This memorial holds immense significance as it annually draws Ethiopians together in commemoration of their ancestors’ triumphant victory over colonial forces. Beyond national borders, people of African heritage worldwide resonate with Ethiopia’s profound sense of pride stemming from the historic triumph at Adwa.

Functioning as more than just a physical structure, the Adwa Victory Memorial stands as a powerful testament to triumph, courage, bravery, and collaborative effort, serving as an enduring source of inspiration for generations to come.

Historians agree Ethiopia’s victory over colonialism was a significant event in the 19th century. It featured widely and remained etched in the minds of many Africans spanning the continent and as far as the Caribbean. 

At the battle of Adwa, Ethiopians showcased unity and strategy, adeptly utilizing natural obstacles like water, and advanced fighting formations. The war planners garnered acclaim for overcoming a vastly superior military force. Ethiopia’s remarkable unity and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds inspired courage and aspirations among the colonized nations of Africa. It emerged as a beacon of liberation, serving as a model for other African nations suffering colonization.

Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed envisioned the construction of this memorial complex dedicated to one of Ethiopia’s most significant historical chapters. His aim was to immortalize the unification spirit that fostered a national narrative of resilience, emphasize the pivotal role played by the Battle of Adwa in fueling Pan-Africanism, and pay tribute to the unsung heroes of Adwa. Additionally, Addis Ababa stood to gain a repository of historical artifacts, further cementing its status as a hub of African pride.

In a recent statement, the Prime Minister commended Mayor Adanech Abiebie and her dedicated team for their relentless efforts in bringing a significant vision to life. The Mayor, deeply involved in the construction process, closely supervised the site and ensured alignment with the Prime Minister’s objectives, all while upholding the rich legacy of Adwa.

On February 19, 2024, the Mayor hosted a gratitude event to recognize the invaluable contributions of her administration, alongside consultants, historians, artists, engineers, construction companies, consulting firms, and various other stakeholders pivotal in the successful realization of this historic initiative.

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In his memoirs, Colonel Abraha recounts flying evacuation missions during a period of intense mortar shelling of the airport in Asmara. His former deputy Debela Tsegaye recounts the moment. “We were one of the last batch of airmen and general staff to be evacuated, if we had fallen to the enemy, we would have certainly been tortured and killed”.

Colonel Abraha was the last one out after getting his comrades to safety. He flew across the Red Sea in a MiG aircraft to Jizan, Saudi Arabia, where landed safely. He remained hidden there, avoiding extradition for a few years. The early 1990s were a dangerous period for members of Ethiopia’s armed forces, numbering some 300,000. Newly minted rebel governments in both Addis Ababa and Asmara had many veterans imprisoned, accusing them of serving the Dergue Regime. Suddenly demobilized in mass, many veterans struggled to find work, some becoming homeless and fleeing the country.

At the time both the governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia were on the hunt for veterans in exile. Saudi Arabia helped Colonel Abraha seek asylum in Denmark, where he remained. The Danish government would put him to work, gaining insights on Ethiopia’s Air Force, and particularly its largely Russian-made aircraft. These were early days since the fall of the Berlin Wall, ending the Cold war. NATO countries still retained a high interest in Russian military equipment. “They were interested in how we managed and how we operated antiquated Soviet Aircraft like the F5”, said Colonel Abraha, in one of his letters to his siblings back in Addis Ababa.

Born in the small town of Dabat, Gonder to a large family, Nebiyu strove to be top of his class graduating with full honors before joining the Air Force in 1970. There he excelled, finishing his training, and becoming one of the youngest airmen. In 1982, his aircraft was badly damaged by a surface to air fire. Sustaining a head injury and bleeding, Colonel Nebiyu managed to descend in altitude very quickly, regaining consciousness to fly back to base. His colleagues recall the time and his dedication to save his aircraft and himself, rather than fall into enemy hands.  

Tragically, after a prolonged battle with Parkinson’s Disease, Colonel Nebiyu Abraha passed away on November 20, 2023, leaving behind a legacy of bravery and altruism. He is survived by his brothers and sisters. In the words of Debela Tsegaye, “He was selfless and brave. I couldn’t imagine how we would still be alive today without him.” His body was rested at Holy Trinity Church in Addis Ababa on November 26, 2023.

Colonel Abraha’s life story serves as a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who strive for the greater good, even in the face of adversity. His memory will forever be etched in the annals of Ethiopia’s Air Force history, a beacon of inspiration for generations to come. 

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On November 9 and 10, 2020, less than a week after the attack on the Northern Command, the first big massacre of unarmed civilians took place in the small town of Mai-Kadra, near the border with Sudan. The various investigations range in their estimates between 600 and 1,100 deaths. The killings were perpetrated by TPLF-loyal militia members with rudimentary arms, accompanied by gun-carrying policemen, who were formally under the command of Tigray’s regional government, and who spent the morning of November 9 locating those to be killed. These were all or nearly all Amharas.

The Mai-Kadra massacre ended when various forces loyal to the Ethiopian constitution arrived. Reuters did a fairly thorough journalistic report, although it has been criticized for the testimonies about revenge killings coming from refugee camps in Sudan, full of escaped militia members and under TPLF control. Like countless other media throughout the war, Reuters also used a source exclusively interested in Tigrayan casualties, who is located in Belgium, though he used to reside in Tigray. His name is Jan Nyssen, a geography professor from Ghent University, who gives speeches at TPLF rallies and events, yet passes off his ‘research’ as neutral. We shall look more at his incredibly successful propaganda role in Part 3.

In general, TPLF-friendly analysts have glossed over their mis-prediction that Ethiopian military victory would lead to genocide, by going for a more expansive definition. Thus, in an interview eight days after the peace deal, Kjetil Tronvoll said: “Definition of genocide does not rely on numbers killed, but the intent behind why they were killed.”

If this is so, the Mai-Kadra massacre qualifies as genocide. Ethnonationalist extremists went from door to door to kill men and boys solely for being Amhara. The use of knives, machetes and rope is indeed reminiscent of the Rwandan genocide. So are the many incidents of Tigrayans who risked their lives by hiding their Amhara neighbors. This paper presents enough outrages to emotionally drain the reader without the need for personal closeups. War crimes, it cannot be repeated enough, occurred on both sides, having been widely reported in graphic detail, albeit mainly to attract audiences and score partisan points rather than to present evidence that can hold up in court. Suffice to note that, although Martin Plaut tried to obscure the culpability for some days, the atrocity in Mai-Kadra was thoroughly investigated on the ground, including by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, OHCHR. There is also abundant photographic and forensic evidence.

The Mai-Kadra massacre may have sought to turn the war into an ethnic one, sowing terror and provoking acts of revenge. Sadly, it had some success in the north-western corner of Ethiopia where Mai-Kadra is located, compounded by a brutal history in the pre-war years and a still-lingering territorial dispute, which will also be addressed in Part 3.

On November 13 and again on November 20, 2020, the TPLF fired missiles against two airports in Amhara Region, arguing that this was retaliation for air raids in Tigray, which the federal government, in turn, said were intended to blow up arms depots. Getachew Reda also threatened cross-border strikes into Eritrea, which were carried out on November 14 and 27, when multiple rockets hit the capital, Asmara. This internationalization of the conflict was condemned by Secretary Pompeo.

To read the full story of Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong: Click Here

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Ethiopia is being subjected to augmented political warfare that uses information warfare, coercive diplomacy, propaganda war, economic warfare, and kinetic operations to weaken the government and seed domestic uprising. For now, this has forced the government to temporarily cede Tigray to a non-state actor.

In the Tigray crisis, the Biden Administration and its European allies – with generous support from Egyptian, Tigrayan, and Kenyan military and intelligence institutions – have managed to bleed Ethiopia of financial and human resources; and then secure withdrawal of the Ethiopian military from large swathes of Tigray region. This validated the utility of an integrated political-military strategy that has been used against Xi Jinping and Bashar al-Assad, though it failed against the former and achieved limited success against the latter.

This integrated strategy combines information warfare (through media campaign using mainstream media), propaganda war (using non-media outlets like pundits and research institutes to show that a government is weak and the nation is about to fall unless the current leader is ousted), economic warfare (through withdrawal of international aid and threats of sanctions), and diplomatic warfare (which uses coercive diplomacy to cause isolation of a nation regionally and supra-regionally), as well as kinetic operations (using armed actors that are supported — and even supplied — by the West) to weaken a government and seed domestic uprising. Basically, this integrated political-military strategy is augmented political warfare that can be used to weaken the resolve of the targeted population, delegitimate its civil bureaucracy, and prime the targeted polity for regime change.

In Ethiopia and Syria, it has succeeded in forcing the governments to temporarily cede control of Tigray and Idlib to non-state actors. In China, it failed as Xi Jinping’s politburo came up with an ingenious counter-strategy rooted in political warfare and integrated defensive-offensive realism that tricked Americans to pay the Chinese to defeat Islamists in Xinjiang, weaken anti-CCP elements inside China, and help CCP eradicate extreme poverty in China while building a navy that is now the largest in the World.

Unexpected Outcome in Syria

The Arab Spring reached Syria in 2011 and the Democrat-led Obama administration and the State of Israel saw an opportunity to simultaneously oust the secular Bashar al-Assad from power and breakup the northern trunk of Iran’s Shiite bloc. Their plan was to arm so-called moderate Sunni militants and isolate Syria regionally and internationally through sanctions and diplomatic warfare, as well as create rebel zones out of reach of the Baath regime where American troops can be hosted to train, arm, and fight alongside local armed groups. Additionally, the plan called for Syrian soldiers to be enticed to defect and fight against the government. The plan did not succeed fully as only Idlib was ceded to the Syrian Salvation Government, which is an alliance of Turkish-backed Islamist militants, including the AlQaeda-affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that boasts of Uyghur Salafists. For Iran, it can boast of a victory as it has consolidated the Shiite bloc after gaining the upper hand in Iraq and Syria (with Russian military support), thus completing the northern Shiite land trunk that stretches from the Persian Gulf to Tartus. Most importantly, Iran now can deploy its expeditionary forces to the borders of Israel. This plan would later be used in Ethiopia, but focus would be on a region called Tigray, not the entire nation.

A Strategy made Official but XI Jinping invalidates it

The strategy of using armed non-state actors — backed by official statements and vocal support from Western institutions and governments — to bleed money and blood from a government and force withdrawal of government institutions, including military and civil bureaucracies, from an area of interest was initially developed by the American Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community (IC) to undermine Baathists in Syria. It was then retooled to undermine the Chinese government led by Xi Jinping.

In China, the strategy requires the overt use of international institutions (including humanitarian agencies and democracy advocacy institutions), Western mainstream media agencies, and armed Uyghur Islamists to force the PLA to cede areas in Xinjiang. In the covert front, it allows DoD and IC to seek corrupt military officers who can be bribed, or coopted, to undermine Beijing’s authority. Both the covert and overt fronts are to be supported with sanctions against Chinese officials and companies, as well as diplomatic maneuvering to get the European Union (EU) to reduce trade with China and instead push for sanctions against China at the United Nations (UN).

However, this strategy has been failing as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Xi Jinping came up with an ingenious counter-strategy. Among other things, the implementation of this counter-strategy in 2020 has led to imprisoning of Uyghur Islamists, unmasking of DoD-IC agents in China, enticement of American firms to invest in Xinjiang, punishment of Australia using bans and tariffs, and imposition of export controls to limit transfer of rare earth materials to the US, as well as leveraging of CCP’s influence in Wall Street to promote cash inflow into Beijing (from the United States) so as to shore up Chinese industrial capacity and reduce extreme poverty, while reducing (American) investments in America. Additionally, starting from 2012, Xi Jinping started military reforms that strengthened party control over military affairs, and purged the military of disloyal elements while several generals have been executed for disloyalty and corruption.

Unexpected Outcome in Syria

The Arab Spring reached Syria in 2011 and the Democrat-led Obama administration and the State of Israel saw an opportunity to simultaneously oust the secular Bashar al-Assad from power and breakup the northern trunk of Iran’s Shiite bloc. Their plan was to arm so-called moderate Sunni militants and isolate Syria regionally and internationally through sanctions and diplomatic warfare, as well as create rebel zones out of reach of the Baath regime where American troops can be hosted to train, arm, and fight alongside local armed groups. Additionally, the plan called for Syrian soldiers to be enticed to defect and fight against the government. The plan did not succeed fully as only Idlib was ceded to the Syrian Salvation Government, which is an alliance of Turkish-backed Islamist militants, including the AlQaeda-affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that boasts of Uyghur Salafists. For Iran, it can boast of a victory as it has consolidated the Shiite bloc after gaining the upper hand in Iraq and Syria (with Russian military support), thus completing the northern Shiite land trunk that stretches from the Persian Gulf to Tartus. Most importantly, Iran now can deploy its expeditionary forces to the borders of Israel. This plan would later be used in Ethiopia, but focus would be on the northern Tigray region, which was primed to be an anti-Ethiopia and anti-Eritrea regime wedged between the two, a permanent destabilizing proxy.

A Strategy Officialized but Xi Jinping Invalidates it

The strategy of using armed non-state actors — backed by official statements and vocal support from the United States Government (USG) and European governments — to bleed money and blood from a government and force withdrawal of government institutions, including military and civil bureaucracies, from an area of interest was initially developed by the American Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community (IC) to undermine Baathists in Syria. It was then retooled to undermine the Chinese government led by Xi Jinping.

In China, the strategy requires the overt use of international institutions (including humanitarian agencies and democracy advocacy institutions), Western mainstream media agencies, and armed Uyghur Islamists to force the PLA to cede areas in Xinjiang. In the covert front, it allows DoD and IC to seek corrupt military officers who can be bribed, or coopted, to undermine Beijing’s authority. Both the covert and overt fronts are to be supported with sanctions against Chinese officials and companies, as well as diplomatic maneuvering to get the European Union (EU) to reduce trade with China and instead push for sanctions against China at the United Nations (UN).

However, this strategy has been failing as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Xi Jinping came up with an ingenious counter-strategy. Among other things, the implementation of this counter-strategy in 2020 has led to imprisoning of Uyghur Islamists, unmasking of DoD-IC agents in China, enticement of American firms to invest in Xinjiang, punishment of Australia using bans and tariffs, and imposition of export controls to limit transfer of rare earth materials to the US, as well as leveraging of CCP’s influence in Wall Street to promote cash inflow into Beijing (from the United States) so as to shore up Chinese industrial capacity and reduce extreme poverty, while reducing (American) investments in America. Additionally, starting from 2012, Xi Jinping started military reforms that strengthened party control over military affairs, and purged the military of disloyal elements while several generals have been executed for disloyalty and corruption.

On the economic front, China spearheaded the formation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which gravitated key American allies like Japan, Australia, South Korea, and New Zealand, along with most South-East Asian nations towards China. RCEP is the largest trading bloc in the world, and its pillared by China. RCEP not only allows CCP to undermine American dominance in East Asia (which is now the Economic epicenter of the world), it also allows CCP to isolate or coerce India to toe Beijing’s line. After signing RCEP, Xi Jinping proposed to Joe Biden that China would like to independently join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the economic bloc that spans East Asia and North America. If America refuses to rejoin the TPP and China joins it (TPP), then China would dominate both RCEP and TPP, effectively ending American economic dominance in China’s near abroad (i.e East Asia) and in the American heartland (of Continental Americas). This shows how the plan by USG to undermine the anchor state of the East Asian region failed.

China would dominate both RCEP and TPP, effectively ending American economic dominance in China’s near abroad (i.e East Asia) and in the American heartland (of Continental Americas).

In China, the DoD-IC strategy — along with other strategies including Trump’s trade war — clearly failed as CCP had even convinced European governments to not come together as a European bloc to negotiate with CCP or condemn its activities. This inability to create a European bloc allied to USG that could counter CCP really distressed the West as some felt that the Western Alliance was coming apart. To make matters worse, Xi Jinping had won the trade war by mid-2020 and Donald Trump would later lose the elections, while Hong Kong folded into CCP’s arms. However, in November 2020, a crisis in Ethiopia would salvage the alliance and make it speak in unison.

Tried on Xi Jinping of China, Used on Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia

On the eve of the 2020 US elections, fighting broke out in Tigray region between the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF). This fighting would provide an opportunity for USG and EU to undermine 3 governments — the Government of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia — using a single non-state actor, the TPLF. The strategy used against Bashar al-Assad and Xi Jinping would be retooled and be used against the Government of Ethiopia (GoE). The first salvo was a barrage of influence operations, mainly through information operations, that maligned GoE and drove a wedge between Ethiopia and the Occident.

These influence operations lanced the information and propaganda wars that the Biden Administration would wage against the Government of Abiy Ahmed. These operations were also foundational to waging economic warfare, which has been executed through withdrawal of international aid, disinvestments, and threats of sanctions. Diplomatic warfare has been more subtle so as to allow USG, EU, Egypt, and Sudan to cooperate to try to isolate Ethiopia and Eritrea. As expected, the key domain of this conflict has been kinetic operations where TPLF has enjoyed open support from the West — mostly in form of supportive official statements from USG, UK, and some European governments. Even so, have these operations and the overall strategy managed to weaken GoE and seed domestic uprising? This question can be related to another interesting question:

Did the USG and some European governments pay off some ENDF commanders to surrender or betray their troops with a promise that their captured soldiers will be treated well?

https://geopoliticspress.medium.com/how-a-political-military-strategy-designed-to-undermine-xi-jinping-was-used-to-undermine-the-41d68befcd61

If this happened, then the payment was done through third-parties including remittance companies and research agencies that transferred the money through automated settlement systems to obscure paper trails. Even so, why would the West want TPLF to hold Ethiopian soldiers as PoWs? According to Geopolitics.Press, TPLF needs Ethiopian PoWs so as to force the Ethiopian Government to allow for aid to be flown into Tigray, or else TPLF will broadcast live video feeds of starving PoWs and shame GoE, especially after Western mainstream media beams these images to a global audience. Another simpler explanation for taking Ethiopian PoWs is to use them as bargaining tools to get GoE to release Tigrayan soldiers and personalities who have been arrested starting from November 2020.

In the Horn of Africa, the strategy that had been tried on the anchor state of East Asia would be used against the anchor state of the region, Ethiopia. All the same, how was a cohesive multi-pronged operation used against the Government of Ethiopia across the domains of economic, information, diplomatic, and kinetic warfare?

According to Geopolitics.Press, these operations are run from a single node, the command-and-control fusion center (C2FC), which has delegated some of its tasks to disparate subsidiary fusion cells that enjoy some degree of operational autonomy but organizational dependence on the fusion center. For these operations to succeed, USG would require regional buy-ins, principally due to need of hosting fusion cells near the theater of operations and securing routes for exfiltrating agents and sending money to allied agents and armed actors. For the war in Syria, USG and EU had Turkey, Israel, and Jordan as regional allies. For the current Ethiopian crisis, USG and EU has Kenya, Sudan, and Egypt as allies, but most of the regional fusion cells are based in Kenya, where they work with the Kenya Defence Force and Kenyan National Intelligence Service to execute information warfare. 

A good portion of the media as well as activist humanitarians engaged in narrative manipulation and information warfare waged against Addis Ababa during the conflict with the TPLF emanated from Nairobi. This has caused furore in the Kenyan diplomatic corps and civilian bureaucracy who want Kenya to maintain fraternal relations with Ethiopia, while others fear that hostility to Ethiopia is driven by pernicious interests by parties at odds with the Kenyan people. Apart from information warfare, are there other kinds of operations that are run from Kenya? This will be answered in the next part which may be published on the website.

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Perhaps the biggest economic topic in Ethiopia today is foreign currency. Sadly, much of the discussion around it is low quality. Instead of reasoning from first principles, people drown in jargon and misunderstood theories: inflation, socialism, neoliberalism, colonialism, IMF,  China, bla bla bla. Whether the motivations are naivete or special interests, the result is many strongly held but incoherent beliefs. To navigate this, let’s be guided by this (perhaps apocryphal) quote from the great physicist Richard Feynman: “If you can’t explain something to a child, there’s a chance you don’t understand it well”. So don’t let any expert tell you: “it’s too complex, don’t try to understand, just believe my prediction”. In that spirit, dear reader, please leave your isms and schisms at the door and join me in this ELI5 version of the problem of foreign currency in Ethiopia.

Notes: 

1. In this post, we will talk about US Dollars as the “foreign” currency, but all of it applies equally to  Euros or any freely exchanged and widely used currency.
2. Feedback is welcome. If there are factual errors, please let me know and I will correct them. If you have a solid counter-argument to any point made herein, feel free to comment here or contact me on Twitter, and I will respond and update the post (with credit!).

Two markets

How much is one US Dollar worth in Ethiopian Birr? Officially the price is pegged, currently at around 55 ETB per USD. But if an ordinary person, let’s call him Abebe, simply goes to his bank and asks to buy 1 dollar for 55 birr, they will say no. There is a limited supply of dollars.  Ok how about 56, 57, …? Nope. Now what if at the same time, another customer, let’s call her Berhane, has a dollar and she’s willing to sell it for 56? Naturally, the bank should be happy to buy that dollar at 56 and sell it to Abebe at 57. The buyer, the seller, and the bank would be happy. Problem solved! Actually no, by law, the bank is not allowed to do that. It must sell only to approved buyers at the official price and if that means those two customers go home unsatisfied, so be it. 

So what is the alternative? Abebe and Berhane could meet privately, find a mutually agreeable price and exchange. This is called the parallel market (also known as the “black” market).   Of course, even though it’s a private transaction, just like when people buy and sell eggs or bread or whatever, information gets around and a market price emerges. These days it is apparently around 105 ETB per USD. No one is forcing this price, it’s just a rough average of a lot of private transactions. In each case,  the buyer and seller get what they need. Problem solved! Actually no, by law Abebe and Berhane are not allowed to do that.

So we have two markets: the official one where the price is pegged by law, and relatively few people can transact.  And the “parallel” market where the price is voluntary but it is illegal.   

Mind the gap

Having two markets would be no big deal if they were reasonably close. Even in free market prices, there are gaps due to distance, convenience, time delays, etc.  But in this case, one price is almost double the other! This is an extreme gap by historical standards, a structural gap created by a legal barrier between the two markets. Let’s examine how this barrier affects different people.  

There are two groups, buyers (who have birr and want dollars) and sellers (who have dollars and want birr). 

First consider the sellers. What brings dollars into Ethiopia? Roughly: 

• Remittances: $6B/yr
• Foreign investment: $4B/yr
• Exports: $4B/yr
• International aid: $3B/yr
• Tourism: $0.4B/year

So anyone involved in those activities using the peg is getting 55 instead of 105. If an exporter sells coffee abroad, and brings back $1, they are getting half as many birr that trickle back to pay farmers, transportation etc. In other words, it’s like there’s a 50% tax on exports. Similarly if an investor wants to bring $1M into Ethiopia they are getting the equivalent of 50% tax on their investment before they even hire their first employee or lay the first brick.  Ditto for remittances, if a diaspora Ethiopian sends money to family in Ethiopia at the official rate, 50% tax. For visitors, it’s like they are paying double for everything they consume in Ethiopia. Of course, it’s not literally a tax. But with the peg, the only choice is to pay 50% or not do the activity at all. In other words it’s just like a tax. And whenever something is taxed, at the margin, the tax can be the difference between an activity being feasible or not, which means the volume of that activity is less than it would be without the tax.

Now, having left ideology at the door, we won’t assume taxes are automatically good or bad. Instead, let’s ask what are the costs and benefits. We know the cost: it reduces legal exports, investment, remittances and to a lesser extent tourism. What or who does it benefit? 

The buyers of course. Those who get dollars at the pegged rate. To get legal dollars, you need a “letter of credit”, which allows the bank to take your birr and give you dollars to use abroad. This permission goes to the government itself and to private imports prioritized by the government.

Debatable priorities and the problem of central planning

This leaves the Ministry of Finance the unenviable task of deciding the relative importance of hundreds or thousands of things, and deciding which ones should get higher priority for letters of credit, lower priority or none at all. Last October, the government decided to ban letters of credit for 38 items. 

The list includes oddly specific items like “Vimto”, impossibly vague categories like “Different games”, and hilarious ones like “Artificial and Human hairs” and “tiaras”.  Comedy aside, some choices are really sad.  “Bicycles”! That one really broke my heart.  

Oil gets a double subsidy: first from foreign currency priority, and second from getting explicit subsidies of the price at the fuel pump.  Believe it or not, in Ethiopia which doesn’t produce any oil, has a foreign currency crisis, and where less than 1% of the population has cars, the price of gasoline is half of the price in neighboring Kenya! Fuel subsidies may be one thing that is even crazier than the foreign currency nightmare, but let’s leave that for another post.

Meanwhile, businesses are suffocating because they can’t get foreign currency. If you make electrical equipment, you can’t get the dollars to import copper, so you stop and wait. If you are constructing a building, you can’t get dollars to buy steel, so you stop. Over 200 business ceased operations because of lack of foreign currencies. Manufacturers are getting less than 15% of the foreign currency they need for raw materials, according to the Ministry of Finance. A common sight around Addis Abeba is unfinished buildings, sitting half-built for months or years, a constant demonstration of wasted land, wasted capital, lost opportunities. If you talk to anybody in manufacturing, you will be overwhelmed with stories of dying companies.  Companies fail all the time of course, that’s the nature of business. But the heartbreaking thing is they are not failing for business reasons. Imagine you  have the right idea, you invest lots of money, hire the right employees, make the right product, find the right customers.  You are willing to pay for inputs at market value, but, understandably, you don’t want to go to the black market.  So you just sit and wait for permission to buy your inputs. And eventually close up shop. That is the tragic fate of many many businesses that could help the livelihood of  millions, dying because of this foreign currency policy.

Perhaps the starkest illustration of the failure of this central planning approach to prioritization is: “Lack of forex to import fertilizer threatens agricultural output“. Nothing is more important than agricultural production, and the government understands that. So they planned ahead and allocated $1B for fertilizer,  much more than last year. But due to global market changes, the need is $1.2B. So here we are with a shortage of fertilizer.  

In short what we have is the classic “economic calculation problem” which forever plagues central planning. The problem is not that the planners have bad intentions, nor that they are not smart enough, nor that they don’t have the right data, nor that they need more powerful computers. It’s more fundamental. In a large economy, the full information to make the optimal allocations simply does not exist in one place at one time no matter how much you try. You cannot sit at a desk and decide for 100M people whether steel is more or less important than copper, or whether aspirin is more important than fertilizer. The information is distributed in the subjective values and decisions of thousands of different actors, and when they act locally on their specific problems, their collective intelligence is much greater than even the best possible central planner.

Inefficiency of indirect subsidies

Further, even if we assume the priorities are perfectly correct and everyone agrees, there is another basic problem. Who pays for them? The cost is of course being born by the sellers we identified above: exporters, people receiving remittances, etc. And the benefit goes to specific imports. Which raises the question: why should coffee exporters or remittances carry the cost of gasoline for car owners? Why shouldn’t plumbers, teff farmers or real estate businesses share the burden? A society may decide the rich should subsidize the poor, or some things should have punitive taxes, etc. But implicitly making one sector pay for another specific sector is unfair and inefficient, and leads to many unintended consequences. If the society wants something to be subsidized, then it’s better for the government to spend money directly on that thing, using money that it collects through normal explicit taxes. The optimal mix of taxes (VAT, duties, income tax, etc.) is a separate debate the society can have. But whatever the specific combination of taxes, explicit taxes are better than an implicit tax via currency controls.

Corruption

Another problem is that access to foreign currency becomes an exorbitant privilege, so there’s an extreme incentive for corruption. Common sense says that when there’s a magic way of doubling your money, there’s bound to be some cheating. The people who are most adept at playing the privilege game will get more of it, while those who are politically naive  get less. To think otherwise is to ignore human nature.  Cronyism and corruption is rewarded and productive work is penalized. This is of course extremely damaging to the economic and moral health of the society.

The grey zone

Inevitably, many of those who can’t get this privilege resort to the parallel market. Indeed, the black market has become mainstream. Increasingly this is not just individuals like Abebe and Berhane in our story above, but also in business. Research shows that prices of imported commodities are tracking the parallel market rather than the peg. Banks too are flirting with the black market, by adding transaction fees as high as 60% to bridge the gap. Even parts of government are resorting to the black market. For example, earlier this year, there was a huge public bus procurement scandal. The Addis Abeba city government paid 19 million birr per bus, which according to the peg, is about $350K. Critics screamed that those same buses cost less than $150K internationally, so surely someone pocketed the difference! But an alternative explanation soon emerged: the importer had to get their foreign currency at the parallel market rate. Using that rate, and adding the cost of shipping etc., the price seems more reasonable. Should you praise the importer for creative problem-solving (after all the city does need more public buses!), or condemn them for price gouging? You decide. It is a bit like the debate about “illegal” vs “undocumented” immigrants in the US, but much worse. Exploiter and exploited start to blur into an unhappy grey zone. Huge swaths of society are operating outside the law. The hypocrisy is staggering. People will publicly defend the peg and privately use the black market. That’s not only legally risky for everyone involved, it’s deeply corrosive to the rule of law. Ethiopia is becoming a mafia state.

The solution

The polite economist word for this nightmare is “distortion”.  And while the consequences are very wide and complicated, there is a simple and narrow solution.  The government could simply revoke the law that says Abebe, Berhane and the banks are not allowed to exchange their USD for ETB at whatever price they agree to. That’s what is meant by jargon like “float” or “unification”, “liberalization”,  etc.  Just let the two parties agree on a price. No other laws need to change. Any product that is illegal can remain illegal. Banking licenses don’t need to change. Just decriminalize voluntary price. That’s it.  

And, surprise! That is actually the current Ethiopian government’s position.  Don’t take my word for it. It said so in 2019:  Ethiopia: Central Bank announces floating exchange rate regime. And again in 2020: Ethiopia Plans New Key Rate, Floating Currency to Boost Economy. Even now in 2023, exchange rate unification remains the goal. But the policy is “gradual”, and 4 years in, the peg remains and the gap is growing. So what are we waiting for? Why don’t they just waive this magic wand today? 

The reasons for this inability to execute the change fall in two categories. First, this inefficiency benefits some special interests, even if it hurts the majority. And multi-billion dollar special interests, both within and outside government, are tough get rid of. The second set of reasons is many sincere but misguided fears, both within and outside the government, of what would happen with such a change. Let’s examine them.

Inflation: the map and the territory

The most common fear is: if the currency is floated, inflation will go up. But this is due to a misunderstanding. Let’s say the international price of copper is $0.10 per gram. And the local competition is such that  importers can’t make more than 10% profit. If copper is a priority and importers get letters of credit allowing them to buy dollars at 55 ETB/USD, they can import it for 5.50 birr and sell it to you for 6 Birr. Ok great. But if the importers can’t get foreign currency, what is the price? It’s as if the price is infinity. You could go bankrupt while waiting for copper to be available. Or go to jail buying it from smugglers. Now suppose the importers can get dollars at a market rate legally, they will bring it in at a cost of 10 birr and sell it for 11. The naive academic might say there is inflation because the price went up from 6 to 11.  But people in the real world realize that 11 is less than infinity! Scarcity is a form of inflation. Focusing only on official prices while ignoring scarcity is mistaking the map for the territory, or mistaking the thermometer for the temperature. 

Of course inflation is a serious problem so it’s easy to fall for this fallacy. But would you trust a doctor using a broken thermometer who says: if we fix the thermometer, you will develop a fever? No, you want a practical one who sees the thermometer is broken and that you already have a fever. So while academics and commentators talk about potential inflation, people who provide real goods and services know that the inflation they fear is already happening. 

Exchange rate

A closely related concern is that if the exchange rate is floated, then the currency will rapidly lose value. There are three versions of this worry.

Some think that, by some unexplained law of nature, the black market has to remain more expensive than the official market. So if the official market is floated and ETB/USD goes from 55 to 100, then the black market price will go to 200. That is nonsense The black market responds to supply and demand. If there is a functioning legal market, then there’s no reason for anyone to pay a higher price and also take the risk of doing something illegal! It’s just human nature, people prefer to pay less, and people don’t like going to jail.

A more sophisticated version of this worry is the following: in the black market, both supply of and demand for foreign currency are suppressed, and if you legalize free exchange, the demand might increase more than the supply so the market price will be higher.  But this is also incorrect. Usually, when there’s prohibition, supply is more suppressed than demand. Or to be technical, the elasticity of supply is greater than the elasticity of demand. Without prohibition, all else being equal, the price is lower.

Another variant of the same fear is based on historical examples. In a recent discussion on this topic this example came up: once upon a time, Sudan floated their currency. At the time of the change of policy, the USD on the black market was at 550 SDP. After the float, the market price rose to 600 SDP/USD.  So proponents of currency control claim that getting rid of it caused the SDP to lose 10% of its value. But they should note that in the preceding decade, the black market price of USD had risen 5000%! The currency was losing value very fast. And floating it, if anything, slowed it down. Similarly in the case of Ethiopia, I wouldn’t say that if the exchange rate is allowed to float today, the price of foreign currency will go down tomorrow! Most likely it will continue to rise but it will slow down.  Here’s a picture to illustrate the point (the dots represent real values of the black market as reported in news articles over the last 5 years): 

In short, the black market price is the free market plus a risk premium. If it is decriminalized, the risk premium goes away. So the black market is an upper bound on what the natural market price would be.  

Speculative attacks

A closely related fear is that if the currency is freely exchanged, international currency traders would swoop in and wreak havoc by “speculating”. It is true that financial markets can be volatile but let’s put that in perspective. That volatility is much less than the brutality of the practical forex market as currently experienced by Ethiopians today. The random shocks of getting or not getting a letter of credit are much worse. You can go for arbitrary length periods with an effective price of infinity and volume of zero! 

Sure, if the currency was freely traded, the National Bank of Ethiopia (the central bank) and the Ministry of Finance may make monetary or fiscal policy errors, reserves might run low, etc. But all that would be child’s play compared to the devastation the current currency regime is inflicting on the real economy.  That said, the government can and should shore up reserves. Two obvious moves: stop fuel subsidies; sell off non-strategic and poorly-performing state enterprises (of which there are many).

Sequencing reforms

A related point often made by academics and commentators is: yes the parallel market should be decriminalized, but first the economy must be strengthened, productivity must increase etc. This argument is a bit like sitting in a burning house and saying: yes the fire is bad, but first let’s invest in non-flammable furniture and curtains. It’s missing the burning issue. The currency not being freely exchangeable is suffocating the very things that make the economy more productive.

Upside down tiger

Another argument given against free exchange is that some countries, like the so-called Asian Tigers and China, grew their economies while controlling their currencies. The irony is that in those cases, the control consisted of under-valuing their currencies, to promote exports and investments, while suppressing imports and domestic consumption. They essentially delayed the rise in standard of living in exchange for faster industrialization. But what we have in Ethiopia is the exact opposite: the peg over-values the currency, which subsidizes selected imports, while lowering investment, domestic production and exports! You might call this the “upside down tiger” de-industrialization strategy. No country has grown out of poverty this way. 

Brace for media impact

If the peg is abandoned, we can be almost sure that a lot of the commentariat will miss these two points:

1. they will compare the new free market price to the old peg, instead of comparing it to the old black market price, falling for the map and territory fallacy;
2. they will comment on the increase of foreign currency exchange rate, rather than the fact that the rate of increase declines.  

Even economics professors confuse a decline in the rate of change with an actual decline in the price! So what are the chances journalists and social media activists will be rational? Low. They will probably scream bloody murder.  And governments know that. Hence the “gradual” policy. To be blunt, the political cost of doing the right thing is very high.  

Deva!uyashun!1!?

It’s amazing how many people think the strength or weakness of a currency is determined by a government simply deciding on a price. And they talk about “devaluation” as if it is a matter of just typing in a larger number. Their concept is: the bad guys will force African countries to use a larger number! Oh no, devaluation! We must fight the IMF! Neocolonialism! Bla bla bla. I’m very critical of the IMF and the current international financial order, but this conception of “devaluation” is complete nonsense. But it is political dynamite and a lot of energy is spent trying to defuse it.Here’s how I would respond to it. If you think “government type big number = bad”, then ask yourself do you believe that “type small number= good”? If it’s that easy, do you think that, tomorrow, the Ethiopian government could set the peg at 50 ETB/USD instead of 55 ETB/USD and all imports would automatically be 10% cheaper? If they peg it at 0.01 ETB/USD would imports suddenly be 5000 times cheaper, and the average Ethiopian would afford a Ferrari? Of course not. 

Root cause of currency strength or weakness

From a policy making perspective, the exchange rate is an effect not a cause. It’s an output signal, not an input variable. The real price (which is approximated by the black market not the peg) is a reflection of a basic reality: how many dollars are coming, and how many dollars are going out. This is called the balance of payments. The birr gets weaker if the economy is not bringing in enough dollars. Exports and foreign investments are too little compared to the consumption of imports. And this imbalance can only improve if a) the economy produces more things the rest of the world wants, and b)  the country is more attractive for investment.

Now as we saw earlier, the first order victims of the peg overvaluing ETB are exporters, investors, and remittance recipients. The gap between the market and the peg is a de facto tax on them so it directly reduces their volume. Fewer dollars come in.  At the same time, it’s a de facto subsidy of specific imports, which means more dollars go out. Which makes the currency weaker. Which increases the gap. That’s the death spiral of a weakening currency.  The second order victims are manufacturers and producers more generally; even if they are not exporters, they help the balance of payments by creating products that would otherwise have to be imported. Plus they are part of making the society more productive which improves chances that the society will make stuff the rest of the world wants. Thus, by choking producers, the peg further increases the imbalance, another vicious cycle.

There is no solution that doesn’t include facing reality. Recognize that 55 ETB is just not worth 1 USD. The peg doesn’t make the currency stronger. A broken thermometer does not cure fever! The cure starts by getting rid of the peg, which will

1. in the short term, eliminate the risk premium, improve availability of consumer goods, eliminate an unfair de-facto tax and subsidy, reduce corruption, and stop a major cause of socio-economic rot;
2. and in the longer term, increase exports, foreign investments, and productivity of the society, which will help fix the structural weakness of the currency.

People voluntarily exchanging things at prices they agree on is not a neo-colonial imperialist capitalist evil that needs to be forbidden. It’s what humans have always done naturally everywhere, including in Ethiopia.

This article was originally published here

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After a series of popular protests, the TPLF-led government in Ethiopia was ousted and a new reformist faction from within the ruling party took over the helm. From 2016 to 2018, a sustained and widespread protest movement had shaken Ethiopia’s ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democracy Front (EPRDF), and its core, led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The fervor on the street had infiltrated deep inside the ruling coalition. Finally, in 2018, the jig was up, the fissures were no longer sustainable. The party crumbled, ushering in, the relatively unknown intelligence officer, Abiy Ahmed to become the young charismatic, visionary leader with a diverse background, who would gain widespread acceptance.

Prior to these events the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) stood at the pinnacle Ethiopia’s politics, economy and military. This formerly ardent Marxist Leninist group, which came to power in 1991, thanks to overt, albeit opportunist support by the United States had been ruling Ethiopia behind the façade of an organization called the EPRDF. While seemly independent ethnic based organizations encompassed the EPRDF, none of them had the power or the resources of the TPLF, which as Ethiopians liked to quip, owned the bank and the tank. But eventually, like its predecessor, it too, succumbed to greed, brutality, and corruption. The people had enough.

Nonetheless, TPLF’s political defeat was hard to swallow for its obstinate leadership, which refused to join the reformist camp that later morphed into the Prosperity Party. After a series of efforts to sabotage the reform process, including attempted assassination of the new prime minister, TPLF’s relations with the federal government soured greatly. Its domination of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and intelligence services were also becoming the agenda of the reformists. Fearing increasing encroachment on its basic tenants of power, the TPLF would increasingly entrench itself within its home base of Tigray. Its leaders were advised no to travel outside of Tigray as general paranoia set in among its rank.  

Increasing self-defeatist isolation of TPLF would cost it dearly. It now found itself without a legitimate coalition to help it contend with the reformists in Addis Ababa. Pitching thorny complicated issues was now TPLF’s best playbook. One such move was the elections it held in Tigray on September 9, 2020. By doing so the TPLF violated the constitution which gives the authority to organize elections including the time and place to the Ethiopian Electoral Board only. By doing so, authorities in Tigray sought to create a constitutional crisis that they planned would fester into state collapse, leading to a new order that they felt they were well prepared to commandeer, given their military advantage.

Unsanctioned elections in Tigray and withdrawal of recognition for the central government marked a major escalation. In retaliation, the Ethiopian parliament ceased federal funding for Tigray. Similarly, the introduction of new banknotes that same month, along with restrictions on the exchange of old currency for new, effectively devalued the TPLF’s amassed hard cash reserves, rendering them worthless overnight. At this advanced stage, it was reasonable to speculate that these funds might ultimately be utilized for actions harmful to Ethiopia. This course of action did not indicate a desire to initiate war, but rather underscored the urgency of addressing the looming danger.

Prior to the outbreak of war several shuttle mediation efforts were undertaken to bring the federal government and leaders of the TPLF to enter dialogue. A meeting was also held in the town of Humera to mediate between President Isaias of Eritrea and leaders of the Tigray region. None of these efforts worked to bring mutual understanding, largely due to TPLF’s wrong-headed belief that it will lose in any democratic process due to its minority status in the house of representatives and the federation council. All of these things would eventually culminate the coming war.

Having lost all hope in mediation and wasted all chances to join the newly formed reformist Prosperity Party, TPLF would take on a new dangerous course, one that would have dire consequences for the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea. In the early hours of November 4^th, 2020, as Americans cast their vote for President, TPLF attacked Ethiopia’s northern command as soldiers slept in their army barracks. This coordinated attack was carried out using regional special forces as well as a large contingent of TPLF members and sympathizers from within the northern command (Recall, TPLF had ruled Ethiopia for decades prior this event and had significant assets in terms of personnel and command and control of the Ethiopian military). The operation was revealed for the first time by TPLF’s very own, Sekuture Getachew in an interview with Tigray Television on November 5, 2020.

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Abstract: This updated research reassesses the potential implications of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on Egypt’s water supply using the latest data provided by the Egyptian Irrigation Ministry. The study reevaluates the changes in the Blue Nile’s discharge with a focus on a scenario where 20.5 billion cubic meters (BCM) of water is withheld. Despite potential reductions in the Blue Nile flow, Egypt’s water supply is largely unaffected due to its diversified water sources, efficient water management, and substantial reserves in Lake Nasser.

The completion of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is anticipated to make it the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa. This updated study reanalyzes the possible reductions in the Blue Nile’s flow as a result of the GERD, investigating its potential impact on Egypt’s water availability and demand. Given the continuity of floods, the analysis examines how the Blue Nile’s flow, even if reduced to 35 billion cubic meters due to the filling of the GERD, can still provide adequate water to Egypt. This evaluation takes into account the contributions from the Atbara and Sobat rivers, the White Nile, and Egypt’s internal resources. The recent data provided by the Egyptian Irrigation Ministry allows for a more believable evaluation of Egypt’s water resources and their capacity to mitigate any potential water deficits.

Analysis of Blue Nile Flow Scenarios: The study reexamines scenarios of the Nile’s discharge (Blue Nile and White Nile), including a 20 BCM reduction in the Blue Nile’s flow. The updated data enables more precise calculations of various internal water resources, Sudan’s water consumption, evaporation losses, and flow from the Atbara and Sobat rivers. A comparative review of the annual inflow and Egypt’s water demand provides an understanding of net water storage under these scenarios.

Summary of Egypt’s Water Resources: A detailed examination of Egypt’s internal water resources provides insights into each resource’s annual contribution and its share of the total inflow.

Scenario Analysis: Let’s consider a scenario where the flow of the Blue Nile has reduced to 29.5 billion cubic meters, and Ethiopia decides to fill an additional 20.5 billion cubic meters of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. To supplement this reduced flow from the Blue Nile, Egypt would still receive 22 billion cubic meters from the Atbara and Sobat rivers. Additionally, approximately 15 billion cubic meters would come from the White Nile. Overall, in this scenario, Egypt’s total water supply would amount to 66.5 billion cubic meters, significantly lower than the usual 97 billion cubic meters.

Calculation 3: Total Water Supply in Scenario, the total water supply, in this scenario, would be: 29.5 (from Blue Nile after reduction) + 22 (from Atbara and Sobat rivers) + 15 (from White Nile) = 66.5 BCM This total is significantly lower than the regular total of 97 BCM.

Impact on High Dam Lake: Assuming the High Dam Lake is at its maximum capacity of 162 billion cubic meters, a deduction of 20 billion cubic meters from Egypt’s share would reduce the reservoir’s level to 142 billion cubic meters. However, in a more realistic scenario, the deficit would be shared between Sudan and Egypt. Sudan would bear 7 billion cubic meters, while Egypt would handle 13 billion cubic meters. This would result in a reduction of the lake level by only 13 billion cubic meters.

Impact on Egypt’s Sectors: Despite this reduction, the agriculture, industry, and domestic sectors in Egypt might not experience a significant impact. The country could compensate for the deficit by drawing from the High Dam Lake reservoir until the Blue Nile flows return to normal after the storage completion.

Findings: The operation of the GERD doesn’t significantly impact Egypt’s water supply, showcasing the potential for equitable sharing of the Nile’s waters among Nile basin countries. Even under conditions of reduced Blue Nile flow, Egypt has substantial storage reserves in Lake Nasser to cover any deficits. The study underscores that Egypt’s water supply remains robust due to its diverse water sources, effective water management tactics, and Lake Nasser’s considerable storage capacity.

Lake Nasser Storage and the Blue Nile Flow Reduction Scenarios: This study aims to determine how potential shortages can be managed using Lake Nasser’s storage reserves. Even with GERD’s construction, Lake Nasser’s reserves could serve as a safeguard for Egypt during challenging times, especially when the Blue Nile’s discharge sees significant reductions. Currently, the Lake Nasser level stands at 180m above sea level, indicating ample emergency storage availability.

Conclusion: Through a combination of improved water efficiency, increased use of treated wastewater, and expansion of desalination, Egypt could largely mitigate the potential reduction in the Blue Nile’s flow due to the operation of the GERD. The continued storage capacity of Lake Nasser provides a further buffer against potential water shortages.

Suggested strategies and potential contributions: To ensure sustainable water management, Egypt can consider the following strategies:

Water Conservation and Efficiency Improvement: Immediate measures can be taken to improve water conservation and efficiency, especially in the agricultural sector. This could potentially contribute 5-10 BCM annually to closing the water deficit.

Increasing the use of Treated Wastewater: Egypt can expand its reuse of treated wastewater for irrigation and other non-potable uses in the medium term. This could provide an additional 3-5 BCM of water annually.

Desalination Expansion: In the long term, Egypt can expand its desalination capacity along its Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts. This could add another 2-5 BCM to its annual water supply.

Transboundary Water Negotiations: Ongoing negotiations and cooperation with other Nile Basin countries are critical for ensuring equitable access to the Nile’s waters. Egypt should continue to seek mutually beneficial agreements regarding the management of the Nile, including the operation of the GERD

Reference: 1. U.S. Geological Survey. (1990). Ground-water hydrology of the Nile Valley, Egypt. Retrieved from https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/wri904194…

2. SpringerLink. (2013). Analysis of groundwater flow in mountainous, headwater catchments with permafrost. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10040-013-1039-3…

3. Wiley Online Library. (2014). Potential impacts of climate change on groundwater resources. Retrieved from https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013WR015231…

4. Fanack Water. (n.d.). Water resources in the United Arab Emirates. Retrieved from https://water.fanack.com/uae/water-resources/…

5. Egyptian Journal of Chemistry. (n.d.). Studies on groundwater in Egypt. Retrieved from https://ejchem.journals.ekb.eg/article_1085.html…

6. Egypt Today. (n.d.). Studies on Egypt’s groundwater should be carried out before development. Retrieved from https://egypttoday.com/Article/1/123555/Studies-on-Egypt%E2%80%99s-groundwater-should-be-carried-out-before-development…

7. Eos. (n.d.). Ancient water underlies arid Egypt. Retrieved from https://eos.org/articles/ancient-water-underlies-arid-egypt…

8. Al-Monitor. (2022). Egypt expands water desalination projects as Nile dam talks hit a new snag. Retrieved from https://al-monitor.com/originals/2022/06/egypt-expands-water-desalination-projects-nile-dam-talks-hit-new-snag…

9. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Water resources management in Egypt. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_res 10. Akhbar Elyom. (2023). Minister of Irrigation in front of Parliament. Retrieved from https://akhbarelyom.com/news/newdetails/3994173/1/%D9%88%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%89-%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%B1%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86… 11. Parlmany. (2023). Hani Souilam to Deputies: We use 1.3 billion cubic meters. Retrieved from https://parlmany.com/News/4/506264/%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%89-%D8%B3%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%84%D9%85-%D9%84%D9%80-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AE%D8%AF%D9%85-1-3-%D9%85%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%85%D8%AA%D8%B1-%D9%85%D9%83%D8%B9%D8%A8…

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Economic and social progress serves Rwanda’s national and pan-African interests but irks its detractors who fear its growing influence on the continent.

This month of July marks the 29th anniversary of Rwanda’s Liberation, marking a significant military victory for the Rwandan Patriotic Force (RPF) in 1994.  President Paul Kagame invited Rwandans to reflect on the country’s long and arduous journey from devastation to resilience and prosperity. However, there are critics who attempt to rewrite Rwanda’s history. These historical revisionists bare the colonial hallmarks of denying the agency of African societies in determining their future, but as President Kagame emphasized, “a history written in blood cannot be erased by mere stories.”

Throughout human history, narratives, stories, legends, and myths have played a crucial role in inspiring nations and shaping their purpose. These tales often highlight the remarkable achievements of heroes, providing a blueprint for emulation. The Biblical stories of the ancient Israelites was one such inspiring story that encourages people even today. A modern-day example is the Chinese, who constantly keep in mind their Century of Humiliation—a period marked by balkanization, foreign occupation, and humiliation. of external powers—as they strive to ensure that such a tragedy never befalls their nation again.

Every society has its own defining story, a starting point that serves as a wellspring of inspiration, guiding its aspirations and future endeavors. For Rwandans, their story serves as a powerful source of motivation and identity. There is a scene from the popular series Game of Thrones, where a character ponders what unites people. The conclusion was that a good story holds immense power. Throughout history, societies have relied on stories and legends to inspire and unite nations. Rwanda’s story serves as a source of inspiration for the country’s progress.

Ironically, Rwanda’s progress since 1994 has faced constant scrutiny and criticism from powerful externally based networks, mostly in the Europe. These policy incubators and decision-makers have refuted Rwanda’s story, fearing if widely known and emulated across Africa, it could threaten the West’s long established dominance and exploitation of the continent’s narratives. Hence, there is an effort to control, downplay achievements, and sow confusion. Indeed, the ongoing information manipulation campaign targeting Rwanda is carried out by seemingly innocuous humanitarian or rights groups.

Rwanda’s perceived crimes include challenging France’s influence, rejecting the division of the country, and seeking an internally driven mechanism of justice for the crimes committed during the genocidal war. Rwanda’s leaders dared to defy expectations set for them by external powers and chose to rebuild their nation their way, just as the founding farther of the United States had done. They exposed the limitations of Western prescription and opted for self-reliance. This unconventional approach attracted criticism and led to Rwanda’s dismissal of Western NGOs and their intrusive practices.

In the 1990s the country’s own Gacaca courts handled a massive number of genocide-related cases, while the International Criminal Court for Rwanda (ICTR) handled significantly fewer cases. Indeed the independent truth and reconciliation process carried out by Rwanda cemented a strong foundation for the country’s future. It allowed Rwandans an organic means of deliberating truth and justice, a bonus to its legal system. It was a rebirth of a nation, taking account of history. Rwanda’s peace-building and reconciliation efforts are often lauded by the international community as unique, experimental, and ultimately successful. Post 1994, Rwanda made significant strides to become a nation or ideals without ethnic politics. This work in progress continues. Today Rwanda is one of the most stable and peaceful nations on the African continent.

Furthermore, President Kagame has been vocal in expressing African perspectives to the West, challenging the narrow definition of liberal democracy, and expanding the scope of human rights to include development and well-being of people. In so doing, Rwanda’s story of progress challenges the Western wisdom and the existing world order, which must be discouraged. Hence, the ongoing media narrative campaigns and attempts to rewrite Rwanda’s story. In doing so however, Rwanda did not foolishly reject West categorically. It has also cleverly managed external support from the West were it saw fit to bolster its own path.

Rwandans have not rested on their laurels. They have regrouped, reunited, and rebuilt their nation. Today, this relatively small nation is a regional hub for innovation, a sought-after tourist destination, and a reliable partner for other countries, and one of the leaders of climate change mitigation on the African continent. This progress serves Rwanda’s national and pan-African interests but irks its detractors who fear its growing influence.

The heroes behind Rwanda’s story are not immortal, but their legacy depends on future generations carrying forward their struggle. If Rwandans and Africans continue to honor their sacrifices, the story written in blood will never be erased by ink. Each generation has a mission, and it is crucial not to let their sacrifices go to waste. Rwanda’s story is part of Africa’s significant contributions to the world, and its preservation is essential for the continent’s progressive ideals.

The story of Rwandan rejuvenation in an important reminder that externally prescribed development or governance solutions for Africa do not work. It points to African solutions to African problems. Moreover, the power of a beautiful story lies in its ability to inspire, unite, and overcome challenges. Rwanda’s story of serves as a testament to resilience and a source of inspiration for the nation and Africa as a whole. Despite the pushback from counter narratives to disparage African agency in formulating an independent developmental policy framework, Rwanda’s story must be protected and celebrated to ensure a brighter future for generations to come.

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This paper draws inspiration from recent writing of Shiferaw Leulu and Engidashet Bunare at the Water Resources Development Council of Ethiopia

Introduction

Advice given by Henry Kissinger in 1972 and Lord Macaulay in 1835 to their respective governments in the U.S and U.K regarding foreign policy issues concerning Ethiopia and Africa are remarkably still relevant to the present and future Ethiopia.

Lord Macaulay’s observations of Africa as and India reflected overriding 18th century European perspectives. He remarked that during his travels, he did not encounter any beggars or thieves. He praised the wealth and high moral values he witnessed in India as and Africa, as well as the caliber of its people. As head of education in British India, Macaulay proposed, ‘to conquer the country, the British should undermine its spiritual and cultural heritage by replacing its old education system and culture.’ He believed the same principal applied in Africa. The assumption being,English influence as superior will compel Africans to lose their self-esteem, native culture, and become a dominated nation. Lord Macaulay’s proposal aimed to diminish the self-esteem and native culture of India and Africa.

In the epilogue of Theodore M. Vestal’s book, on page 188, it is suggested that Henry Kissinger, while heading the National Security Council in 1972, wrote a confidential report on the future of Ethiopia. Kissinger recommended that the United States should exploit internal tensions in Ethiopia by taking advantage of vulnerabilities that include ethnic, religious, and other divisions. Furthermore, National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSS200) discussed ‘the necessary threshold for industrial development in Africa should be curtailed’. This establishes best way to preserve the status quo control of the Red Sea as well to counter transnational Pan-Africanism from rising in the Horn of Africa.

Henry Kissinger’s proposal centered around exploiting ethnic, religious, and other differences to maintain perpetual tension as well as conflicts in Ethiopia. Before delving into the relevance of their policy advice, it is important to provide some background information on these two individuals.

Who is Lord Macaulay

Lord Macaulay, who lived from 1800 to 1859, visited Africa before 1835. His visit coincided with the reign of Ras Ali, also known as the Junior Ras Ali of Ethiopia, from 1823 to 1845. During this period, governance in Ethiopia had become fragmented due to a series of rivalries between elites. This period is known as the Zemene Mesafint or the era of nobles, defined by a weakened central government, resulting in the loss of control over regional and local authorities. This era began in the second half of the 18th century and continued until 1855.

During the Zemene Mesafint, out of the decline of the Gondar Kingdom, three major powers emerged:

• The Ras of Begemeder, led by the Ras Ali.
• The Ras of Tigre, led by Ras Webe.
• The Negus of Shoa, led by Sahle Selassie.

Sahle Selassie, who ruled from 1813 to 1847, was the most influential ruler of Shoa. His son, Hailemelekot, became the first ruler of Shoa to involve himself in the struggles of the Mesafint.

Invariably Macaulay’s observation of Ethiopia during this period of division left a mark on how he viewed the African continent.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, the renowned English historian, was born on October 25, 1800, in Rothley near Leicester. His father, Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander, had served in the West Indies and Sierra Leone and was well-regarded for his contributions to public life. Zachary actively opposed slavery and worked closely with Wilberforce and others. Lord Macaulay himself was an essayist, historian, liberal member of the House of Commons and later the House of Lords, a law member of the Supreme Council of India, and a British minister for war. He arrived in Madras, India, on June 10, 1834, as a member of the Supreme Council of India.

Macaulay played a significant role in shaping the educational system and policies in India. He advocated for a formal Western-style education that emphasized English as the medium of instruction, along with the study of Western literature and science. He proposed using the entire educational budget to achieve this goal, even utilizing existing educational institutions or oriental learning for the promotion of Western education. During his four-year stay in India, he helped establish a national education system and played a crucial role in drafting the Indian Criminal Procedure Code, the Indian Civil Procedure Code, and the Government of India Act of 1833, which imposed restrictions on the East India Company. Macaulay returned to England in early 1838 and continued his writing career. He was elected to Parliament to represent Edinburgh from 1839 to 1847 and served as the Secretary of War in the Cabinet from 1839 to 1841.

Macaulay’s most significant work in his later years was the celebrated History of England, which he pursued at the expense of his political career and social life. The first two volumes were published in 1848, followed by volumes 3 and 4 in 1855. In 1857, Macaulay was elevated to peerage, and died on December 28, 1859. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Who is Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger, a statesman, scholar, and public intellectual, provided policy advice to the United States concerning Ethiopia during the final days of Emperor Haile Selassie I’s reign. Born in 1923 to a German Jewish family in Fürth, Henry Kissinger immigrated to the United States in 1938 to escape the state sanctioned anti-Semitism imposed of the Nazi government. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943 and served in the Army from 1943 to 1946. After completing his education at Harvard, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree with highest honors in 1950, Master’s degree in 1952, and Ph.D. in 1954, he joined Harvard’s Department of Government and its Center for International Affairs as a faculty member from 1954 to 1969.

Kissinger also worked as a foreign policy advisor to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who made three attempts to secure the Republican nomination for President. In January 1969, President Richard Nixon chose Kissinger, a prominent advocate of realpolitik, to be his Advisor for National Security Affairs. Kissinger concurrently served as the 56th Secretary of State, beginning on September 22, 1973. Following Nixon’s resignation due to the Watergate scandal, Kissinger remained as Secretary of State under President Gerald Ford until January 20, 1977.

Throughout his tenure as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Kissinger wielded significant influence over American foreign policy.

Similarities and differences of Kissinger and Macaulay vis-à-vis Ethiopia

Similarity

Although there is a considerable time gap of approximately 137 years between these influential individuals (1835 to 1972), their policy advice to their respective governments concerning Ethiopia shares a common objective that can more or less be summarized as transforming the country into a submissive client state. As the last Bastian of independence in Africa, the Ethiopia had to undergo a series of “civilizing efforts” modeled on Western experiences.

Difference

The disparities between their approaches are primarily strategic. Macaulay’s approach centers around dismantling the core essence of the nation, namely its spiritual and cultural heritage, and replacing its ancient education system and culture. The aim is to influence Ethiopia to perceive foreign and English influences as superior, leading to a loss of self-esteem, abandonment of native culture, and eventual dominance by external forces. On the other hand, Henry Kissinger’s strategy revolves around exploiting ethnic, religious, and other divisions within Ethiopia to perpetuate ongoing conflicts.

Although both seek to achieve a similar outcome, their methods differ. Macaulay’s advice does not explicitly mention exploiting ethnic, religious, or other differences, while Kissinger’s 1972 advice places significant emphasis on exploiting such divisions to keep the country weakened and embroiled in enduring conflicts. This indicates a shift in the colonial strategy over the span of 137 years towards leveraging existing differences.

How and when the colonial strategy shifted to exploiting differences.

The groundwork for exploiting differences was established in the decades following Macaulay’s proposal, particularly in the latter half of the 19th century. This trend was further propelled by the publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” in 1859. Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection suggested that all species, including humans, have evolved from common ancestors and that adaptation to the environment determines survival. As word of Darwin’s theory spread, philosophers and scientists, such as Herbert Spencer, began interpreting his ideas in new ways. Spencer introduced the concept of Social Darwinism in 1874, which applied the principles of natural selection to social, political, and economic issues. When applied to social and policy goals, this ideology held that the strong would survive and that the white European race, considered superior, was destined to rule over others.

Social Darwinism gained prominence in the Western world as Europeans, driven by advancements in technology and military power, started perceiving race as an explanation for differences among cultures. They believed that their technological and economic superiority was evidence of natural selection at play, with stronger societies flourishing while weaker ones were conquered or faced extinction. The emphasis on race and the ranking of races based on criteria such as culture, technology, and military power intensified during the late 19th century. Social Darwinism influenced various Euro-centric ideologies, including Marxism, Fascism, Nazism, and later seeped into Liberalism, and played a role in the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars.

Racism, as we understand it today, was relatively limited in the 18th century but grew significantly in the latter half of the 19th century. Social Darwinism permeated almost every aspect of Western societies, providing a rationalization for the brutal imperialism of that era. This period of rampant racism coincided with the “Scramble for Africa,” where European powers invaded, occupied, and colonized African territories. By 1914, 90% of Africa was under European control, except for Ethiopia.

The Battle of Adwa in 1896, which Ethiopia won against Italian forces, challenged the validity of Social Darwinism, and inspired other Africans in their struggle against colonialism. During the Italian occupation of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941, the fascist regime attempted to exploit ethnic and religious divisions to gain control, but their efforts were unsuccessful due to the strong unity of the Ethiopian society. After World War II, colonial powers started exploiting the racist ideology of Social Darwinism in conjunction with Stalin’s national question, all while claiming to promote democracy. This shift in approach explains the differences between Macaulay’s and Kissinger’s policy advice.

The Impacts of Kissinger and Macaulay’s Advice

In the long term, Macaulay’s ideas were gradually implemented in Ethiopia’s education system, culture, and economy, birthing a new generation that perceives foreign and English influences as superior to their own. This implementation was initially carried out through the efforts of European explorers and missionaries, who traveled across Africa to discover new things and map the continent. Missionaries also played a role by deepening European involvement in Africa through the spread of European and later American versions of Christianity and the introduction of Western-style education. Significant efforts were made to whitewash Africa’s cultural and historical assets and replace them with Western modes of thought. Diplomacy, treaties, and friendships further contributed to the implementation of Macaulay’s idea.

Following World War II, European colonial powers began exploiting ethnic and religious differences in Ethiopia to weaken and dominate the country or even cause its disintegration. For example:

• In the late 1930s, the British, through their consular office in Gore, exploited ethnic differences and organized local nobles in an attempt to seek British rule and annex the western part of Ethiopia. Although this annexation was unsuccessful, the teachings and radicalization that aimed to exploit language and ethnic differences continued, fueling ethnic conflicts to this day.
• After 1954, the British, through their consular office in Harar, exploited ethnic and religious differences among the Somali, Oromo, and Afar communities in an effort to annex the eastern part of Ethiopia. Similarly, the teachings and radicalization to exploit language and religious differences persisted, contributing to ongoing ethnic and religious conflicts.
• Additionally, since 1955, ethnic and religious radicals from northern and eastern parts of Ethiopia received training in Al-Azhar University in Egypt.
• In the late 1960s, Germans, under the guise of missionary work, established a hospital in western Ethiopia and recruited and trained ethnic radicals.

These recruited and trained radicals, under the pretext of democracy, have continued to perpetuate ethnic and religious problems in Ethiopia up to the present.

Initially, the Americans showed little interest in manipulating ethnic, religious, and other differences in Ethiopia. That was seen to be the British way doing things. The U.S was more focused on cooperating with Ethiopia for their own interests in the Horn of Africa. However, several factors would later change this perspective:

1. Emperor Haile Selassie’s strong and successful leadership in Africa’s struggle for independence from European colonizers threatened to awaken African consciousness
2. Concerns arose after Eritrea’s unification with Ethiopia and the possibility of Djibouti also joining a larger integrated Horn of Africa, creating a historically independent regional union.
3. The strategic economic interests in the discovery and production of petroleum in the Gulf countries, which led to viewing the Red Sea-bordering countries as potential chock points for the flow of energy to Europe.
4. The Nile water sharing imbalance with Egypt and and its relation to Israeli and other Middle East policy influenced the U.S to adopt a similar approach as the Europeans had towards Ethiopia.

With Kissinger’s proposals gaining more dominance in the 1970s, the overarching policy he derived from European imperialist views began to be adopted by the State Department. To implement Kissinger’s proposals, the targets for this psychological operation in Ethiopia were confused and misinformed students, teachers, and recruited ethnic and religious radicals as mentioned earlier. University and high school students were particularly targeted, with the ideology of ethnicity and religious radicalism presented under the guise of democracy. It is important to note, the Soviet Union and the KGP also ran its own operation to influence Ethiopia’s revolutionaries on the 1974. These efforts differed only in their political ideology, but largely retained the same Euro-centric principles pushed by the West.

One example is Walelign Makonnen, who was influenced by the concept of Stalin’s “Nationality Question.” For the past 50 years, Ethiopia has been grappling with ethnicity derived from the concept of Social Darwinism.

The country is now divided along ethnic lines, the constitution amplifies ethnicity, political parties are organized along ethnic lines, and the education system is aligned with ethnicity, even removing the compulsory course on Ethiopian History from higher education. People are being targeted and killed based solely on their spoken language and forced displacement and looting have become common. The Orthodox church has also become embroiled in Ethiopia’s ethnic political order. The unity and self-esteem of the country are at risk of being lost.

Kissinger’s proposal towards the horn of Africa, and in particular Ethiopia is based on Macaulay interventionism. This formula has been internalized by its intended audience, the African elite, who have used it to further their political goals domestically, as well as towards adjoining countries. The Horn of Africa region, exemplified by proxies and external patronages is a case in point.

Maligning Emperor Menelik II

Emperor Menelik II is widely regarded as a symbol of Ethiopia’s victory, self-esteem, and heroism, not only for Ethiopians but also for Africans and Africans in the Americas in their fight against European colonialism and racism. The 1896 Battle of Adwa, in which Ethiopia triumphed, has made Ethiopia a beacon of hope for countries that have suffered from racism and colonialism. Emperor Menelik II represents a unified and strong Ethiopia, embodying the aspirations of the nation to regain its ancient civilization and stand as a symbol of independence.

To undermine Ethiopia’s prestige, self-esteem, and its goal of becoming a strong and unified nation in the Horn of Africa, Emperor Menelik II has been targeted and vilified by European colonial narratives. In Ethiopia, Emperor Menelik II is largely seen as:

1. A champion who defeated the aggressive racist colonial powers.
2. An African leader that was able to outmatch European maneuverings in the Horn of Africa. The emperor expanded this territory, and and calibrated his ambitions at times, in order not to extend and stretch defenses.
3. A hero who challenged the notion of Social Darwinism and racism
4. The figure who managed to unify a divided country, incapable of withstanding European incursions.
5. The leader who safeguarded Ethiopia’s control over the Nile River from its source.
6. The figure who instilled a strong sense of self-belief and heroism on Ethiopians and Africans.

Downgrading the role of Emperor Menelik II

To this day ethnic nationalists, whose perspectives are largely derived from colonial narratives target Emperor Menelik II as villain. These stories were tacitly championed by Western powers whose aim, as mentioned is to erase independent African leadership and agency from the national psyche of Ethiopia, aiming to create disarray and weakness. The brutality of European colonialists in Africa was falsely attributed to Emperor Menelik II. He was portrayed as a brute expansionist . Some Western periodicals at the time even referred to Menelik as a white European. Ethnic nationalist radicals that sprang up in Ethiopia beginning in the 1970s inherited these euro-centric views of the Emperor.

1. False histories have been written to confuse generations and distort the truth.
2. Ethiopia is portrayed as solely shaped by Emperor Menelik II, erasing its long history prior to his reign.
3. Attempts have been made to undermine the historical unity, dignity, and moral values of the country. This was done by portraying the nation as a collection of disparate and unwieldy peoples.
4. Emperor Menelik II and his legacy was routinely vilified in education as well as public perceptions.
5. Efforts have been made to diminish the significance of the Battle of Adwa and its contribution to Ethiopia’s national psyche. This was particularly true since ethnic nationalists came to power in 1991.
6. The backbone of Ethiopian heroism and anti-racism, and Pan-Africanism has been targeted for similar degradation. Instead, ethnic identity politics has been promoted.
7. There have been attempts to dismantle Ethiopia or keep the country weak and fragmented. These efforts are ongoing today, and exemplified by the most recent turbulence in the country.

The Way Forward

Both Kissinger and Macaulay have had an outsized role in influencing the long duration of Anglo-American policy perspectives on the Horn of Africa. In retrospect, and in light of the present, their policy advice still has relevance.

Despite the many shortcomings domestically, it is important to understand Ethiopia’s challenges are not solely internal. They have been decades in the making, and persistently exacerbated by external forces. Elites have fallen into narratives and ideologies, imported from abroad, that have little to do with Ethiopia’s condition and character. Some elites in Ethiopia as well as the diaspora are lured by the career benefits of adhering to Western institutional perspective steeped in Kissinger’s and Macaulay’s advice. Some others are lazy to do the work needed to uncover essential truths from the heap of rhetoric and falsehoods.

Presently, Ethiopia’s body-politic is overflowing with false narratives. Prime among them is the confining of national figures and heroes into an ethnic or religious paradigm box. This is true of the way Menelik II is portrayed as an Amhara overlord, despite the emperor rarely, if ever referring to his reign as such. Confining national leaders into a narrow ethnic box draws inspiration from colonial narratives originally defined to weaken and suppress a strong African state of convergence. These schemes found fertile ground when ethnic nationalists established their rule in 1991 under the tutelage of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

Aspirational leaders who dream big and beautiful can expect to encounter resistance by global powers, be vilified and placed into parochial and stereotypical categories, and as such politically weakened. Economic support will be withdrawn from such regimes in Africa. Ways of achieving this has been made all the more implicit, but in some cases is overt. The contrary is true for politicians espousing ethnic nationalism, who will find an easy time getting support from external powers.

In the long run the choice is for the people to make. If Ethiopia and more broadly Africa is ever to regain itself and adopt genuine grassroots perspectives, it is crucial to uncover and debunk narratives based on deep historical untruths and bring them to light. A lofty goal that will no doubt be made difficult by the deliberate disinformation campaigns facilitated by Social Media.

References

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13. ሺፈራው ሉሉ እና እንግዳሸት ቡናሬ፣ 2011፡፡ የዘረኝነት ምንጭና የኢትዮጵያ ፖለቲካ ችግሮች፣ ለትውልድ ረፋኢ
14. አርኖ ሚሼል ዳባዲ፤ በኢትዮጵያ ከፍተኛ ተራሮች ቆይታዬ፤ ተረጓሚ ገነት አየለ አንበሴ፣ 2009 ዓ.ም.
15. ደጃዝማች ወልደ ሰማዕት ገብረ ወልድ፣ 2012፡፡ ሕይወቴ፣ ለአገሬ ኢትዮጵያና ለወገኖቼ ኢትዮጵያውያን ዕድገት
    የነበረኝ የሥራ ጥማት፤ ቅጽ አንድ (ከ1917 እሰከ 1967 ዓ.ም.)

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We were not surprised when we received a first response from a not-so-surprising corner, from Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe and a number of co-authors (Gebrehiwot et al. 2023).¹ What was unexpected was its lack of engagement with our argument and the extent of misquoting and the mischaracterisation. We made some initial observations regarding this piece in a blog that, like Gebrehiwot et al.’s comments, was published on Roape.net (Gebresenbet and Tariku 2023b). We later received a surprising and one-sided response from Jan Abbink (2023).

Gebrehiwot et al. (2023) did not engage with our arguments, but rather constructed a straw man argument which they then criticised, while Abbink seems unhappy to be represented as a ‘mirror image’ of those supporting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and that we did not base our piece on what he thinks is a more interesting question. After all, the determination of what is interesting rests with every author. As we will show below, what we see is that the responses, being from a position of power, are intended to impose certain perspectives and silence alternatives, rather than having the intention of debating. Before getting to our responses, let us first present our position as students of conflict and security studies, as Ethiopians and Ethiopianists.

The two responses attack our personal character. Gebrehiwot et al. insist that we are insensitive to the suffering of our fellow Tigrayans. We mentioned the extreme suffering of Tigrayans but did not elaborate on it. Criticising us for not being detailed is one thing, accusing us of being insensitive to suffering is an unfortunate mischaracterisation. To Abbink, we were not patriotic enough, because we did not dare to speak when it was risky and because we did not raise questions regarding what he considers to be gaps in the Pretoria and Nairobi Agreements. As we elaborate below, public action can also take place offline and should not necessarily be visible to all. Abbink seems convinced that if it happened, he should know about it.

Gebrehiwot and his co-authors (2023) consider us to be biased towards the Federal Government of Ethiopia (FGE), and criticise us for not undertaking a ‘critical, balanced assessment of the record of [the] decades’ of the TPLF/Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF’s) rule, although our central argumentis to investigate the implications of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA), not to undertake a comprehensive conflict analysis. Unlike some of our critics, we have never held public office and political party memberships, nor are we insiders to the FGE or to any rebel movement. The only professional identity we have is as scholars.² Abbink ignores the important caveat we had – i.e., that we make the argument based on the expectation that the CoHA will be buttressed by a negotiated peace agreement – and downplays what he takes as ‘an appropriate question mark in the title’ (Abbink 2023, 234) in arguing that we take the CoHA as a ‘peace agreement’ (237) and that we make ‘confident predictions’ (234) without enough context.

In terms of positionality, the centre of our ethical concern in our professional work is the state and society, not any particular government or particular social group within it. We differentiate between regime and state as much as we differentiate between the TPLF and Tigray.

With the above caveats, let us respond to the two rejoinders in five parts.

First, Gebrehiwot et al. (2023) accuse us of being ‘indifferent’ and of lacking ‘empathy’. The war affected the three regions, yet disproportionately harmed Tigray and Tigrayans. The ongoing violence in other parts of the country, including Oromia and Amhara regions, are everyday realities for us. All sides of the war are accused of atrocities, ranging from executions, sexual violence, ethnic cleansing, destruction and pillaging (Blinken 2023). Abbink makes the dangerous mistake of throwing out the baby with the bathwater when he argues in a one-sided manner that activist human rights groups ‘often went along with an ill-checked TPLF-orchestrated propaganda narrative’ (Abbink 2023, 235). The details he gives illustrate that, despite his misplaced strong criticism that we did not properly support our argument with evidence, he is decidedly biased (like Mulugeta et al.) in his assessment of the war.³ Unlike both critics, we accept the facts as non-debateable. We are against any instrumentalisation, exaggerations, denials or reductions.

Mulugeta and co-authors also state that we reproduce propagandist claims, including that ‘claims of genocide are a TPLF propaganda ploy’ (Gebrehiwot et al. 2023). There is no such statement in our article. What we pointed out was that foreign experts pushed the claim of genocide as part of their partisan and polarising role during the war, with Alex de Waal publishing a special issue in the Journal of Genocide Research. While the timing and theme is telling, the selective reading of Ethiopia’s undeniably atrocious past is unbelievable. Most notably, the authors conveniently skipped, for instance, the well-documented atrocities committed by the TPLF/EPRDF regime in Somali (2007–2008) and Gambella (2003–2004) regions – which human rights organisations reported as amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity (Human Rights Watch 2005, 2008). Clearly, mentioning these atrocities does not serve their intended messaging.

Mulugeta et al.’s assertion that we minimised the ‘massacres and deliberate starvation of civilians’ (Gebrehiwot et al. 2023) in Tigray is simply false. Despite the technical and administrative determinations of famine illustrated by Omamo (2022) and what appear to be flat-out rejections by some, there was extreme suffering. The atrocities committed should be determined by qualified independent investigators, not by the propaganda machinations of the warring sides. Its purpose should be to help Ethiopians overcome the effects of the war and ensure justice, accountability, reconciliation and non-recurrence. Minimising, exaggerating or instrumentalisation will simply breed further division and violence. We sincerely hope to see the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement, with the attendant genuine political process that will settle all outstanding issues, including those mentioned by Abbink.

Second, Mulugeta et al. claim that our article ‘reproduces central narrative threads of FGE propaganda. One of these is that an unprovoked TPLF attack on the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) was the cause of the war’ (Gebrehiwot et al. 2023). Abbink also implies that we undertook conflict analysis, not least within his title, which highlights ‘the limitations of presentist analysis of conflicts in Ethiopia’ (234). But we did not write about the causesof the war (which we know very well are more complex than the single event of the 3 November 2020 attack), nor did we engage in conflict analysis (which is wider and deeper than the specific issues Abbink covers). We view the attack – which Mulugeta and other pro-TPLF individuals justify as a ‘pre-emptive operation’ (Gebrehiwot 2022) – as a triggering factor that unleashed the war as we know it. Contrary to an attempt to construct a new narrative, we believe that the attack is not inconsequential.

We consider the signing of the CoHA as the outcome of several factors. Mulugeta et al. complain that ‘[t]hose who trumpet the Pretoria Agreement, such as Fana and Yonas, imply that “might is right”’ (Gebrehiwot et al. 2023). They further insist that the TPLF signed the agreement because its central command decided to ‘sue for peace’ after assessing the looming ‘human cost on both sides’ (ibid.). This contradicts the available evidence. Neither the TPLF nor its supporters were keen on an African Union (AU)-led mediation. Mulugeta et al. were effectively supporting TPLF’s position of pushing away the peace process through most of 2022, with Mulugeta himself asserting that an AU-led mediation is a ‘plan that failed before it even began to roll’ (Gebrehiwot 2021).

So, why would the TPLF ‘sue for peace’ through a process that had already failed? The TPLF dropped all its preconditions and changed its stance vis-à-vis the AU through a public statement made on 11 September 2022 (AFP 2022), less than three weeks into the third round of war. If one carefully analyses these dynamics along with the advances made by the ENDF and its allies on the ground, there is little reason to doubt our initial assessment that changes in the ground forced the TPLF to come to the negotiation table.

Abbink, on the other side, appears convinced that the conclusion of the war should not have let the TPLF survive as an organised political group and should have culminated in the discarding of what he takes as the primary cause, the constitutional order. Our position is that as long as the TPLF or any political group is not in a position to seriously contest the state militarily, it should be tolerated for the sake of sustainable peace, and that the war is not about the constitutional order. We will not delve into that here, as it merits a proper conflict analysis.

Third, Mulugeta et al. ignored the entire section of our debate piece on the state and national security by simply dismissing our central argument that the CoHA is a turning point, marking the beginning of the end of ethno-nationalism’s hegemonic centrality to national politics. Their reason is that the incumbent regime is simply ‘shape-shifting’ and ‘embracing the multinational nature of Ethiopia’ (Gebrehiwot et al. 2023). We do not equate ‘embracing the multinational nature of Ethiopia’ with ethno-nationalism’s hegemonic centrality in Ethiopian politics. The two are conceptually and practically different. We are surprised how a team of six authors misses this fundamental distinction. We embrace and celebrate the multinational and multireligious nature of Ethiopia without necessarily subscribing to ethno-nationalism. The likelihood of imagining a future multinational federal Ethiopia with a delicate balance between ethno-nationalism and other ideologies promoting citizenship-based politics is not necessarily far-fetched.

Mirroring Mulugeta et al.’s response, Abbink misrepresented our central argument as if we had claimed that the CoHA marked ‘the demise of ethno-nationalist challenges’ to the Ethiopian state (Abbink 2023, 235). He rejected our argument because ‘the political system that generated the conflict is still in place’ (ibid.). We concede that our argument is contestable. Yet, our claim is based on changes in the pre-war official discourse regarding ethno-nationalist-centred politics which partly precipitated the TPLF’s antagonism toward the federal government, and the former’s loss of the war to the latter. One major policy decision taken by the federal government after the CoHA is the dissolution of the ethnic-based regional Special Forces, also known as Liyu Hayil. This decision is consequential, and it faced resistance only in the Amhara region. Moreover, although Abbink’s assessment of the current situation is mostly valid, we are baffled why he expects radical changes within a year of signing the CoHA. As stated in our article, ‘it is too early to declare the triumph of the Ethiopian state in terms of its security and survival. This, in part, depends on the successful implementation of the CoHA and the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement’ (Gebresenbet and Tariku 2023a, 98).

It is important to note that Ethiopia cannot be stable without embracing the diversity of its people, not just in terms of ethnicity but also other markers of identity and plurality. As such, our view of the Ethiopian state and society is that it will be more secure if it is geared toward building a cohesive, accommodative and just state – with societal relationships based on democratic principles by which Ethiopians live in peace and dignity. Unlike de Waal (2021), who wrote amid the raging war – perhaps prompted by the ENDF’s military loss in June 2021 – that it is ‘valid to see Ethiopia as an empire, its dissolution long overdue’, we view the survivalist instinct of Ethiopian state and society as valid.

Ethiopians will benefit from building a viable, effective and democratic state, not from its dissolution. If the Ethiopian state collapses, it collapses on the Ethiopian people. As seen elsewhere, it is the people who would suffer – not those who are insensitive to the disastrous consequences of their anti-state positions. As admitted from the outset, this is our fundamental position which we do not feel in the slightest bit ashamed to plainly state as Ethiopian scholars.

Fourth, Mulugeta et al. denied that our claim that ‘named critics of the [FGE] are supporters of the [TPLF] is ‘neither substantiated nor correct’, while Abbink rejected our characterisation of his and the rest’s role as pro-government. In so doing, Abbink resorted to sensationalist arguments. He overstepped his bounds by questioning our commitment (while praising his own role) to our own country, which we are serving and to which we pay taxes, and asserted that we ‘emitted not a sound on the conflict … . No commitment to [our] country was expressed, … not a sign of concern about the tens of thousands of civilians displaced, robbed, or killed’ (Abbink 2023, 238). We did not consider ourselves duty-bound to report what we have done over the past years as Ethiopian scholars to help our own country and people. Nor do we think that he is entitled to question our public role from the comfort of his desk in a well-guarded European city. We have never regretted avoiding both the polarised social media and the unhelpful mainstream media. As Ethiopians and scholars, we have been engaged in local public forums including the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences and grassroots-level training platforms which endeavour to find solutions not only to the war in the north but also the violence in other parts of the country. What Abbink has missed is that while his link to Ethiopia is primarily professional, ours is literally everything, and what has happened over the past three years has directly affected us.

We believe we have presented sufficient evidence – within the scope of a debate article – to show how the named foreign experts were not impartial ‘critics’ or fact-checkers. The tweets and articles of some were frequently echo chambers of the propaganda machinations of the respective sides. In playing this role, the authors have helped to polarise the narratives that accompanied the war. We would like to invite readers to look at, for example, the partisan pieces produced by Alex de Waal and Ann Fitz-Gerald on various platforms. We also invite readers to critically examine what Abbink’s rejoinder contributes to calming already polarised positions.

Moreover, Mulugeta et al. misquoted us by saying that ‘new Ethiopian voices have somehow “reframed” a debate distorted by foreigners’ (Gebrehiwot et al. 2023). They also falsely quoted us when stating that our ‘dismissal of foreign scholars is consistent with an anti-colonial, “African solutions”, political stance’. Here, they not only misread our argument but also confuse two separate issues – decoloniality and the AU’s ‘African solutions’. Abbink also viewed our critique of foreign experts as denigration of their contribution to Ethiopian studies (Abbink 2023, 238). We view both responses as a somewhat sensationalist distortion. First, nowhere did we link our critique of the role of foreign experts with anti-colonialism or African solutions. Second, Abbink’s selective quotation of our work to insist that we delegitimise foreign experts as ‘mere activists’ is inaccurate (ibid., 237). Our exact words were ‘reduced to mere activists’ (p. 101). Rather than denigrating them, we recognise and respect their (including Abbink’s) contribution. Our argument is that, in the context of the mis/disinformation, Ethiopians on both sides have wrested the power of framing the situation in their country from foreign experts thanks to social media platforms (ibid.). We consider this challenge to foreign experts’ framing power as a new and exciting development rarely seen, if at all, in Ethiopia’s past. It is a decolonial moment of knowledge production which could help give birth to new paradigms of thinking and research. Yet, as we work and collaborate with several foreign scholars, we did not and will not advance anti-foreign-expert sentiment. It is just an observation that foreign experts in general, and the named partisan experts in particular, have been seriously challenged by Ethiopians themselves. This should be welcomed by everyone, and if the moment is not here yet then we should encourage it.

Fifth, our use of ‘African solutions’ is in reference to the CoHA and the AU’s role. We stated that the agreement is a success for the AU ‘in terms of … giving meaning to the principle’ (Gebresenbet and Tariku 2023a, 96). As Mulugeta et al. note, African agency is one of the crucial components of the African solutions theme (Ani 2019). African agency in the Pretoria Agreement could be discerned by noting the extent of references made to AU norms and principles in the CoHA and the extent of involvement of the AU. As Mukondeleli Mpeiwa (2023) stresses, despite functioning ‘within a context of scarce-to-none budget, staffing and even more limited operational support’, the commitment of the parties to peace and the support of partners enabled the AU to deliver.

Despite the contested nature of the AU’s leadership, it is inaccurate to reduce its role to ‘last minute brokering of peace’ or to limit it to only AU officials ‘holding tight control of the process’ or labelling the agreement as ‘non-African’.⁴ Examinations of the AU’s involvement should consider the early appointment of envoys and, later in August 2021, the appointment and shuttle diplomacy of former president Olusegun Obasanjo. This again should not be interpreted as romanticisation or simplistic understanding of African solutions (Yohannes and Gebresenbet 2021).

To debate, not foreclose: who speaks?

In conclusion, we had hoped that through the debate we were helping to initiate critical questions and contribute to creating new ideas, but not foreclosing the possibility of critical engagement. It appears that Mulugeta et al. aimed to silence us completely and that Abbink is bent on pushing the argument out of academic circles. This is a display of power and privilege, not an attempt to productively engage with the arguments and messages, both in academic terms and for peace and stability in Ethiopia.

Responses to our intervention have tried to control the terms of the debate in their favour. Mulugeta et al. have a degree of political and media power, while Abbink is a senior academic with power to influence. While the former label and sensationalise in order to expose us to unnecessary social media attacks, Abbink tries to define what the right academic questions are. This is unhelpful in trying to develop an engaged and analytically rigorous debate that has tried to initiate a discussion about alternative forms of political engagement in Ethiopia. Decoloniality should aim to speak out against such attempts at the silencing and prioritising of research questions.

The new era is only beginning after the end of the war: the TPLF’s eclipse is ascertained now, while the Prosperity Party and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed are consolidating their power. We are not making a value judgement on the nature of the emerging new era, we are only stating its imminent birth. Much as the post-1991 period was applauded by some and denigrated by others, the post-CoHA period will see a similar fate in the years and decades to come. We will be willing participants in this critical debate.

Notes

1 

While in the Ethiopian tradition first names would be used here and in the journal references, the journal’s European system of listing by second name has been used for citations and references in this piece. The text therefore often refers to Mulugeta and co-authors, while their piece under discussion is listed under Gebrehiwot et al. 2023 in the reference list, as indicated in the citations.

2 

Two of our critics are clearly politically partisan and have skin in the game: Mulugeta (as a TPLF veteran and still an insider) and Mohammed Hassan (an Oromo Liberation Army [OLA] negotiator).

3 

Abbink gives the number of internally displaced persons and victims of massacres as if they are uncontested facts (see Abadir 2023) and ignores some confirmed atrocities that occurred in Tigray.

4 

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

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