What Solution to Ethiopia’s Constant Conflicts?

By Addissu Admas

Ethiopia has struggled to remain united since at least the end of the Italian occupation of 1936-1941. From the return of the imperial regime with Atse Haile Selassie I in 1941 to this day, a period of over eighty years, there has not been more than five years of complete peace. Between the peasant rebellions and organized “liberation” fronts, the country has not had a full decade to breathe a sigh of relief to focus on its development and institution building. 

Just to illustrate my point, let me briefly list some of the well-known wars the central government has waged in its pursuit of pacifying the country. First came the Woyane rebellion of 1943, followed in 1960 by the rise of the ELF (Eritrean Liberation Front) and the Annuak uprising, the Bale revolt between 1963 and 1970, and the Gojjam revolt of 1968. All these not counting the many rebellions during the Derg regime and the very many “liberation” fronts that have sprung up since, some of which are still active to this day. For obvious reasons, the ones that are consuming our attention today are the Fano and the OLA Shene uprisings. For an outside observer, Ethiopia looks like a country in permanent state of war. 

The federal system of government which was ushered by the Constitution of 1995 was designed not only to resolve the issues of self-determination and self-governance, but to end and even prevent future conflicts among what it calls “nations, nationalities and peoples”. What it has achieved instead is the exact opposite. Today, Ethiopia is in the grips of major tribal wars that threaten to destroy the tenuous bonds that are holding together the country. Rather than cool heads aiming for solutions, the airwaves are saturated with destructive and hateful rhetoric poisoning the daily lives of Ethiopians.

When PM Abiy Ahmed came to power some six and a half years ago, most Ethiopians believed that the time of division, tribalism and acrimony was going to end. The PM gained enormous political capital that would have enabled him to restore peace, achieve great institutional, economic and political changes like no leader before him, or at least since the demise of the last emperor. What we have witnessed instead is a textbook example of how a leader can waste political capital in the shortest possible time by making one bad choice after another.  

No doubt that the TPLF’s war, which can only be qualified as quixotic, to put it charitably, may have hampered his political and economic agenda. However, his subsequent decisions and alliances would seriously put in doubt this possible explanation: the series of his strategic blunders are all self-inflicted. The hope was that he would have surrounded himself with good thinking heads, instead of self-abasing sycophants. What we have now is a country on the brink of collapse.

Even though the TPLF did its darndest to implement its “divide and rule” policies for nearly three-decades, Ethiopians of all ethnic groups, regardless of what the Constitution permitted, were determined to be part of one nation. Now, six and half years into Abiy’s regime, tribal animosity and hostility is at an all time high. Rather than healing the tribal rifts, PM Abiy has worsened them. If not by design, at least by sheer incompetence, misjudgments and hubris. 

As is natural to fallible human beings, Ethiopians have always suffered from tribalism throughout their history. The question was only one of degree. Whereas in the past, it may have led to rebellions, skirmishes, and a general discontent, today it threatens to put asunder the entire country. The question is really whether any kind of sustained war would restore Ethiopia’s unity, or yet whether it is worth spilling rivers of blood to maintain the unity of the country.

The two major ethnicities of Ethiopia, the Oromo and the Amhara with their respective regions are riven today by wars: one self-inflicted (in Oromia), and one instigated by the government of Abiy Ahmed. Both wars are waged against the federal government, and yet there is a real possibility that with its inevitable weakening, they will more than likely turn against each other. And this will mark the beginning of the end for Ethiopia. 

PM Abiy Ahmed, a man who has been ironically awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has chosen the politics of power and subjugation, instead of dialogue and reconciliation. On paper, the EDF (Ethiopian Defense Force) is half a million strong (including reserves) and far better equipped that its many opponents, i.e.  OLA, Fano, and the remaining self-proclaimed liberation fronts representing several other ethnicities. Yet it has been successful only in occupying the urban areas in the regions affected by the civil war. A lesson needs to be learned here from a recent past. Despite its enormous size and its substantial armament, the EDF under Mengistu Hailemariam failed to even prevent the EPLF (the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front) from achieving ultimately Eritrea’s independence, and the TPLF from taking over the entire country. In the end, the Derg’s “revolutionary” military organization met a most humiliating end by being forced to demobilize completely to be replaced by TPLF’s ragtag guerilla army with no known military training. Does PM Abiy think that he can do better than the Derg? He needs to realize that it is only a matter of time before Fano gets its act together, organize rationally, and adopts a disciplined fighting method to expel entirely the EDF from Amhara territory. The same of course with OLA, even though it may be motivated by completely other motives. Perhaps even the other “liberating” armies will enter the fray at one point or another.  We will then have our own Balkan wars. 

As is clear, OLA is clearly averse to the very idea of Ethiopia and appears to be aiming to establish an “ethnically cleansed” Oromo nation, if I have not misunderstood its aim. Otherwise, what is there to liberate? Thus, the two major rebel groups, Fano and OLA are clearly operating at cross-purposes. Not only that, but they are driven by mutual antipathy and even hatred. It would take a miracle to bring these two together to agree on some basic points, let alone join forces to form a common front against the central government. This is in fact the dim reality: the tribalism fostered and nurtured by the Woyane regime is finally producing its intended fruit, i.e. the near impossibility of putting the country back together. I dare not say that it is completely impossible for Ethiopia to remain united because even black and brown South Africans have managed “to reconcile” and live together in relative peace with their erstwhile white oppressors. 

Reconciliation in Ethiopia cannot take place through the initiative of PM Abiy and his government because they have essentially lost all moral authority and credibility. To hammer out once more the terms of co-existence of Oromo, Amhara and all the other big or small ethnicities of Ethiopia can only take place if one of the following scenarios occur. 

If PM Abiy and his government lose the next general election scheduled for June 2026 and step down and allow a most likely coalition government to be formed, then such a government will probably be open to establishing a reconciliation forum for no other reason than to legitimize and consolidate its own standing. However, PM Abiy Ahmed no longer believes (or has never believed) that he is simply a Prime Minister and therefore liable to be removed and replaced by a fair and transparent election. By all indications, he appears to believe himself to be an indispensable leader anointed to lead Ethiopia indefinitely. Therefore, such a possibility is rather “pie in the sky”. 

Another possibility is that the current civil war reaches a point where the whole nation becomes practically ungovernable, like in the final days of the Derg, and a national assembly is mandated to end all hostilities and reestablish some form of National Salvation Government to prevent Ethiopia from becoming irremediably a failed state. It may be possible that under such circumstances the terms of our coexistence could be renegotiated. However, this is a very difficult scenario to imagine since it will be very hard to bring together Fano and OLA with the other liberation fronts to essentially agree on anything. 

A third scenario or alternative would be to rewrite the constitution with the goal of creating a more radical form of federalism right now. I know that in my previous pieces, I have been opposed to any form of federalism that goes beyond the current one. In fact, I have even suggested that a more uniting form of federalism would have been preferable. However, since Ethiopia’s situation is dishearteningly desperate, perhaps an extreme measure is required more than ever.

For ease of reference, I will be calling the “confederal system” the kind of radical federalism that I would like to propose for preventing Ethiopia from becoming another Yugoslavia. It is not a new idea, and indeed it has been practiced uninterruptedly by Switzerland since 1848. And I am convinced that, with the necessary tweaks, it can be adopted by Ethiopians as the best way out of our current predicament. I have chosen the Swiss model because it is the kind of federal system that has successfully managed a country with diverse ethnicities, languages and religions. 

By becoming a confederation, Ethiopia’s existing and future regions will become even more autonomous than they are today. Much of the decisions regarding, governance, budgeting, culture, language, education, etc.… will be in their hands. The federal government will be in charge, as in Switzerland, for matters concerning only “foreign policy, national security, customs, currency, federal legislation and national defense”

Our current Ethiopian constitution is not really about regions having genuine autonomy in their governance and decision-making, but it is mostly concerned with the powers and prerogatives of the federal government vis a vis the regions. A revised or newly written constitution should begin by stating first the sovereignty of each region, its powers and privileges in relation to the confederal government. Only lastly should it outline the sovereignty, powers and privileges of the confederal government. In other words, power should devolve from the regions to the federal government. Ethiopia’s historical centralization tendency has not been curbed by the current constitution, it has been merely accommodated, or yet superimposed. Sovereignty and power rather than emanating from the regions as in the Swiss model, it is channeled to them from the top. I believe that this is the main reason that the constitution will forever be manipulable by the power that be. In effect, what we have today resembles, unfortunately, monarchic federalism.

The many conflicts ravaging Ethiopia today stem from the fact that regions do not enjoy sufficient autonomy, but are at the mercy of the whims of the federal government. The PM continues to treat each region as the emperor did with the provinces. His powers are no less than the one enjoyed by all his predecessors. For example, he continues to hamper some “nations, nationalities or peoples” from forming their own regions and determine how they want to run their own affairs without constant interference by his government. This is not only contrary to the letter and spirit of the current constitution but is the main cause why so many unnecessary conflicts are springing everywhere. If the federal government limits itself instead to fewer functions than it has now, it is more than likely that most of the causes of conflicts can be removed. The more it tends to centralize and concentrate power in the hands of the federal government, the more the chances of conflict and instability. Thus, the adoption of a confederal constitution of Ethiopia, fashioned on the Swiss model, has a far better chance of eliminating most causes of conflict and maintaining the unity of the country than any form of government that we have experimented so far, or plan on adopting. The question at this point is how to bring about the conditions for such a possibility. 

Editor’s note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com

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