A peaceful revolution has transformed relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Apart from a few skirmishes, such as Ethiopia’s 2006 intervention against Eritrea’s allies in Somalia, they have coexisted peacefully since the 1998–2000 war, even though their dictators have often talked of the threat of renewed conflict.
Ethiopia initiated the change this April with the appointment of a new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, previously an unknown senior official at the Information Network Security Agency (Ethiopia’s Internet- and phone-surveillance agency) and a member of the Oromo ethnic group, many of whom are secessionists. Trying to halt the decline of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) regime, he quickly began a series of reforms, including freeing political prisoners, liberalizing the media, and recognizing the political opposition.
Ethiopia has a symbolic status in Africa as the continent’s only uncolonized country, so nothing that happens there is without significance. After the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, a Stalinist military regime headed by Mengistu Haile Mariam ruled until 1991. A 15-year civil war followed, after which the EPRDF, founded by Meles Zenawi, took power. The EPRDF is a coalition of ethnically based parties dominated by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which follows a reformist and authoritarian neo-Marxism.
The regime’s dictatorial tendencies, long masked by economic vigor (growth has averaged 7 percent since 2005), became apparent after Meles’s death in 2012, when the government began to crack under the pressure of regional disparities. Ethno-regionalists among its leaders pretended to back democratization to win the sympathy of the international community, hiding their intention to help themselves to a share of a rapidly growing economy. Western admirers of Ethiopia’s “economic miracle” closed their eyes to what Meles himself had called a Bonapartist system.
An attempt to extend the urban perimeter of Addis Ababa provoked uprisings by Oromo living in the area around the capital; smallholder farmers there feared that land speculation would only benefit the Tigrayan politicians of the TPLF. From November 2015, the riots spread throughout the Oromia region, home to 35 percent of the population, and have continued, with hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests. The Oromo were suspected of being responsible for the June 23, 2018, bombing of a rally in Addis Ababa, which Abiy narrowly escaped, though two people were killed and more than 150 injured.
Switching Arab sides
This renewed tension coincided with a major financial crisis. Foreign direct investment rose from $1 billion to $4 billion between 2012 and 2018, while the trade deficit grew from $3 billion to $14 billion. This was partly caused by a muddled and costly development policy, with enormous construction projects such as hydroelectric dams on the Blue Nile. Massive investment also increased the trade deficit by boosting imports. The EPRDF regime began to fall apart, and by the time Abiy came to power, its survival was threatened.
In parallel with his domestic reforms, Abiy launched a diplomatic offensive on the most controversial subjects in the region: the utilization of Nile waters and peace with Eritrea, whose independence, gained in 1993 and strengthened by the 1998-2000 war, had cut Ethiopia off from the sea. On June 10 he promised Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that Ethiopia would not use any of Egypt’s share of Nile waters. Ethiopia had until then been close to Qatar, but this gesture signaled its switch to the Saudi-United Arab Emirates camp, where Egypt has a central role. On June 15 the UAE crown prince Muhammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan confirmed a $3 billion gift to Ethiopia.