JBS LIVE
Once a formidable force that commanded the respect of the US, the Ethiopian army has suffered such heavy losses on the front lines that the government has taken the extraordinary step of calling on ordinary citizens to join the war against the Tigrayan rebels.
It marks a dramatic change in the military’s fortunes.
A year ago it ousted the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) as the ruling party in the northern Tigray region – now the group’s fighters are taking towns on the way to the capital, Addis Ababa.
“TPLF fighters first bled the army through guerrilla warfare in Tigray by carrying out hit-and-run attacks,” US-based Horn of Africa analyst Faisal Roble explains.
“Then they went into combat to finish it off.”
However, Achamyeleh Tamiru – an Ethiopian economist and political commentator – believes the TPLF’s advances are only “temporary”.
“Ethiopians from all walks of life are rising to defend and salvage Ethiopia,” he said.
The tactics of the TPLF fighters remind former BBC Tigrinya editor Samuel Ghebhrehiwet of his life as a young Eritrean guerrilla who, alongside Tigrayans, fought Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam regime until it was overthrown in 1991.
They were “lightly armed, highly agile, living on survival food, and showing deep resilience and determination”.
Eritrea went on to win its independence, while the TPLF took power in Ethiopia – though its political dominance came to an end in 2018 following mass protests.
Its leaders retreated to Tigray from where the group fired the first shots in the current conflict in early November 2020 by launching an assault on a federal military base with the support of loyalists in the army – including commanders and soldiers – who then defected to its ranks.
Not only was a huge stockpile of weapons seized, but high-ranking officers and soldiers who resisted were killed or captured in their thousands.
“The night-time attack on the base has effectively created a vacuum that literally makes Ethiopia without a federal army,” Mr Achamyeleh said.
However, the military – with crucial help from the Eritrean army, and forces and militias from Ethiopia’s Amhara region – overcame the setback, launching air strikes and a ground offensive that led to the TPLF being dislodged from power in Tigray in under a month.
But, Mr Samuel said, as they committed widespread atrocities against civilians – including raping, killing and burning crops – Tigrayans from “all sections of society then joined the TPLF to protect their dignity”.
“Parents told their children: ‘Rather than die at home go and fight.’ It became a war between the people of Tigray and the army – not just a war between the TPLF and the army.”
According to Mr Roble, former generals who had retired or defected went to Tigray’s mountains and caves to form the Tigray Defence Force (TDF) as the TPLF’s military wing to ensure that the tens of thousands of new recruits were well organised.
“These generals felt it was their duty to protect the citizens of Tigray. With their inside knowledge of the army they plotted its defeat,” Mr Roble said.
With Tigrayan fighters now less than 300km (185 miles) from the capital, it is clear they currently have the upper hand over an army that used to be one of the most powerful in Africa, he says.
“Ethiopia was America’s number-one partner in the so-called war on terror in the Horn Africa, especially in Somalia, where it overthrew the Union of Islamic Courts[a precursor of al-Shabab]. America funded the military, armed it, and even supplied its soldiers with ready-to-eat meals,” Mr Roble said.
“And the African Union relied on it for peacekeeping missions, but Ethiopia itself is now unstable and its military is a shadow of its former self.”
