Ethiopia's War Worsens: Will it Destroy the Country? 

I think that's a terrific idea but the Peace Prize has been given to so many dubious people for so many dubious reasons over the years that it has very little credibility left anyway. The various Nobel Prizes in the sciences and others are usually justified and well deserved but the Peace Prize seems to go to whoever happens to be trendy in the moment or is the current darling of the global cocktail set.

The Nobel Peace Prize is worth less than nothing, considering it was once awarded to Henry Kissinger. Of course, he wouldn't be the last war criminal to receive it. Corruption is a terrible thing, and in this geopolitical economy, it's ubiquitous.

Your right obama was a failure

​@@thomasdutta2701 I wouldn't use this as a sledgehammer upon any particular leaders; leadership is bound to be flawed due to humanity being flawed. Of course Obama made mistakes, but that is beside my point: Let's just not honour political leaders before their terms are up, when there are so many people doing great work in the world besides them.

It’s a great idea and would help bring back some integrity to it and as you mentioned, bringing light to good work that otherwise might go unnoticed which hopefully would encourage more in the future

not happening aparently.

​@@fabiofernandes9122 As a Pakistani, I think India will soon be going to into same situation as Ethiopia

@@reddragon100 i think every country is heading in the same way has ethiopia.

@@reddragon100 Ah, you wish. India is pretty stable and growing right now. Pakistan is actually the country that heading Ethiopia’s way but way worse with the ji hadis and Taliban starting to claim parts of Pakistan and the economic and flood crises.

@@reddragon100 Bruh, you guys can't even float your own economy. We're doing fine, especially in comparison to you.

Michael is right. I definitely could not follow comfortably!

Yeah it's also a bit annoying that this is basically the only place where we might be able to contact them to let them know that their 2 hour old video is the raw cut lol

TLDR desperately needs a new editor, the editing problems have long been embarrassing and a stain on an otherwise great set of channels

I agree. For a moment I thought the videoplayer was broken…

Are they actually still continuing construction on the "grand renaissance dam"?

@@user-uf2df6zf5w Yes. Despite the many ills facing the country things seem to be progressing quite well on that front.

I thought it was a civil war since Eritrea was trying to declare independence from Ethiopia? Did that happen earlier?

thank you so much for taking the time to type that out.

@@calvinware7957 Eritrea gained independence in 1993 by defeating the Ethiopians with the help of the Tigray region. As a result, Eritrea announced independence and Tigray governed Ethiopia (the party ironically called Tigray people liberation front governed the country they are trying to be liberated from). Unfortunately, the relationship between the two soured ending in a war in 1998.

I mean, not to be pedantic but Ethiopia has existed from 800 years to 150 years depending on how you count it, anyway you slice it hasn’t existed for a thousand years much less thousands.

@@1brianm7 Eithiopia is usually considered the continuation of the Axumite civilization, which would put it at over 2000 years old.

@@adamvandolder1804 That's a huge stretch as far as I'm concerned. It would be like considering Tunisia today to be the continuation of Carthage even though the only similarity between them is their geographical location.

@@giantWario They spoke the same languages and practiced the same religion.

@@giantWario - You don’t know much about Ethiopia, do you? It’s less like Tunisia and Carthage and more like Italy and Rome or China and any of it’s earlier dynasties. Sure, the structure of state is vastly different, but the people?

Its the remix

not really familiar with Lebanon's history....did they have a Civil War like this? The last news I've heard from there is general corruption and stagnant economy and from when that ammonia storage plant exploded.

@@G8tr1522 yeah there's been a lot of sectarian violence and corruption and instability etc since the civil war in the 70s

@@kenm1167 but that describes nearly every 2nd/3rd world country of the past 80 years. What makes Ethiopia like Lebanon, unlike other country's political misgivings?

looking at how the 20' are going so far I wouldn't be surrprised.

I mean, it's Africa. Non Africans tend to just not care

ethiopia decry's imperialism, yet is itself an empire. Yes, I know that they haven't been called an empire since the 70s and 80s, but still, Ethiopia held onto all its old territory

@@edmundprice5276 except eritrea, which according to the British government was a federal state in ethiopia, but the emperor forced eritrea to become a unitary province Edit: which caused the eritrean conflict, which turned into a civil war during the communist regime

@@Omer1996E.C forgive me, my post colonial African history is a little rough around the edges, but didn't the Eritreans rebel and force independence through sheer military strength?

@@edmundprice5276 yes, you're totally right, in fact half of Eritreans are ethnic tigrians, and tigrians are well known for their strength in wars. What I was telling you is that ethiopia didn't hold to it's old territories as you said, and that Eritreans got independent.

@@Omer1996E.C there is a difference between being released from a prison and breaking out. Eritrea broke out. granted, eritrea may no longer be part of ethiopia, but ethiopia did its best to hold on and was merely overpowered and ethiopia is likely to try and re-absorb all former territories once it gets the chance

They summarize the news you can check their website for their sources

They always do this when they are in military disadvantage. They refused all proposals for peace back when they were close to addis ababa, but they demanded one when the ethiopian forces were close to mekele. And again they are asking for peaceful negotiations after losing ground

The TPLF accepting the African Union deal is not a sign of weakness but a smart strategy. Will help to buy them time. I think that their main goal is autonomy because even if they capture the entire Ethiopia they still will not be able to hold it together. Too many factions with different aims and objectives. This was part of the reason why they failed to advanced to Addis. That and possible intervention of the US and other foreign powers. Total collapse of Ethiopia is bad for the region. I think PM Abey rushed to war thinking that it would be easy to settle the Tigray issue with the help of Eritrea once and for all. He boldly went for a centralized government in Addis which is very problematic for a large nation with so many different ethnicities. Ultimately he will have to accept that the federal system is the way to go but I doubt doing so would assure the Tigrays considering what they went through in the past few years.

@@muhammad-bin-american ethiopia is a federal state, which means tigray already has an autonomy. What the tplf wants is to control addis ababa and the central federal government

@@Omer1996E.C Abey was trying to centralized power in Addis. This was the main dispute that lead to the war. He said the same thing in this video. Now if given the opportunity the TPLF will indeed seize power in Addis but I doubt that's their ultimate goal. They may not be able to hold the country together. Even the loose coalition with other ethnic groups would not survive. Best outcome for them is either some form of independence which is tough or a federal system with considerable power in the regions. The latter is the best way to go in my opinion.

@@muhammad-bin-american first, ethiopia is already a federal state with considerable amount of autonomy to all regions, including tigray region and its own government Second, centralizing power in addis ababa is not possible with every region trying to gain the most power for themselves, rather than give it to the federal government Third, the tplf doesn't want independence, but to control addis ababa and its federal government as it was before about 5 years ago and they were able to hold the country together, not by defeating everyone, but because a divided ethiopia is a nightmare to all ethiopians, desert Somalia, tigray and afar won't be ad it is now without it's neighbors, mountainous and wet amhara, southern regions and western regions wouldn't be the same without the minerals from the east, and future potential minerals that holds alot of promise too. Ethiopia is a very divided and connected country at the same time

No one talks about places that have very little international effects or small economies.

The sac forces are on the ropes do to a lack of Russian aid. If Russia fails soon, we will see a lot of conflict zones explode with a shortage of cheap Russian equipment for governments to counter rebel groups. Most likely seeing the governments of Myanmar, Belarus, Syria, and Ethiopia collapse. While forces like in Yemen and Lebanon could face major set backs with Iran turning in on itself right now.

And that's before you look at the cost of the exercise in terms of life and money for what will be extremely divisive inside the country and internationally. No matter how bad things get, if the West were to put boots on the ground in this conflict or similiar there are plenty of people going around calling "imperialism", and bad things will happen no matter how good your intentions.

This conflict, like many others, has ethnic elements, but it is more of a war between Abiy(with the help of another country, Eritrea) and Tigray/TPLF than just an ethnic conflict. Abiy wants to consolidate his power by destroying his most prominent opponent (the TPLF) and its supporters (mainly Tigrayans), and Isaias Afwerki, the Eritrean president, wants to revenge on the TPLF/Tigray for the loss he faced after the war with Ethiopia while the TPLF was in power. I'll copy-paste what I commented elsewhere in the video in the second paragraph if you want more of my take on the origins of this conflict. In general, it's not an ethnic conflict where one has to kill each side to maintain the balance and stop the fighting. The Fano and the other militias are small and unorganized groups when compared to the TPLF and the Ethiopian government. I think if all other options fail and military intervention is needed, a limited air action against military installations in Ethiopia/Eritrea, without deploying fighting troops on the ground, could help solve it like in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and even might be necessary to avoid another Syria or even Rwanda. That's the only thing that would force Abiy/Isaias to negotiate or stop the fighting and/or the deadly siege. Right now, there is nothing that's forcing Abiy and Isaias to stop the conflict -- They're just waiting for the Tigrayans to perish through war or starvation. After stopping the fighting and/or the deadly siege, the TPLF can continue leading Tigray, where it has popular support and is elected, and Abiy and Isaias can continue leading their respective countries without creating a power vacuum that might lead to other problems that we see in other parts of the world. I'll copy-paste what I promised in the next paragraph. It's what I commented somewhere else, so forgive me for the transition and in case there are any points irrelevant to this discussion. Here is what I believe is true about this conflict (I am an Ethiopian btw): The TPLF left their government and military positions to Abiy starting in 2018 without firing a single bullet. Abiy made a series of bad policy decisions since he came to power -- like freeing criminals and letting in armed groups like the OLA that were fighting the Ethiopian government from abroad. After a year or two, the people started to see the results of his bad decisions. However, instead of taking responsibility for his failures and mitigating the problems, Abiy just scapegoated the TPLF for every problem that he started facing because of his decisions. Remember, Abiy was not elected by the people when he came to power. He was selected from the ruling party (EPRDF), which also had TPLF as its member, to tame the Oromo protests at the time; Abiy is half-Oromo. The election was to be held in 2020, which is in 2 years since Abiy came to power. In 2020, many people already saw the outcomes of his bad decisions, and that would have been a huge problem for his new party in the upcoming elections. His new party is called the Prosperity Party, and he created it by dismantling the EPRDF and by "asking" its members to join his new party. He did this mainly to centralize his power by taking power away from the regional states, which were represented by parties inside the EPRDF. The smaller parties joined his new party, but TPLF, which was ruling the Tigray region refused to join his party and decided to become his opponent in the upcoming elections. That's when he started to weaken the TPLF and ramp up the scapegoating even more. Despite his attempts to weaken the TPLF and scapegoat it for every problem he faced because of his bad decisions, the TPLF still enjoyed popular support in Tigray and some other parts of the country. It was obvious that TPLF would win the regional elections in Tigray and could even be a major challenger for Abiy at the national level if TPLF teams up with other parties in the country. As the elections came closer and he realized more that his power is in danger, he decided to indefinitely postpone the election by blaming it on COVID and take care of his political opponents until he deems it safe for him. He first arrested his opponents in Oromia that were not armed and then set his eyes on Tigray. Since Tigray was armed, the only way he could put out its government (the TPLF) was through war. To be sure he comes on top in the end, he teamed up with his friend in Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki, who wanted to revenge on the TPLF for the loss he faced after the war with Ethiopia while the TPLF was in power. They started the war on Nov 3, 2020, while the rest of the world's attention was on the US elections, and presented TPLF's response as a provocation by the TPLF. They shut down all communications and virtually barred all international media from entering Tigray so that they could set all the narratives. It seems it has worked for them to a large extent. After they pushed the TPLF out of Mekele, the capital of Tigray, in the first round of war, Abiy was ready for election -- even though COVID, which was given as a reason for the postponement of the election, was still raging. Abiy won the election pretty comfortably without elections even having taken place in Tigray because it's "unsafe" (see the game plan?). Please read these 2 articles to get more information about how the war started and the context: 1. "The Nobel Peace Prize That Paved the Way for War in Ethiopia" -- The New York Times 2. "Is Ethiopia Headed for Civil War?" -- Foreign Policy

because the channel members are all socialists.

you're brainwashed by your government narrative

AAANNND there's the biased comment accusing others of bias

@@3bydacreekside talking from an ethiopian perspective

@@Omer1996E.C And your personal perspective.

3… 2… 1… 👏

I have no idea how accurate these statements are, or what you're leaving out, but I like how they're not all tilted towards one side in the war. (Of course, that doesn't actually prevent it from being biased, and including at least one statement supporting every bias would be a good way to hide bias.)

@@Mr.Nichan none of it is accurate. Hes a government supporter trying to smear Tigray people.

@@Tribuneoftheplebs "none is accurate" I see, so you're saying the government HASN'T been spewing horrible propaganda.

@@Mr.Nichan who knows. They ban all independent journalism so nobody can say one way or another. Many reporters in prison. Sort of like North Korea.

Once Ethiopia, a legitimate government, started buying drones from turkey, they very quickly overwhelmed the tigrayan forces If it needs to, it will happen again quickly

@@alezar2035 yes, that is something he hasn't mentioned in the video: a legitimate government has access to financial and human resources that rebel groups lack and if necessary they can institute a military draft or devote huge percentages of the country's GDP to military purchases

Nigeria... is in a far worse place today then it was ten years ago. You may want to rethink your statement

@@onijaanjonu3367 Boko-haram was in control of the North-Eastern Nigeria ten years ago, how can now possibly be worse

@@Kudejo see, your problem is that that is your only point of awareness of that country. Boko haram remains active in the north east. ISWAP have joined them and have become an even greater threat. Murder rates have exploded to become the 9th highest on earth. So called terroristic robbers euphemistically called "bandits" commit kidnappings and attack government buildings with impunity. The issue of piracy in the niger delta remains totally unaddressed. Fulani herdsmen attack farmers with no repercussion to the point of the outbreak of ethnic violence. Separatist sentiments have flaired up in the south east, with the president implying the destruction of the populations involved. Further separatism has flared up in the south western third of the country. The economy has been stagnant for the past 6 years. Corruption is at an all time high. The situation is far far worse than it was in the time, and the situation grows more dire by the day.

Unfortunately it's always because that war does not effect the world like the Ukrainian one does. Also regions that always go to war or have wars often are ignored. If you don't participate in world trade or you don't have much to do with country that does . You will be ignored by most of the world . One of the worst ignored wars/conflict is the rawandan genocide . Nobody and I mean nobody tried to stop it . The world just let it happen , and most people don't even know about it .

Based

Or what? What're you gonna threaten them with that doesn't just make the situation worse?

no, they did to aid ethiopian federal forces. tigray 6% of the population control all of ethiopia for way to long. now an amhara/oromo president comes into power and decided not to disband the tigray's government strangle on power, and centralized the government, they go ape shit and start trying to seperate. a country has the right to defend itself, and the tplf is definitely not the victims.

China has already invested in the GDP of Ethiopia. Almost every hotel you see in that country has been built off chinese investors 🇨🇳 💴

Because its a black country so it does not matter in world politics

United based on what? I feel like you westerns seem to think we Africans are some type of Monolith. Like any Continent people have different norms, Values, Laws, Traditions, Languages, religions and further multitude of differences. Many of what i just listed are so fundamental to peoples lives that they would rather death then to compromise on them.

@@ibrahimhassan711 OK mate sorry I forgot about how you have tribes and such like Native Americans and such. Just kinda wish that you guys could have more unity and be close than apart ok? Heck China (although oppressive than a federation) has many different people but is one country with the Mandarin Language and such. Hm?

@@ibrahimhassan711 I wish to see Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi be united as it once was for example. Better than the dictator in Zimbabwe who has hopefully died now.

Free Tigray

Tigray should just be independent

@@rajkaranvirk7525 they will be too poor to be anything

@@g4m3r222 It’s not about being poor it’s about freedom. At least they’ll have control over their own destiny

@@rajkaranvirk7525 okay in the middle of the mountains without sea sure good destiny, they cannot survive alone i think

Never gonna happen

Sudan and Ethiopia possible but not eritera. Eritera just want to do business for tigray other hand its hard say tigray people are crazy who would love to stay with Ethiopia even after genocide long us abiy is arrested. But with eritera and Somalia is just joke lol.

Meh they have like 8 kids each

Do you have your head in the sand? It's been reported on for years now, but I don't blame you for missing it. It isn't a top news story in most of NA and EU, and as such might only get a footnote report. Plus it got much worse during Covid, when most news outlets were reporting on that.

Because racism still exists in media

Because there not white people

As an Ethiopian, I'd respectfully disagree. The TPLF left their government and military positions to Abiy starting in 2018 without firing a single bullet. Abiy made a series of bad policy decisions since he came to power -- like freeing criminals and letting in armed groups like the OLA that were fighting the Ethiopian government from abroad. After a year or two, the people started to see the results of his bad decisions, but instead of taking responsibility for his failures and mitigating the problems, Abiy just scapegoated the TPLF for every problem that he started facing because of his decisions. Remember, Abiy was not elected by the people when he came to power. He was selected from the ruling party (EPRDF), which also had TPLF as its member, to tame the Oromo protests at the time; Abiy is half-Oromo. The election was to be held in 2020, which is in 2 years since Abiy came to power. In 2020, many people have already seen the outcomes of his bad decisions, and it would have been a huge problem for his new party in the upcoming elections. His new party is called the Prosperity Party, and he created it by dismantling the EPRDF and by "asking" its members to join his new party. He did this mainly to centralize his power by taking away power from the regional states which were represented by parties inside the EPRDF. The smaller parties joined his new party, but TPLF, which was ruling the Tigray region refused to join his party and decided to become his opponent in the upcoming elections. That's when he started to weaken the TPLF and ramp up the scapegoating even more. Despite his attempts to weaken the TPLF and scapegoat it for every problem he faced because of his bad decisions, the TPLF still enjoyed popular support in Tigray and some other parts of the country. It was obvious that TPLF would win the regional elections in Tigray and could even be a major challenger for Abiy at the national level if TPLF teams up with other parties in the country. As the elections came closer and he realized more that his power is in danger, he decided to indefinitely postpone the election by blaming it on COVID and take care of his political opponents until he deems it safe for him. He first arrested his opponents in Oromia that were not armed and then set his eyes on Tigray. Since Tigray was armed, the only way he could put out its government (the TPLF) was through war. To be sure he comes on top in the end, he teamed up with his friend in Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki, who wanted to revenge on the TPLF for the loss he faced after the war with Ethiopia while the TPLF was in power. They started the war on Nov 3, 2020, while the rest of the world's attention was on the US elections, and presented TPLF's response as a provocation by the TPLF. They shut down all communications and virtually barred all international media from entering Tigray so that they could set all the narratives. It seems it has worked for them to a large extent. Please read these 2 articles to get more information about how the war started and the context: 1. "The Nobel Peace Prize That Paved the Way for War in Ethiopia" -- The New York Times 2. "Is Ethiopia Headed for Civil War?" -- Foreign Policy

@@BM-df9bp wow. this is my first time actually hearing the story from the tigray point of view. i dont really know what to think

​@@yomamaballsinmyw Yeah, I'm not surprised. There are few places where you can hear the Tigrayan perspective from. I am an Amhara myself. However, I have been following the political developments in my country for many years, and I'll speak out for what I believe is true, whenever I can, regardless of my ethnicity. Most of the Tigrayans that could tell you their POV are under a communications blackout, and the small number of Tigrayans that live abroad would always lose in the war of narratives with Abiy/Isaias supporters that live in the respective countries + abroad. For instance, if you're an informed & objective person and read the Wikipedia page about the war, you'll literally laugh. It got to the point when Wikipedia put a label saying "This article may contain excessive or inappropriate references to self-published sources", which is an understatement really.

@@BM-df9bp Why do you need to tell us you are Amhara? Unknowingly you expose yourself as Wayane or a terrorist TPLF sympathizer!

10 folds? It's fake. Ethiopia has grown 10 percent for years, but never 10 times in 2 decades

@@Omer1996E.C I just googled ethiopia gdp and this is what came up. Kenia has shows similar growth.

@@dewaard3301 in real gdp terms, ethiopia has grown less than 5 folds in 2 decades, pretty impressive, but not 10 folds. It's mainly by the buried ethiopian potential, ethiopia had huge potentials, but the communist government and the civil war made it hard to work for educated people and for rich individuals to use their wealth

The emperor is the root cause of our war to be honest. He mobilized every ethiopian resource gor the elite and amharas and he persecuted oromos, as well as many other minorities and most significantly, muslims, he favored the much smaller Jewish population. Although the amharas didn't hate oromos, oromos started to hate amharas because the emperor was amhara. If the empire was restored, it would only compose of amhara region, and other regions would eventually revolt

I think better than now, but still not good for many reasons. The emperor was overthrown because of most ethiopians hating him in the first place. Most ethiopians who weren't living in amhara, tigray and addis ababa regions

Well, if the Emperor was still around, he'd be the oldest person on Earth, at 130 years old. As well as the oldest regent, having reigned for 92 years. So at least some things would be different from now.

@@Tjalve70 Firstly I got a laugh from this. But yeah I didnt mean the last Emperor. A relative that held the title

​@@Omer1996E.C What do you mean most Ethiopians not living in tigray? Haile Selassie literally ignored droughts and famine in tigray, and even after that Haile Selassie made policies so that tigray wouldn't grow and then become a threat to his reign. But unfortunately for him derg came in instead, and they too also did the same thing to tigray(other regions as well) as Haile Selassie. Which is why the tplf wanted a ethnic-federalist ethiopia where they could be represented and such things would no longer happen to minorities like them in ethiopia anymore.

If it falls (I hope it’s not I love eithopia) I hope that Ogaden (Somali region) invades Somalia and makes deal with somaliland to get greater Somalia

@@user-dz4eb5rb3g I mean they still holding the same thoughts they used to hold during the 1977 war that happened between Somalia and ethiopia.

It has a large Muslim minority

Somalia is our neighbor and it's continously entering into our borders. And ethiopia is 40 percent muslim, just for the sake of knowledge

@@Omer1996E.C Yeah, according to the 2007 census 34%

@@Omer1996E.C thanks. Now it's more clear

@@navinthehouse4710 according to many somalis, afars and tigrian muslims, many of them weren't counted, and it was done during the tplf rule, which was distorting the statistics to justify it's elections. Plus, you can see from the same census that the muslim population is continously increasing due to higher fertility rate and lower ethnic violence in these regions. So, I'm sure it's more like 40 percent, maybe 39 or something like that

You think that this is about ancient history? Then you don't know much about politics. It's a ploy for agression. Eritrea was a large part of Aksum and the economic center of the empire. You don't see Eritrea boasting about wanting to control Tigray or Ethiopia.

@@enqrbit No? Because Eritrea is not currently invading Tigray?

@@DaDunge no because eritera want to remove it not own it? The eritera want to separate history related to tigrayan and amhara in their history and try to make pure eritera history. They hate Ethiopia do much they even say habesha is dirty name.

I know! It's really bizarre to me

its a confusing conflict. the two groups amhara and tigray make up most of the old ethiopian empires. tigray claims that they were the real ethiopia and that amhara's are stealing their history.

Ukraine is a far simpler story and far more relevant to most people watching. Ukraine was attacked by a fascist and imperialist state that had been viewed as enemy number 1 for decades, and they defended their country with western support. Compared to a brutal civil war in Africa, with both sides being less than perfect and western viewers not really involved it makes a lot of sense. The situation is horrible and tragic but it's not going to have the same ripple effects at home and abroad for most countries in the world.

The war in Ukraine has global effects. A nuclear armed power is invading a sovereign nation, who is backed by the EU, one of the worlds economic superpowers, along with NATO, the worlds largest military alliance. One wrong move and all of a sudden we’re flirting with WW3. Also, the war in Ukraine has the ability to cut off grain shipments to the Middle East and energy to Europe, thus destabilizing both regions simultaneously. You hear more about the war in Ukraine than the war in Ethiopia because quite bluntly it is more important. And it’s not particularly close.

No. Is Eritrea not enough?

Hate to break it to you, but the government is mostly Oromos. May not represent the people of Oromia, but they are Oromos nonetheless, with interests differing from the Amhara

@@bulletsizednuke1100 people always blame Amharas even when Amharas aren't controlling anything at all

Ethiopia wasn't colonized

@@catmonarchist8920 I have no clue what he was commenting about.

@@catmonarchist8920 It's "diversity" is a result of the recent imperialism of the Ethiopian empire. Most of it was in a sense colonised, fairly recently.