by Mike James

We should all be familiar with the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:6, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” There is no doubt that wars and rumors of wars have been with us throughout human history. They will continue down to the time of Christ’s second coming. Some recent events have created some seemingly new conflicts in the world.

Ethiopia’s human rights commission reports at least 600 people were killed in the town of Mai Kadra in western Tigray on November 9 when local youths known as Samri, aided by the then-local administration, went door to door killing those they identified as members of the minority Amhara and Wolkait ethnic groups.

Problems erupted in Ethiopia on November 4 when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the faction that governs the northern state of Tigray (Ethiopia), of attacking federal military bases. Ahmed ordered federal troops into Tigray after this provocation. 

The situation escalated two weeks later when Tigray’s president, Debretsion Gebremichael, said his forces fired missiles at Eritrea’s capital, Asmara, because it was siding with Ahmed’s government in Addis Ababa (Ethiopian capital city). 

Tibor Nagy, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, condemned “the TPLF’s unjustifiable attacks” against Eritrea and “its efforts to internationalize the conflict in Tigray.” 

Ahmed tweeted that “Ethiopia is more than capable of attaining the objectives of the operation (against the TPLF) by itself.” Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for restoring ties with Eritrea, ending a 20-year military stalemate after the 1998-2000 border war. Despite peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia animosity remains between the TPLF and Eritrea.

On November 28, 2020 Ethiopia’s military launched an assault on Mekele, the regional capital of the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Hours after the assault began Ethiopia’s army chief of staff said that Mekele was now under the control of government forces.

The TPLF used to dominate the coalition ruling Ethiopia for decades until Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power. Abiy Ahmed introduced political reforms starting in 2018 that have lifted the top on long repressed tensions among the 80 ethnic groups in Ethiopia.

While things in Ethiopia are heating up it appears a conflict in Azerbaijan is simmering down. A six-week war in the mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan has reached a cease-fire stage. Armenia accepted a cease-fire on punishing terms to possibly end the recent conflict. 

Nagorno-Karabakh is a separatist region in Azerbaijan with a largely Armenian population. It broke away from Azerbaijan in the late 1980s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to a war and Azerbaijan’s humiliating loss of the enclave and seven surrounding districts. A decades-long peace process, led by the United States, France, and Russia was unsuccessful in reaching a settlement.

Armenia was content with the status quo of the frozen conflict, but Azerbaijan was not. The Azerbaijanis used Caspian Sea oil money to buy arms, including a fleet of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones and Israeli kamikaze drones. 

“It’s pretty obvious that Azerbaijan has been preparing for this. Azerbaijan decided it wanted to change the status quo and that the Armenian side had no interest in a war because they wanted to keep what they had,” said Tom de Waal, an expert on the Caucasus at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Unable to match Azerbaijan’s drone forces, Armenian forces suffered a series of military losses. Armenian and Nagorno-Karabakh officials said they had no choice but to sign a truce to avoid further losses of life and territory.

At this moment 2,000 Russian peacekeepers have been deployed to enforce the truce, but some say it will not lead to lasting peace. “The cease-fire won’t stay this way. It won’t last long,” war veteran Pavel Makunyan said. “We have been fighting for decades, and we will fight on,” he added. “Maybe not today, but tomorrow.”

Both of these recent conflicts relate to simmering tensions between ethnic groups that go back many years. Wise King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9 the following: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” As Christians we need to make sure we do not add to division already raging in the world. Our example should follow the words of Paul in Galatians 3:28. We are all one in Christ Jesus.

One of the major problems on earth today is the division caused by ethnic, religious, tribal, and racial differences. This problem has manifested itself throughout human history. The only solution to this problem, like all the rest of humanity’s problems, is the coming kingdom of God to this earth. Jesus Christ’s kingdom will put an end to war and conflict on earth (Isaiah 2:4). Let us continue to pray for that kingdom to come. 

Sources:

“How Ethiopia’s History of Ethnic Violence is Destabilizing Its Reform Gains,” by Yohannes Gedamu, Quartz Africa, https://qz.com/africa/1411519/ethiopias-ethnic-violence-history-with-oromos-amharas-somalis-tigray/, October 3, 2018.

“In Escalation of Ethiopia Conflict, Rebel Tigrayans Fire Rockets Into Eritrea,” by Lesley Wroughton, The Washington Post, November 16, 2020.

“For Azerbaijan, Drones Prove Decisive in Contested Enclave,” by Robyn Dixon, The Washington Post, November 12, 2020.

“Report: At Least 600 Killed in Ethiopia,” by Lesley Wroughton, The Washington Post, November 25, 2020.

“If It Was Up To Me…We Would Have Stood Until the End,” by Liz Cookman and Robyn Dixon, The Washington Post, November 25, 2020.

“In Defiant Tigray Region, Ethiopia Says Its Military Now Controls the Capital,” by Lesley Wroughton, Max Bearak and Danielle Paquette, The Washington Post, November 29, 2020.