Sarah Vaughan is an academic and an author who has worked in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa since the late 1980s, and has taught African politics and social theory in Scotland and Ethiopia. Her latest book, which she co-authored with the journalist Martin Plaut, is titled Understanding Ethiopia’s Tigray War (available here). In it, she provides historical and political background needed to understanding the complexities of the Tigrar war, which raged from 2020 to 2022, when a cessation of hostilities was signed between the Ethiopian regime and the TPLF in Pretoria, South Africa.
In this conversation we discuss developments post-Pretoria, especially in the light of current efforts by the Tigray government to return occupied territories in Southern and Western Tigray; the journey of the TPLF from 1991 to 2018 and its assumptions, mistakes, and successes; the historically fractious relationship between the TPLF and the EPLF, the ruling party of Eritrea.
Regarding the Tigray War, Dr Vaughan is very unequivocal: she says although the TPLF has its fair share of blame, the war was principally the work of Abiy Ahmed and Isaias Afewerki.
