Government calls for Ethiopians to ‘take up arms’ to defend capital from rebel surge

Officials in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa have called on residents to register weapons and prepare to protect their neighbourhoods as fears rise that rebel fighters could soon descend on the city.

The call came after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) announced that it had taken two cities – Dessie and Kombolcha – within 250 miles of the capital following a surge beginning in the north of the country.

The state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting said the “state of emergency” was “to protect civilians from atrocities being committed by the terrorist TPLF group”, Al Jazeera reported. The measures allow for “roadblocks to be established, transport services to be disrupted, curfews to be imposed and for the military to take over in certain areas”.

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Civilian army

The TPLF claims that it has taken “strategic staging posts” around the capital, The Times said, prompting officials to encourage “those who have weapons” to “take up arms”, while “ordering people who were unable to fight to hand over privately owned firearms”.

The call came after the TPLF said it had taken Dessie and Kombolcha, which are “​​on the main road to Addis Ababa”, the paper added. Another rebel group from Oromia, the country’s largest state, also claims that it is “surrounding the capital”.

The TPLF “have talked about a southward march on Addis Ababa previously” but “would face significant resistance, not just from the military but also the general population”, William Davison, a senior Ethiopia analyst at International Crisis Group, told the paper.

Davison suggested that the group “may attempt to consolidate their military gains and try to increase the pressure on Addis Ababa by focusing on the road to Djibouti”.

The conflict between the government and the TPLF has been raging for around a year, but has for the most part “been confined to the north of the country”, according to the Financial Times (FT). Recent days have, however, seen the fighting “sharply escalate”.

Thousands have been killed and around two million forced to flee their homes after Nobel Prize winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last year “sent troops to quell unrest in Tigray after what he said was an attack on Ethiopian forces by troops loyal to the TPLF”.

The TPLF claims it is expanding the conflict to “prevent food and humanitarian supplies reaching Tigray”, the paper added, where the UN has warned “up to five million people need urgent food relief and ​​at least 400,000 are in famine-like conditions”.

However, Reuters quoted TPLF spokesperson Getachew Reda as stating that “if the government falls, we will definitely have an interim arrangement”, suggesting a surge may follow the capture of key cities.

Continuing that the TPLF would be open to a national dialogue on how to proceed, he added that Abiy and his ministers would not be invited to take part, instead warning: “They will have their day in court.”

War of perception

After Abiy dispatched troops into Tigray last year, the conflict quickly became “characterised by a propaganda war”, the FT said, in which “accused each other of gross human rights violations”.

The prime minister has “consistently referred to the TPLF, which effectively ran the country for almost three decades until he took over in 2018, as a terrorist force”, the paper added, while the TPLF has accused the government of blockading the region.

On Monday US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern at the increase in hostilities, tweeting: “Continued fighting prolongs the dire humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia. All parties must stop military operations and begin ceasefire negotiations without preconditions.”

The Biden administration is also on the verge of “ending Ethiopia's special trade status under US law”, ABC News reported, as well as mulling “a declaration that the Ethiopian government's atrocities against Tigrayans constitute a genocide”.

Two sources familiar with the thinking inside the White House told the broadcaster that “targeted US sanctions against figures on all sides” are on the cards.

Such a muscular response from Biden follows a joint investigation by the UN and Ethiopia that found both warring factions may have “committed violations [that] may amount to war crimes”, The Guardian said.

Carried out by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the report, published hours before the state of emergency was declared, “accuses all sides of torturing and killing civilians, carrying out gang-rapes and making arrests on the basis of ethnicity”, the paper added.

Eritrean forces, drawn into the conflict due the country’s close relationship with Abiy, were also accused of committing possible war crimes.

The report said the UN has “reasonable grounds to believe that during this period, all parties to the Tigray conflict have committed violations of international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law”.

“Some of these may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it added.

It remains unclear whether the report, which is based on 269 interviews, “could form the basis for legal action”, The Guardian said. “Ethiopia and Eritrea are not members of the international criminal court, so it has no jurisdiction”.