The tally of losses in northern Ethiopia is surreal. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, hundreds of thousands in population displacement, war crimes, and human rights abuses, horrendous accounts of Tigrayan women raped. It is a full-blown public health catastrophe not to mention the consequences on infrastructure: “ 30 years of hard work reduced to ashes in this tribal war” according to Michael Woldegebriel, an Ethiopian Dr currently serving in Tigray who spoke to Inyenyeri News. 

The conflict in Tigray is another example of African tribal politics gone bad. After years of Tigrayan rule, Abiy Ahmed an ethnic Oromo managed to maneuver his way to the top, getting ahead of TPLF patrons who at the time, were mourning their leader Meles Zenawi, bickering, and backstabbing each other in the fight for his succession.

Abiy shrewdly made peace with Eritrea, earning the approval of the west in the form of the Nobel peace prize but his subsequent call for war on TPLF was a serious miscalculation.

He underestimated the Tigrayan resolve and combattant spirit- a people who unbendingly fought a 17-year guerrilla war eventually defeating then USSR backed Mengistu Haile Mariam.

PM Abiy Ahmed has failed to rally support from African leaders in his attempt to explain his trouble in Tigray. In Rwanda, he was received, but President Kagame, a friend of Tigray who highly regarded former PM Meles Zenawi, refused him help despite the fact that the two had once enjoyed a mediatic “bromance”.

Abiy Ahmed and President Kagame before the crisis in Tigray.

In Uganda, Mzee Museveni indulged the PM’s explanations and probably made him vague promises preconditioned with herculean tasks that the PM will not be able to deliver on.

PM Abiy Ahmed explaining the conflict to President Museveni in Kampala August 29th 2021

Abiy Ahmed’s image is understandably tarnished beyond repair and his fall from the Nobel peace price pedestal quite spectacular; the PM is touring the continent “courting attention” but his counterparts want no involvement with him.

Meanwhile, the conflict in Northern Ethiopia will not fix itself and TPLF is now preparing for revenge. 

****Featured image courtesy of @declanwalsh : Col Hussein Momahed, captured commander of Ethiopia’s 11th infantry division. July 2021.