The Rhetoric of Restraint in the Horn of Africa

When a military command begins publicly celebrating its own wisdom and strategic calm in the middle of an escalating armed conflict, experience suggests inspecting the battlefield rather than the press releases. In northern Ethiopia, the federal armed forces insist they are handling rising regional tensions with commendable restraint. Yet in the North Wollo zone of Amhara alone, the same military recently reported killing 272 Tigrayan fighters and wounding 260 others during a single counter-offensive.

The fragile peace established by the 2022 Pretoria Agreement is disintegrating. Fighting has expanded beyond Tigray into neighbouring Afar and Amhara, concentrated around key urban and transport nodes like Abala, Sama, Soqota, and Raya Alamata. A newly consolidated coalition of seven rebel factions, operating as the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, has openly pledged to bring down Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.

Faced with a broadening multi-front rebellion, Addis Ababa has retreated to a comfortable diplomatic tactic: blaming external agitators. Army Chief of Staff Field Marshal Berhanu Jula accused Eritrea of financing and arming insurgent groups to weaken the Ethiopian state from the outside. Asmara, deeply suspicious that landlocked Ethiopia seeks an avenue to capture access to the Red Sea, denies the claims. Meanwhile, at the United Nations General Assembly, Ethiopian representatives presented their nation as a steady guarantor of regional stability while pointing fingers at unnamed foreign meddlers.

Yet external interference hardly explains the quiet, systematic unraveling of domestic commitments. The Pretoria Agreement failed largely because the federal government treated its obligations as flexible guidelines. Restrictive measures on fuel, telecommunications, and banking services in Tigray were kept in place long after the shooting was supposed to stop. The promised interim governance framework solidified into permanent political exclusion, depriving the region of representation in national elections.

While the United Nations raises alarms over the use of artillery and combat drones against civilian areas, Washington recently saw fit to lift its human rights sanctions on both Ethiopia and Eritrea, declaring the state of emergency effectively resolved. That diplomatic optimism has collided directly with reality. With internet blackouts again descending across the north, official assurances of restraint read less like a strategy for peace than a temporary pause between offensives.

Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com