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Here’s What’s Happening to the People of Tigray

muslimgirl.com 2024/8/11
Tigrayan community gather in the Netherlands to voice their support for Tigray.
The Tigrayan community in the Netherlands demonstrated against the war in Tigray (@TigrayHerald/X)

Although it has received little media attention in the United States, the 2020-2022 civil war in Ethiopia was one of the bloodiest conflicts since the end of the Cold War.  Estimates are that up to 600 thousand people died in the clash between the national government in Adis Ababa and the local break-away forces in Tigray. All sides in the conflict have been accused of war crimes, including sexual violence, and crimes against humanity.  A recent report issued by the United-States-based New Lines Institute also documents claims of genocide against the people of Tigray and attempts to destroy the Tigrayans as an ethnic group during the conflict, including multiple genocidal acts. 

The authors of the report called for the Ethiopian government to be brought before the International Court of Justice. In October 2023, the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia presented their findings to the United Nations and reported that in spite of widespread hope that the conflict had come to an end in November 2022, the violence had continued. The federal government in Adis Ababa was uncooperative, and there are strong grounds to believe that the process of transitional justice which was intended to restore stability has never been implemented.

Part of the disappointment is that the Ethiopian leader Abiy Ahmed, elected in 2018 as the third prime minister of Ethiopia and since then, the leader of the federal government, has vastly disappointed the international community. Despite early hopes for his government, including him winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts to establish peace with neighboring Eritrea, Abiy has fueled the conflict with his policies. Unfortunately, there is also evidence that he continues to destabilize the entire Horn of Africa with his attempts to influence the situations in neighboring Somalia and Sudan, effectively fueling ongoing conflict in the region.

Abiy’s efforts to gain power, including building a 10 billion dollar presidential palace would have been largely unsuccessful without the aid of the United Arab Emirates. The United Arab Emirates has ongoing ambitions to be the most influential power in the region of the Horn of Africa and continues to flood Abiy’s government with money and weapons that have driven the ongoing conflicts there.

Abiy is reported to want to have access to the Red Sea and is engaging in an arms race with neighboring countries. There are major barriers to war, including the massive reduction of the military due to casualties and injuries in recent conflicts numbering nearly one million soldiers, and financial barriers, such as the current economic tailspin that is marking the Ethiopian economy.

While the United Arab Emirates could potentially want to support Ethiopia enough to provide some funding, reports are that economic stability may require intervention by the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.

The Ethiopian government has historically played a role in stability in the region, including a peace agreement that ended conflict in Sudan in 1972. However, the current policies of government are playing a significant role in the eroding stability in the region.

The United States government has largely ignored the region recently, focusing on Ukraine and the conflict in Israel. It is critical that the United States makes an effort to exert some influence on both the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia in any way possible to support the re-establishment of both political stability and prosperity in the region. 

Additionally, competition between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Turkey and Qatar continues to fuel conflict and it is imperative that the international community use any collective leverage possible to establish more stability in the region. The fact that there is a driving influence by Muslim majority nations fueling the instability is of great concern, considering the need for the Muslim community to pull together to exert a positive influence on international policies around economic development and the environment.

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