Soldiers in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency
There is a fear among all Ethiopians and many pundits outside Ethiopia that the country is in danger of disintegrating from within, let alone from outside forces. Read my article Part I of this series and published in Eurasia Review on September 25th, 2024, for more details.
No one threatens Ethiopia more than its own government which has embarked over the past several years on a serious of strategic blunders, all in the name of tribal revenge – the Oromo who claim to have been abused over the past two hundred years by the real Habesha or Abyssinia, the Amhara and the Tigray.
“It is our turn now” seems to be the motto of the current Federal Government of Ethiopia as led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and pushed by the Chief of the Ethiopian Defense Force (ENDF), Birhanu Jula, who continually threatens almost every nationality in the country, and perhaps by other Oromummaa nationalists.
The ENDF Chief was quoted at the start of the Tigray War that they would wrap it up in three days, yet he is still at war not only with the Tigray, which seems to have reconstituted themselves, but also with almost every other nationality in the country and most of all the founders of the current Ethiopia in the nineteenth century, the Amhara State. The recent threats against the Somali people was actually unnecessary and uncalled for and this may threaten the Ethiopian State or perhaps this is what the ENDF Chief is looking for.
Birhanu Jula forgets he speaks Amharic to communicate with the rest of Ethiopia and not his Oromo language and so does his Prime Minister, the man most responsible for the current futile state of the country. Birhanu Jula has been at war with his own people ever since he was appointed as the country’s military chief on November 4th, 2020. The war against the Tigray State which currently is in a lull, but which could restart at any time, killed hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians and the Amhara war which earnestly started last year is killing many more, let alone the maimed and wounded and those who suffer from the adverse side effects of the war such as hunger and diseases.
It would appear that the political and economic volcanoes declenched by the leaders of the country seem to have no end. They are even threatening the neighbors as evidenced by the relations with Somalia, which is at its lowest ebb for a long, long time. Eritrea and Djibouti are both on guard as they apparently know that the Machiavellian aspirations of Ethiopia’s leadership have no limits. They know that Ethiopia regrets they lost the ports of Assab and Massawa, which were the seaports of Ethiopia during the latter’s occupation of Eritrea.
Ethiopia seems not to have accepted that it is a landlocked country as it always was before they took over Eritrea through political maneuverings in the fifties of the last century, which led to the three-decades of Eritrea’s liberation war. The current Ethiopian administration seems to be running a parallel project, where on the one hand it wants to take back the port of Assab from Eritrea and on the other to take the northern regions of Somalia from Somalia. Both projects will naturally fail and would only cause more headaches in the region and for Ethiopia, in particular.
No wonder the countries of Eritrea, Somalia, and Egypt which all seem to be aggrieved by the actions of the Ethiopian regime are currently meeting in Asmara to figure out how to confront the Ethiopian assaults on the region and on Somalia, in particular through the MoU signed with one of the regions of the country earlier this year. They clearly know this is only the start of Ethiopia trying to export its internal woes to the outside world to hoodwink its dissatisfied populations.
The assault on Somalia’s sovereignty is, indeed, the biggest and most existential volcano for Ethiopia. Somalia being in a difficult governance situation has called for help from other countries, in the case where Ethiopia tries to physically grab parts of the country beyond the signing of the MoU. Türkiye, Egypt, and Eritrea are close relations of Somalia and have pledged to defend the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The new actors in the block could only bring disaster to the region and Ethiopia. This would no doubt affect the GERD, which Ethiopia has proudly presented as one its great achievements ever! A mobilized seventy million Somalis across the globe would not be easy to conquer.
Worse still, would be the run of many regions for their independence from colonial Ethiopia, which controlled the many nations of the country through fear and force over nearly two centuries, which through conquest and European colonial support took over the control of many nations including the Oromia nation itself, parts of the Somali nation, the bigger part of the Afar nation, the Sidama and the Hadia nations and many more.
These continuing wars of the Ethiopian administration have negatively affected all the vulnerable communities of the country of every nation in Ethiopia, basically arising from the contraction of the economy and the increase in prices of essential commodities. The loss of the Ethiopian Birr of more 100% of its value visa vis the World’s reserve currency, the United States Dollar, is not helping either. There are reports that inflation in the country is running at over 30%.
Food production is lower in the country and the purchasing power of Ethiopians is declining by the day, all due to the strategic errors of the current administration, which involve antagonizing not only its own peoples but also the neighbors.
The fact that they have shifted the country’s traditional alliance with the West to the East, mostly with China and Russia, has not helped either. Becoming part of the BRICS Plus group which is intent on pulling down the supremacy of the United States Dollar as the world’s currency of Reserve and dealing in their own currencies for international payment purposes, will not be good for the country’s attempts to restructuring most of its Eurobond debts, at least in the near future.
The conflict has also disrupted the education of millions of students in affected areas and this is not small and narrow places. It has affected the states at war within the country. They include among others the Tigray State, the Amhara State, the Afar State, the Somali State, the Oromia State, the Benishangul-Gumuz State and many other areas such as Addis Ababa itself, which is a federally administered city like Dire dawa of the Somali State.
Berhanu Nega, Ethiopia’s Minister of Education in October 2023 announced shocking statistics with respect to students leaving high school last year. He noted that some 43% of the 3106 schools who administered the examination reported that none of their students passed. Some 96% of the high school leaving students scored less than the 50% required for a pass, which means hundreds of thousands could not qualify for higher education. Many would be drafted for fueling the wars of the country.
Similarly, the health system has adversely been affected by the continuous wars, killing and maiming the health service corps in terms of doctors, nurses and nurse-aids and many more. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported in March earlier this year 2024, that only 3% of Tigray’s health facilities were functional. In the Amhara State over 50 % of the health facilities were damaged. In the Oromia region, the report noted that the violence and wars have constrained health facilities and a lot of equipment were looted. The looted items include ambulances, medical beds and other medical equipment. Things could have worsened since that report. Measles, malaria and cholera outbreaks have taken their toll on the population of the country.
In essence, Ethiopia faces many challenges, which may lead to a total disintegration of the country. These include the continuing wars within the country pitching one nationality against another or against the Federal State, the weakening of the Ethiopian institutions and their inabilities to implement policies passed at the top.
The population of the country does not trust the Federal Government anymore and hence the various internal wars where communities seem to be protecting themselves against their own government. The government has tried to raise a dialogue among the various contestants in the country, but this discussion remained to be lopsided and forcing citizens to obey the government policies despite opposition to many of the proposals of the government.
Corruption and self-enrichment in the place of nation building has replaced the traditional bureaucratic State of Ethiopia, which at least safeguarded a rule-based system. Many of the officialdom of the current administration seem to be engaged in taking advantage of the laxity of the administration , and accordingly corruption, bribery and nepotism are at the highest levels ever in the country’s history.
This has also led to the judicial system becoming flawed and falling short of the traditional standards of the country. Perhaps it was only state fear which kept the rule of law in place, but the populations are no longer afraid and have armed themselves against their own government.
The economic challenges of the ordinary citizen in the country has worsened as inflation takes its toll and complicated by the decline of value of the country’s currency. Although there are arguments against the formal statistics with a large part of the Ethiopian economy being informal, economic strains are apparent in the country as evidenced by its inability to meet its debt obligations, and its inability to restructure its debts so far. These will continue to weigh on the country’s wellbeing.
