#HandsoffEthiopia: ‘Partiality’, Polarization and Ethiopia’s Tigray Conflict

Over a year since the outbreak of war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, the fighting continues. Indeed, the conflict theatre has now expanded considerably, with devastating consequences for many Ethiopians. With atrocities committed by all sides and a profound humanitarian crisis underway, the conflict currently stands as testament to the emptiness of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) commitments made by states and organisations across the world. This essay highlights two problematiques the Tigray conflict, and its consequences, raise for supporters and practitioners of R2P. The first relates to the relationships between R2P, social media access and governance, the second the ease with which R2P calls by Western actors especially can intersect with domestic discourses around cynical, untrustworthy and disingenuous outsiders. This is particularly so in a region where Western agendas have traditionally focused on their own geo-strategic and security concerns. Both, it is suggested, have served to reinforce the positions of the respective belligerents, making peace – sadly – a more distant prospect.