All Lives Are Equally Valuable: Wars in Ukraine and Tigray

2022

[T]here is nowhere on earth where the health of millions of people is more under threat than in Tigray. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus WHO Director-General Geneva, 16 March 2022 At the world’s opposite ends two genocidal-scale wars now rage, one in the global South, and the other in the global North. In Ethiopia the Amhara-dominated federal government pounced on the country’s autonomous region of Tigray on the fateful Tuesday of 3 November 2020. A year and a half later, on the Thursday of 24 February 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine. Seemingly these two conflicts have nothing to do with each other. So differently alike wars It is a myth. The West’s myopia and the European Union’s overconcentration on its own interests that blind decision-makers and the world public opinion to the obvious commonalities, which these two conflicts share. First of all, in both wars it is civilians who do most of the dying at hands of the attacking armies. Second, the underlying causes and the ‘logic’ of ethnolinguistic nationalism that prompted the Ethiopian prime minister and the Russian president to order the respective onslaughts have more in common than immediately meets the eye.

Commentary, 2022

Eritrea Hub, 2022

A comprehensive analysis of the war in the Ethiopian region of Tigray. Builds on The Tigray War and Regional Implications (Volume 1) published in June 2021, by taking the narrative to the end of December 2021. Chapters on: 1. The development of the war, with maps 2. The looting and destruction of Tigray's unique heritage 3. Sexual violence and rape 4. Eritrea's role and international sanctions 5. Diplomacy in the region and internationally 6. The humanitarian situation 7. The role of the Eritrean and Tigrayan diasporas

2021

Five years into the armed conflict in the Donbas, the war has exerted significant humanitarian costs. Perhaps as many as 13,000 people have lost their lives. 1 Perhaps as many as two million have become displaced. 2 Summary executions were certainly rare, but an unknown number experienced various forms of abuse and personal deprivations, including unlawful imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, forced labor, and expropriations. 3 The areas adjacent to the war zone are still littered with landmines and unexploded ammunition, which pose considerable risks to the civilian population, particularly children. 4 More than a million people are said to experience food insecurity. 5 Finally, the war adversely affected the economy of the region and exposed the population to novel ecological threats. 6 Yet the geopolitical significance and human costs of the war notwithstanding, in historical terms, the armed conflict in the Donbas must be categorized as rather limited-whether in terms of the involvement of the population, the intensity of fighting, the number of casualties, or the scope of violence against non-combatants. Overall, the military developments in the region remain within the larger post-World War II trend towards the "humanization" of warfare, apparent in the ascendance of the international humanitarian law and the relative decrease of violence against non-combatants. In the Donbas, such restraint was characteristic not only of the Ukrainian government and of the insurgents-the principal combatants-but also of the Russian Federation and even Russian nationalists, some of whom were in principle committed to total war and the destruction of the Ukrainian state. This is important to emphasize in light of the fact that fighting *I collected the material and wrote this article while being a Stasiuk and Bayduza post-doctoral fellow at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta in 2016-2018. I am particularly grateful to doctor Jeannete Bayduza for contributing the funds to a research fellowship of which I was an inaugural recipient. I also want thank many scholars who have influenced my thinking on the subject, perhaps, unbeknownst to them given our frequent disagreements on social networks (Volodymyr Ishchenko, Tetyana Maliarenko, Ivan Kozachenko, Ivan Katchanovski and Serhiy Kudelia, to name a few). Last but not least, I thank Ernest Gyidel and David Marples for painstakingly going through the draft and for helpful editorial corrections. David Marples deserves an additional credit for conceiving and organizing the conference for which I felt honored to receive an invitation and for which this article was written. I bear the sole responsibility for all the remaining flaws.

This essay proposes the notion that there are many similarities between the 2008 war in Georgia and the 2014 conflict in Ukraine yet there are obviously cosmetic differences too. The Russian motivations for aggression remain constant, and both conflicts are similar in that Russia succeeds in annexing territory. The west's response to both conflicts have been different however, and the essay shall further examine the volatility that surrounds the west's decision making. The disputed territories of Crimea, Abkhazia and South Ossetia fall within Russia's supposed 'sphere of influence' which has diminished after the Rose Revolution of Georgia and the Orange Revolution of Ukraine. The pro-Western orientation of these two countries became a major issue for Russia yet for Georgia and the Ukraine, maintaining territorial integrity is the major issue.

Political Theology Network , 2022

I am a Christian theologian who abhors war and believes that all other reasonable means should be exhausted before the use of lethal force is undertaken. At the same time, I am convinced that there are times – albeit rare – when the evil is so great that no measure other than force will prevent grave atrocities on a massive scale. The effort to defeat Russia in Ukraine is such a case.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS, 2022

Ethiopia's location is in the horn of Africa. It is Africa's oldest independent country and the second-largest country in terms of population in the continent. Ethiopia was historically called Abyssinia which was derived from the Arabic form of the Ethiosemitic name. And although former President Abiy-Ahmed remains the first and only Ethiopian Head of State to have won the Nobel peace prize in 2019 for bringing an end to the over one decade-long conflict with Eritrea. More importantly, he has been subject to numerous criticisms and scrutiny due to the occurrence of several mass protests, incarcerations of political figures and opponents as well as the censorship of the internet, journalists which ultimately led to the resurgence of ethnic and tribal divisions between Ethiopians. This can be termed as the cause for open conflict in the Northern region of Tigray. This paper will investigate and establish new perspectives of the Tigray war through the backdrop of historical occurrences and how the metamorphosis of these occurrences have helped define and shape the state of affairs in Tigray

The Tigray Conflict, 2023

This paper scrutinizes the Tigray conflict by employing conflict resolution theoriesspecifically, social structural, social processes, and social cohesion theories. These theoretical frameworks offer a comprehensive lens to analyze how power and inequality are distributed in Ethiopian society and their role in fueling conflicts. By understanding the root causes of the EXPLORING THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE TIGRAY CONFLICT 1 Tigray conflict, the paper aims to formulate strategies to address these issues, providing a foundation for effective conflict resolution in Ethiopia. The ongoing conflict between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian federal government serves as evidence that ethnic conflicts have historically resulted in war. After implementing political reforms in 2018, Ethiopia faced a series of conflicts, riots, and political tensions that proved difficult for the government to manage. As a result, a core dispute with historical and ethnic elements erupted. Rising ethnic nationalism and demands for independence from Ethiopia undermined the idea of a pan-Ethiopian society and a functional state based on ethnic federalism (Turton, 2006). The widespread occurrence of issues such as mass displacement and food insecurity, political instability, ethnic cleansing, and other human rights violations continue to affect various groups in Tigray. Societal oppression adversely affects the entire society, both oppressors and oppressed alike, by dehumanizing them and giving certain groups advantages at the expense of others. The oppressed are dehumanized when they are denied opportunities that oppressors take for granted in pursuing their rights and getting their needs met (Freire, 1997). Oppressors are dehumanized by controlling and violating the rights of the oppressed and becoming dominators, polarizing their communities and denying their compassion for their fellow human beings (Freire, 1997), as cited in Hassen, 2008.

KKI Elemzések

The military offensive unleashed on 4 November, 2020 by the central government in Addis Ababa against the regional state of Tigray is the culmination of escalating tensions between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in power since 2018, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Ethiopian federal troops, supported by the military forces of Amhara regional state and the Eritrean army, quickly occupied the main towns in Tigray by late November 2020, but Tigrayan forces retained control of large areas, particularly in the mountainous regions, where fighting continued. An offensive launched in June 2021 by the Tigrayan forces resulted in the recapture of the main towns, including Tigray’s capital Mekelle, leading the Ethiopian government to declare a unilateral ceasefire. There are numerous testimonies on major abuses and killings of civilians and clerics by the occupying forces, as well as looting of key infrastructure, leading to a major humanitarian crisis. Humanitarian aid has been ha...

The War in Ukraine AND ITS IMPACT ON GLOBAL POLITICS AND SECURITY, 2023

Federation perspective that neglects all the basic instruments of human rights. It is a delicate matter, especially in the context of the war, but necessary to be solved by Ukraine, a state aspiring to become a member of the European Union. The seventh chapter looks at the role of state and non-state actors in protecting war refugees, with a focus on the case of Ukrainian refugees into Romania. Cristina Matiuța and Raluca Viman-Miller investigate how the Romanian state authorities, as a state actor, collaborated with non-state actors, in particular NGOs present on the territory of Romania, to find solutions to a situation that had no precedent in the region. The chapter is based on a set of semi-structured individual interviews conducted with members of seven NGOs in Romania, representative in terms of size, geographical location, level of involvement and previous experience in protecting vulnerable groups. The findings generally highlight a good collaboration and a partnership between the two types of actors and the fact that the non-state actors are a vital link in the chain of solution-finding during crisis.