This dyad belongs to the conflict Ethiopia: Government
Summary of conflict Ethiopia: Government
After an initial short conflict between parts of the imperial guard and the rest of the army in 1960, a long bout of conflict over governmental power in Ethiopia was fought from the mid-1970s until 1991 and pitted a plethora of rebel groups against the Dergue, the military junta led by Mengistu Haile Mariam. After 16 years of at times, extremely bloody fighting, the largest of the rebel groups, EPRDF, was able to oust Mengistu and seize power in the country on 28 May 1991. EPRDF, almost completely dominated by one of its constituent parts, the Tigrayan TPLF, went on to rule the country for more than 25 years. However, after large-scale popular protests against the regime, Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, initially appearing to usher in an era of political reform. In December 2019, Ahmed oversaw the transformation of EPRDF into Prosperity Party, the latter consisting of all constituent parts of the former, apart from TPLF, which opted out. Animosity between the two was evident already from the outset, and after disagreements relating to whether elections were to be held in the context of Covid-19, it resulted in the eruption of a new phase of conflict over government in Ethiopia in November 2020. The following year saw the fortunes of the war shift several times. Having declared victory in late November 2020, the Ethiopian army was soon proved wrong as a guerrilla war ensued, followed by a large-scale TPLF counter-offensive in June 2021, which forced the army out of Tigray. The following months, the Tigray rebels pushed south and were not halted until the end of November, when TPLF was a mere 200 km from the capital. At this point, a government counter-offensive caused TPLF to lose its momentum, and December saw the group retreating towards Tigray.
The year 2022 started out relatively calm, with the TPLF more or less confined to Tigray, and the government and its allies remaining outside the region. However, in late August the war erupted again. September and October saw large-scale fighting with TDF initially gaining the upper hand, seizing a number of towns in northern Amhara region. However, a joint Ethiopian and Eritrean offensive from Eritrean territory forced TDF to withdraw from Amhara to protect its rear, and from mid-October the rebels lost a string of urban centers, seemingly shifting into guerrilla warfare yet again, some weeks prior to the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement on 2 November. While the conflict had been brutal even before the re-eruption of fighting in late August, the last phase of the war reached levels of violence not seen before. In addition to the large-scale fighting between the government and TPLF, a new, much smaller group – GLF – appeared and conducted attacks in Gambella region, with a stated intent to oust the Abiy Ahmed regime. Aided by OLA, the group’s by far largest operation during the year was an attack on Gambella town in June, where a several hour-long gunfight caused at least 39 fatalities.
The 1960 coup attempt
On the night of 13-14 December 1960 the Commander of the Imperial Bodyguard, Brigadier Mangestu Neway, launched a coup attempt, taking control of the Imperial palace in Addis Ababa and detaining Emperor Haile Selassies son as well as a number of leading politicians. On 14 December the rebels gained control of most of the capital and made a declaration announcing the formation of a new government and the start of a new era. They furthermore proclaimed that the new government would improve the economic, social, and political position of the general population. Despite this the coup attempt failed to gain popular support and the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church condemned the rebels as antireligious traitors.
Fighting began on 15 December and the coup-makers - heavily out-gunned - were driven back over the following two days. By 17 December the coup attempt was effectively crushed. By then the fighting had led to more than 300 deaths, with many civilians killed in the street fighting. However, fighting continued for some days on the outskirts of the capital and in the surrounding hills, all the main rebel leaders being killed or captured.
Background to the 1976-1991 conflict
Until 1974 Ethiopia was ruled by Emperor Haile Selassie I. The last 14 years of the Imperial regime was characterised by growing popular discontent, as the country suffered from a lack of development, repeated droughts and famines, as well as an inequitable distribution of land. In 1974 a wave of strikes and mutinies in the armed forces led to the demise of the regime. A new military government, the Provisional Military Council (PMAC) or Derg, took power. After this followed three years of perpetual violent power struggles within the Derg, subsequently won by Colonel Mengisto Haile Mariam. The new regime, which pursued a Marxist ideology, would be in the forefront of political and military affairs for the next 14 years. The Mengistu government inherited some core problems from the old regime, e.g. the fact that the country consisted of a number of different nationalities that, in their view, could only be held together by force. The rule was very centralized in character, and from the outset the new regime had a number of enemies. Its rule would be contested during the following 14 years. Apart from the groups fighting the regime for governmental power, the country saw no less than four conflicts over different territories, in which ethnically-based rebel groups fought for independence for their respective regions. Furthermore, during the Derg’s reign the country also fought a bloody interstate war against neighbouring Somalia.
A plethora of rebel groups
During the course of the conflict, a number of different rebel movements fought the government. One of the first movements to challenge the government was EPRP (Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party), a Marxist movement founded in 1972 with an agenda calling for the overthrow of the monarchy, the removal of the feudal system and the setting of a popular democratic republic. When the popular revolution started in 1974, EPRP was in the forefront of the revolutionary struggle. Following the overthrow of the monarchy, EPRP insisted that the country should be ruled by a civilian government, and not the Derg, the military council that had seized power. When the Derg rejected the demand for civilian rule, EPRP went into opposition, launching both an urban and a rural armed struggle, but with a focus on the former.
Another movement that began its struggle in the mid-1970s was TPLF (Tigray Peoples Liberation Front). TPLF was formed in 1975 by Marxist Tigrayan students who split from the civilian left during the revolution and initiated a rural-based struggle against the state from the Tigray region, demanding social justice and self-determination for all Ethiopians. During the following years the movement grew, and was soon the largest and most successful opposition force in the country.
Also appearing in the mid-1970s was EDU (Ethiopia Democratic Union). The group was formed in August 1975 and in its manifesto the movements aims were said to be "to unite a broad spectrum of progressive and democratic forces opposed to the bloodthirsty despotism of the Dergue." EDU was a counter-revolutionary movement whose leadership was dominated by former officers from the Ethiopian Imperial army, Amhara and Tigray nobles and bandits (so-called "Shiftas") who knew the geography of northern Ethiopia well. Due to the leaderships connections to the former Imperial regime, many were quick to conclude that the movement was striving to restore the monarchy; an idea deliberately encouraged by the Derg, who characterized EDU as a "feudalist-monarchist group". However, EDU strenuously denied that it has any relationship with the royal family and many in the movement had indeed fallen out with the Emperor and were in exile even before he was ousted from power in 1974. Furthermore, the groups platform does not refer to a restored monarchy or even a constitutional monarchy in Ethiopia.
In 1980 a group of EPRP members broke away and founded EPDM (Ethiopian Peoples Democratic Movement). The new group was mainly made up of Amharas and was based in Wollo and Gonder provinces. It soon began cooperating with TPLF, who’s goals it shared, striving for the right of all nationalities to self-determination and the formation of a democratic state.
In 1989, TPLF and EPDM entered into an alliance, called EPRDF (Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democaratic Front). TPLF was clearly the dominating party within the coalition, and it is widely believed that the reason behind the new movement was TPLFs desire to pursue the struggle against the regime beyond Tigray, and thus needed political and military allies from other ethnic groups. Consequently two other groups, OPDO (Oromo Peoples Democratic Organisation) and EDORM (Ethiopian Democratic Officers Revolutionary Movement), also joined the front but did not have a leading role in neither politics nor fighting. The new coalitions charter borrowed heavily from TPLFs, calling for the establishment of a democratic government, the elimination of feudalism and imperialism, the formation of a genuine peoples government based on peoples councils, the guarantee of basic human rights and self-determination for all oppressed nationalities.
The last group to challenge the government was a military faction, which in May 1989 attempted to overthrow the government in a coup. The chief of staff of the armed forces, Major General Merid Negusie, and the head of the air force, Major General Amha Desta, led the mutinous faction, which opposed the regime’s handling of the conflicts fought around the country.
The 1976-1991 armed conflict
The character of the conflict varied over time, as different rebels groups, with different strategies and resources were active at different times.
EPRP
Communist EPRP (Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party) was mainly active in the mid 1970s, when it engaged in both urban and rural armed opposition, but with a focus on the former. It initiated a campaign of urban guerrilla warfare in September 1976, involving bombings of public buildings and other symbols of state authority as well as assassinations of numerous public officials. The campaign was labelled the White Terror by the government, which in turn countered with what would be known as the Red Terror. During this campaign, government security forces systematically hunted down and killed suspected EPRP members and their supporters.
Having been defeated in the towns by late 1977 EPRP's urban component was forced to take refuge with the groups rural component in Tigray and Gonder. Attempts at launching a rural rebellion proved difficult, though. The movement continued to advocate urban insurrection and had problems with winning the support of the peasantry, for which it competed with other rebel movements active in Tigray, such as TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) and EDU (Ethiopian Democratic Union). There had been tensions between primarily TPLF and EPRP since 1975, when the two groups started to operate in the same territory, trying to mobilise and organise the same people. While these tensions had been manifested in non-violent political competition through 1975–1977, it led to the outbreak of a conflict over opposition ascendancy in 1978, which was eventually won by TPLF. EPRP subsequently split into three groups, only one of which continued the armed struggle from its new base in Gonder, albeit on a very low level. In the mid-1980s the movement resurfaced once again, but, compared to the other movements fighting the government, it did not constitute a big threat to the regime.
EDU
EDU, active mainly in Tigary and Gonder, was at the outset a strong force that commanded a lot of support among the region’s peasants. During the first half of 1977 the group had a long string of military successes, capturing the market town Humera, on the border with Sudan, and a number of other towns in the region. The successes came to an end by mid-1977 though, when the group was unable to sustain its military momentum and suffered some big defeats at the hands of Derg forces. EDU's fighters were subsequently forced to leave Gonder and return to western Tigray.
However, also in Tigray the group faced fierce resistance, albeit not from the Derg. All since 1976 a conflict had been fought between EDU and fellow Tigray-based rebel group TPLF. Battling for opposition ascendancy in the region, the two groups continued fighting each other and in 1978 TPLF stood as victors. By the end of 1978 most EDU fighters had been driven across the Sudanese border. Although EDU was never completely destroyed it was severely weakened and military-wise reduced to a rump, largely operating in small pockets outside Tigray in Gondar and in Sudan, where it remained until the collapse of the Derg.
TPLF, EPDM, EPRDF and Military faction (Forces of Amsha Desta & Merid Negusie)
TPLF confined its military activities to hit and run operations during the first years of the struggle. The rebel group was highly mobile and, travelling in small groups, TPLF fighters ranged across the province, carrying out small ambushes and then moving on quickly so as to give the impression that they were more numerous than they really were. By the late 1970's and early 1980's a number of factors had served to strengthen the group. For one, it had managed to gain the crucial support of the Tigrayan peasantry, which led to large numbers of recruits seeking themselves to the group. It also meant that TPLF was able to access invaluable well-informed intelligence. Secondly, it had won the conflict for opposition ascendancy in Tigray, fought against EPRP and EDU. A third reason for TPLF’s increased strength was its close cooperation with the larger Eritrean rebel group EPLF (Eritrean People’s Liberation Front). The front was subsequently able to on and off control large parts of the countryside in the Tigray region (see the section "External support and internal cooperation") and to engage much larger Derg forces than before. The regime responded by launching a new counter-insurgency strategy - also termed its "counter-population warfare" due to its brutality.
Between 1983 and 1985 Tigray and neighboring provinces were hit by a famine not paralleled in the 20th century. The famine had a number of causes, one of them being the desperate poverty in the region and another the regions unpredictable climate. This was coupled with the regimes social and agricultural policies which had for years eased the country towards famine. However, in the worst hit regions in the country - Tigray and Wollo - the single most important reason why the drought that started in 1983 became not a "normal" period of hardship for the population, but an unparalleled famine was the counter-insurgency strategy that Derg employed in these areas. During these years, the Derg also launched two major offensives against TPLF. At the same time, the rebel group’s military operations decreased in intensity since it focused much of its energy on aiding refugees across the border to Sudan. Subsequently, when the famine finally broke, in late 1985, the Derg forces had a greater degree of control in Tigray than it had had since 1977.
The years of famine did not only see rebel set backs though. In 1982 TPLF launched its "Southern Operation" and opened a new front in southern Tigray and the northern part of Wollo. This operation was launched together with EPDM, a new rebel group formed in Wollo with TPLF help the previous year. During the following years, TPLF and EPDM (Ethiopia Peoples Democratic Movement) continued to launch joint military operations in Wollo and subsequently also in Gonder.
From 1986 TPLF’s military capacity was on the rise again, after the years of the famine. By early 1987 the military situation in Tigray was stalemated; the government failed to win any significant victories and TPLF remained in control of much of the countryside. Discipline and motivation in the army, which had been on the decrease for many years, appeared to reach a new low in 1987. TPLF, for its part, fared better and was able to mobilise growing human and material resources. The following year, events in Eritrea and Tigray effectively put the Derg on the defensive, while TPLF and EPLF gained in strength and morale. In February the Dergs forces suffered its biggest defeat to date at Afabet in Eritrea, when EPLF routed a force of 15 000 men. Once the extent of the defeat became apparent the regime sent units from Tigray to Eritrea, even though there were signs that TPLF was planning an offensive. Subsequently, when TPLF a few days later launched its largest attack to up to that date, the rebel force was able to capture all Tigrayan towns north of Mekelle, the district capital. According to credible observers, there were three reasons for this offensive. For one, TPLF wanted to break the military stalemate in the region; second, the front needed to gains some experience in capturing and holding towns as a preparation for the final phase of the conflict; and three, the rebels had started to worry about the growing alienation of the urban population in the region in the face of the rural focused rebellion. The Derg soon launched a massive counter-offensive, involving some 150 000 troops. In the face of this onslaught it became clear that TPLF was not yet ready to relinquish its commitment to guerrilla warfare. Instead of risking the loss of many fighters and civilians, the front retreated from the towns, albeit often no more than a few km, after which they resumed the pre-1988 sieges.
In January 1989, TPLF and EPDM cemented their cooperation by joining together and creating the coalition EPRDF (Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front). After the merger the new front took the military initiative in Tigray. The following month saw a string of important EPRDF victories, including the one fought at Endaselasie in north-western Tigray, which was the Dergs worst defeat since Afabet. Initially pushing the Derg forces out of western Tigray, the front could then take all the garrisoned towns north of the Wollo border within a space of only two weeks, as the army was fleeing. On 25 February, EPRDF was able to occupy the abandoned provincial capital Mekelle and thus controlled all of Tigray apart from the outpost at Maychew, which remained in the governments hands.
Morale in the armed forces was an all time low and in May a faction within the army, under the leadership of Amsha Desta and Merid Negusie, attempted a coup. The mutineers called for negotiations with the rebels, a formation of a transitional government and a ceasefire; all conditions that both EPRDF and EPLF agreed to. The mutiny was brutally put down within a few days, however.
In August the same year, EPRDF forces started to move south, and much of northern Gondar, including the frontier town of Humera, rapidly fell to the rebel forces. The front also moved into Wollo and by November the advance guard of EPRDF penetrated into northern Shewa. While 1990 was spent consolidating its gains, EPRDF launched no less than three different offensives between February and May 1991. The final battle for the capital occurred on the morning of 28 May 1991, when EPRDF troops entered and subsequently seized the city.
External support and internal cooperation during the 1976-1991 conflict
During this phase of the conflict, various external actors supported some of the warring parties. In 1977, the Marxist Mengistu government became the Soviet Unions main ally in the Horn. Over the following year, and up until 1990, the USSR and its allies supplied the government with vast amounts of arms and other military equipment. It is estimated that the Soviet support, which was invaluable for the regime, amounted to US$ 13 billion between 1977 and 1990. However, by late 1990 this source of support had dried up and the Mengistu government was forced to search for new international allies. Support forthcoming from Israel, which in 1990 consisted of military assistance including 150,000 rifles, cluster bombs, as well as military advisors and instructors, failed to replace the amount of military equipment the Soviet Union had supplied.
Sudan, for its own geopolitical reasons, supported TPLF and EDU. The latter also received financial support from Saudi Arabia, and from the United States. Apart from this, there was no other outside support forthcoming to the rebels. However, help was available from within the country. During the early years of the conflict, TPLF managed to survive only because of the money and weapons it received from fellow rebel group EPLF , fighting for an independent Eritrea. The EPLF supported TPLF, both because the two movements had a common enemy, i.e. the Menigusto government, and because TPLF formed a buffer between the Ethiopian army and Eritrea. During most of the conflict the TPLF and EPLF coordinated many of their military attacks on the government forces, even if political and ideological rifts subsequently developed between the two movements.
There was also military cooperation and coordination between TPLF and the smaller, Amhara-based EPDM. These two groups eventually merged and created EPRDF. TPLF also had tactical alliances with the Afar-based rebel group ALF, and the Oromo-based OLF, both fighting for independence for their respective regions. Especially its connection to the former was somewhat awkward for TPLF; ALF represented and fought for the return of a feudal system that TPLF had long opposed. The front was thus careful to stress that the cooperation was only of a tactical nature. Nevertheless numerous joint operations were conducted during the year and through these alliances TPLF was able to gain access to regions further south.
Attempts at a negotiated solution
Towards the end of this phase of the conflict, as the regime was coming under increased military pressure, a number of attempts were made to settle it politically. Exploratory talks between TPLF – which at that time was the leading member of the EPRDF umbrella group – and the government opened on 4 November 1989 in Rome. During the talks, which were supposed to be of a procedural kind to make way for future negotiations, TPLF presented a peace plan adopted at its congress in March the same year. The plan called for a broad based provisional government including representatives from all the country's political organisations. The government interpreted the conflict as one of regional independence and stated that politics of "secession and national disunity" had no place in their epoch. The talks were adjourned on 11 November and were scheduled to be reopened on 12 December. However, instead of continued talks heavy fighting erupted between the two parties.
A new attempt was made in March the following year, when TPLF once more met with the government for preliminary peace talks, but again they collapsed with no understanding reached. Pressured by EPRDF's military gains, the Ethiopian parliament on 22 April 1991 produced a peace package calling for a dialogue with all opposition parties and unity forces at a joint negotiating forum with the aim of creating transitional arrangements, give legal guarantees for opposition parties to take part in political life and declaring a ceasefire. EPRDF rejected this plan however, stating that its own peace plan was the only policy that could provide a basis for peace. When peace talks were opened on 27 May 1991 in London, the EPRDF had encircled the capital. The US, who led the negotiations, recommended EPRDF to enter the capital and restore order. The government subsequently boycotted the negotiations, but had no chance of resisting militarily. The opposition groups agreed to let EPRDF set up an interim government until democratic elections could be held within one year.
A new phase of the conflict, 29 years later
After EPRDF’s military victory in 1991, the group - almost completely dominated by one of its constituent parts, the Tigrayan TPLF, went on to rule the country for more than 25 years. However, amidst large-scale popular protests against the regime, Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, initially appearing to usher in an era of political reform. In December 2019, Ahmed oversaw the transformation of EPRDF into Prosperity Party, the latter consisting of all constituent parts of the former, apart from TPLF, which opted out. With that, TPLF was no longer part of the federal government, for the first time since 1991. The party remained in power in its home-region Tigray, however.
Animosity between the center and Tigray was evident already from the outset and 2020 saw tensions rising. As the national general election planned for late August 2020 was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, TPLF decided to go ahead with regional elections in Tigray in September 2020 anyway, securing some 98 % of the votes. This brought the relationship between the two parties to a new low point and all communication between Tigray and Addis Ababa was completely severed, and federal budget transfers frozen. In late October, TPLF claimed that the central government, together with Eritrea, was planning an attack on Tigray and tension rose even further.
On 4 November, the situation exploded, as violent clashes erupted between the TPLF regional forces and the national military force, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF). Exactly what triggered the outbreak of fighting remains contested, as the two sides traded blame. The conflict quickly spread to large parts of Tigray as Ethiopian government forces, moved in en masse into the northern region during the weeks that followed. Despite the difficulty to obtain reports on the developing conflict, due to a complete internet and telephone shut down in Tigray, it soon became clear that the violence escalated to a level not seen in Ethiopia for nearly 30 years.
While not confirmed at the time, it became evident within weeks of the eruption of the conflict, that the Ethiopian government received assistance from troops crossing the border from Eritrea. Together, these Eritrean troops (EDF), ENDF, and Amhara Special Forces (regional paramilitary police force as Amhara region) got the upper hand, and after heavy fighting succeeding in seizing Tigray regional capital Mekele and Abiy Ahmed subsequently declared victory in late November 2020. However, as the conflict escalated dramatically in 2021, the Prime Minister’s statement was effectively proven wrong. Having been pushed out of Tigray’s urban centers, TPLF did not surrender, but instead re-grouped, re-organized and launched a guerrilla campaign from the mountains. In the context of extensive one-sided violence carried out by both Ethiopian and Eritrean troops, as well as the Amhara special forces and militia, TPLF gained increasing support from the population, and grew substantially in size. In mid-June, TPLF launched a counter-offensive called Operation Alula, and after fierce fighting, which caused thousands of deaths, the group was able to re-take large swaths of territory, including regional capital Mekele.
Over the following months, TPLF advanced south amidst bloody battles, capturing a string of towns in the Amhara region, and also pushing into neighboring Afar. The rebel offensive was not halted until the end of November, when TPLF - which had at this point linked up with fellow rebel group OLA - was a mere 200 km from the capital. At this point, a government counter-offensive caused TPLF to lose its momentum, and by December the group retreated towards Tigray.
The following months saw a clear de-escalation of the conflict, as TPLF more or less kept its forces within the Tigray borders, and the government and its allies remained outside the region (with the exception of the disputed Western Tigray zone/Welkait, claimed by both Tigray and Amhara region, and occupied by the latter since 2020). Most fighting during the early months of 2022 took place in Afar region, just across the border from Tigray, where TPLF occupied some territories in high places for strategic purposes. In late March, amidst warnings from the UN and humanitarian agencies that millions of Tigrayans were at risk of starvation, the government announced an indefinite humanitarian truce to facilitate for aid to enter Tigray. TPLF subsequently pledged to respect the ceasefire if there was indeed swift progress on the aid issue. The following five months saw a war of words play out, with the two parties failing to agree on what was actually happening on the ground. While TPLF accused the government of failing to lift the blockage of the region, whereby the promised aid flow into Tigray was a mere trickle, the government continuously accused the rebels of breaking the truce and launching attacks. Furthermore, the government announced on a number of occasions that it was willing to talk "anywhere, anytime," but it would not address TPLF’s demands, which did little to ease tensions.
On 24 August, the conflict erupted once more. September and October saw large-scale fighting with TDF initially gaining the upper hand, seizing a number of towns in northern Amhara region. However, a joint Ethiopian and Eritrean offensive from Eritrean territory forced TDF to withdraw from Amhara to protect its rear, and from mid-October the rebels lost a string of urban centers, seemingly shifting into guerrilla warfare yet again, some weeks prior to the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement on 2 November. While the conflict had been brutal even before the re-eruption of fighting in late August, the last phase of the war reached levels of violence not seen before. The number of troops involved was estimated to have numbered around 750 000, and much of the fighting was conducted as a bloody infantry war on several fronts, with both sides accused of using recently recruited fighters as cannon fodder, launching human wave attacks through mined areas towards enemy trenches. Resembling WW1 fighting, and previously used in the interstate war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the idea behind this tactics was that the sheer number would result in those defending eventually running out of ammunition. By its nature, this type of warfare causes massive death tolls and it is estimated that at least 100 000 fighters were killed on the battlefield between 24 August and 2 November.
Negotiations and peace agreement
By early October, there was movement on the negotiation front, but the process did not get underway until 25 October, when peace talks opened in Pretoria, South Africa. The negotiations, led by the African Union, and facilitated by Nigeria's former president Olusegun Obasanjo, supported by Kenya's former leader Uhuru Kenyatta and South Africa's ex-vice president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka saw high-level participation from the parties; TPLF was represented by its spokesperson Getachew Reda and the lead negotiator on the government side was the national security advisor Redwan Hussein. Talks were initially scheduled to last until 30 October, but were extended for a few extra days.
On 2 November, the parties released a joint statement, saying that they had "agreed to permanently silence the guns and end the two years of conflict in northern Ethiopia." The peace agreement clearly reflected the current situation on the battlefield, which had shifted in favor of the government. TPLF was under immense pressure, forced to retreat from one urban center after another, and many observers argued that the agreement was much more favorable for the government, some even describing it as a triumph for Abiy Ahmed. Under the accord, TPLF agreed to disarm within 30 days, to allow federal troops to re-enter Mekele and to restore federal authority in the region. Furthermore, the agreement stipulated for TPLF and the government to jointly appoint an inclusive interim council that was to rule the region until elections. This was yet another concession from TPLF , since it implied that the 2020 elections, which were won by TPLF, and which were one of the triggers of the conflict, lacked legitimacy. The government, for its part, agreed to stop its offensive on Mekele, to end the blockade and allow aid deliveries, as well as to restore services to the region. As for one of TPLF’s main demands – the withdrawal of Eritrean troops – the outcome was more unclear. Eritrea – not present in Pretoria – was not mentioned by name in the agreement, which more vaguely states that the parties were to cease “collusion with an external force”.
An early sign of the parties’ commitment to the agreement was that they sent their top military commanders to Nairobi just a few days later, where they held talks on how to put the peace agreement’s security provisions into effect. A follow-up agreement was subsequently signed on 12 November. In the Nairobi Declaration, some amendments were made, whereby the previous 30-day disarmament period was split into two phases. The declaration stated that the disarming of heavy weapons was tied to the withdrawal of foreign and non-ENDF forces in the region, thus more clearly pointing a finger at Eritrea and Amhara regional forces.
During the rest of the year, implementation progress was made on most aspects of the accord, albeit slow in some areas. Work on one of the key areas, disarmament of TPLF, commenced in December, when the Ethiopian–TPLF Joint Committee met and began a new set of talks, specifically geared to this area. One day after the start of the talks, TPLF announced that they had withdrawn their troops from a number of urban areas and progress seemed to continue over the month.
Most analysts agreed that there were two main sticking points remaining: the presence of Eritrea and Amharan regional forces, and the question of the status of Tigray’s Western zone, which Amhara state claimed to historically belong to them, referring to it as Welkait. Abiy Ahmed had been dependent on the assistance of both Eritrea and the Amhara regional forces (as well as the Amhara Fano militia) during the war, and it was unclear how much influence he could wield over them in the post conflict context. As the year drew to a close, Amhara forces remained in control of Western zone/Welkait and while there were reports of Eritrean forces withdrawing from Shire and Axum town on 29 December, aid workers reported that they still retained a substantial presence in the region. Furthermore, not parties to the agreement as such, both EDF and the Amhara regional forces continued to carry out attacks on the civilian population after the signing of the peace agreement.
GLF
In the shadow of the large-scale war between the government and TPLF, the security situation in other parts of Ethiopia was also deteriorating. One area that had remained relatively spared from organized violence over the past few years was Gambela region in Ethiopia’s south-west corner, bordering South Sudan. However, in the wake of the 2021 elections, a new rebel outfit was launched in the area: Gambela Liberation Front (GLF). In its founding statement, it announced that the elections had been flawed, that the ruling Prosperity Party was responsible for inciting conflict between the peoples of Ethiopia and needed to be removed, and concluded that the only remaining road to political change was armed struggle.
Aside from launching small-scale attacks within the Gambela region, GLF cooperated with OLA and Gumuz fighters, and conducted joint operations in the border areas of the states. In June 2022, it carried out a joint attack with OLA in Gambela town, its largest operation to date by far. After several hours of fighting, which caused at least 29 fatalities, the rebels withdrew from the town. After this relatively big bout of fighting, violence ceased and in early 2023, the parties met for talks in Juba, South Sudan, and then in Addis Ababa. An agreement was subsequently signed, under which GLF agreed to renounce the armed struggle, instead opting to pursue a"peaceful political struggle". Furthermore, it was agreed that some of the outfit's fighters were to join the Gambella police, whereas others were to be employed in the regional government. The accord also stipulated for rehabilitation training to be provided to the group's former fighters.
