Ethiopia⁠ & Abiy w/ Tom Gardner

Having been Africa's, I want Africa's strongest state, which could govern and project power across its territory. You know, when I arrived there in 2016, now is pretty much incapable of doing that. Hello and welcome to the More Freedom Foundation podcast. Today we have a very special episode covering Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a tremendously significant country, not just because of its massive size, geographically, with its population of 132 million, and it's not really emerging, long emerged status as a regional power with a competent and overly used, perhaps, military. Ethiopia is also a fascinating case study in the possibility of running a multi-ethnic country under any sort of system, especially in a world where you no longer have to deal with U.S. and Soviet forces, but the interests of a broad range of actors locally and internationally. There is probably no better guide at this moment to this question of Ethiopia, its recent development, and the man that is currently running Ethiopia, then this book, The Abbey Project by Tom Gardner. Tom Gardner is an Africa correspondent for the Economist, so the chances are, if you are like me and you get a lot of your news from the Economist, it's not just this book that may have informed you about Ethiopia, but a lot of the Economists writing in recent years. And today we are lucky enough to have Tom Gardner here to talk about his book, his experience in Ethiopia from 2016 to 2022. This is a big topic, we don't have a ton of time, so without further ado, Tom Gardner, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much, Rob. So where are you joining us from? I'm in Nairobi, so in Camp Cabalicania, which is one of Ethiopia's neighbours. So you are no longer in Ethiopia, is there a story behind that? Yeah, I was in Ethiopia from 2016 to 2022, which happened to be sort of the pivotal years really of the last, however many decades, certainly the last three decades, really a hugely historically significant period. And that included, of course, the protest movement that brought Abiy Ahmed to power, also the democratic transition, as it appeared to be at first that Abiy bash it in. And then by 2020, the end of 2020, the day of the, for your American listeners, the day of Biden's election in 2020, the war in Tigray, which was arguably the deadliest war of the 20th, for a century, if some of the estimates are accurate. I remember that day well, it was November 3rd, I think it was both the Ethiopian conflict and I think a conflict in Azerbaijan launched the same day as the US election. That was quite, quite possibly. I'd need to check the dates on that one, but yeah, there are a number of people who you think that might not have been a coincidence. It's always, it turns out it can be convenient to launch a war when the world's superpowers are distracted. I covered the war for the best part of the next two years. It ended in 2022, but I was expelled in May. The war ended in November. I was expelled in May. I was kind of given 48 hours, 48 hours to leave, had my press accreditation revoked and was packed off on the first flight, metaphorically to Nairobi. Yeah, I took that, I took that intervening years away from Ethiopia to write the book, to reflect on the, this kind of epical moment that I was in many ways privileged to be witness to. And then I haven't been allowed back, sadly, though I do continue to cover Ethiopia remotely and with the help of colleagues. Well, here at the Morph Freedom Foundation, we consider that a great sign of success. If your journalism is making those in power angry enough that you're not allowed back into the country, then I would think that you're doing something right. I suppose let's turn first to Abiy Ahmed. Who is this guy? Was he on your radar at all when you moved initially to the country in 2016? Oh god, no, absolutely not, but he wasn't on anyone's radar really. Although maybe you could say that people within the really deep within the ruling party had kind of singled him out as a potential contender to be the next Prime Minister by that point. But and certainly he had his eye on the prize, but he was no, he was absolutely, he was, he was an unknown to the Ethiopian public really at that point. And I would say, you know, just to kind of bring your readers up to speed with a sum of the context, in 2016 was the height of the Oromo protest movement, Moromia is the largest and most populous of the regions and ethnic groups in Ethiopia. Abiy is a member of the Oromo group. And when I when I arrived this mass protest movement across, across Oromo was really kind of reaching it. It's climax almost. In fact, about two days after I arrived, a state of emergency was declared. That would turn out to be quite a recurrent feature of the time of my time there. The Oromo protest movement kind of brought much of Oromo, which surrounds the capital at this Aberberto its knees or to a whole business, certainly to a whole. There were huge numbers of or arrests and killings that it wasn't massively on the, I would say, the radar of many outsiders. Certainly those who weren't following Ethiopia too closely. I think, you know, that's because at that point the narrative really was that Ethiopia was this rising giant. Of course, as you mentioned, population then of, well, there hasn't been a census since 2007. So it was all projections. But when I arrived, it was 101 102 and you're adding like four million a year or something I heard the other day. So it's now close to 230 135 million, which is, you know, blows my mind to be honest. But, you know, huge growing population had this ruling party or ruling coalition, technically, called the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, the EP RDF, which was, I would say, probably considered one of the strongest ruling parties and very much merged with the state. So kind of party states anywhere on the continent had been in power since 1991, pretty much on a pose. I mean, there were, normally it was a multi-party democracy. It normally remains one. But it was, you know, it was, it was, you know, electoral authoritarianism. The elections really meant nothing. Is it fair to characterize the EP RDF the way that I think I have in my content and many others have as largely, I mean, not in an extreme version of this, but largely some sort of window dressing, some of it real on top of sort of a Tigrayan hegemony. Is that like a, is that fair? Yes, that's what that's that, particularly because of what happened in the Tigray war. And I mentioned this in the book. It's one of the one of the most sensitive questions. And it's also very hard to answer definitively clearly the TPL after Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, which is one of the four constituent parties that make up this multi-ethnic ruling coalition was, it was the founding party. It was intellectually, historically the most dominant. And clearly there was a connected class of Tigrayan businessmen who were doing pretty well out of the TPLF's position at the helm of this ruling coalition. And there was a widespread perception when I arrived in Andesabrabo. And this was part of a really big part of what drove those protests, I mentioned in Aromia, a sense that the Tigrayans were on top and bigger groups because Tigrayans were six or seven percent of the country. Bigger groups like the Aromoh were relatively marginalized. And so there was a lot of frustration with the with the TPLF. And that often in that kind of dangerous way became a, you could sense was also becoming a more broad perception of Tigrayan dominance. And therefore resentment of Tigrayans themselves. And that obviously became, it's quite a dangerous thing. I thought it was fascinating the way that you characterized the perhaps the EPRDF or figures within the ruling class might have already been aware of Abiy Ahmed. Was there a perception in the EPRDF that Abiy Ahmed was a figure who they could perhaps elevate without any cost to the the the ruling groups that had already been in charge? Because that's certainly not how worked out. In the long time to go back a bit in his in his kind of biography, he very much does get cultivated and promoted by senior and influential Tigrayans within the security apparatus, particularly first in the army. And then in the military intelligence and then this cyber intelligence agency which he kind of he ends up heading for a couple of years or actually only a year in an acting director capacity. And that was really quite a significant elevation. And I think it you know it did raise some eyebrows at the time. But he has an amazing ability to network and charm people. And he managed to vault himself to the apex of, well, first, the Cyber Intelligence Agency, and then he used that as a platform to go into politics proper, formal politics by joining the aromowang of the EPRDF. And I think by the mid-2010s, I mean, he was definitely seen as a rising star, but as I say, there wasn't really publicly, he wasn't very well known, but certainly he'd used his contacts within Cyber Intelligence and in the Army too, raised his profile. And even Mela Zanawi, the former Prime Minister who died in 2012, and he's the real kind of presiding statesman of the EPRDF era. I mean, he really kind of dominates the scene from '91 when they take power right up until his death, and his legacy continues to shape Ethiopia today. I mean, he definitely was aware of Abbi Abbi had surprisingly, as I found out from my interviews, he definitely was on Abbi. Mela's had a personal relationship with him, quite what he thought of Abbi's matter of dispute. And then obviously he died prematurely of cancer in 2012. And there was this succession process and this kind of a placeholder Prime Minister called Hailemari, and Deathlend takes over in 2012 until Abbi in 2018. And throughout that period, there is this sense of this is kind of an interregnum. At some point, it's going to, it's because of their weight of numbers, and because of their historic kind of relative marginalization, it's going to be one of these kind of rising stars from the Oromo, who will probably have to be the next Prime Minister. So in that respect, he was part of a, he was one of a number who was, I guess, in the running from fairly early on. But it was only in 2018 when Hailemari and steps down because this protest movement just reaches a kind of a point of no return. They can't really hold back the water anymore. And there is a decision taken within the coalition to hand power to an Oromo. And Abbi was by that point in position. He was chairman of the, well, he was actually vice chairman of the Oromo party, but he was, there was some internal, internal wrangling and he was elevated. So that, you know, he played his cards very, very well. He was, he's a, it extremely, extremely savvy, very Machiavellian, political entrepreneur. He played the game very well. And, and, and he was essentially an internal party election. He was, he was chosen. So the, you know, the, the, the Tigrayans, the TPLF within the ruling party and all others who were maybe I miss givings about him from very early on. Right. They, you know, they had played a part, you know, in, in his elevation. And then it was the ruling coalition that blessed it blessed his appointment. It is worth emphasizing just what an extraordinary political figure Abbi Ahmed himself is in the United States. Now we have Donald Trump. I spent a lot of time in Turkey and watched the career of Erdogan. And so in, in a time where we've got a lot of staggeringly successful political entrepreneurs, I see Abbi Ahmed is kind of on a completely different level when you like beyond Erdogan, beyond Trump, when you, I mean, in the long run, who's to say he may end up being dramatically less successful than other of those figures. But when you consider like what he's, what he's overcome, it is, it's, it's shot in the fact that he's still there all this time later. I think it's, we should probably move into sort of the initial honeymoon period and Abbi Mania. I was wondering, just as a preferatory point, it probably wouldn't be correct to see him as representative of Aromo aspirations, right? I mean, I'm sure that was part of his initial appeal, but the way that it's worked out, he's not, I mean, he is of, you know, he is of the Aromo group, but he has a lot of pushback from Aromo factions who had expected more. Is that fair to say? Yeah. So again, on just a few biographical details, I mean, he is Aroma. He abentifies his Aroma, though there was always been a slight question large partly because his, his team has on occasion, and I think just slightly, but somewhat, depending on the audience, has also suggested that his mother was actually amhara. That's the second largest ethnic group in the one that's most historically associated with the central state and the imperial state as it was until 1974 in Ethiopia. So he is both, he's certainly Aroma, you know, Aroma, grew up in an Aroma household, but his mother's background, I think, is, is a little bit more ambiguous than of course in Ethiopia. You know, ethnicity is not always, it's, you know, these categories are somewhat fluid. Clearly was, you know, he speaks Amharic brilliantly and has clearly been raised on many other kind of cultural signifiers associated with the Imperial state with the orthodox Ethiopian orthodox church, but at the same time his father was a Muslim Aroma, so he has that as well. And then he, as a young man, converts to Pentecostalism. So he's this kind of interesting mix, which is something that in a, in a, in a, well, you could say, try to basically say, in a, like any politician, they use the, the resources that they're, you know, that they have to their advantage. Maybe if you're being more cynical, you could say like a classic poppularist, he needs a shape shifter and appeals to different audiences and constituencies without too much concern for, for consistency. I think they're both the probably true. But yeah, certainly when he came to power, he was coming to power as an, he was seen as a champion of the protests which were ongoing in the Aromoh region. And he put himself forward really the kind of pitch he made internally to the ruling party or the ruling coalition, I should say, was, you know, only I and my kind of little, the group around me, who are younger in touch with the aspirations of the Aroma, youth only a week and really put a stop to this chaos and, and, and, and, and a sense he was saying to his colleagues within the ruling coalition, you know, vote for, you know, choose me and I will, I will kind of keep the show on the road. I will bring peace to Aromia, enable us to continue the, the economic journey that this country is on. As I said, as I said, it was on, it was growing at 10% on average a year at this point. It had this very ambitious industrialization drive, kind of China like industrial development strategy. And so he comes into power saying, you know, basically, we will tweak, we, we, we, we, you know, make some changes around the margins, maybe open up politics a bit more because it had got really quite repressive and, and, and closed. And, you know, the last election was one with like 100% of parliament when, where seats occupied by the ruling coalition and it's, and it's, and it's, allies, you know, this is a bit of a joke. We'll make some changes there. But otherwise, you know, I'm not a threat to the establishment to the ruling coalition. I am just someone who is more in touch with the aromoh sentiment of the day. Yes. When he, when he took office, things were, were, were quite different. This is not, not exactly how it worked out. One of the great strengths of your book is that you use Abbey's biography and he has a uniquely well placed figure for this to illustrate the staggering ethnic diversity of Ethiopia and the, the, which can be confusing, but the, it's the way that you introduce it in this book is very helpful through the way that these political uses are applied throughout his life and career and also telling the recent and more extended history of Ethiopia as well. And that is very, very useful. I became aware of Abbey Ahmed at very high point of his popularity. When he came in in 2018, it was rhapsody. I mean, everyone was, was euphoric. I'm not saying in Ethiopia necessarily, but worldwide. I mean, that, that was how he was introduced to me as this sort of magical switch in Ethiopia, perhaps in a, a, a peacemaker. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for reopening relationships with Eritrea, which had some later consequences. And now it seems like might be being entirely reversed. You were there for the full flush of Abbey Mania. What was, what was it like being a reporter on the ground for that? And what was your, I mean, were people on the ground more cynical about this? Or was there a real push behind Abbey Ahmed as a positive transformational figure? Yeah. So I think, I don't know if I was the, I think I was the first to dub it Abbey Mania, but I was, I think we, the economist probably was the first major international publication to use it use the term. And I think it was, you know, it captures, it captures the sentiment certainly in, in much of the country. I mean, he was absolutely hailed as a, as almost a kind of divine savior. There was in fact quite a religious quality to the euphoria within the country, within the country. But of course there were, there were, there were important blocks and I, in Tigray being a crucial one where there were suspicions and misgivings from, from very early on. But yeah, the international The claim was really remarkable. I remember counting, I think I mentioned this in the book, counting all the different comparisons that I found in the international media. He was described, compared to an Ethiopian Mandela, Obama, Macron, Trudeau, finally enough. Who else? Gulbachev? - Yeah, just comparing a sort of mid-level security bureaucrat who became incredibly elevated to Mandela or Gorbachev is. - He certainly liked to, he certainly did nothing to tamp down on those comparisons. He hold, there were big rallies held in Addis Abrabe's central square where he turns up, but you know, a rally explicitly in support of him and he walks on stage, you know, wearing a t-shirt with Africa, the continent, continent, blazoned on the front and sunglasses. So he was very much leaning into this idea as a, this image is a kind of, a pan-African icon for the, for the 2010s. But yeah, then you had international institutions and foreign governments really embracing him in quite a, in quite a naive way, frankly, you know, whether that was the UN or whether it was MacRoth or Tony Blair kind of basically saying this guy is, you know, he is a kind of liberal reformer that is going to transform Ethiopia. We have to do everything we can to back him and the Americans were interesting because obviously Ethiopia is not top on a president Donald Trump's agenda. But the ambassador at the time, Mike Rayner essentially was, you know, on a pretty long leash because of that lack of real attention from Washington and he was also completely, I was as far as I could tell, spellbound by Abian, his kind of potential. So it was pretty, it was pretty much across the board and then of course in 2019 he was, and this is kind of the capstone clearly. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his historic raposchmar with neighboring Eritrea, which just for readers who aren't, listen to his run familiar was part of Ethiopia until '93 and then seceded to form its own country and had this very complicated relationship with Ethiopia ever since, including a devastating war fought between 1998 and 2000, which never really ended until Abie come to power and reaches out to president as I have a working for which he was hailed. Yes, there's this kind of, there's peacemaker, there's peacemaker, there's liberalizer, there's economic reformer. He was everything that, you know, I think Western liberals wanted to believe in. And in the way, a kind of antidote to all the, whether that was Brexit, Britain or Donald Trump's America, he was seen as this kind of antidote to that, but it was an enormous amount of projection. I have an anecdote in the book from Francis Fukuyama, who turned up, who was invited to Addos Abiber, and he gave a kind of talk, and that was all fine. And then he showed up, he was invited. Because Abie obviously, you know, how or at least the people around him were savvy enough to see the optics of having the kind of the end of history guy. Yeah, the kind of Western liberalisms kind of chief prophet visiting the palace. They planted a tree together, which Abie has all his guests foreign guests and dignitaries do. He's very into planting trees. There's part of a giant reforestation program. And so they planted a tree together, and then, and Francis Fukuyama told me that you seem to know all the talking points to hit, all the notes to hit, to press a kind of Western liberal, promised you no election. I was interested in the book. I was reviewing it this morning, and you described him as having almost a Silicon Valley affect, like you just sort of a digital, and you said he had the history as being part of the cyber intelligence way, and I would have a conversation. Yeah, well, we haven't got onto this, but he's, we haven't got onto the kind of imperial nostalgia, but he's got this kind of, there are many faces of Abie Ahmed, and maybe we'll get onto the imperial side. But one of them, and it's a prominent from early on, is this kind of futurologist. He described himself to a one foreign journalist who did interview him, as a, he described himself as a Bay Area kind of guy. And I did, I mentioned in the book that he went off to Silicon Valley for a kind of training at some point when he was at the intelligence agency, and he sort of as absconded at one point to go and explore San Francisco and the Bay Area. But yeah, he loves all this stuff. He talks a lot now about turning Ethiopian to an AI power. Of course he does. Of course, yeah. And you know, crypto is big now. Crypto mining is big. Science, science, he built a science museum, which I gather for people who've been, is a little bit empty, but I mean, it speaks to his idea. Like he sees himself as a modernizer as well, and using science and technology to transform Ethiopia. Oh, which, you know, has his merits as well. But yeah, that is one part of him, which is always very interesting to me. So a two part question. At what point did it become obvious to you that he was going to dismantle the EP RDF, the former ruling structure of Ethiopia, or was that a complete surprise? And was it possible to do that process peacefully? Like was that, is there a world where that could have not been the catastrophe that it ended up being? Or is that an unfair way to connect that process to the world? - Yeah, I think the moment where he transformed the EP RDF into a single party molded in his own image, the prosperity party. So touching on that Pentecostal, prosperity gospel side of his politics. That was absolutely probably one of the watershed really. The Ethiopian state and that ruling coalition were fused, absolutely fused for many decades, or at least really for a good two decades by that point, meaning that any attempt to restructure the party was going to shake up the state itself. And of course the TPLF, who are the architects of the EP RDF, they were not happy with this at all. This was their legacy project. This was something that they-- - The TPLF being the representatives of the Tigrayans. - Yeah, sorry, the Tigrayan people's liberation from the TPLF. This for them was absolutely the final straw, I think. When Abbey had come to power, and as I said, he'd kind of promised a moderate reformist agenda. And in fact, he starts talking about pursuing a new economic policy, which was less statist and more liberal. That was something of a one of the sacred cows that were being taken down. I would say at that point, somewhat it was less radical than his critics made out, but it was seen as an affront. He was making-- - Millison now, we kept some of the Marxist ideology, but pushed it to be in a pretty neoliberal direction. Is that fair to say it? - I'd say, yeah, I mean, it's gone in that much more in that direction now, yeah. I'd say that point, it was more aspirational than reality took quite a while. He was also making noises about changing the constitution. The constitution is this sort of also for the TPLF, absolutely, sacrosanct document, which from 1995, which basically reconfigures, or completely redefines Ethiopia as not one country, but as a collection of many. It's the-- You know, you in America say we, the people, right? The document begins, you know, Ethiopids. The nations and nationalities. It addresses the nations and nationalities of Ethiopia, basically saying there is no one Ethiopia. There are 80 plus different nations and nationalities. That was a very-- It's always been very controversial. It essentially defined Ethiopia along-- - Essentially kind of Stalinist lines. That's kind of how the Soviet Union was configured in Yugoslavia, and we all know how both of those kind of ethnic federations or multinational federations where those ended up. And, you know, the question of the relationship between ethnic tensions, ethnic violence, and that federal setup where you have each region to varying degrees, but, you know, the core, the big regions defined by ethnolinguistic criteria. So T-grade, for two grounds, arromania for aromones, I'm horror for I'm horrors. There's a number of other states. Some of them less-- less rigidly defined according to one-- - Isn't there like a state in the South that's just like almost named? This is a grab bag of ethnicities. - Yeah, so that-- - Since he's come to power, that has actually splintered into a bunch of smaller ones. But yes, it was called the Southern nations and nationalities and people's region. We're essentially saying, "We're essentially the kind of acknowledging that this model isn't quite, doesn't map onto the South quite so well." And they were kind of like the other picture. It's interesting because on some levels, I think it's possible to be sympathetic to Abiy Ahmed's goal here, that yeah, this is not a long-term viable model. Like, this is a model that would lead to a Yugoslav or Soviet type break up potentially if as the groups become more enriched and more differentiated, you know, the rising economic wealth sort of allowed people to devote more resources to individual, not individual, but group identities. And that was potentially problematic, but the absolute buzz saw that he took to all of this. And I think it's probably unfair to characterize the experience since 2020 is more or less constant war, but I don't think that's entirely off. Yeah, so I mean, look, on the question of the Constitution and the federal arrangements, the EPIDF's argument was, you know, as people grow richer, their ethnic loyalties will wither, and then you will afford your nation that way. And then that's the kind of like, it did become transition from being essentially an empire to a modern nation state. It didn't quite work out like that partly because these regions, they did develop their own economic bases and start to push back at the center and kind of demand more autonomy, not less. But you know, that doesn't necessarily, wouldn't necessarily need to lead to our right conflict. But clearly, there were a lot of people who, and Abby is clearly one of them who believes that this set up is anathema to a kind of unified national identity and is kind of, it is destined to lead to international disintegration. So if I'm very early on, he starts making pretty heavy hints, dropping very heavy hints that he basically doesn't think the Constitution is fit for purpose and will be reformed. And this is a hugely, yeah, or essentially torn up entirely. I should say that hasn't happened yet, but it, I think it is still on the agenda, I think, I think it's proven much harder to deliver upon given the fact that when this alarm bell started ringing in some of those states, which that ethnic autonomy is really valued, Tigray is one, a Romeo is another, there was a massive outcry. And when he initially launched, so I know it's controversial, whether he or the Degryans launched the war in 2020, but when the war started in 2020, it's interesting, it's very worth noting that he had a constellation of a political constellation of ethnic groups that were sort of behind him in this effort against the Degryans. But since then, he's fallen out with the Amhara specifically were eager to work with him in 2020, but that relationship has frayed. So it's almost as if Abay Ahmed is sort of jumping from group to group or sort of reorganizing this constellation of figures, even including Eritrea, which in 2020 was a firm ally of Abay Ahmed's and is now potentially an enemy again. So he's sort of, he's swimming around this way, is that, does that get to the sort of the imperial ideology he was sort of working with, the way that he sort of, well, I mean, I think there was a lot there. I'm sorry. Yeah, and I mean, it's complicated. I mean, look, the war with Tigray really erupts because of this, first and foremost, a power struggle between him and the TPLF, but also this clash of visions, as it was seen by, particularly by the Degryans, that he was pursuing this project, which they would describe as a kind of neomepereal one where they were going to, he was going to tear up the whole kind of FMF, the multinational federation that they had midwifed and basically re-centralize the country in his own image. I think there's a lot of truth to that. I think he does want to do that. I think he sees himself rather explicit about it. Yeah, I think he wants to change the constitution. He wants a presidential system and he is trying to restart. He's very much trying to redefine Ethiopia, according to his own image. That was something that they could not stomach. To jump forward, there is this almighty bust that between them, which does lead to war. To prosecute that war, he enlists this second largest group, the Amhara, for whom the promise of a return to a kind of imperial era setup, which implicitly they were historically had been on top. That was very appealing. There were other reasons why they joined him in the fight to take over. We're disintegrating. They had their own very territorial level with the very interraterial claims. He built this coalition. He also brings in the Eritreans, so that piece deal was I think really a security pact in all that name because the Eritrean leadership had their own historic suspicions and antagonism hostility towards the TBLF, which actually goes about decades, but really the Tigrians were in charge, particularly within the military establishment during this 1998-2000 war, which Eritre effectively lost. There was a revenge mission on the Eritrean sides. They're part of the coalition as well. This war that lasted between November and 2020 and November 2022, reckoned by some to be the most lethal of the centuries so far, had a sort of whipsaw history as it developed. There were points where people were talking about to cry being entirely wiped out. There were points where I, somewhat embarrassingly fell into some degree. We're like, "Oh my gosh, the Tigrians are going to take out a sababa." Then back again to, "Oh my gosh, the Tigrians are going to be wiped out." Is that? Well, first, I'd just love to hear your impressions about that more broadly, but as a question, to what extent can that trajectory of the conflict be credited to the extent to which the UAE and Turkey and other actors were willing to more freely arm Abiy Ahmed or were perhaps drawn back by the Biden administration and then encouraged again to arm Abiy Ahmed for this conflict? I would enjoy a totally neat correlation between the flow of arms and the ebbs and flow on the battlefield. I think, certainly, at the point that you mentioned where the Tigrians appeared to be advancing very close to where this sababa, no question, drones which had been to a large degree supplied by the UAE, but also others like the Turks. They clearly turned the tide in the federal government's favor. No question about that. The importation was accelerated when when the sababa looked like it was in jeopardy or is that an unfair awaiter? Yes, no, I think it was. Or at least in the months up to that point, there were an enormous number of airlifts at that point in arms deliveries. They were being tracked at the time by various folks. The war was clearly unbelievably devastating. It was something like a roller coaster. At first, I mean, basically, I do not argue in the book that Abiy alone bears responsibility for this conflict. It takes two to Tanger and the Tigrians, the TPLF leadership. Certainly did their fair share in terms of upping the anti-escalates in the conflict, or the tensions and bringing them to a head. When the war began, Abiy claimed that the federal government was taken totally by surprise as if they hadn't been preparing for this for months. One of the things I do in the book is try and document quite how much this was clearly prepared in advance. Abiy was actually in meetings with with the ruling party when I've spoken to an interview, people who sat in on those meetings. He was very, very clear. This war is going to happen. He said this will be done in a matter of days. I think he said a week, essentially. He said a week we apprehend the leadership and it will be a law enforcement operation. That was the kind of very putoness language that we were given once the war broke out. This is just a law enforcement operation. Just thrust that, that is all it is, we're apprehending the leadership of this clique as they called it, or the junta. It kind of implied it was a military coup. Reality, of course, was that it very quickly, because of the that kind of the scale of and breadth of this alliance that Abiy had had constructed, which was in circling Tigray, including Eritreans and Amharas who had, and I would say also others as well, on the federal government side, who had real scores to settle with the Tigrayans. I mean, it quickly became an all-out war on the region. So whatever Abiy might have imagined, and we don't really know, I have to say exactly what he imagined this would look like if you really, if you get the Eritreans and the armaha is in the back. horror militias were talking about paramilitary groups involved. Did he really think this was going to be a quick, clean surgical operation? If he did, that's remarkably negligent. But of course, it quickly became this all-out war and Tigray and the Tigrayans responded with mass mobilization. And so it becomes his existential fight, much more like his civil war than any kind of, you know, a simple law enforcement operation or counterinsurgency or whatever you want to call it. And starvation was used by the Ethiopian people. Starvation was used as a weapon of war. Undoubtedly, there was also rapes of weapon of war, mass, mass rape. But I think, I don't think, it's just something I don't think is really registered internationally. I mean, I often see people talking about rape in the context of, well, I mean, maybe Gaza or Ukraine or other conflicts who don't understandably, but the numbers were unbelievable in here. Like it was absolutely systemic, absolutely sort of systematic. And then this is a conscious effort to wipe out a bloodline, is that sort of what this is about or just power or just the evil of armed men? Yes, I mean, at least that seems to have been at least for a constituent. For a, I mean, what motivates, you know, armed men to carry out, you know, to sexual violence in the context of war is like a complicated question. But clearly some, I would say for those who argue, and this is very much a widespread argument that this was a genocidal war, I think that is part, that's probably the strongest data point that really is actually the sexual violence, that in the use of, use of, um, famine is a weapon of war. But the point just to get back to what you were saying before about the kind of the sea soaring of the conflict, it was obviously nothing like what Abby claimed to have planned or not to have planned, but to have, well, I know he said was the plan before the war. And then in public, he said, you know, this will just be a couple of, it was a very quick swift operation. There was nothing like that. But the grounds for back, they reclaimed the region from the federal forces, most of the region, I should say, within six months, they then marched on Addis Ababa, decided they wanted to overthrow Abby himself. They then got pushed back once they drone warfare kind of stepped up a, stepped up a gear. They'd actually been on, specifically, they had been for some of the rainy season, they had been a book, the cloud cover had given them something a bit advantage as they pushed out of the central highlands or the northern highlands towards Addis Ababa. But when they, when they descended and the rains ended, the skies were completely clear. So drone drones were able just to completely devastate their logistics, really. I mean, it was, they were massively extended deep inside, you know, beyond Tigray, into Amhara region, into Aromia, and it looked like they were, you know, they were in, they were in hostile territory and, and, and their, their supply routes were massively stretched and it was very easy, I think, actually. In fact, it was, you know, the drones were crucial, but I think they were, they were always going to struggle a bit once they once they were that far after their home, their home turf. Yeah, the, the, the, the Tigrayans probably, probably overreached. So a piece of a kind was reached in 2022? Yes. Yeah, the Pretoria Agreement, which was signed in, obviously, in Pretoria and South Africa. I mean, I, it was a flawed document for a number of reasons in terms of who was involved, who excluded the aerotrans, in particular did not take part, which, you know, or but guaranteed they would be a spoiler, who, you know, as I as the president did not feel that you know, what he'd been promised, which is the total elimination of his kind of historic enemy, the TPLF had been, have been delivered upon. The Amhara felt that they, they kind of been betrayed because they felt that the, because the, the Pretoria Agreement kind of essentially promises that the Western Tigray, the land that they had annexed at start of the war would be returned to Tigray. So they, and they felt that they didn't get fully represented at the talks. Yeah, I don't know if that's, I mean, it would always been tricky, I suppose. In effect, they were bilateral between the federal government, but really happy. Actually, he made all the decisions and the TPLF, some, a handful of representatives of the TPLF in Pretoria, they struck this deal. It was an interesting document. In on paper, it went much further than just a kind of truce, right? It was, it was quite expansive. It seemed to, it seemed to kind of lay out the future relationship between Addis Ababa and Tigray, bring their Tigrayans back into the constitutional fold. The Tigrayans agreed to accept the constitutional authority of the federal government, putting to bed really the threat of seceding altogether from the country, which had been something that was always, you know, running through the conflict was always this, you know, potential that Tigray would just simply secede, which I should have mentioned when we're talking about the constitution is something that's constitutionally provided in the constitution. Article 39, you have the right to secede if you have a referendum. Never been allowed with exception of our trails, never been, never actually been allowed. I know that we're, we're closing in on our time. So I wanted to ask a potentially too big a question, but is Abiy Ahmed at this point, to me he seems surprisingly secure in government? Do you think that we are at the beginning of the Abiy Ahmed era? Is he sort of perpetuantly what's the, the dictator of Yemen's classic formulation? Is he dancing on the heads of snakes and potentially, you know, a potential catastrophe around every corner? I mean, but the certainly jobs together that is snake. I mean, he's, you know, the, the upshot of the Breitouria agreement is a revolt began in Amharah against Abiy Ahmed. So he lost control of a region which actually was pretty a one point seemed to be allied to him. The Aromia, despite the fact that he came to power promising to, to, to govern for the, for the Aromia, or at least implicitly suggesting that he would be putting Aromia, Aromia first, a lot, a very large constituency there also feels aggrieved. Tigray remains sort of only half in, less than half in the, the federation and tensions between Abiy and, and I'll see, Bill F. I've, I've really got pretty bad in the last few months. I would argue the Petoria agreement is essentially unraveling. Maybe it's dead already. So there's a very high possibility of another war in Tigray, though thankfully this time diplomats, including American ones have been, have been more forceful, impressing, impressing upon on, on the leaders not to do that. Eritrea, as you mentioned earlier has now the relationship between Abiy and Azayas has totally fallen apart. Azayas now is pretty dead set, I think, on trying to weaken if not overthrow him to the point of allying with his old enemies, his arch enemies, the Tigrayans, the TPLF in order to achieve that. So that's, you know, in that respect to Abiyas made an enormous number of enemies, but, and they're kind of big, but is he, I think, has to some degree maybe learnt from the Tigray war. He doesn't seem particularly ready to rush into another one. He has been making a lot of very alarming noises about grabbing a slice of Eritrea's coastline, which to, to go back to that imperial side of him, he sees as, you know, he has an imperial vision free theopia, which I think does ultimately involve the return of Eritrea rather like Putin and Ukraine, the return of Eritrea to the historic fold. So there are all sorts of risks on the horizon, but I think he's more cautious at this point, and I don't think he's, I don't think he wants to rush into a war party because his army is overstretched. And the economy is really struggling, despite the absolutely fantastical figures which the government churns out on things like wheat production, which actually we kind of, we, somewhere I would say dismantled those figures in a piece in the economist a few months ago, completely fantastical. So the economy is struggling, despite the, the kind of support of an IMF package, but I mean, just because conflict across the country and just, you know, I just, to kind of made the big point really is, yeah, the state, which was weakening, having been Africa's, I want Africa's strongest states, which could govern and project power across its territory. Abbey governs Addis Ababa. There is no sign that the ruling party or maybe the federal army is about to oust him. He's cocooned in Addis in a way which makes I think it does make him quite secure, but he's not governing the whole country. That was exactly what I was asking is this like so is the the core constituency for him is the military and the population of urban population of Addis Ababa is that well, he's managed to alienate a lot of people in Addis Ababa as well because he, while initially they they liked his is kind of imperial messaging, you know, he built music. He opened up the palaces and museums. There was a lot of symbolic staff, which was appealing. He's gone and demolished the whole historic heart of the capital in order to rebuild this city as a Dubai hyper-modern city of high rises, which is really actually quite unpopular. So he's actually losing that. I don't think my view is he doesn't, I don't think popular support is really what matters for him. What matters is whether the elites, or enough of the elites, particularly in an around Addis, have a stake in the perpetuation and continuation of his rule. And I think that for now, there is. And the army, I think he's actually probably managed the army reasonably well. He cleared out and perched it of elements that were this loyal, he boosted salaries, things like that. I don't think, we might be wrong, maybe there is a discontent with the endless wars at home that they are forced to fight. Maybe at some point that will be, it will that kind of loyalty will break. But I don't, you know, a coup or a mutiny, I just don't really see it. As a closing question, is there a chief international sponsor of Arbiy Ahmed that has helped to facilitate his rule or is it more sort of the same amorphous coalition of the typical players looking to make a buck that kind of thing? Look, I mean, it's the United Arab Emirates. Anyone, anyone who's, has spent enough time in the Horn of Africa, or actually beyond that, much of Africa these days knows that there was one country which is on the lips more than anyone out, any other one, and that is the United Arab Emirates. And within the region, Abbi is one of the key nodes in a kind of regional sphere of influence, which takes in the, essentially individuals. So, there's a kind of patron client relationship. Abbi in Ethiopia, Hamiti, the warlord in Sudan that leads the rapid support forces, he's obviously a crucial, the Khafftar in Libya, Eastern Libya, and then smaller ones like Debbie in Gad, Denny in Northern Somalia, Sama in Pune land, Avruto here in Kenya, I would say is something of an Emirati. And of course, the Southern transition forces in Yemen that have just been taking over, I gather a now back on the march. Well, South Yemen was quite fragmented for the entirety of this conflict, and now the SDC seems to have consolidated anti-Houthi Yemen, and whether or not they're actually going to attack the Houthis again, is an open question. But yeah, you were more emphatic than I thought you'd be willing to be. It is the United Arab Emirates at the core of a lot of its going on. Well, I think, I mean, they bank roles. I mean, I should, I should caveat that they deny this. And of course, there is limited publicly available information 'cause it's amazingly opaque, but there was a personal bond between Abbi and Mohammad bin Zayat. They clearly get along very well. They see something of each other. Mohammad bin Zayat is kind of modernizing autocrat with a kind of aspirations to regional hegemony. I think he sees Abbi as a kind of fellow, as his equivalent in the horn and a partner. But, you know, I don't think the, none of the sums really add up. If you look at what Abbi is doing, building this unbelievably giant and expensive billion, multi-billion dollar palace slash sort of new city on the edge of Adis, none of the sums add up. The absolute cross-the-board assumption is the Emirates are paying for a very sizable chunk of that. So, and one in Egypt and half of Egypt's coastline and much revolving the RSF and the SDC, it's extraordinary. Exactly. I mean, the Emirates are the petru dollars from the Gulf and above all from the Emirates. I've been recycled in Ethiopia in a way, which I think has been ultimately the grease in the wheels that keeps Abbi's political machine running. So, I think, yeah, I mean, if that dried up, he would, I think he would struggle. Well, I know we're coming to the end of your time. I just wanted to thank you again so much for coming on and I wanted to give my strongest possible recommendation for the Abbi project, the God, power, and war in the new Ethiopia. There's just a ton in here. The case study of Ethiopia is tremendously important, but also the actions of the UAE and other actors. It's all in here and if you want to understand the word of Africa, this is a great place to start. Tom, do you have anything else you'd like to point us towards your writing and the economists? I know you said you were covering Sudan recently, which I wish we had time to get to, but we don't. Maybe we had a leader and a kind of an article in November, basically warning of the risks of another war in Tigray and explaining how another war in Tigray could quite quickly merge in dangerous ways with the war in Sudan, which I would argue there's already some really serious material linkages between the conflict, theater, and Ethiopia and the one in Sudan. So we were basically saying the world needs to pay attention here. Luckily, I do think, as I said, I do think there has been some. I think there are efforts underway to try and prevent this outcome, but outside is kind of like the so much. But yeah, I would suggest if anyone's interested to read those pieces, they draw attention to the wider context including that, the Sudan piece, which I think will become. Because more and more relevant. Because if Ethiopia jumps into that conflict on the RSF side, then perhaps the Sudan forces get pushed back up and report Sudan again, or even worse. Yeah, I don't know why I will see. There's lots of rumors at the moment of exactly that that Ethiopia has been assisting the RSF in material ways, which up until now, the evidence was quite, was quite slim because I think Abbey was quite careful. Of course, it's on his doorstep. Does he really want to get dragged into that conflict by picking aside? But there's certainly been rumors and some of them more credible than others of that. But I think another factor to think about is, this war in Tigray would almost certainly draw in Eritrea once again. A war in Tigray is going to-- the Eritrea will not sit idly by. It will be involved in some capacity. What's interesting and kind of complicated here is the Eritreans have been very actively supporting the Sudanese armed forces, the army, so the RSF's opponents. Not that the SAF are unreserved good guys, but I'm not used to thinking positively of something that Eritrea is doing. Well, I mean, there are many reasons. One of which is geopolitical. The Emirati thing, again, the Eritreaans are full and out big time with the Emiratis, and they don't want to see an RSF victory for that reason. This is the RSF as an Emirati proxy. Also, there's also kind of very destabilized and kind of tribal complex within Eastern Sudan on the border with Eritrea. So they've always seen the border of-- Eastern Sudan is their kind of zone of influence. They wanted to shore up the Sudanese army for that reason. So they've been training the army. They've been hosting-- they've hosted Sudanese fighter jets. They have been training, all of that. So I mean, Eritrea is sort of the training camp for the military training camp for the region, actually. Host all sorts of rebel groups. Get to the command anyway. If Eritrea got sucked into a war in an integral, that would change the dynamics of the war in Sudan and interesting, potentially profound ways. So yeah, I could talk about that for a long time, but I do need to get ready for my next course. Thank you. Thank you so much for the time you've been willing to give us. I feel like we could talk about this for the horn for three hours. But again, the Abbey project by Tom Gardner. Please do check it out. And thank you for joining us here at the Moore Freedom Foundation. Thank you, Tom. Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me on. Take care. Well, Rory, I thought that was a fascinating chat with Tom Gardner of the Economist. What did you think, Rory? He's very professional. I've owned him somewhat intimidatingly professional. What did you think? He knows what he's talking about. And it was really just fascinating the depth and the granularity with which he was able to dive into things. I really loved going through the book that he was talking about and just getting his impressions. But it was really interesting just like the past five, 10 minutes there. I don't know if you'd mentioned it, but he is one of the economist Africa correspondent. So he's-- Yeah, but he is out there. It's not like he's writing from it from New York or something. He's in Nairobi and I think he's probably the main guy when it comes to the more of Africa. So he is intimately familiar with it. I was completely unaware that Eritrea and the United Arab Emirates were sort of having a falling out and that's a fascinating detail. We don't talk about Eritrea much on this podcast, mostly because it's a very small place and incredibly complex. But the guy who's been in charge of Eritrea for, I believe, decades is a real piece of work. And it's a very-- just a very interesting puzzle piece the region that I had been thinking. about a lot and to see Eritrea, which is not a country that I think they often talk about Eritrea as the North Korea of Africa. But it's interesting. Isn't what you want to be described as? No, but it's interesting that they're like, and I had not put this together at all, that they're sort of somewhat opposed to the United Arab Emirates and it's a generalities point. So that was just a really fascinating detail among many fascinating details in a conversation I enjoyed very much. Has he someone you had known before or how did you get in contact? No, it was quite straightforward. And perhaps this is a, I mean, hopefully it's an indicator going forward. If you want to, I think you remember the Seth Harp guy, if you want to get to somebody who's trying to sell a book right now and is doing the full turn of all the prestigious podcasts, I think what made Tom Gardner willing to speak to us was the fact that this book came out last year. Okay. So he's not currently doing a constant storm of this stuff and is happy to get the books sort of a year later bit of promotion for his book, which is a phenomenal book and I read a lot of phenomenal books. So it's actually, first off, it's very kind of him to come on such a not so prestigious podcast. It's actually a really positive indicator. No, he definitely give us so much time. Like I'm very thankful to him. I think it's a positive indicator about contacting other really, really knowledgeable people who have books that may not be out this week. But they may want to sort of revisit their backlist and talk about it. So yeah, I was very pleased with how willing he was to chat and it was a really great chat. I thought, I love that the Francis Fukuyama bit, which was quite extraordinary. I don't know. You feel like you're with Francis Fukuyama? I'm not sure. No, no. He actually became, he got a little bit of pop cultural cache when it kind of looked like Ukraine was going to beat Russia. But Francis Fukuyama was, gosh, I don't, I don't even want to say, I'm not entirely certain about like his political orientation. I think he was for the war of Iraq and then he was against it later. But he's sort of one of these Washington DC thinkers and he's most famous for a book called The End of History and the Last Man, which published in I think 1989 or 1990 and was basically like, well, history's over now. Capitalism is one. We're not going to have ideological struggles anymore. And it's one of those things that he gets kind of, I've actually never read the book. I've embarrassed to say. But he gets mocked a lot for that because then 9/11 happened and it's like actually, I mean, 9/11 isn't really a serious ideological struggle. I think on a lot of levels, you have a lot of people who argue that Francis Fukuyama was largely confirmed in what he said, but he's become kind of like a standard bearer or like the, you know, the pope of the liberal international order or what have he. Is this a bit like Murzlal, which he was only talking about, say, oh, I've noticed this trend that's happening over the past six months, a couple of years, but people seem to think it's like this structural law that has to be true. Like are people treating it like, like, oh, you're so silly when he maybe kind of just meant like, well, the next 10 years or so. No, no. I think he was quite ambitious and people across the ideological perspective, well, people across the ideological perspective have made fun of him for decades, but also people across the ideological spectrum have been like, oh, no, what he said has been entirely confirmed. Apparently, some readings of his book say that, yeah, liberal democracy has won completely. There's no real competition anymore. So people are going to be bored and they're going to go for like dumbass demagogues and ideologues. Okay. Wow. I'm not going to be a politician, but then I haven't read the book and that could be picking and choosing the best passages, but the general idea, and I think he did mean it to be quite sweeping, was that this thing that he had been raised in, that we had all gone through, this century, you know, even before the Cold War of like deep ideological conflicts between socialism and capitalism, that that was basically over and that liberal democracy had won. So he is, gotta be in his, at least his late 60s, maybe into his 70s or 80s, and he's just sort of this grand old man of a liberal and international order. So it was kind of fascinating that Abiy Ahmed knew that catering to Francis Fukuyama and like escorting this guy around Ethiopia was a way to sort of solidify his cred. And I thought that was just a fascinating dynamic that I was completely unaware of and is what you get when you're able to talk to actual journalists who are covered this place in detail for years and I'm excited to try and do more of it. But hopefully he'll be back next time when he has another book out. I mean, here's hoping, here's hoping. The, I also really was fascinated by what he had to say about the UAE. Did you catch that? Oh yeah, yeah, I did. I thought it was very good because they are coming out quite evil at the moment. Well, I mean, he would not say that. Have we have to cap? We do not use terms. Yes. No. Looking on our own, we use terms like that, perhaps, because we're not as professional as him. Because we're not as professional and we are too small and very much beneath the notice of the United Arab Emirates. Tom Gardner as a professional journalist has to be very careful about what he says and he was very careful about what he said. I think that it was interesting. He did not. I expected a little bit more Heming and Hauling about that. He was essentially like, no, the United Arab Emirates is the most important factor in Ethiopia in Sudan and a lot of other countries. And that was fascinating to see how willing he was to get a firm that. So they're like an opposite Libya? Opposite Libya in what sense? In the sense that they're causing a lot of discord and like a badness across the region of that healing effect. How did Libya cause a. Oh, you're talking about that. When Colonel Gaddafi was still around, no, it has the complete opposite. Well, I mean, I think. Let's be careful about that. Gaddafi had a very positive seven years before he came in from the cold. Gaddafi had a lot of chaos. Did a lot of chaos making before that, which is worth remembering. But when at the point that we decided to destroy Gaddafi, he was in fact in a much more positive sort of set of circumstances. Actually, UAE, the similarities between UAE and its petro-worth, petro-wealth, and Gaddafi in his more destructive decades is actually a. Actually, kind of a fruitful. Okay. frifull avenue for some more analysis, perhaps. But anyway, that was a great conversation with Tom Gardner and I wish him the best and it would just once more recommend the Abbey project to anybody who wants to know more about Ethiopia. Thank you very much and we will catch you next time. The Moore Freedom Foundation is also available on YouTube and TikTok. Rob's Twitter is Rob O'Law and he's also written a book called "Avoiding the British Empire," but it was and how the US can do better. And music provided by Kevin McLeod.