Addis Ababa (Commentary) — Ethiopia could be peering into the abyss of break-up 31 years after Eritrea became an independent country. Eight years before the 1993 referendum in Eritrea, Paul B. Henze, a former CIA station chief in Addis Ababa, wrote a paper for the Rand Corporation on the political situation in Ethiopia. In 1985, the Derg regime was at war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front, among other Ethiopian ethnonationalist fronts. Henze made a case for maintaining the territorial unity of Ethiopia, even in the event of regime change. Unbeknownst to Henze, the logic he used to argue against secession in Ethiopia would later be used to justify the secession of Eritrea.
“Ethiopia is an atypical African country. One of the oldest states in the world, it owes its boundaries not to colonial powers but to its own sense of nationhood and its rulers’ ability to manipulate colonial rivals. Ethiopia’s geographic and ethnic diversity should not be mistaken for fundamental fragility,” wrote Henze.
Eritrea, a former Italian colony, was briefly ruled by Britain but, in 1952, became a part of Ethiopia after the United Nations decided to make Eritrea a federal region of Ethiopia. All Ethiopian armed fronts were aware of the fragility embedded in the Ethiopian polity, partly due to a long-reigning emperor who was overthrown by a Marxist regime. Henze urged the West to recognise and support the “maintaining Ethiopia’s territorial integrity.” His plea to prevent secession in Ethiopia as a means to regaining American influence was overtaken by unforeseen changes, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Derg regime in 1991. Henze later wrote in his book Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia that he “was an observer in the 1993 referendum in Eritrea…”
Two civil wars are currently raging in Ethiopia—one in Oromia and another in the Amhara region, where Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has normalised the use of Türkiye-made Bayraktar drones against Amhara civilians, whom authorities deem sympathetic to the cause of FANO fighters. Two years ago, peace talks in South Africa ended the conflict in the Tigray region.
Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, has concocted an ideology based on Cushitic victimhood, which has replaced his earlier Medemer philosophy. “Tigrayans constitute 6% of the Ethiopian population but ruled Ethiopia for 27 years with an iron fist,” said an Oromo activist in Addis Ababa. He echoed the sentiments of Leenco Lata, the former OLF leader, who, in 2017, told Professor Ezekiel Gebissa that the OLF had been sidelined in the 1991 talks on the transition from the Derg regime, granting the TPLF privileges to become the core of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces. Lata has recently supported Abiy Ahmed’s attempt to illegally gain access to the sea through the Federal Republic of Somalia, in violation of both the AU and UN Charters. Like Mengistu Haile Mariam, Abiy Ahmed is overseeing a disastrous political process that could result in the break-up of Ethiopia once again. Blame Oromummaa for the path Ethiopia has taken since 2018 when Abiy Ahmed was selected to replace Hailemariam Desalegn.
© Puntland Post, 2024
