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Ethiopia parliament dissolves Tigray leadership


BBC• November 7, 2020
These Tigray special forces seized a national army base earlier this week

Ethiopia's parliament has voted to dissolve the government of the northern Tigray region, amid a dispute which has escalated into armed conflict.

In an emergency session, parliament declared the Tigray administration illegal and voted to replace it.

On Friday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said air strikes had been carried out on military targets in Tigray.

There are fears the conflict could lead to civil war, which could also destabilise neighbouring countries.

The leaders of Tigray dominated Ethiopia for many years until Mr Abiy came to power in 2018 on the back of anti-government protests and curbed their influence.

They say they have been unfairly targeted by purges and allegations of corruption, and say Mr Abiy is an illegitimate leader, because his mandate ran out when he postponed elections due to coronavirus.

The UN has called for a "de-escalation in the fighting".



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What did parliament say?

The House of Federation - one of Ethiopia's parliamentary chambers - said the Tigray leadership had "violated the constitution and endangered the constitutional system", according to the state-owned broadcaster EBC.

It said a new caretaker administration would hold elections and "implement decisions passed on by the federal government".

The simmering row boiled over in September after Tigray's ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), defied the nationwide ban on elections, and held a vote which was declared illegal by the central government.

Ethiopia to replace Tigray region leadership as forces clash


NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopia moved Saturday to replace the leadership of the country’s defiant northern Tigray region, where deadly clashes between regional and federal government forces are fueling fears the major African power is sliding into civil war. Tigray's leader told the African Union that the federal government was planning a “full-fledged military offensive.”
© Provided by The Canadian Press

Neither side appeared ready for the dialogue that experts say is needed to avert disaster in one of the world’s most strategic yet vulnerable regions, the Horn of Africa.

The upper house of parliament, the House of Federation, voted to set up an interim administration, giving Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed the power to carry out measures against a Tigray leadership his government regards as illegal. They include appointing officials and facilitating elections.

The prime minister, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, asserted that “criminal elements cannot escape the rule of law under the guise of seeking reconciliation and a call for dialogue.”

Experts and diplomats are watching in dismay as the two heavily armed forces clash. Observers warn that a civil war in Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country with 110 million people, could suck in or destabilize neighbours such as Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia.

“It’s a very, very bad situation,” Audrey Van der Schoot, head of mission for aid group Doctors Without Borders in Ethiopia, told The Associated Press. Heavy shelling resumed Saturday morning, for the first time since Wednesday, near the group's outpost in the Amhara region by the Tigray border. It was so close, Van der Schoot could hear it over the phone.

The clinic has seen six dead so far and some 60 wounded, all combatants from Tigray and Amhara, she said, adding that shelling came from both sides.

A statement posted Saturday on the Facebook page of the Tigray government, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, asserted that it will win the “justified” war, adding that “a fighter will not negotiate with its enemies.”

In a letter to the AU chairman, South Africa's president, Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael alleged that Ethiopia's federal government and neighbouring Eritrea have mobilized their forces near the Tigray border “with the intention of launching a full-fledged military offensive.”

The letter dated Friday, seen by The Associated Press, called Abiy's behaviour “unconstitutional, dictatorial and treasonous.” It said the African Union was well-placed to bring parties to dialogue to “avert an all-out civil war.”

The conflict is playing out between former allies in Ethiopia's ruling coalition who now regard each other as illegal. The TPLF long dominated the country's military and government before Abiy took office in 2018 and introduced sweeping political reforms that won him the Nobel. The changes left the TPLF feeling marginalized, and it broke away last year when Abiy sought to turn the coalition into a single Prosperity Party.

Clashes began early Wednesday when Abiy accused the TPLF forces of attacking a military base in Tigray. In a major escalation Friday, Abiy asserted that airstrikes in multiple locations around the Tigray capital “completely destroyed rockets and other heavy weapons."

The military operations will continue, the prime minister said, and he warned the Tigray population: ”In order to avoid unexpected peril, I advise that you limit group movements in cities.”

Tigray is preparing for a “major offensive to come tomorrow or the day after from the federal government,” Kjetil Tronvoll, a professor at Bjorknes University College in Norway and a longtime Ethiopia watcher, told the AP. “That's my estimate. Abiy has promised a quick delivery of victory, so he has to move fast.”

Ethiopia's decision to replace the Tigray leadership leaves the region with essentially two options, he said: pursuing a “full-out war” with the aim of toppling Abiy's government or declaring independence.

Encircled, the TPLF can't afford a drawn-out conflict and might fight its way to the capital, Addis Ababa, or toward the Red Sea for an outlet, Tronvoll said.

He described one published estimate of Tigray having nearly a quarter-million various armed forces a “serious underestimate” and said they outnumber the federal army “by at least two or three multiples." Addis Ababa has called for reinforcements from other regional forces, he said.

Communications remain almost completely severed with Tigray, making it difficult to verify the rivals' assertions and leading aid groups and human rights groups to warn of a brewing humanitarian disaster.

A new United Nations assessment lists eight “recent military confrontations” across Tigray, most near its southern border with the Amhara region. The blockage of air and road networks significantly affects aid to more than a half-million people, the assessment said, and an escalation of fighting could “seriously increase” that number and send millions fleeing.

What’s more, “there is a concern that the vacuum left by security forces re-deployed from other critical areas may incite more ethnic violence including attacks on ethnic minorities” in other parts of Ethiopia, the U.N. report said.

Dino Mahtani with the International Crisis Group, in comments posted Friday, said that if the Tigray forces come under pressure they may "punch into Eritrea, which would then internationalize this conflict." The TPLF and Eritrea have a bitter history of a long border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea before the countries made peace in 2018.

The TPLF's only other real avenue out of Ethiopia is Sudan, which finds itself “in a very delicate position,” Mahtani said.

Sudan's eastern al-Qadarif province has closed its border with Ethiopia’s Tigray and Amhara regions, the Sudan News Agency reported Saturday.

The Tigray drama dominates conversation in Ethiopia, and many people commenting on social media appear to support the government’s move to get rid of the region's leadership. Some cite abuses by the TPLF while it was in power for well over two decades, or echo the federal government's accusation that it incited recent violence across the country.

Those sympathetic to the TPLF are mostly silenced due to the communications blackout in Tigray, but those able to comment describe the federal government's actions as an aggression that will lead to further escalation of the conflict.

___

Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.

Cara Anna, The Associated Press

Military conflict may not be over quickly

By Kalkidan Yibeltal, BBC News, Addis Ababa

Parliament's move signals that the crisis is deepening even though international calls for restraint and de-escalation are increasing.

In a tweet on Saturday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said the military operation he ordered in the state "aims to end the impunity that has prevailed for far too long" and "to hold accountable individuals and groups under the laws of the land".

For its part, the TPLF, in a statement posted on Facebook, said that "through their capacity and in the just war they are engaged in, the Tigray people will win".

Such statements suggest solving the crisis without further military confrontation is increasingly becoming unlikely.

Both the TPLF and the federal government say they will win the conflict in a short period of time but that might not happen.

Prime Minister Abiy has said that there were airstrikes on Friday to destroy missiles, radar equipment and rockets, and that these will continue. The TPLF respond that they have modern weapons.

So, it appears that the conflict is intensifying and it's possible that it might spill over to other parts of the country - and the region.
What's the latest on the fighting?

It's hard to get much detail because the internet and phone lines to Tigray have been cut and the national government is not saying much.

But there are reports that the fighting is spreading along Tigray's border with the Amhara region, which is backing the federal government. There have also been reports of clashes near the border with Eritrea and Sudan, which has partially closed its frontier with Ethiopia.


While Mr Abiy said various military targets had been destroyed, officials in Tigray have denied to the BBC that an air attack took place on Friday.

In a statement earlier on Friday, Mr Abiy, who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for helping to end a long-standing conflict with Eritrea, insisted that the military operation in Tigray had "clear, limited and achievable objectives".


He previously declared a six-month state of emergency in the region and gave a new military taskforce the powers to "restore law and order".

Tigrayan leader Debretsion Gebremichael previously accused Mr Abiy's administration of plotting to invade the state.
What's this all about?

Tension has been mounting for some time as relations between the TPLF and the federal government have deteriorated.
Abiy Ahmed gave a speech to the nation to announce the start of military operations

Although Tigray represents just 6% of Ethiopia's population of more than 100 million, the TPLF used to be the dominant force in Ethiopia's ruling coalition but its power has waned since Mr Abiy became prime minister.

Last year, he dissolved the ruling coalition, made up of several ethnically-based regional parties, and merged them into a single, national party, the Prosperity Party, which the TPLF refused to join.

A statement from the prime minister's office on Friday said that some members of the TPLF were "fugitives from justice" and suggested they opposed Mr Abiy's attempts to reform the way Ethiopia was run.

This week, after TPLF leaders accused the government of preparing to invade, they seized a federal army base in Tigray's capital, Mekelle, prompting Mr Abiy to mobilise the army.



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