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Conflict between Tigray and Eritrea — the long standing faultline in Ethiopian politics – The Conversation Africa

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4 years ago

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The missile attack by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front on Eritrea in mid-November transformed an internal Ethiopian crisis into a transnational one. In the midst of escalating internal conflict between Ethiopia’s northernmost province, Tigray, and the federal government, it was a stark reminder of a historical rivalry that continues to shape and reshape Ethiopia.

The rivalry between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the movement which has governed Eritrea in all but name for the past 30 years – the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front – goes back several decades.

The histories of Eritrea and Ethiopia have long been closely intertwined. This is especially true of Tigray and central Eritrea. These territories occupy the central massif of the Horn of Africa. The Tigrinya are the predominant ethnic group in both Tigray and in the adjacent Eritrean highlands.

The enmity between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front dates to the mid-1970s, when the Tigrayan front was founded in the midst of political turmoil in Ethiopia. The authoritarian Marxist regime – known as the Derg (Amharic for ‘committee’) – inflicted violence upon millions of its own citizens. It was soon confronted with a range of armed insurgencies and socio-political movements. These included Tigray and Eritrea, where the resistance was most ferocious.

The Tigrayan front was at first close to the Eritrean front, which had been founded in 1970 to fight for independence from Ethiopia. Indeed, the Eritreans helped train some of the first Tigrayan recruits in 1975-6, in their shared struggle against Ethiopian government forces for social revolution and the right to self-determination.

But in the midst of the war against the Derg regime, the relationship quickly soured over ethnic and national identity. There were also differences over the demarcation of borders, military tactics and ideology. The Tigrayan front eventually recognised the Eritreans’ right to self-determination, if grudgingly, and resolved to fight for the liberation of all Ethiopian peoples from the tyranny of the Derg regime.

Each achieved seminal victories in the late 1980s. Together the Tigrayan-led Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and the Eritrean front overthrew the Derg in May 1991. The Tigrayan-led front formed government in Addis Ababa while the Eritrean front liberated Eritrea which became an independent state.

But this was just the start of a new phase of a deep-rooted rivalry. This continued between the governments until the recent entry of prime minister Abiy Ahmed.

If there’s any lesson to be learnt from years of military and political manoeuvrings, it is that conflict in Tigray is unavoidably a matter of intense interest to the Eritrean leadership. And Abiy would do well to remember that conflict between Eritrea and Tigray has long represented a destabilising fault line for Ethiopia as well as for the wider region.

Reconciliation and new beginnings

In the early 1990s, there was much talk of reconciliation and new beginnings between Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Isaias Afeworki of Eritrea. The two governments signed a range of agreements on economic cooperation, defence and citizenship. It seemed as though the enmity of the liberation war was behind them.

Meles declared as much at the 1993 Eritrean independence celebrations, at which he was a notable guest.

But deep-rooted tensions soon resurfaced. In the course of 1997, unresolved border disputes were exacerbated by Eritrea’s introduction of a new currency. This had been anticipated in a 1993 economic agreement. But in the event Tigrayan traders often refused to recognise it, and it caused a collapse in commerce.

Full-scale war erupted over the contested border hamlet of Badme in May 1998. The fighting swiftly spread to other stretches of the shared, 1,000 km long frontier. Air strikes were launched on both sides.

It was quickly clear, too, that this was only superficially about borders. It was more substantively about regional power and long standing antagonisms that ran along ethnic lines.

The Eritrean government’s indignant anti-Tigray front rhetoric had its echo in the popular contempt for so-called Agame, the term Eritreans used for Tigrayan migrant labourers.

For the Tigray front, the Eritrean front was the clearest expression of perceived Eritrean arrogance.

As for Isaias himself, regarded as a crazed warlord who had led Eritrea down a path which defied economic and political logic, it was hubris personified.

Ethiopia deported tens of thousands of Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean descent.

Ethiopia’s decisive final offensive in May 2000 forced the Eritrean army to fall back deep into their own territory. Although the Ethiopians were halted, and a ceasefire put in place after bitter fighting on a number of fronts, Eritrea had been devastated by the conflict.

The Algiers Agreement of December 2000 was followed by years of standoff, occasional skirmishes, and the periodic exchange of insults.

During this period Ethiopia consolidated its position as a dominant power in the region. And Meles as one of the continent’s representatives on the global stage.

For its part Eritrea retreated into a militaristic, authoritarian solipsism. Its domestic policy centred on open-ended national service for the young. Its foreign policy was largely concerned with undermining the Ethiopian government across the region. This was most obvious in Somalia, where its alleged support for al-Shabaab led to the imposition of sanctions on Asmara.

The ‘no war-no peace’ scenario continued even after Meles’s sudden death in 2012. The situation only began to shift with the resignation of Hailemariam Desalegn against a backdrop of mounting protest across Ethiopia, especially among the Oromo and the Amhara, and the rise to power of Abiy.

What followed was the effective overthrow of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front which had been the dominant force in the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front coalition since 1991.

This provided Isaias with a clear incentive to respond to Abiy’s overtures.

Tigray’s loss, Eritrea’s gain

A peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, was signed in July 2018 by Abiy and Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki. It formally ended their 1998-2000 war. It also sealed the marginalisation of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Many in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front were unenthusiastic about allowing Isaias in from the cold.

Since the 1998-2000 war, in large part thanks to the astute manoeuvres of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Eritrea had been exactly where the Tigray People’s Liberation Front wanted it: an isolated pariah state with little diplomatic clout. Indeed, it is unlikely that Isaias would have been as receptive to the deal had it not involved the further sidelining of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, something which Abiy presumably understood.

Isaias had eschewed the possibility of talks with Abiy’s predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn. But Abiy was a different matter. A political reformer, and a member of the largest but long-subjugated ethnic group in Ethiopia, the Oromo, he was determined to end the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s domination of Ethiopian politics.

This was effectively achieved in December 2019 when he abolished the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and replaced it with the Prosperity Party.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front declined to join with the visible results of the current conflict.



Read more:
Residual anger driven by the politics of power has boiled over into conflict in Ethiopia

Every effort to engage with the Tigrayan leadership – including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front – in pursuit of a peaceful resolution must also mean keeping Eritrea out of the conflict.

Unless Isaias is willing to play a constructive role – he does not have a good track record anywhere in the region in this regard – he must be kept at arm’s length, not least to protect the 2018 peace agreement itself.

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It’s not just Harris and Trump who have a lot at stake in next week’s debate. ABC News does, too

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7 hours ago

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September 5, 2024

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NEW YORK (AP) — Hours after ABC News released the rules for next Tuesday’s presidential debate, resolving a final dispute in Donald Trump’s favor, the former president was on the attack — against ABC News.

“I think a lot of people will be watching to see how nasty they are, how unfair they are,” he said Wednesday on a Fox News town hall.

It was an unsubtle reminder that Trump and Kamala Harris aren’t the only ones with a lot at stake next week. The same is true for ABC News and moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, in what is the only scheduled debate between the presidential contenders this fall.

Multiple outlets will televise and stream it. But unlike in past years, when presidential debates were organized by a bipartisan commission, this is solely an ABC News production. It won’t include a live audience.

“This is a huge opportunity for ABC News,” said Ben Sherwood, former ABC News president and now publisher & CEO of the Daily Beast. “It’s like getting to host, moderate and produce the Super Bowl of politics. It gives the network luster at a time broadcast television is in decline.”

That is, of course, if things go well.

ABC sees it as a ‘huge responsibility’

The ABC debate was set last spring, when President Joe Biden was the likely Democratic nominee. When he dropped out, it was unclear if the debate would go on. Harris and Trump eventually gave the go-ahead, although the Republican’s repeated criticism of ABC last month raised questions about it again.

It all had little effect on ABC’s planning, said Rick Klein, the network’s Washington bureau chief. “It truly wasn’t a lot of turmoil on our end of things,” he said.

Biden and Trump debated on June 27 — what seems a lifetime ago. That event was put on by CNN, although it is remembered more for Biden’s shaky performance that eventually led him to end his campaign than for anything done by the network or its moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper.

“At the end of the day, this is about helping to create a forum for the candidates to communicate with the public,” Klein said. “It’s a huge responsibility. It’s a humbling responsibility.”

An estimated 51.3 million people watched Biden and Trump in June. But that was before many people were truly tuned into the election, and the potential rematch of the 2020 campaign was drawing little enthusiasm. Tuesday’s debate will almost certainly reach more people, whether or not it approaches the record debate audience of 84 million for the first face-off between Hillary Clinton and Trump in 2016.

Muir’s “World News Tonight” has led the evening news ratings for eight years, making him effectively America’s most popular newscaster. Many nights “World News Tonight” has a bigger audience than anything on prime-time television.

One secret to his success has been ABC’s efforts to craft an apolitical image for him. Tuesday’s audience will be his biggest ever — including people largely unfamiliar with Muir because they seek news elsewhere — and it’s for a political event in polarized times.

Davis has a lower profile, though she hosts ABC’s nightly streaming newscast, fills in for Muir and has moderated presidential nominating debates in the past. Many will be seeing her in action Tuesday for the first time.

Although more complicated in the Trump years, the role of debate moderator is often akin to baseball umpires — it indicates they’ve done a good job when you don’t really notice them. If Muir or Davis figure prominently in Wednesday morning’s stories, that’s probably not a good sign.

“It’s absolutely a minefield,” said Tom Bettag, former ABC News “Nightline” producer. “Ask Chris Wallace.”

Wallace was well respected, considered even-handed and, in 2020 when he moderated the first Biden-Trump debate, was working at Fox News “so the Trump people couldn’t accuse him of being a liberal hack,” Bettag said. “And it still blew up pretty badly. ” Trump’s frequent interruptions exasperated Biden and led to criticism that Wallace lost control of the evening.

The moderators will be ‘there to facilitate’

There’s less of a chance of that happening this year because debate rules call for a candidate’s microphone to be muted when their opponent is speaking, something Trump’s campaign sought because interruptions turn many voters off.

An open mic led to one of Harris’ most-remembered exchanges in her 2020 debate with Vice President Mike Pence. “Mr. Vice President, I am speaking,” she said when Pence interrupted one of her answers, a moment many women could relate to in business situations with men.

While Bash and Tapper occasionally tried to steer Trump or Biden back to the questions when the politicians ducked in CNN’s June debate, they would not correct any lies or misstatements, many of which were pointed out in post-debate analysis. While Klein would not commit to the same policy, he did say that “it’s a debate between them and we’re there to facilitate the conversation.”

Even before his Fox News appearance this week, Trump had repeatedly criticized ABC News, even though he agreed twice to participate in a debate on the network.

He has targeted network political journalists George Stephanopoulos and Jonathan Karl specifically. The former president last spring filed a defamation lawsuit against Stephanopoulos over comments the journalist made about Trump being held liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. ABC has said Stephanopoulos is not involved in debate preparation.

Trump has also spoken about the reported friendship between Harris and Dana Walden, a top executive at ABC’s parent Walt Disney Co., whose oversight has recently expanded to include ABC News. ABC has said Walden is not involved in any news coverage decisions.

To a certain extent, Trump’s comments can be seen as “working the refs,” or appealing to supporters who don’t like the press. A nightmare scenario for ABC is Trump lashing out on Tuesday if he feels things aren’t going well for him.

“From our perspective, we just have to do our job and do it as well as we can,” Klein said.

He wouldn’t give any details about how ABC’s preparations are going, such as what figures have been assigned to portray Harris or Trump in mock debates.

Bettag, a University of Maryland journalism professor who is teaching a course this fall on covering the presidential campaign, has been involved in these preps before. He advises Muir and Davis to take some deep breaths.

“The most important thing is to stay cool, which is hard to do since they’re likely to get yelled at,” he said. “It’s really important to try to keep their voices down and stay steady.”

___

David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at

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Liberals’ national campaign director Jeremy Broadhurst resigns

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12 hours ago

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September 5, 2024

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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is suddenly without the assistance of one of his longest advisers just as the threat of being forced into an early election has been heightened.

Jeremy Broadhurst resigned as the Liberal Party of Canada’s national campaign director today, one day after NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh ended the agreement supporting the Liberals on key votes.

In a statement on his decision to resign, which was first reported by the Toronto Star, Broadhurst cited the toll two decades and five national campaigns have taken on himself and his family.

He says the upcoming federal election could be the most critical federal campaign of his life, and the party deserves a campaign director who can bring more energy and devotion to the job.

Broadhurst has been a Liberal staffer in some form for the better part of 25 years, serving multiple times as chief of staff or adviser to several leaders and cabinet ministers.

Broadhurst was national director of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2013 to 2015 and helped retool the Liberal data machine into an operation that helped them win the 2015 election.

He worked in the Prime Minister’s Office after the 2015 win, and in 2019 was elevated to campaign director.

He returned to the campaign director post for the 2023 election a year ago, but gave up the post Thursday.

The next election has to be held by next fall, but with the Liberal-NDP confidence and supply agreement no longer in place, the odds are higher that the government will be voted down in Parliament before then.

The Liberals have trailed the Conservatives in polls by double-digits for almost a year and would lose if an election were held now.

In his statement, Broadhurst took an apparent swipe at the Conservatives, saying Canadians will have to decide whether to elect a party that is “banking on the assumption that Canadians are willing to forsake our commitment to fairness, equality, justice and progress for an agenda that is little more than simple slogans and cheap shots.”

He said Canadians will have to decide what kind of politics they want “before it is too late to stop at our border a brand of politics that stokes fears and seeks to divide us.”

Broadhurst said he is “still committed to the Liberal Party of Canada and to the Prime Minister,” but that it is “time to make way for others.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 5, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Nova Scotia legislature returns for fall sitting amid early election speculation

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1 day ago

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September 5, 2024

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HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia legislature is set to open today for its fall sitting.

The early September return has added to speculation of a possible election call later this fall, but Premier Tim Houston will only say that he’s excited about his government’s legislative agenda.

Houston says the Progressive Conservatives still have “lots to do” on behalf of Nova Scotians, but he wasn’t specific about pending legislation when asked about his priorities on Wednesday.

In June, he cast doubt on whether he will adhere to the fixed provincial election date his party passed into law soon after coming to power, which set the date for July 15, 2025.

The Opposition Liberals and the NDP say they are ready for any scenario and remain focused on their own priorities for the sitting.

Both parties say they will highlight the need to deal with cost of living issues, including the shortage of affordable housing and the lack of access to primary health care.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 5, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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