A brief history of modern Ethiopia

The image you see before you is Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018, winning the Nobel Peace prize in December 2019, after resolving the nations conflict with neighboring Eritrea. This moment was seen throughout the world as a sign that some of the conflicts in Africa were beginning to end, and Ethiopia was on track of becoming a prosperous nation. However, this hope would soon fade, as two civil wars would end up raging the country, the Tigray War, and the War in Amhara, both of which combined killed over 700,000 people, and with a third and forth on the horizon. So, how could this happen?

But in order to understand how this happened, we need to understand the ethnic groups of Ethiopia. Ethiopia, also known as the roof of Africa, is filled with mountains, which divided parts of the region with others. This would lead to several ethnic groups forming in modern day Ethiopia, such as the Oromo, the largest, the Amhara, the second largest, the Tigray, in the far north of the country, the Somali, in the east of the country, and a dozen others. This would make it hard for a single country to control the whole region and prevent insurgencies continuing.

In the 1100’s, the Amhara region formed the Ethiopian empire, which would continue lasting until 1975, when the Communist Derg overthrew them. While for most of it’s history, it was concentrated in the Amhara region, until Emperor Menelik II began a massive conquest to take the rest of the Horn of Africa. The conquests lasted at least 25 years, and caused the deaths of 6 million people, but did result in Ethiopia getting it’s modern borders. However, that did mean that there were several ethnic groups controlled by Ethiopia that were not happy about their new occupation.

While this was all happening, the Scramble of Africa was happening, as several nations began trying to claim as much as the continent as possible. With the opening on the Suez Canal, the Red Sea was especially important, as the powers of Europe wanted that to keep an eye on the canal, and influence the shipping through it. And one of these nations was Italy, which had begun conquering Eritrea, the nation north of Ethiopia, starting with the port of Assab. After that, the Italians attempted to conquer Ethiopia, but, after the Battle of Adwa, they had to retreat. However, they hadn’t given up on their ambitions, and, in 1935, during the Second Italo Ethiopian war, they succeeded. However, during World War 2, British forces, with the help of Ethiopian guerilla fighters, the country was liberated, and Italy lost Italian East Africa.

After World War 2, the Allied powers had to figure out what to do with Italy’s former colonies. In the end, they decided that Italy could keep Libya for some time, and they would jointly administer Somalia with the UN. However, Ethiopia would administer Eritrea, until they could organize a government and give them independence. So, Ethiopia took control of Eritrea. However, Ethiopia wasn’t content of just letting Eritrea independent, and Emperor Haile Selassie wanted to expand the empire, so, in 1952, Ethiopia annexed Eritrea. However, the Eritreans were infuriated, and began an insurgency, beginning the Eritrean War of Independence in 1963, which ended in 1991.

However, the monarchy in Addis Ababa had other problems also. After decades of oppression, the Oromo region had enough, and began an insurgency in 1973, which is still ongoing. Also, there were several other ethnic group insurgencies beginning. However, worst of all, the communist Workers Party of Ethiopia was gaining popularity, and calling for the monarchy’s removal. The Ethiopian Monarchy failed to deal with this, and, after a coup in 1974, the Ethiopian Empire fell, and the Communists set up their new Junta, the Derg, to rule the nation.

However, the Derg turned out to be even worse than their predecessors, as they began the Red Terror against “Counter revolutionaries”, which killed over 1 million people. On top of that, due to mismanagement by the communist regime, from 1983-1985, there is a massive famine that killed 2 million more people. So, resistance against the government increases, especially along the ethnic minorities like the Somali, the Oromo, and the Tigray. In 1978, fellow communist nation Somalia invaded the Somali regions of Ethiopia in the Ogaden war. The Ethiopian army ends up pushing them back, which incites a rebellion in the Somali Army in 1978, beginning the Somali Civil War. However, this meant that, with the army in the west of the country, the rebellions continued to grow. In 1987, the Derg established the Peoples Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. However, the rebellions continued to increase in power, as the Derg’s regime began to decline.

One of the main rebels against the Derg was the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, or TPLF, which was based in the north of the country, and was one of the most powerful rebel organizations in the country. By this point, it was the 1990’s, and the Soviet Union, Ethiopia’s main backer, was beginning to fall apart. The TPLF realized that this was their only chance to end the Derg regime once and for all. So, they teamed with several other rebel organizations to form the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, or EPDRF. With this, the EPDRF began a march to Addis Ababa, which caused the Derg to collapse, and it’s leader, Mengistu Haile Mariam, fled to Zimbabwe, where he STILL is residing in.

After the fall of the Derg, the TPLF set up a transitional government, and then proceeded to set up an federation of states based on ethnicity, to prevent another insurgency from happening. However, now, the Tigray were in full control of Ethiopia, and began to implement their rule throughout the country.

However, the TPLF had a problem. After the fall of the Derg, Eritrea declared independence, which meant that Ethiopia, one of the largest nations in Africa in terms of population, had no coastline. Also, in Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki, the leader of the gruella organization that gained independence from Ethiopia, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, or the PFDJ, had seized power, and was setting up a North Korea Style dictatorship in Eritrea. However, during the war, the PFDJ was friendly with the TPLF, as they had a common enemy, so Eritrea decided to return the favor by granting Ethiopia access to the Port of Assab. However, there were still problems.

In the beginning of the new decade, relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea prospered, but soon began to crumble. Apparently, there were several disputed regions along the border from colonial times, especially around the town of Badme, because it was hard to map up in the mountains. Eritrea and Ethiopia each claimed all of the territories, and neither side would budge. On top of that, in 1997, Eritrea began a trade war with Ethiopia. Finally, in 1998, Eritrea invaded Ethiopia, beginning the Eritrean Ethiopian War. For the next 2 years, brutal war would destroy the region, but in 2000, Ethiopia secured all the disputed areas, and was preparing to advance into Eritrea proper. However, the UN, seeing the destruction, negotiated a peace agreement in Algiers in 2000, ending the war after 100,000 casualties, and giving most of the occupied territory to Eritrea. Ethiopia was not accepting this, and continued to occupy their territories until 2018.

In 2018, due to protests, and other controversies, like meeting Mengistu Hallie Miriam, the former leader of the Derg, in Zimbabwe, Hailemariam Desalegn, the president of Ethiopia, resigned, and, got replaced by Abiy Ahmed, a member of the Ethiopian parliament. Abiy Ahmed was both Oromo and Amhara, so that gained him large support from the two biggest ethnic groups. Soon, he began releasing some political prisoners, and making democratic reforms. It appeared that Ethiopia was slowly beginning to transition to a full democracy.

Finally, during the summer of 2018, Abiy Ahmed finally began negotiations with the Eritrean government to return the remaining occupied territories by Ethiopia. In July, Abiy Ahmed met with Isaias Afwerki in Asmara, the Eritrean Capital, and returned occupied territories, and established diplomatic relations. This was praised around the world, and earned Abiy Ahmed his Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

Finally, Abiy Ahmed decided to completely reshape Ethiopian politics, by forming a new political party, and replace the EPDRF, which had been in power since the downfall of the Derg in 1991. So, in 2019, he announced the creation of a new populist party, the Prosperity Party, and dissolved the EPDRF, and focusing on unity, rather than ethnic federations. With that, the parties that used to be part of the EPDRF Coalition. However, this caused a huge problem.

While all this was happening, the TPLF, the main party in the EPDRF, and still a powerful militant organization, was slowly getting angrier and angrier at Abiy Ahmed’s reforms, especially with Ethiopia making peace with Eritrea, because they believed that the occupied territory was rightful Tigrayan land. The creation of the Prosperity Party was the final straw, as it seemed like the TPLF was losing their power over Ethiopia. So, during 2020, tensions between Addis Ababa and the TPLF in Mekelle(The capital of Tigray). Finally, in November 2020, the Tigray region rebelled, beginning the Tigray War.

The Tigray War would end up becoming the second deadliest war in the 21st Century(The deadliest is the Syrian Civil War). Initially, the TPLF suffered losses, as the Ethiopian Army, with the help of Eritrea, overran Tigray, and took Mekelle. The Ethiopian’s decided to make the Amharan militia, Fano, occupy Ethiopian occupied Tigray. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian and Eritrean forces committed massacres and other atrocities in Tigray. By mid 2021, it appeared that the Ethiopians had full control over Tigray. However, the TPLF soon conducted a massive offensive in Amhara, and began eyeing up marching on Addis Ababa, in a Fall of the Derg style offensive. Finally, in the fall, the TPLF, with the help with the OLA, which were still continuing their insurgency, began a massive offensive towards Addis Ababa, and were within 100 miles. However, regional militias teamed up to defend the capital, and pushed the TPLF back. By now, it was 2022, and the war had been going for 2 bloody years. Finally, the TPLF and Ethiopian government met up and signed a peace agreement, ending the Tigray War. All in all, 600,000 people had been killed.

Despite that, the conflict in Ethiopia is still not over. After the Tigray War, the Ethiopian government asked Fano, the Amharan militia occupying swaths of Tigray, if they could withdraw and return the territory to the Ethiopian government. However, Fano obviously replied no, and rebelled against the Ethiopian military in May 2023. Most of the fighting has been concentrated around the city of Gondar, with over 400,000 people. Reportedly over 100,000 have been already killed.

Even after all that, there is a chance that Abiy Ahmed might start a third war with Eritrea, as Ethiopia still has no sea access, and the issue is growing more dire by the day, as Ethiopia is the second most populated nation in Africa, and one of the most in the world. In 2018, Ethiopia built a railroad to Djibouti, which is where 95% of Ethiopia’s imports and exports go through, but it is not nearly enough access to the sea, because, if the railroad was destroyed, or taken by rebels, Ethiopia would be cut off from the rest of the world. In 2024, they tried to make a deal with Somaliland, a separatist nation in northern Somalia, to get access to the port of Berbera in exchange for recognition and Somaliland getting partial ownership of Ethiopian airlines. However, the deal didn’t go through. With options running out, it appears that, if their situation doesn’t improve, they might forcibly retake Eritrea, and regain their coastline after losing it in the 1990’s. In late 2023, Ethiopian troop movements were reported near the border with Eritrea, with as nearly as 100,000 troops there. On top of that, a large bulk of the troops are near Asmara, the Eritrean capital, and Assab, Eritrea’s biggest port. It appears as if Abiy Ahmed is really going to do anything just to get access to the sea.

And there is a chance that there might be a fourth war with Egypt. For all of history, Egypt used the Nile River to their advantage as much as possible, from it’s seasonal floods improving agriculture, to building dams to provide electricity, making the Nile the core of Egyptian civilization. However, other nations use the Nile too, despite Egypt acting often as though they own the river. For example, Ethiopia has waterfalls along the Blue Nile, where it originates at Lake Tana in Ethiopia that, using a generator, could make electricity. So, in 2011, Ethiopia announced the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD. However, Egypt fears that this will block the all important Nile floods, and demanded Ethiopia stopped building the dam. However, in 2020, Ethiopia finished, and began filling up the dam. With this dangerous prospect, Egyptian president Sisi threatened to send F-16 fighter jets to destroy the dam, bringing Ethiopia, and the rest of the African continent, into, quite possibly, the deadliest war in the 21st Century.

In conclusion, Ethiopia has gone in a short time from great promise to total ruin. Although the reign of Abiy Ahmed was met with anticipation, as it was predicted to have an economic miracle, and become one of the most powerful nations in the world, the past 5 years have shown otherwise, due to massive ethnic tensions and policies lasting for generations. Now, the Ethiopian economic miracle is further away than ever, and what once was a bringer of peace has been involved in two bloody civil wars, and preparing to fight two other nations, in a huge tragedy.

And that is how a Nobel Peace Prize Winner started 2 wars.