Tigray Needs Peace

Tank wreckage, Tigray, Ethiopia (Shutterstock)

Since the signing of the Pretoria Permanence Ceasefire Agreement in November 2022, Tigray’s political leaders have been a grievous disappointment.

That agreement brought one thing only: an end to the fighting. That is a modest but precious achievement. If war resumes, there will be no winners.

During the 24 months of war from 2020 to 2022, the people of Tigray showed astonishing resilience and unity in resisting the savage onslaught of the combined forces of the governments of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa and President Isayas Afewerki in Eritrea. Women and men from all walks of life joined together and collectively saved the Tigrayan people from annihilation. At the end of the war, the Tigray Defense Forces stood above politics.

The people of Tigray did not struggle against genocide and starvation to save the TPLF. But the leaders of the TPLF claimed the victory as theirs, and resumed their intriguing and corruption, subjugating the collective good of the people to their petty ambitions.

All hoped that Tigray’s generals would stay above the political fray. And for two years they did so. The unity of the army at least meant that political quarrels would not descend into violent conflict.

Today, some TDF generals are betraying that hope. They are taking sides in factional squabbles. They are threatening to take military action against one another. They are endangering the fragile peace and betraying the trust vested in them.

The threat of civil war in Tigray is particularly grievous because Ethiopia and Eritrea are at the brink of war. The two national armies have mobilized and are facing off along their common border. If they go to war, each will try to co-opt elements of the TDF to fight on their side. The front line will run through the towns and villages of Tigray.

Tigrayans have suffered far too much to be dragged into another war. They should not kill one another over their own politicians’ intrigues. Neither should they reduce themselves to proxies and fight the wars of others.

The biggest victims of any such war will be the civilian population. They are already desperately hungry, lacking essential medicine, their basic infrastructure wrecked, their children out of school. Humanitarian aid, already meager, has slowed to a trickle.

Tigray needs peace. The minimum responsibility of the TDF generals is to keep that peace. Anything else is a betrayal for which they will forever be judged.

Alex de Waal is a Research Professor at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, and leads the WPF research programs on African Peacemaking and Mass Starvation.

Considered one of the foremost experts on the Horn of Africa, his scholarly work and practice has also probed humanitarian crisis and response, human rights, pandemic disease, and conflict and peace-building. His latest book is New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease and its Alternatives. He is also author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine and The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa (Polity Press, 2015)

Following a fellowship with the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard (2004-06), he worked with the Social Science Research Council as Director of the program on HIV/AIDS and Social Transformation, and led projects on conflict and humanitarian crises in Africa (2006-09). During 2005-06, de Waal was seconded to the African Union mediation team for Darfur and from 2009-11 served as senior adviser to the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan. He was on the list of Foreign Policy’s 100 most influential public intellectuals in 2008 and Atlantic Monthly’s 27 “brave thinkers” in 2009 and is the winner of the 2024 Huxley Award of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Professor de Waal regularly teaches a course on Conflict in Africa at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. During this course, students should gain a deeper understanding of the nature of contemporary violent conflict in Africa. Students will be expected to master the key theoretical approaches to violence in Africa, and to become familiar with a number of important case studies. The focus is on the origins and nature of violence, rather than policy responses and solutions. The course is inter-disciplinary and involves readings in political science, international relations, and social anthropology, while also touching on economics, environmental studies, and history.

Mulugeta Gebrehiwot is a WPF-affiliated researcher. He served as the director of the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) of Addis Ababa University from 2009-2013. He holds PhD from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, an MA in Public administration from Harvard Kennedy School, an MBA from the Open University of London, a BA degree in International Management from the Amsterdam School of Business. As an expert in Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution with a focus on East Africa he has consulted with different international organizations including AU, DFID, DANIDA, ECOWAS, GIZ, IGAD, UNMIS, UNAMID, and UNDPA. He advised the AU and UN on mediation strategies and led the WPF program on African peace missions, 2015-17.