Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to Lead Army Against Tigray
Ethiopia’s prime minister says he will lead his country’s army “from the battlefront” starting Tuesday, a dramatic new step as the year-long conflict moves closer to the capital Addis Ababa.
Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have been killed as Ethiopian and allied forces fight against forces from the country’s northern Tigray region, who dominated the national government before Abiy Ahmed took office.
“Those who want to be among the Ethiopian children who will be hailed by history, rise up for your country today. Let’s meet at the battlefront.”
“Starting tomorrow, I will mobilize to the front to lead the defense forces,” Abiy said in a statement posted on Twitter late on Monday.
The statement by the 45-year-old prime minister, a former soldier, did not say where exactly he will go Tuesday. His spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, did not respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press news agency.
Abiy’s comments came as the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group continued to press towards Addis Ababa, claiming control of the town of Shewa Robit, just 220km (136 miles) northeast of the capital by road.
It also followed a meeting of the ruling Prosperity Party’s executive committee to discuss the war.
Defense Minister Abraham Belay told state-affiliated media after the meeting that security forces would embark on a “different action”, without providing details.
“There will be change,” Belay said. “What happened and is happening to our people, the abuses being meted out by this destructive, terrorist, robber group, can’t continue.”
The United States and others have warned that Africa’s second-most populous country could fracture and destabilize the rest of the region.
Former US diplomat William Lawrence noted Abiy had used a lot of war imagery when accepting his Nobel prize but that had been to highlight the horror of war.
“And here we are almost full circle with a Nobel Peace Prize winner using the most bellicose language to try and ramp up the stakes ahead of the defense of not only Ethiopia, but life and death,” Lawrence said. “He says he’s basically willing to die for the cause.”
Diplomacy ‘only way out’
Getachew Reda, spokesman for the Tigray forces, tweeted: “Our forces won’t relent on their inexorable advance towards bringing (Abiy’s) chokehold on our people to an end.”
The Tigray forces say they are pressuring Ethiopia’s government to lift a months-long blockade of the Tigray region’s six million people, but they also want Abiy out of power.
The prime minister, in his statement, said western countries were trying to defeat Ethiopia, echoing his government’s references to “meddling” by the international community.
Envoys from the African Union and the US have continued diplomatic efforts in pursuit of a ceasefire and talks without conditions on a political solution.
Abbas Haji Gnamo, an expert in Ethiopian politics at the University of Toronto, said many were still hoping for a political solution.
“Diplomats have to find a political way,” he told our reportes. “Abiy cannot win this war. The Ethiopian army is relatively weakened. They are losing cities and his going to the battlefront doesn’t change anything, Negotiations are the only way out of this.”
Shortly after Abiy’s announcement, a senior US Department of State official told reporters the US still believes “a small window of opportunity exists” in mediation efforts.
Ethiopian Republican Guards march in a rally to celebrate Abiy’s incumbency at Meskel Square in Addis Ababa last month. Analysts say the armed forces are ‘relatively weakened’ In the space of a year, Abiy’s government has gone from describing the Tigray conflict as a “law enforcement operation” to an “existential war”. With the Ethiopian military’s retreat from Tigray in June and reports of it being weakened in recent months, ethnic-based regional forces have been intensifying their campaign, and Abiy’s government has called on all able citizens to join the fight.
Earlier this month, the government declared a six-month state of emergency.
Abiy’s announcement shocked the man who nominated him for the Nobel, Awol Allo, a senior lecturer in law at Keele University in Britain. “The announcement is replete with languages of martyrdom and sacrifice,” he said in a tweet. “This is so extraordinary and unprecedented, shows how desperate the situation is.”
Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with neighboring Eritrea, on whose border he fought while stationed in the Tigray region.
