Unresolved ethnic grievances have always led to violence throughout history, no matter how long they stay dormant. And ashes, they say, sometimes, cover some hot spots that can trigger fires and flames, as so do, ethnic disparities and injustices in countries.
They often lead to a breakdown of systems and governance followed by violence and eventually a breakdown of countries into their constituent ethnic groups. Former Yugoslavia is generally taken as an example of one of the most recent countries which broke down into its component parts through a violent process.
The Soviet Union also broke down into many parts although the process there was not violent as the center understood it would lose more than keeping together its varied component communities, although the consequences of such breakdown in the Soviet Union is currently manifested in the Russian/Ukraine war.
If the leadership of a country which consists of nations brought together in the past through force are not wise enough to keep them together through creation of a nation state where all are equal and where one group does not dominate the others, it is bound to confront an opposition and once that opposition turns to violence, it can lead to a breakdown and the seeking by the aggrieved parties of total independence.
Ethiopia is one such country that was created through conquests. It was kept together as a country through an imperial system which was replaced by a military dictatorship, followed by a dominant ethnic group in an ethnic-based federal system, held together always by military force.
This was replaced by the current continuing federal government, which put in power the largest ethnic group in the country, in the hope this would calm the boiling ethnicity in the country. In the beginning, everything went as well as it could.
The new administration freed all political prisoners, brought back exiled opposition groups, made peace with one of its arch enemies, Eritrea. It earned the Prime Minister a Nobel Peace Price in a short period of about a year. He came in 2018 and got the price the next year in 2019.
Unfortunately, he started a war the next year in 2020 with one of the ethnic states of the country, Tigray, which is reported to have killed people in the hundreds of thousands if not in the millions. Nobody knows exactly how many people died directly through bullets or through the aftereffects of war through hunger, diseases, and through shear fatigue, specially the old, the young, the mothers and those who had physical disabilities.
The war with Tigray was followed by the continuing war with the Amhara State, where again thousands are being reported to have died so far. The Benishangul-Gumuz is not at peace and there are wars in the Oromia State, where violence dating back to decades has been going on.
The state against state wars in the country have increased.The Somali and Afar States have been at war with each other over claims and counterclaims of land, and the Somali/Oromia states are not at ease. The Ahara and the Tigrayans have been fighting each other over the past three years while there is no love lost between the Amhara and the Oromo who are also fighting each other while all of them are fighting the Ethiopian state.
The push by the Oromo into Somali territories is not liked by Somalis and could trigger another violent war at any time, especially in the Faafan province, with Jigjiga as its capital. Somalis are not happy that Dire dawa is already removed from its territory, as a federally administered city instead of being the Somali city it was always.
This has tarnished the Nobel Peace Price earned by the Prime Minister. It has also led to a weakening of the economy, allowing the world’s multilateral financial institutions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to intervene and promise to support the country financially through conditioned financing. One of such conditions included the devaluation of the Ethiopian Birr, moving away Monetary control of the Central bank of the country, the National Bank of Ethiopia, and bringing in market forces to determine the price of the currency.
It all looks good on appearance and at first sight but instead of leading the country to stability, it may lead to more instability. All the promised funds would not be disbursed at once but would be calibrated to conditions that the Ethiopian government should meet on an agreed schedule. This may lead to poverty, inability of people, and especially the large poor populations of the country, to be able to acquire or buy what they need to survive in terms of food, shelter, clothing and even for those with some capital to import and build houses or capital goods and equipment. Its export revenues would certainly not cover its import bills.
As a pivotal nation in the region, Ethiopia would have to maintain sufficiently large armed services. Would she be able to do so, with an economy that is bound to falter or with the continuing violence in the country? This is bound to become more complicated, as its foreign policy has, lately, been making all the wrong moves.
It has antagonized practically every country in the region from Eritrea to Djibouti to Somalia. It is the countries that it needed most to be on its side. They are the countries with whom it should have formed the Horn of Africa States as an economically integrated region. It also antagonized Egypt which is dependent on the Blue Nile waters as a source of most of its freshwater.
But more than that, it has joined the BRICS and appears to have taken sides, when it should have stayed a neutral state in the uncertain world of today. It has, therefore, in one stroke offended the countries that have always been on its side through out the past hundred and fifty years, allowing it to even expand to its current geographical space.
Relying on military might, as it did in the past, to suppress the many ethnic groups of the country, may not work in the future. It is still unable to pacify Tigray and the Amhara War. The Benishangul unrest and the other conflicts in the country, are all going on, leading to a divided nation, which may not meet all the stringent conditions of the IMF and the World Bank.
All of these and many others, point to the need for Ethiopia to change course, and perhaps the easiest one, which is of its own making is to walk back away from the MoU it signed with one of the regions of Somalia and the fantasy that it should have access to a sea. Although it may not remove the hostilities created, it would reduce the impact and the drain of the worsened relationship with Somalia.
It should also abandon the unfeasible and unreasonable desire to have access to a sea. No country in the region will give up its territorial lands and waters to another, even through long term rents, which represent a stealthy way to acquire a sea connection. The declarations of the Ethiopian Prime Minister over various media outlets perfectly make it clear what he wants for his country, and this is not possible, at least, in these present times. The Prime Minister could have negotiated better terms through an integrated regional economic system, but unfortunately, he only made matters harder. But a walk back from this unwarranted overt want to have access to a sea, would certainly ease some of his problems.
This would enable him to deal with the other internal issues with more concentration, not through force but through reasoning and common sense. The best way to deal with a fellow human being is to treat him as you would expect him to treat you. He should make peace in his country in the place of exporting violence and chaos to others. He should also make peace with all the neighboring countries and should learn to deal with some countries like the United Arab Emirates with its paycheck diplomacy at arms length.
He should learn from the mistakes of the Ethiopian administration before him, which was marked by domination by one ethnic group in both the public and private affairs of the country. He should not allow his ethnicity to do the same although it is currently apparent he did not deviate from that wrong path. He could certainly move away from the policies he followed over the past five years and go back to his first year in office and learn lessons from there.
