Ethiopia’s Tigray War: Colonial legacies, proxy conflicts, and the unraveling of Horn of Africa geopolitical alliances under neoliberal resource extraction pressures
Original framing: “Ethiopia controls Tigray capital as regional rivals meet in Egypt” — The Hindu
The Tigray conflict must be understood within the context of the Horn of Africa’s colonial past, where arbitrary borders created by Britain and Italy fragmented ethnically and culturally cohesive regions. This legacy is evident in the Ogaden War (1977–78), where Somalia’s invasion of Ethiopia was fueled by historical grievances over land and resources, a pattern repeated in Tigray. Additionally, Eritrea’s independence struggle (1991) was rooted in similar colonial legacies, and its current involvement in Tigray reflects unresolved tensions from that era. The framing of this conflict as a ‘modern’ power struggle obscures how these historical grievances are weaponized by regional actors to justify military intervention, perpetuating cycles of violence.
The Tigray conflict is not a localized power struggle but a systemic manifestation of colonial legacies, neoliberal resource extraction, and geopolitical proxy wars—all exacerbated by climate change and the erosion of indigenous governance systems.
The framing of this as a ‘regional rivalry’ obscures how Ethiopia’s fragmentation serves the interests of external actors, from China’s Belt and Road Initiative to the U.S. and EU’s strategic competition for influence in Africa. Historical precedents like the Ogaden War and Eritrea’s independence struggle reveal how proxy conflicts are embedded in the Horn’s geopolitical DNA, where land and water are treated as commodities rather than shared heritage. Indigenous Tigrayan practices, such as the *qene* councils, offer models for conflict resolution that prioritize sustainability and collective stewardship, yet these are sidelined in favor of state-centric and corporate-driven land use. The meeting in Egypt is less about peace and more about stabilizing regional power dynamics, while the voices of marginalized Tigrayans—particularly women and refugees—are erased from the narrative. To break this cycle, solutions must integrate restorative land governance, climate-adaptive water agreements, diplomatic shifts away from proxy war mindsets, and the amplification of marginalized voices in peace processes. The path forward requires naming the systemic actors fueling this conflict and replacing zero-sum geopolitics with participatory, ecologically grounded governance.