By โ BYย ADDISU LASHITEWย |ย FEBRUARY 11, 2021, Foreignpolicy
on Nov. 28, 2020, Ethiopiaโs military took control of Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, after a monthlong fight with the Tigray Peopleโs Liberation Front (TPLF).
Before the conflict, the Tigray region under TPLF rule was edging towardย de facto independence. After the TPLF lost its hegemonic position in Addis Ababa in 2015โwhere it had dominated Ethiopiaโs ruling coalition for decadesโit relocated political and bureaucratic personnel to Mekele. When national elections were postponed due to COVID-19, the TPLF rejected the constitutionality of the decision and went ahead with its own regional election, which it won handily.Trending Articles
Then, it declared that it no longer recognized the federal government as legitimate, and it successfullyย thwarted the appointmentย of a new head to the Ethiopian armyโs Northern Command, effectively apportioning to itself the most heavily armed section of the National Defense Force. This was followed by a coordinated, preemptive attack on the Ethiopian armyโs Northern Command in the early hours of Nov. 4 that enabled the TPLF to take control of the army headquarters in Mekele and several other bases. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed quickly appeared on TV to launch a military operation to dislodge the TPLF from Tigray.
The conflict in Tigray is not merely a political squabble between the TPLF and Abiyโs Prosperity Party, but a struggle for sovereignty between the federal government and a regional state. This is also not the first time the federal government went to war to reclaim control of an intransigent regional state. In August 2018, the federal government undertook an armed operation toย dislodgeย Abdi Mohamoud Omar (also known as Abdi Ilay), the then-president of the Somali regional stateโleading to many deaths and the displacement of civilians, especially ethnic minorities.
Ethiopiaโs constitution, which was ratified in 1994 under the auspices of the Ethiopian Peopleโs Revolutionary Democratic Front, which was dominated by the TPLF, is unique in endowing sovereignty upon the countryโs nations and nationalities. Its position is also radical because it allows an unqualified right for self-determination, up to secession, to Ethiopiaโs more than 80 ethnic groups. This has raised the stakes in federal-regional disagreements, and potentially increased the risk of conflict by allowing secession to be a bargaining chip in political disputes.
For its supporters, the ethnic-based federal system represents a triumph for the age-old quest of Ethiopiaโs disenfranchised ethnic groups for autonomy and self-rule. The federal system is seen as the answer to the โquestion of nations and nationalitiesโโa school of political thought that critiqued and rejected sociopolitical domination by Ethiopiaโs northern Christian elites, mainly ethnic Amharas and, to a lesser degree, Tigrayans. Ethnic federalism was intended to create a new dispensation that ensured that the political, cultural, and economic rights of all ethnic and religious groups are equally respected.
But the turmoil of the past few years has also exposed the limits of Ethiopiaโs experimentation in ethnic federalism. Even its ardent supporters cannot conceivably deny that ethnic federalism has raised as many questions as it has answered, and that it has made Ethiopia a more fragmented, polarized, and conflict-plagued country.
The endorsement of the Marxist-Leninist notion of self-determination in Ethiopiaโs constitution was all the more puzzling in light of historical developments at the time of its inception. In the early 1990s, just as Ethiopiaโs constitution was being drafted, the Soviet Union and Yugoslaviaโtwo federations that had enshrined ethnic self-determination in their respective constitutionsโwere going through violent episodes of disintegration.
The TPLF and other architects of Ethiopiaโs constitution could not have missed the ominous signs on open display; They most likely considered their own countryโs eventual breakdown as an acceptable, perhaps even desirable, outcome. The bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia, which was attended by bitter interethnic wars, was also a red flag for what self-determination could entail in a multiethnic mosaic like Ethiopia. It was already clear fromย the 1984 national censusย that only 30 of Ethiopiaโs 580ย woredasย (districts) at the time were actually monolingual ethnic islands.
In reality ethnic identities are fluid and overlaid, and ethnic territorial jurisdictions are often overlapping and contested.
The constitutionโs endorsement of the right to self-determination is based on the contentious supposition that ethnic groups can be neatly subdivided into mutually exclusive categories, each with a claim to a distinct territorial homeland. In reality ethnic identities are fluid and overlaid, and ethnic territorial jurisdictions are often overlapping and contested.
Even in Tigray, the only regional state that nominally existed before the current constitution, regional boundaries were entirely redrawn upon the creation of new administrative units in 1994. Much of the current West Tigray and North West Tigray zones (Welkait, Humera, Tsegede, and Tselemte) and some parts of South Tigray (Raya Azebo) wereย apportionedย from the former provinces of Gondar and Wollo, which were mainly inhabited by Amharas.
These territories, which roughly make up one-third of present-day Tigray, are vigorously contested by Amhara nationalists as their ownโa dispute that contributed to the involvement of theย regionโs special forcesย in the recent war in Tigray. Had Tigray under the TPLF proceeded with secession, it would have only been a matter of time before it descended into an intractable border war with the rest of Ethiopia, just as Eritrea did after winning its own de facto independence in 1991, which was formalized through a referendum in 1993.
The 1998-2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian border war, which led to the death of more than 100,000 people from both sides, helped entrench the TPLFโs rule in Ethiopia, but it also severely weakened Eritrea, sowing the seeds of a deep-seated animosity between the TPLF and Isaias Afwerki, Eritreaโs authoritarian president. At the peak of the Tigray conflict in November 2020, the TPLFย fired a series of rocketsย at the capital of Eritrea, accusing it of sending in its army to Tigray, an allegation that Eritrea denies but is supported byย recent independent reports.
One of the most devastating effects of Ethiopiaโs ethnic federalism is its utter failure to protect minorities. For instance, the 1994 constitution created a new region called Benishangul-Gumuz as one of Ethiopiaโs nine (now 10) administrative regional states, as a homeland to the Benishangul and Gumuz ethnic groups. The regionโs constitution affirms that the region โbelongsโ to five native ethnic groups: the Berta, Gumuz, Shinasha, Mao, and Komo. Other important minorities like Amharas, Oromos, and Agaws, who make up at least 40 percent of the regionโs population, areย treated as second-class citizensย without a right to create their own (ethnic) parties for legitimate political representation.
The failure to safeguard minorities extends to all regional states, leaving minorities in a precarious situation where they live with a constant fear of eviction. A narrative of โnativesโ versus โoutsidersโ and a political discourse grounded in ethnic grievances inevitably feeds into cycles of violence. In times of political change and instability, such as the period since 2015, ethnic tensions have boiled over, making minorities victims ofย brutal killing, eviction, and displacement.
The number of these incidents is despairingly too great to count but includes recent episodes where Amharas were displaced by the thousands inย Oromia, Oromos were displacedย from Somali region, Tigrayans were violently evicted from Amhara region, as well as aย perpetual violenceย in Benishangul-Gumuz region that has brought death and destruction to hundreds from all ethnic groups. Theseย tragic eventsย have not only traumatized millions but also frayed the tender threads of trust and social capital that have held communities together for centuries.
Moreover, in its fixation on ethnic autonomy, the current constitution has severely impaired, perhaps intentionally, the political power of urban centersโwhich are ethnic melting pots and thus do not fit the ideological straitjacket of ethnic purity. Since the constitution defines land as a property of ethnic groups, cities without a specific ethnic identity have been left without land, and hence without a right to statehood.
The capital, Addis Ababaโdespite being the economic and political hub of the country with far greater population that four of the original nine regional statesโis constituted as a federally administered enclave that, according to the constitution, is located โwithin the State of Oromia.โ In a country where ethnic identity has become the most fundamental variable of political and economic organization, multiethnic urban centers like Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa are reduced to being staging grounds of political influence among competing ethnic parties rather than being able to administer themselves.
