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Changing the Patriarchal Mindset: Combatting Rape as a Weapon of War in Tigray

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Photo Credit: Rod Waddington, licensed under Creative Commons

The Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia, once the core of the Aksumite Kingdom, is now witnessing a grinding civil war. Of grave international concern is the fact that this crisis has turned into an act of ethnic cleansing, whereby Ethiopian and Eritrean forces are using rape to cleanse the Tigrayan bloodline, and hence gradually eliminate the Tigrayan ethnic group from the region. Therefore, rape is being used, in effect, as a weapon of war. However, despite the scale of these atrocities, society has tools at its disposal to halt them and prevent their reoccurrence in the future. The answer lies, not in mere condemnation, nor in the use of force, but in a deep-rooted social change driven by the empowerment of women and the education of men in gender (in)equality matters. Only in this way, will Ethiopia be able to rise above this patriarchal violence and become a less gendered society.

Currently the Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are employing rape as punishment towards those linked to the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF), a former political party which dominated Ethiopian politics before Abiy Ahmed became Ethiopia’s Prime Minister in 2018. Since Abiy came to power, hostilities have been constant between his government and the leaders of the TPLF due to the latter not being recognised as an official Ethiopian party and being excluded from the ruling coalition government. Such enmities culminated with the TPLF going to war with the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments in November 2020. This is a conflict, which according to Abiy, has now ceased. However, violence continues to assail the region. The government’s forces keep on not only attacking the Tigray Defence Forces Armed movement (formerly TPLF), but also pursuing the systemic annihilation of the Tigray ethnic group. Civilian attacks have become a constant in the region, with women being the preferred target. Sexual violence against this demographic is rife, despite being prohibited under international humanitarian law and human rights laws, and the practice being condemned by the Ethiopian government itself.

A United States Institute of Peace special report on wartime sexual violence has concluded that a quest for power is the main motive behind sexual violence. The Ethiopian army uses this method to advance its quest to overthrow the Tigray Defence Forces, and exert its regional dominance. Army members have been attacking, beating, and raping civilians in a bid to demonstrate their power. For instance, allegations have surfaced of women coerced into exchanging sex for basic commodities due to their need to provide for their families. Moreover, a UN report confirmed that official soldiers have been forcing individuals to rape their own female family members in exchange for their lives. To make matters worse, most victims are part of those 735,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) who were forced by the outbreak of war to flee their homes. Thus, these purposeful, humiliating acts, are empowering the perpetrators whilst leaving the Tigray populous feeling vulnerable as they have no place where they can live in safety.

Nevertheless, the Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are not the sole offenders of such violations; the Tigrayan forces have also been accused, albeit on fewer occasions, of similar sexual crimes. However, irrespective of allegiances, sexual violence is plaguing Tigrayan society and is unlikely to decrease any time soon. A coordinator of a gender-based violence crisis centre in Tigray told CNN reporters that rapes in the area have grown from averaging one a week prior to the outbreak of the conflict to more than 22 daily cases. However, the number of cases is probably even higher, as many go unreported due to most of victims keeping these atrocities to themselves.

Sexual violations are generally treated as a taboo topic, with many victims not reporting them due to fear, shame, or even guilt. As seen with the Tigray War, this sentiment only intensifies in conflict zones, where insecurity is the norm. Such insecurity has prevented countless women from seeking help and reporting their experiences. Many have sought to become less noticeable, using head coverings and long skirts, out of fear of being assaulted. Therefore, Tigrayan women need protection and education to empower them to fight for their freedom and to escape from the victim role which they are being forced into by the Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers.

However, as stated by the International Committee of the Red Cross in a report on sexual violence in conflict zones, the protection of civilians against sexual crimes in these environments is very complicated. Sexual violations in conflict are not carried out in isolation but are normally accompanied by other unlawful violations, ranging from looting to civilian killings or child recruitment. For instance, in early March 2021, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reported how Eritrean soldiers massacred more than one hundred civilians in Tigray, including children, in November 2020. These more visible war crimes overshadow the cruelty of sexual violations, a more silent and difficult crime to detect, but one that still leaves deep wounds in the victims, their families and communities. International Law, International Humanitarian Law, and Human Rights Law all deem acts of sexual violence unlawful, providing societal frameworks and conventions aimed at preventing such actions from occurring, such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Furthermore, powerful institutions that condemn these violations exist, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), yet, sexual violence is still very much present, with the Tigrayan atrocities attesting to this.

A major hurdle to addressing the sexual abuse currently taking place in the Tigray War is the abundance of deliberate misinformation and contradicting reports being released from the conflict zone to mislead external opinions over the conflict. Although numerous recent reports and allegations about the possible atrocities taking place against the Tigrayan population have surfaced, much is still flying under the radar. The invisibility of these massacres has also been fomented by the Ethiopian government, which has imposed severe restrictive access measures for journalists and humanitarian workers, making it challenging to corroborate survivors’ stories. Thus, it is almost impossible to estimate the multitude of offenses that are taking place and who, in reality, is to blame. So, the opaque nature of the experiences of locals, together with the feelings of shame or fear are preventing the reporting of such actions, hindering the possibility of intervention to halt such cruelty.

Even prior to the present civil war, in Ethiopia, sexual and gender violence has been a common social problem for decades, with 35% of married women in 2016 reporting some sort of sexual violence. This number has dramatically increased in the Tigray region since the war broke out, with more than 500 cases officially reported in March 2021 in that region alone (with real numbers likely being much higher). This is occurring despite the Ethiopian government ratifying many women right’s conventions such as the CEDAW, and including women’s rights provisions and policies in its 1995 Constitution. The Ethiopian administration has also endeavoured to treat gender-based violence survivors with the establishment of more shelters and programmes to reintegrate them into society. However, gender inequalities are ingrained in the daily lives of women and girls, leading them to have a greater likelihood of living with violence in their homes compared with men. Combined with a lack of control over their bodies, this ensures they are more prone to violations of their sexual and reproductive rights; hence, why nationwide progress on gender equality is needed.

It is not enough for a country’s leaders to state their position against sexual violence, just like those in Ethiopia have done, whilst their own army is simultaneously executing such appalling actions. Thus, on top of halting hostilities, investigating into the grave violations committed and condemning the perpetrators of such acts, the latter being a process that has now been initiated through international communal pressure and headed conjunctly by the UN’s High Commissioner Office and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHCR), a more educational and cultural change is needed. As stated by the 48th Session of the Commission of Status of Women (CSW), to achieve that change towards gender equality, men need to engage in conversations around sexual health, gender-sensitive behaviour and toxic masculinity. Also, it is essential to break gender stereotypes, and to instigate a reconstruction of the concept of masculinity to allow for men’s patriarchal and violent mindsets to, with time, decrease. Likewise, women empowerment programmes can provide great value to sexual violence survivors and to the community itself. These can change participants’ beliefs and increase their self-confidence, making women more participative within their own communities. Furthermore, they can also make women more willing to support and educate others on gender violence, sexual assaults, and mistreatment of women. The damaging effects of these acts can include sexually transmitted infections such as HIV, psychological effects like PTSD (between 17% and 65% of women sexually assaulted in adulthood display symptoms of PTSD), self-harm, and relational and social adverse effects, such as loss of trust, isolation or fear of intimacy. Developing a nurturing community can thus assist in overcoming these devastating physical, psychological, emotional, and social consequences of gender violence. Hence, in Ethiopia, this more holistic approach to this challenge, engaging both men and women in the process of change, will not only help to prevent actions of sexual violence from occurring again but will also empower communities and the coming generations to speak out and defend human rights for all, forming and sustaining more equal and inclusive societies.

Unfortunately, changing mindsets and bringing about cultural change takes time. As efforts continue, strong prosecution and condemnation of sexual crimes remain essential to keep offenders in line and prevent future waves of atrocities like those currently taking place in Tigray. Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law must not be breached merely to wield power. Rape and other sexual crimes must not remain as tools of war in Tigray, nor anywhere else. Thus, the Ethiopian Government, its Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed (a Nobel Peace Prize winner) and the international community must denounce and take action to prevent such cruel tactics from continuing to be used. The Tigrayan population, and especially its women, deserve to feel safe again.

Ethnic Federalism in Decline: Implications of Ethiopia’s Tigray Crisis

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by Farley Sweatman

40th Anniversary of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in 2015
Source: Paul Kagame

Armed clashes continue across Ethiopia’s Tigray region as Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) battle fighters loyal to the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF). Despite taking effective control of Mekelle, Tigray’s regional capital, in the initial offensive, ENDF troops now face the possibility of a protracted insurgency, with TPLF leaders vowing to fight on in the region’s mountainous interior. More concerning still is that the conflict has taken on an ethnically driven dimension with reports of ethnic profiling by Ethiopia’s federal government against the Tigrayan population. Unless quickly resolved, the crisis threatens to reverse any recent gains made by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration towards promoting a shared sense of unity and identity (or Ethiopiawinet) that transcends ethnic lines.

The ramifications of this conflict are two-fold. Internally, the sectarian aspect risks spreading ethnic tensions to other parts of Ethiopia, thereby unravelling the thin blanket of ethno-federalism that has held the country together. Externally, regional rivals Egypt and Sudan may exploit this unrest to derail the contentious Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which could escalate the violence and prompt an international crisis.

Ethiopiawinet and the beginnings of a renaissance

Ethiopia is rife with potential. While landlocked, Ethiopia has one of the largest freshwater reserves in Africa with over a dozen major rivers flowing out of its highlands. Control of these crucial water basins grants Ethiopia strategic leverage over all of its riparian neighbours. Ethiopia is also Africa’s second most populous country and is the fastest growing economy in the region, experiencing high, broad-based economic growth that has averaged 9.8 per cent annually over the last decade.

Despite these advantages, Ethiopia faces longstanding issues relating to its delicate ethnic framework. The mosaic of ethnicities comprising the Ethiopian space is a serious obstacle for any centralization effort by the central government. After the collapse of the unitary Derg regime in 1991, the victorious Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) established the current ethno-federalist system, which divided the country into several regions along ethno-linguistic lines. Each of these regions has its own local government, and more importantly, its own security forces.

This new system was defined by widespread corruption, through which the TPLF held disproportionate military and political influence over the other parties in the EPRDF. The ascension of Abiy Ahmed to power in 2018 marked a drastic shift from this trend. Half Oromo and half Amhara (Ethiopia’s two largest ethnic groups), Abiy is a serious reformer who freed thousands of political prisoners, cracked down on corruption, and reached an historical agreement with Eritrea to formally end their long border conflict. Abiy also merged the disparate parties of the EPRDF into a single Prosperity Party (PP). These efforts at replacing the ethno-federalist system with a unitary state are backed by inclusive rhetoric alluding to the concept of Ethiopiawinet or “Ethiopianness” that supersedes ethnic divisions.

Sectarian undertones

The discrepancies between this promised unitary vision and its actual implementation serves as the focal point for the current Tigray conflict. Backed by a predominately Amhara political elite, Abi’s centralising reforms work to marginalise Tigray influence – politically and culturally. The ethnic asymmetry of this supposedly inclusive unitary narrative is illustrated in Abiy’s nuanced messages to the Oromos and Tigrayans. Abiy declared that the “Oromo struggle is the Ethiopian struggle,” while in Tigray he contended that “ethnic differences should be recognized and respected, however, we should not allow them to be hardened to the extent of destroying our common national story.”

Ethno-regional division of Ethiopia
Source: Peter Fitzgerald

These ethnic differences permeate the current conflict. Abiy enjoys popular Amhara support with thousands of Amhara militiamen fighting alongside federal forces in Tigray. Meanwhile, scores of Amhara civilians were massacred in Mai Kadra in western Tigray, possibly in response by the TPLF. Abiy’s offensive is largely directed against the TPLF political-military establishment, but increasingly, allegations of ethnic profiling against the Tigrayan population surface – both in Tigray and elsewhere in the country. Tigrayans in the national capital, Addis Ababa, have been harassed and those working in security or civil serves been told not to come to work.

This sectarianism has serious implications which threaten the territorial integrity of Ethiopia. If the conflict is directed against the general Tigrayan population as opposed to a defined political-military entity, there can be no immediate resolution. Failing to quickly resolve this crisis struggle may reinvigorate latent secessionist movements elsewhere in Ethiopia. The Southern Nations region of Ethiopia, for instance, is teeming with nationalist factions. Also, Tigrayan unrest may trigger ethnic Somali irridentist claims in the Ogaden region. If these groups reject Abiy’s centralization efforts, bloodshed may follow.

Regional destabiliser

There is growing concern that the conflict may destabilize the entire Horn of Africa. Thousands of Ethiopian soldiers fighting Islamist insurgencies in Somalia have reportedly been withdrawn to join to the Tigray offensive. This redeployment could create a power vacuum in Somalia to be filled by Islamist groups like al-Shabaab or the Islamic State. The violence in Tigray has already spilled into neighbouring Eritrea, which harbours a longstanding animosity towards the TPLF over its leading role in Eritrean-Ethiopian border conflict. Eritrean troops are reported to have crossed into the Tigray region following TPLF rocket strikes on the Eritrean capital of Asmara.

Eritrean involvement could potentially result in intervention from other foreign powers. Abiy is currently engaged in a public standoff with Egypt and Sudan over the GERD project which, when completed, will grant Ethiopia control of the Nile water supply. If Egypt and Sudan were to side with the TPLF, derailing the GERD, this could result in more actors becoming involved in the crisis. For example, Turkey, with its history of intervening in post-Arab Spring conflicts in Syria and Libya, may move in to balance its regional rival Egypt by supporting Ethiopia. With Turkey involved, it would potentially not be long before the Gulf states, who have vested interests in the Horn, would get dragged into the conflict.

Walking a fine line

With these internal and external variables at play, it is in the interest of Abiy and his government to seek an immediate end to the Tigray conflict – either through swift military means or international mediation. The latter seems preferable for producing a more robust and enduring peace agreement, with the eventual reintegration of Tigrayan politicians into Ethiopian politics. Abiy, however, must be careful not to make too many concessions, lest he alienate his support base and incentivise other secessionist movements in the country.

To secure its future, Ethiopia must move beyond ethnic-based politics. Lessons from Yugoslavia in 1990s have demonstrated the innate and deadly fallacies of ethnic federalism. Ethiopia’s ethnic federalist system serves to empower the dominant ethno-regional group, thereby marginalizing ethnic minorities at the local level. In creating a unitary state, Abiy must reject the populist demands of the Amhara or Oromo while working toward peaceful coexistence with the TPFL. Inclusion into the PP might prove a stretch but Abiy should at least strive for a working relationship with the TPLF that offers them political protections in a new Ethiopia.

Farley Sweatman is a Master of Global Affairs (MGA ’21) Candidate at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto. He has interned at the American Chamber Commerce in Morocco and is currently specializing in global capital markets and global security at the Munk School. Farley is also an active member of the Global Conversations media organization as Associate Editor and former Feature Contributor for Middle East and North African (MENA) Affairs.

Feature – Tigray: A Potential Humanitarian Crisis

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Militia from the Amhara border region with Tigray rides out to face the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Ethiopia, 9 November 2020 (Image credit: Reuters/Tiksa Negeri)

In 2018 the newly appointed Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed formally brought an end to the Ethiopia-Eritrean War. The armed conflict, fought between 1998 and 2000 following the invasion of Badme by Eritrean forces, killed around 80,000 people and resulted in nearly two decades of tension between the two countries. It was in 2019 that PM Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to Ethiopia. Less than a year later, in October 2020, Ethiopia faces a civil war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and Abiy’s government. Following a reported attack from Tigray regional forces, Abiy ordered a military offensive in the Tigray region on 4 November 2020. The conflict is quickly becoming a major security concern for the country and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa. As the violence increases, there are increasing signs of a potential humanitarian crisis and instability in the region. Hundreds have already been killed, both sides are claiming war crimes, and thousands of refugees are fleeing the country.

The source of the conflict

The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics between 1991 and 2019 as part of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The EPRDF was made up of four parties each one representing each ethnic group in the country. Although all four parties were intended to have equal representation, the EPRDF was dominated by the TPLF, resulting in ethnic-based inequality and tensions. Following protests for reform, in 2019 Prime Minister Abiy merged former member parties of the EPRDF, and other ethnic parties that had been overlooked by the EPRDF, into the Prosperity Party (PP) in an attempt to have fairer representation in central government. However, the TPLF opposed the merger because they would lose their disproportionate influence, as Tigrayans only constitute six per cent of the population. The TPLF made a statement, claiming that the merging of the parties would be akin to bringing together “fire and hay”, and called for the public to oppose the reforms. Rising opposition to the government led to an increase in tensions between the TPLF and Abiy Ahmed.

In August 2020, landmark elections were meant to be held in Ethiopia; this was to be the Prosperity Party’s first electoral campaign. However, in March 2020 it was declared that all national and regional elections were to be postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Opposition groups questioned the decision, claiming that the prime minister was deliberately refusing to hold the elections. Tigray took the unilateral decision to hold regional elections in defiance of the governments’ demands on 8 September 2020. The Prime minister declared the election as illegal and compared them to the construction of shanties by ‘illegal dwellers.’ In October, the federal government began to withhold funds for social welfare programs in retaliation to the ‘illegal’ elections in Tigray.

(Image credit: VOA)

By November tensions between the government and the Tigray region had reached boiling point, and on 4 November Abiy ordered the military to enter the Tigray region, reportedly in response to an attack on government forces by the TPLF. Abiy warned Tigray’s leaders that there is no place for ‘criminal elements’ in Ethiopia, adding that they would ‘extract these criminal elements [from Tigray and] relaunch our country on a path to sustainable prosperity for all.’ The TPLF, however, see the use of troops as punishment for the September vote, and an act of aggression. Debretsion Gebremichael, President of the Tigray region, said: ‘what has been initiated against us is clearly a war, an invasion … this is a war we’re conducting to preserve our existence.’

The government declared a six-month state of emergency across the Tigray region on 5 November. The declaration grants the government the power to suspend political and democratic rights. It also allows for the government to impose curfews, searches without warrants, communications and transportation restrictions and the detention of any person or suspect that is taking part in illegal activities. Under these regulations, Prime Minister Abiy had cut all communication and transport links to the Tigray region.

A humanitarian disaster?

At the time of writing, Ethiopia appears to be on the brink of a potentially long and bloody civil war. The fighting is already believed to have claimed the lives of hundreds of people and fighting has spread across the region. Even with the government cutting off all media and communication with the Tigray region, there have already been reports of atrocities across the region. Amnesty International reported that a massacre occurred in Tigray on 9 November possibly killing hundreds. Amnesty International has been unable to establish who is responsible for the hacking to death of civilians on 9 November. However, witnesses claim that both have been killing civilians. If the situation worsens, there are concerns that this will result in a major humanitarian crisis. The UN has warned that “if the Tigray national (and) regional forces and Ethiopian Government forces continue down the path they are on, there is a risk this situation will spiral totally out of control”.

Not only are civilians at risk of being killed by violence, but because government forces have closed the roads to Tigray, aid agencies are struggling to reach the most vulnerable; prior to the conflict there were already 96,000 Eritrean refugees living in Tigray and 100,000 internally displaced people. Currently, the UN provides food for 600,000 people in Tigray and there have already been shortages of basic commodities such as flour. There have also been cuts to essential services such as electricity and water. If the conflict continues, the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia will continue to worsen.

In less than two weeks, the fighting in Tigray has resulted in at least 21,000 refugees fleeing the violence into Sudan. One border point, which can typically accommodate 300 refugees, is currently overwhelmed with 6,000 people. If the conflict continues, it is expected that potentially hundreds of thousands of people may flee the violence.

Prospects for de-escalation/improvement

At present, the future for Ethiopia looks bleak. The country is on the cusp of a major humanitarian crisis, akin to the suffering endured during Ethiopia’s civil war of the 1980s. The flow of refugees is putting pressure on to neighbouring countries, and the conflict seems to be worsening. On 13 November reports of troops firing into the Amhara region, an area that backs the Abiy government raises fears that the conflict could spread across more regions of the country. Today, some reports also claim that Tigrayan forces have fired into Eritrea, with the TPLF forces suggesting that Eritrean forces are supporting the Ethiopian government. Relations between the TPLF leaders and Isaias Afwerki, the ruler of Eritrea, have been poor for decades. Eritrean conscription, a call-up of retired Eritrean senior officers, and troop movements towards to border have recently worsened tensions between the TPLF and its northern neighbour. If the violence in Ethiopia cannot be abated, then the conflict has the potential to spill further into Eritrea, and potentially into powers across the Horn of Africa.

However, there are efforts that can help alleviate the humanitarian crisis. One of the main issues concerns the ability of aid to reach the most vulnerable. Every day without aid the thousands of vulnerable people in the region become more vulnerable as access to necessities is becoming increasingly harder. The UN is negotiating with both sides for humanitarian corridors to be opened, but as of yet, they are still unable to enter the region. The government must open the Tigray region to aid agencies to begin alleviating the suffering of the Ethiopian people. One of the major concerns for the UN is food insecurity in the region. Currently, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council says that it has enough resources to meet the needs of 300,000 people until January 2021, half of those that needed it before the conflict, and the Joint Emergency Operation Plan NGO says that it needs to restock in December 2020 to ensure it can continue to assist the population. Without a resupply of food, there are fears that hundreds of thousands of people will be left without access to food. The UN reports show a similar situation for medicine and emergency supplies.

The most pressing priority is bringing about a cessation of hostilities to stop the violence before the conflict escalates into a protracted civil war that could further destabilise the region. Analysts have argued that it is not too late to stop the war from spiralling out of control. Pressure must be applied to get both parties to agree to a ceasefire. The United Nations Secretary-General has called for “all stakeholders to take urgent steps to calm tensions in the country and to resolve challenges through an inclusive and peaceful dialogue”. But if more pressure is applied from parties within Ethiopia, its neighbours in the Horn of Africa, the African Union and abroad, then perhaps the parties may be brought to the negotiating table and to agree on a potential ceasefire. By stopping the fighting, opening the Tigray region, a humanitarian disaster could be averted.

The best-case scenario for Ethiopia would be for both the TPLF and the Abiy Government to agree to a ceasefire, both communication and transport links would be opened in Tigray allowing for aid to reach those who need it. The worst-case would be the escalation of violence, resulting in a catastrophic humanitarian disaster, the deaths of thousands of Ethiopians and potentially destabilise the region. The current circumstances indicate the worst-case scenario is more likely to become the reality, as Prime Minister Abiy said on 17 November that the chance for a ceasefire has expired, and the TPLF have reiterated that they will not back down. Therefore, there must be more international pressure on both parties to change their position and come to the negotiating table.

Philip Mayne is a final year PhD candidate at the University of Hull. He has a special interest in strategy, counterinsurgency, military ethics, military history, international security and relations. His thesis examines the relationship between military ethics and military effectiveness. Specifically, his work focuses on adherence to the Just War Tradition, and success in counterinsurgencies; through analysing the case studies of the Malayan Emergency, the Kenyan Emergency, the Algerian War and the Vietnam War. Philip has contributed to the Huffington Post and is an active member of the Hull University War Studies Research Group. Find him on Twitter @phil_mayne.

Confederates in Ethiopia: American industrial warfare and Egyptian imperialism in central Africa

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By James A. Fargher

Loring’s recollections of his time in Ethiopia provide a fascinating glimpse into one of the 19th century’s intra-African wars, fought in an area of the world virtually unknown to Europeans and Americans at the time.

The 1874-1884 Egyptian-Ethiopian War is one of the 19th century’s more obscure conflicts.  One of the most surprising aspects of the conflict is that it involved a group of ex-Confederate officers who had been hired by an Ottoman viceroy to conquer an empire in central Africa. These Confederate veterans had fought in the US Civil War, in part to preserve a social system based on the enslavement of Africans and their descendants. However, along with some Union officers, less than five years after the fall of the Confederacy they found themselves posted over 6,000 miles away from home, in new uniforms and leading columns of African troops into the Ethiopian highlands.

Though technically a self-governing province of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt was ruled by the ambitious Khedive Ismail (1863 – 1879) who dreamed of elevating his kingdom to the stature of one of the great European powers. In order to do so, he planned to push Egypt’s borders south to Lake Victoria and to encompass everything above the Equator between the Sahara Desert in the west and the Indian Ocean in the east.[1] This included consolidating Egypt’s grip over the vast territory of Sudan, which was already ruled as an Egyptian colony, and establishing Egyptian hegemony over the east coast of Africa from Suez to Somalia.

Ismail became convinced that the new methods of warfare pioneered by the Americans could make his vision a reality by modernising the Egyptian army. Egypt was the wealthiest and most developed state in northeastern Africa in the 1870s, but less powerful empires and kingdoms in the region, including Ethiopia, were still capable of meeting the Egyptian challenge. The armies of Emperor Yohannes IV of Ethiopia, for example, vastly outnumbered Egyptian expeditionary forces. Ismail recognised that he would need to introduce technological innovations and reforms into his army before he could begin his conquest of the African interior. The khedive was therefore somewhat ahead of his time, as contemporary Europeans continued to look to the wars of the 18th century for guidance on all matters tactical and strategic.[2]

The Khedive was originally introduced to the idea of hiring American officers to reorganize his army when he met Thaddeus Mott, an ex-Union artillery officer, and adventurer in the sultan’s court in Constantinople in 1868.[3] Mott regaled Ismail with testimonies about the advances the Americans had achieved in technology and tactics during the US Civil War that he convinced the Khedive to hire American veterans to oversee the modernisation of Egypt’s armed forces. In 1870, the first of these military overseers, ex-Confederate officers Henry Hopkins Sibley and William Wing Loring, arrived in Egypt on the recommendation of General William Tecumseh Sherman.[4]

Initially, these men were put to work designing coastal fortifications and lighthouses, with later arrivals helping to conduct surveys of the African territory already under Egyptian control.[5] In 1874 the Khedive launched an invasion of the ancient Christian empire of Ethiopia, Egypt’s principal rival in northeastern Africa, with his armies led in part by American officers.

One of these officers, William W. Loring, published a memoir of his experience in the Ethiopian War. A North Carolinian, Loring sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War and was put in command of an army in northwestern Virginia. He subsequently served in the western theatre until the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865. In 1870, he was appointed by the Khedive as Inspector-General of the Egyptian army, and in 1875 he was promoted to become the chief of staff to the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian military expedition in Ethiopia.

Loring’s recollections of his time in Ethiopia provide a fascinating glimpse into one of the 19th century’s intra-African wars, fought in an area of the world virtually unknown to Europeans and Americans at the time.[6] Twice, Egyptian columns marched deep into the interior of Ethiopia, once from the Red Sea coast and once from the Sudan, only to be met by an overwhelming number of enemy forces. Although the Egyptians were better equipped than their medieval Ethiopian counterparts, who were often armed with swords and chainmail, they operated on extended supply lines deep inside enemy territory. On both occasions, the Egyptian columns were crushed by the sheer weight of Ethiopian numbers.

American officers played a small but noteworthy role in orchestrating these campaigns. At the Battle of Gura in 1876, for example, William Loring may have altered the course of the war by taunting his Egyptian commanding officer into action. Confronted by an Ethiopian detachment which outnumbered his column, the Egyptian commander was goaded by Loring into leaving the safety of a local fortress and marching out to meet the Ethiopians in the open plain.[7] The ensuing battle was a disaster as the Egyptian column was overwhelmed, forcing a general retreat. The war subsequently lapsed into a stalemate until the British admiral Sir William Hewett brokered a final peace treaty in 1884.[8]

Egypt’s attempts to conquer Ethiopia were effectively extinguished after the Battle of Gura. The involvement of US Civil War veterans in the Egyptian-Ethiopian War has ended only as a fascinating footnote in the history of Egypt’s failed attempt to forge an African empire. The legacy of these American officers, however, is intertwined with the memory of Egyptian imperialism which continues to overshadow regional relationships in northeastern Africa in the present day.

James is a second-year doctoral candidate in the Laughton Naval Unit specialising in British imperial and naval history.

Notes:

[1] Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, 1876-1912 (London: Abacus, 1991), 77.

[2] Margaret MacMillan, ‘Thinking About War Before 1914,’ Lecture, Humanitas Lectures from University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 10 February 2014.

[3] Cassandra Vivian, Americans in Egypt, 1770-1915: Explorers, Consuls, Travelers, Soldiers, Missionaries, Writers, and Scientists (Jefferson: McFarland & Co., 2012), 171.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 172.

[6] William Loring, A Confederate Soldier in Egypt (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1884).

[7] Ibid.

[8] Bennet Burleigh, Desert Warfare: Being the Chronicle of the Eastern Soudan Campaign (London: Chapman and Hall, 1884) 235.

Feature image: Miniature toy figures depicting the Egyptian confrontation with Ethiopian warriors (1875), available here: https://agrabbagofgames.wordpress.com/2017/01/12/a-ridge-too-far-the-egyptian-invasion-of-ethiopia-1875/

 

Dams as Centaurs

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EDITORS NOTE: This is the second article in a four-part series which explores the role of water in human conflict and politics. The series marks (though is not affiliated with) World Water Day 2016, a UN initiative to promote awareness of water issues. More information on World Water Day can be found here. The first article in the series can be found here.

By: Filippo Menga

Nile_Aswan_low_dam1
Aswan Dam, Egypt. Source: WikiMedia

In Greek mythology, the centaur was a creature with the head, arms, and torso of a man and the body and legs of a horse. The Italian thinker Niccolò Machiavelli used the image of the centaur to delineate the traits and attitudes of a good ruler, the Prince, who would know how to use his strength (or force), but also his intellect. A Prince had to be respected to obtain obedience, as in the ideal case of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who ‘possessed many qualities which earned him great respect, all his life he succeeded in holding both of these [the soldiers and the populace] in check and he was never hated or scorned’.[1]

Although this might at first sound as a conceptual overstretch, the image of the centaur can be useful to metaphorically represent one of the least philosophical and more down-to-earth (or water) structures of our time, major dams.[2] In order to prove so, some context is needed.

Dams are, perhaps, the most spectacular way to tame water resources. They can serve multiple purposes, such as generating hydroelectricity, controlling water flows, and allowing irrigated agriculture and urban development. As illustrated by the work of the US-based NGO International Rivers, we are currently witnessing a new boom in the global dam industry. But things have not always been this way. Following the first boom in the early and mid-twentieth century, the number of dams being built worldwide started to decline in the 1970s. Sanjeev Khagram[3] proposes four arguments to explain this phenomenon.

The first is technical, due to the overexploitation of rivers and the subsequent scarcity of suitable sites where new dams could be built. The second is financial, and is related to the shortage of funding for this kind of projects, which are notoriously very costly. On top of that, the hydropower sector is frequently linked with corruption. Transparency International, an NGO which monitors corporate and political corruption, dedicated its 2008 Global Corruption Report to Corruption in the Water Sector, noting that the ‘hydropower sector’s massive investment volumes (estimated at US$50–60 billion annually over the coming decades) and highly complex, customised engineering projects can be a breeding ground for corruption in the design, tendering and execution of large-scale dam projects around the world’.[4] The third reason is economic, and refers to the viability of cheaper alternatives (such as natural gas power plants), while the fourth is political, and stems from public protests against dams and the emergence of the environmental awareness paradigm inspired by the Green movement.

As a result of the growing opposition to large dams, in 1997 the World Bank (which is the single largest investor in large dams worldwide) ignited the work of the World Commission on Dams (WCD). This body had the responsibility of reviewing the development effectiveness of large dams, along with their social, economic and environmental impact. The work of the WCD resulted in a report, published in 2000, which noted that ‘Dams have made an important and significant contribution to human development, and the benefits derived from them have been considerable’, and yet, ‘[i]n too many cases an unacceptable and often unnecessary price has been paid to secure those benefits, especially in social and environmental terms, by people displaced, by communities downstream, by taxpayers and by the natural environment’.[5]

While all this might lead one to think that the large dam business was staring at a gloomy future in the early 2000s, the trend changed, and hundreds of new, extremely costly and controversial projects have been launched in the last few years. China and India, in particular, are now leading the dam movement worldwide, driven by the prospect of producing more clean hydroelectricity while also increasing their agricultural production to meet growing energy and food needs.

Ten years after the release of the WCD report, a special issue of the journal Water Alternatives identified the new drivers of dam (and hydropower) development, including a rise in water and energy demands, climate change, the increase in the price of carbon fuels, and the abovementioned emergence of new funders. Although all these motives seem valid, it is worth mentioning that there is a number of low-impact and non-structural alternatives to dams (such as small hydroelectric power plants, infiltration galleries and wells, and seasonal dams) that would not cause, for instance, regional controversies and the displacement of thousands of people, and would not even require the huge investments necessary to build a large dam. Then why do governments still tend to prefer taking the hard road? Here is where the centaur can provide analytical insights to understand this phenomenon.

As Bent Flyvbjerg effectively sums it up, megaprojects have to be considered as both political and physical animals to appreciate the rationale behind their construction.[6] The performative effects of dam building, those that are clearly visible such as the diversion of a river or the generation of hydroelectricity, epitomize the strength of the centaur, its animal side. Yet, there is also a hidden and more abstract dimension that accompanies the construction of a large dam and that corresponds to the sapiens part of the centaur, its ideological production. I am referring to what can be termed the “dam ideology”, or in other words, the process through which ruling elites use the symbolism of major dams to gain legitimacy and bolster a sense of national identity and patriotism.[7] This aspect, I argue, should be considered – along with the ones mentioned above – as a driver of dam development. In fact, if we apply this analytical lens to some of the current regional controversies triggered by dam building, we can further our understanding of the issues at stake and of the apparently uncompromising attitude of the actors involved.

centaur one
Classic representation of the Centaur in ancient Greek mythology.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam currently under construction on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, which, when finished, will be the largest dam in Africa provides great example. Beyond electricity generation, flood control and grand irrigation schemes, the discursive weight of the ideology attached to the dam suggests that the Otherness is as important as the Self. The fact that Egypt, a neighbouring and rival country, opposes the dam, can reinforce among its proponents the idea of the necessity of its construction. Matters related to self-determination, sovereignty, the assertion of power, the control of nature and, above all, patriotism and national identity, are all part of the discursive constructions surrounding the dam. Furthermore, at the domestic level, the dam can be portrayed as a nationally cohesive element that unites the population around a national idea of progress and success. While this phenomenon has been studied in the past by environmental historians (some iconic examples are the Hoover Dam in the United States, the High Aswan Dam in Egypt and the Marathon Dam in Greece), scholars studying transboundary water relations have so far overlooked what appears as a twenty-first century revamp of high modernism, that is ‘a strong, one might even say muscle-bound, version of the beliefs in scientific and technical progress that were associated with industrialization in Western Europe and in North America from roughly 1830 until World War I’.[8]

This seems to be happening not only in the Nile, but also in other river basins around the world. In Central Asia, for instance, Tajikistan is building the large and controversial Rogun Dam (strongly opposed by neighbouring Uzbekistan), whose meaning has now gone beyond that of a simple multi-purpose dam. The Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has often reiterated that the dam is Tajikistan’s national idea. It therefore seems difficult to imagine a government giving up on a national idea, even though this might cause regional tensions.

This is not to say that large dams should be analysed only for their discursive impact. Rather, both dimensions of dam building development – the performative and the discursive – should go hand in hand if we are to fully understand its meaning and to effectively address its necessity. Less controversial alternatives to large dams do exist, but their symbolic and discursive impact is of course negligible compared to that of a megaproject. After all, the centaur wouldn’t go very far without his legs, and yet, it is his mind that sets the direction.

Filippo Menga is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow at The University of Manchester, where he is carrying out a study on dams and nation-building through case-studies from Ethiopia and Tajikistan. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations awarded by the University of Cagliari and he has been visiting researcher at Tallinn University, the University of St Andrews and King’s College London. His works have recently appeared in the journals Nationalities Papers and Water Policy.

Acknowledgement: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 654861.

 

Notes:

[1] N. Machiavelli, The Prince (New American Library, 1958), p. 108.

[2] The International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) defines a major dam as a dam with a height of 150 m or more from the foundation, a reservoir storage capacity of at least 25 km3 and an electrical generation capacity of at least 1000 MW.

[3] S. Khagram, Dams and Development (Cornell University Press, 2004).

[4] Transparency International, Global Corruption Report 2008: Corruption in the Water Sector (Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. xxv.

[5] The World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development: a new framework for decision-making (Earthscan, 2000), p. xxviii.

[6] B. Flyvbjerg, N. Bruzelius, and W. Rothengatter, Megaprojects and risk: Making decisions in an uncertain world (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

[7] F. Menga, ‘Building a nation through a dam: the case of Rogun in Tajikistan’, in Nationalities Papers, Vol. 43, Issue 3 (2015).

[8] J. C. Scott, Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (Yale University Press, 1998).