important towns