2021 Conflict Dimensions in Ethiopia
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2021 Conflict Dimensions in Ethiopia Ethiopia’s conflict between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) — acting as the administration of the Tigray region — has dominated the headlines of international outlets since clashes began in early November. Four weeks of intense fighting resulted in what appears to be a decisive victory for the federal government, and troops claim to be squarely in control of all major cities in the region. Now nearly two months after the conflict “officially” ended, in the context of a dire humanitarian situation and a potential costly occupation, questions are now being asked by international and national actors alike about conflict patterns more broadly in Ethiopia, and how secure the state is going into 2021. As Abiy’s administration moves to replace the political structure in the Tigray region, the Prime Minister will also be looking to tackle a series of threats that pose major challenges to his rule throughout the country. Roughly 32% of the zones in the country are experiencing some kind of significant political violence — details of which are discussed throughout this report. Worryingly, there is every indication that the federal forces are overextended in the Tigray region, and have been forced to rely on armed groups outside of the military structure in order to properly combat the TPLF. This has mostly concerned ethnically exclusive regional state special forces (known as “Liyu”), which are now being sent on combative missions to areas outside of their own home region (Africa News, 30 December 2020). This is the most dangerous phenomenon occurring in Ethiopia today, as regional militias and their agendas are not necessarily tied to the survival of the Abiy regime. More specifically, the agendas of regional militias are often aligned to different factions within their home region, and the relative dominance of their regional administration and group in border areas. Violence patterns in the coming year will revolve around how the Abiy regime and allies will use force at various scales to consolidate his authority; the authority concessions he will need to make to secure the state; and the costs of these violent practices. This process has given more power to some, including Amhara political elites, and reinforced that others will not be accommodated in the regime, such as Oromo moderate political elites. ACLED’s research team has identified and categorized areas and forms of potential political violence. Each is based on the form and scale of the local political threat, and its impact on national stability, and overall can illustrate which types of threats may result in specific state and regional responses. Each threat is associated with direct violence conditions and outcomes, including variable levels of civilian killing, displacement, disruptions to economic and political development, and authority shifts. The objective of this analysis is to create a risk map of Ethiopia that may correspond to how the state understands its extensive current deployment, and the potential likely violence that may characterize high risk regions. The assumptions in this analysis are that the Ethiopian state remains largely in control of the regions and conflicts occurring within its borders, but crucially, it is being spread quite thin in some areas that require federal responses. These vulnerabilities are, in turn, generating new opportunities for violent actors — internally and externally — to challenge the state in order to extract concessions. There is also some indications that the state will not engage in some conflicts that are both quite violent and producing large numbers of IDPs and humanitarian needs. This is possibly because these conflicts — such as Konso and Gedao — are generated by a process of localized ‘ethno-administrative competition’ that the Abiy government is specifically intending to showcase as a violent process. By underscoring the conflictual nature of the administrative recognition contests that have plagued the state in recent years, Abiy and his regime are able to advocate for a change in the federalism process and the underlying nature of administrative claims under the program of ‘law and order’. We have divided key areas of risk within the state into three areas. These include: ‘Costly Areas’ where federal government troops will likely be required to directly engage threats to national stability (Federal Plus Violence) ‘Sub-national Authority Shifts’ where the current conflicts have re-ordered authority and territorial ‘ownership’ debates, creating dangerous and actionable fault lines. This has motivated heavily armed militias associated with different regional or political patrons. This form is largely in reference to Amhara claims in and around its current regional geography (SN Authority Violence) ‘Local Repression’ where the local and regional authorities, including the Liyu police, are emboldened to address growing and intensifying violent challenges in a zone. In these areas, contests over whether authorities are associating with the regime party determine who is given control over violence (Local Contained Violence) Federal Plus Violence Sub National Authority Violence Local Contained Violence Color and Example Characteristics ● Introduction of federal troops ● Concerns contested, historical internal border ● Areas where the typical violence rate has ● Engagement with local violent regions increased in recent periods agents ● Ethnic group authority and population contests ● Violence is largely contained within the ● High intensity and activity count expressed over territorial control locality, despite often resulting in high ● Presence of an anti-government ● Focus on the borders of the Amhara region and event totals and fatalities group some singular Oromo dominated areas outside ● High police presence, arrests and regional ● Area is politically contentious at of Oromia security services national level ● Primarily fought by regional and communal ● Areas is of potential political contestation ● High diffusion or escalation potential militias in the coming year. Zone counts 10 Zones 3 Zones 16 Zones Expectations ● Command post/Occupation type ● Amhara troops (including Liyu police, local, ● Continued high violence, mainly against response by federal forces, who lead communal and youth (Fano) militias) will lead civilians security enforcement efforts to occupy border regions ● High number of locally internally ● Possible removal from election ● Extremely high rates of violence against civilians displaced contention ● Intermittent clashes with regional contenders ● Intermittent involvement of security ● Very high government led violence ● Limited role of federal troops, although the forces above the local police, but not and arrest rates increased violence will affect federal politics effective or involved enough to mitigate ● Costly, longer term establishment for during election and increase perception that Dr the conflict federal forces, with low regime Abiy is solely beholden to Amhara nationalists, ● Continued attention to the limitations of alignment and support and vulnerable to Amhara internal politics the ‘administrative/territorial conflict’ ● Possible future areas of reactive ● A likely loss of territory for Tigray region and nexus generated by ethnic federalism insurgency BSG region ● Continued ongoing border violence with Sudan According to this categorization, we identify the level and type of current violence, the underlying government strategy and scale of response, and the likelihood of conflict growth throughout the country. Whereas violence has been widespread in the cou ntry since 2014, the costly areas are only those that the Abiy Regime deem important to the national security narrative. In many other spaces, local forces and local administrations are tasked with dealing with the threats. Costly The deployment of federal forces into a/many regions of Ethiopia is a costly intervention requiring planning, equipment, and personnel. The political act represents a failure at the federal level to politically coerce or broker power-share agreements with local elite actors and authorities. Further, it requires the re-structuring of political networks that may lead to weaker local authorities who are more relian t on continued federal support in dealing with local affairs. Thus, while each military intervention strengthens the government’s control over localities, it does so in a centripetal way that may be unsustainable given the multiplicity of high-cost areas throughout the state. Essentiall y, every operation both strengthens and weakens the government’s hand; by gaining the control of territory and overtaking the political structure, concessions are made to those agents who will hold the areas for the government and in line with central directives. These decisions, and the overall costs of securing territor y, are long term transactions by the government that trades some risks (e.g. direct violence) for others (e.g. the rise of local su bnational autocrats and associated violence). A large federal intervention operation began in Tigray in November 2020 when Federal forces sought to remove the TPLF as the regional government of the northern Tigray region, and to arrest its upper echelon for engaging in treasonous acts against the state of Ethiopia. Federal forces were supplemented with militias from around the country, mainly from the Amhara region Africa News, 30 December 2020 ). The dominance of the Amhara militias