Hope for peace as Ethiopia’s rebels withdraw

Villagers return from a market in the town of Yechila in south central Tigre, Ethiopia. [Reuters]

Ethiopian leader Tigre People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has ordered its forces to withdraw from all non-Tigreyan areas they occupied in recent months.

The surprising decision, contained in a letter yesterday to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres by the President of the Tigreyan region, Debrection Gebremichael, came as a relief as the year-long conflict threatened to spread to neighboring countries, and exposed 117 million Fear of disintegration of the people of the nation.

“I have ordered units of the Tigre army that are outside the borders of the Tigre, to return to the borders of the Tigre with immediate effect,” Debreshan said. While Debration has claimed that their “forces are intact and undefeated on the ground”, fighters have been on the backfoot after back-to-back battlefield setbacks since early last month.

pendulum of war

TPLF forces had, at one point, nearly seized the capital, Addis Ababa, before the pendulum of the war turned in favor of the Ethiopian army. That development prompted the US and some other Western countries to ask their citizens to leave Addis Ababa.

According to Addis Ababa, the war between the two sides began on November 3 last year, when TPLF forces attacked a federal military base in the Tigre region and tried to seize weapons. TPLF leaders called the attack a premeditated strike aimed at thwarting a federal government’s premeditated plan to attack the Tigreyan region.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and Tigreyan leaders have been at loggerheads since Addis Ababa postponed national and regional elections on August 29 last year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The TPLF overruled the decision and held elections to its own constituency on September 9 last year.

In his letter, Debreshan expressed the hope that his “adventure would be a decisive opening to peace.”

However, it is not clear whether Abiy’s government will sit with the leaders of the group, which it has labeled a terrorist organization.

Both the US and the African Union have appointed envoys to mediate between the warring parties, but Addis Ababa has deferred the war as an internal matter. Abiy also called his attack against the TPLF a “law enforcement campaign”.

At least tens of thousands of fighters and civilians have been killed during the war, whose battlefields have changed. The conflict left millions of Ethiopians in dire need of humanitarian aid.

Confederate forces ousted the TPLF in 25 days and dispersed its leaders, but months later the pace changed. On 28 June last year, TPLF forces withdrew their capital, Mekele, and then pushed into the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions.

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