The fall of Mekele is not the end of the war | The G …

The Ethiopian government announced on Saturday evening that its forces had seized Mekele, the capital of rebel Tigray province. The announcement was made by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed himself, through a tweet in which he said optimistically that raised doubts that “we have completed and ceased military operations in the region”. Rebel leader Debretsion Gebremichael vowed in a text message that the resistance will continue, that the government “cannot stop” the leaders and that “they will understand that we will continue as long as they are on our land.”

The conflict between Ethiopia’s central government and the northern region began less than a month ago, on November 4, when the prime minister accused Tigrin militias of attacking a national army barracks in the region. It was the culmination of a political change that had seized power from the historic People’s Liberation Front of Tigray, the main organization in the civil war that overthrew the terrible dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. The “fighters at the feet Nudes ”from the Front were the symbol of the popular uprising against the military regime and a Tigrinya, Meles Zenawi, ruled the country until his death in 2012.

The Front was the arbiter of national policy, something Abiy changed abruptly after coming to power in 2018. The brand new young prime minister has made peace with neighboring Eritrea, a taboo for the Front, has won the Nobel Peace Prize and eventually he assembled a new government coalition without the Tigriña, which he moved from key positions. Losing power, those in the north began with defiant gestures such as the calling of local elections in September, suspended across the country by the pandemic. The national government not only ignored the result, but also managed to get the National Assembly, the legislative branch, in October to suspend all transfers of federal funds to the province.

With the ongoing rebellion, the government isolated the province and cut all communication abroad. The military advance has been rapid, claiming an unknown number of victims and leading at least 40,000 refugees to neighboring Sudan. Following one of the fighting, Tigrian militiamen massacred hundreds of peasants in a town in the region, according to Amnesty International, after identifying them as not originating from Tigray.

This Saturday, after the 48-hour ultimatum for the rebels’ surrender, the army opened artillery fire on Mekele. At dusk, the official channel announced that the city was “controlled” by federal forces and that “the places where the junta can hide have been searched”, referring to the directive of the Front. The Prime Minister confirmed that “the federal police” seek “to arrest the leaders of the Front” but that their priority is to bring humanitarian aid to civilians.

But Gebremichael, the Front’s top leader, defied the government assuring that “Abiy will not be able to stop the militants. They will die for their ideals. Do we surrender? We will continue to fight while they are in our country. “. Gebremichael added that he is fighting for “our right to self-determination and self-government”, an idea that is by no means historic in the Front’s repertoire.

The position of the Front makes it very doubtful that the military actions will end with the fall of the provincial capital. Born as a guerrilla movement in the depths of the underground, the Front has more than enough weapons and grassroots organization to lead the fight on the ground. The militia born out of the war against Mengistu was never disbanded and continues to function as a sort of army of tens of thousands of men. And the Tigrian territory, as mountainous as the rest of the central Ethiopian massif, is perfect for irregular resistance. To complicate matters further, Tigray has a long border with Eritrea, the neighbor that has quietly supported Abiy in the conflict and received rocket attacks from the Front.

In fact, on the same Saturday night, there were six explosions in Asmara, the Eritrean capital.