The Conflict in Tigray and its Challenges for Sustainable Peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia
- December 7, 2021
- Posted by: rsispostadmin
- Categories: IJRISS, International Relations, Social Science
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue XI, November 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186
The Conflict in Tigray and its Challenges for Sustainable Peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia
Aklilu Gebretinsae Andemikael, PhD Candidate
Department of International Relations, School of International and Public Affairs, Jilin University, People’s Republic of China
Abstract: This research article argues that a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Tigray is crucial for the continuation of the peace process, and is decisively linked with the attainment of sustainable peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia. For the conflict has an intra-state and inter-state dimension, any would be solution has for all intents and purposes to be an all-inclusive and sustainable. The TPLF has become ‘mutually exclusive’ with all participants in the conflict namely the Federal Government of Ethiopia, the Amhara Regional State Government as well as the Government of the State of Eritrea. By identifying the genesis, development and the substantive reasons for the continuation of the conflict, this research concludes that the preconditions for sustainable peace are unfortunately missing.
Key Words: Eritrea; Ethiopia; peace process; security dilemma; sustainable peace; Tigray
I. THE GENESIS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONFLICT
About the contagious nature of domestic conflicts, Nagar and Paterson warn that there is a possibility of a spillover of conflicts into neighboring countries. And for that reason, it is far-fetched to attempt to accomplish peace building in one country in isolation (D. Nagar and M. Paterson, 2012). The genesis of the current conflict in Northern Ethiopian region of Tigray is multi-pronged and can be seen from two levels: an intrastate (as a domestic issue of Ethiopia) and an interstate (as a conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia). In order to understand the aspect of intra-state level source of the conflict, there is a need to examine the state-society relations in the history of Ethiopia. Ethiopia, after its formation in the second half of the 19th Century, the country had been under consecutive unitary systems. And those unitary governments were allegedly dominated by the Amhara ethnic group. After the change of Government in 1991, the TPLF-led regime came with a new constitution that endorsed an ethnic-based federal arrangement ‘as a panacea to a century-long contesting identity of the Ethiopian state.’ Because of that, the former provinces in Ethiopia were restructured according to the much-contested linguistic identities.
Though a unitary and highly centralized system was not a solution to the nation-building and state-building equation of the enormously heterogeneous Ethiopian state, neither did the ethnic-based federal system solve the century-long problems of the conflict-ridden Ethiopian state. As the proponents of ethnic-based federalism would advocate, such an arrangement might have alleviated some of the problems. For example, some ethnic groups have been able to express their cultural
