Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ethiopian civil conflict (2018–present)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Most of the discussion here has been about the content, formatting and naming of this article, not arguments over whether or not it should exist. So, I'm closing this as Keep and encouraging interested editors to discuss points of disagreement on the article talk page or other dispute resolution forums. Liz Read! Talk! 05:18, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Ethiopian civil conflict (2018–present)

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This is a article of unrelated conflicts in Ethiopia from 2018 to now presented as a single conflict. It even mentions the 2022 al-Shabaab invasion of Ethiopia and lists al-Shabaab as a belligerent despite no sources of al Shabaab having any link with other ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia, they are separate and unrelated conflicts. Same goes for the Oromia–Somali clashes, the Afar–Somali clashes, the Amhara Region coup d'état attempt and many more. The article does not even try to explain the relation between all these conflicts and just list and briefly explains them. While it is true that many liberation fronts did work and fight together, especially in the Tigray War. Only in this Wikipedia article is every single conflict in one country treated as a single "conflict". Imagine someone did this for every single country on Wikipedia. This is like combining all conflicts in Nigeria such as the Conflict in the Niger Delta, Herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria and the Boko Haram insurgency into one "Nigerian Civil conflict" regardless if theyre related or not. This is exactly what this article is trying to do. WP:SYNTH as none of the sources cited suggests that all of these conflicts are related or linked. محرر البوق (talk) 01:05, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2023 March 20.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 01:30, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Events, Military,  and Ethiopia.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 10:06, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. If the issue is lack of reliable sources for the al-Shabaab invasion, then adding a Tag is more appropriate than nominating it for deletion. Ethnic violence in Ethiopia since the 2018 regime change is a very series and an ongoing issue. The article covered most of the conflicts happening in various regions. From the dynamic nature of the issue, sections may need updating but as far as one can see, the Outline itself adequately shows the various ethnic conflicts discussed. Could you please state which ethnic conflict is not covered? Petra0922 (talk) 20:10, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Ethnic violence in Ethiopia has been ongoing for a very long time, way before 2018 (many of the wars listed predate 2018), and it will undoubtedly continue into the future. The problem is the article is attempting to group up these many different ethnic insurgencies into one single war, despite no adequate sources. What is the connection between the Afar–Somali clashes, the 2020–2022 Ethiopian–Sudanese clashes and the Oromo conflict? Nothing. They are completely different wars/insurgencies that have no connections with each other, but according to this article, they are the same conflict. محرر البوق (talk) 20:45, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * These are not all a single organised conflict, but they cannot be completely separated from the wider Ethiopian sociopolitical context, nor completely from each other. To take the current state of those three articles:
 * Afar–Somali clashes: In 2014, the federal government, headed by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), redrew the boundary between the two regions. As a result ... – this is a consequence of EPRDF/TPLF ethnic federalism;
 * 2020–2022 Ethiopian–Sudanese clashes: With the outbreak of the Tigray War, Sudanese forces were able to move into the region due to an agreement with Ethiopia just three days before. When Amhara militants left to assist the federal government in the war, Sudanese forces started to ... – related to the Tigray War;
 * Oromo conflict – see TDF–OLA joint offensive: The TDF–OLA joint offensive was a series of military battles starting in late October 2021 opposing a coalition of the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) and Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) against the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) ... The TDF and OLA confirmed a military alliance against the federal forces. The military actions of the TDF-OLA coalition were seen by the federal authorities as a threat to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. – related to the Tigray War;
 * Boud (talk) 23:42, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems the examples Boud provided elaborated this point. Petra0922 (talk) 10:43, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The scope of this article is to give an overview of the various armed conflicts in Ethiopia from 2018 to the present. Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018, making 2018 a natural and uncontroversial historical breaking point in Ethiopian history: Al Jazeera 2019, There is growing concern that Ethiopia's prime minister has failed to address rising ethnic tensions and violence, describes ethnic armed conflicts in Ethiopia as a single topic related to the Abiy epoch. The Ethiopia-wide debate about ethnic federalism and armed conflict for or against perceived or real centralisation or decentralisation are covered by many sources for pre-2018 and 2018+, e.g. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 2007; Canadian Journal of African Studies 2016; Wilson Center 2021; Insight on Africa 2022.Some synthesis has crept into the article, such as the choice of section titles with 'pre-war' and 'Course of the war', which I to reduce the risk of WP:SYNTHESIS. Both the lead and the Background section would benefit from some major rewriting and good sourcing to avoid the risk of reach[ing] or imply[ing] a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. There is also a need to have more content from sources that place the various armed conflicts in their constitutional/political context, while leaving detailed content of the individual conflicts in the individual articles.A possible option could be to propose reverting the  back to Ethiopian civil conflict under Abiy Ahmed's administration to clarify that there's no claim of "a single war", but I wouldn't expect that to gain support. Boud (talk) 23:27, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you think that this article should be structured similarly to Opposition to Haile Selassie? I believe that removing the infobox will significantly improve this page as there's too many belligerents and makes things much more messy. محرر البوق (talk) 18:44, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Boud محرر البوق (talk) 19:02, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I think a structure similar to Opposition to Haile Selassie would be fine, but matched to the actual events during the Abiy epoch. Something more or less chronological, but also geographical/political, showing how Abiy/his government either influenced, was influenced by, or ignored the various armed conflicts. The title could probably be thrown open for debate in a new section on the talk page: e.g. Ethiopian civil conflicts (2018–present) (adding the 's' for plural); or an equivalent to Ethiopian civil conflict under Abiy Ahmed's administration to avoid the figurative sense of "under", e.g. civil conflicts during the Abiy Ahmed administration or civil conflicts during the Abiy Ahmed government (no need for 'Ethiopian': there's only one Abiy Ahmed government/administration in world history, as far as I know). I don't think Opposition to ... would work, because not all of the armed conflicts are directly against the federal government.I tend to think that being WP:BOLD and removing the infobox would be reasonable, since the infobox does give the impression that there's a single conflict – currently it shows "four sides" (with al-Qaeda/al-Shabaab as "one side"), and says that "the conflict" started all of a sudden exactly two days after Abiy became prime minister. Both of these "statements" in the infobox are, to put it bluntly, ridiculous, or more diplomatically, highly misleading. However, it would be good after removing the infobox to open a talk page section for people who disagree or don't understand the reasoning: the issues of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH are both relevant to other Ethiopia-related articles, and newish editors may not understand why earlier editors developed these guidelines - or may disagree with them. Boud (talk) 20:28, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Boud: Alright I will remove the infobox soon and add more information later this week. I also would support a title change aswell. Personally, a removal of the "(2018–present)" would seem sufficient to me. But I would 100% support a full title change to "civil conflicts during the Abiy Ahmed administration" too. I think the best title would be "Ethnic violence during the Abiy Ahmed administration" so information about ethnic massacres and such could be added as well. But either one is fine to me. محرر البوق (talk) 20:52, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @محرر البوق:, @Boud, The characteristics of the Haile Selassie and Abiy Ahmed′s rulings are completely different. Too many conflicting parties are involved since 2018, as listed in the Infobox. Isn't the point of the article to capture the nature of the various conflicts and participants? As for the title, if it needs to change to Ethiopian civil conflict under Abiy Ahmed's administration then, I would suggest adding his formal last name, Ali to the title. Petra0922 (talk) 10:40, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Petra0922 @Boud I'm obviously not comparing Haile Selassie's regime to Abiy Ahmed's, but the Opposition to Haile Selassie article is also talking about a collection of conflicts (more or less related) that occurred under his administration, and that article does not have an infobox as whoever edited that page realized that an infobox wouldn't effectively serve it's purpose. Look at this MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE - "The purpose of an infobox: to summarize key facts that appear in the article. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. Of necessity, some infoboxes contain more than just a few fields; however, wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content."
 * Snice the purpose of an military infobox is to briefly summarize the key facts of an article and that this article quite complex due to the fact that it's talking about several conflicts rather then one. It's clear that an infobox wouldn't serve it's purpose here and possibly mislead the viewer (we have already established that some of the information in the infobox is not accurate).
 * محرر البوق (talk) 05:19, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @محرر البوق:, I noticed you removed the infobox before achieving consensus (WP:CONACHIEVE) and the title doesn't consist of a formal or common name. If the infobox consists of relevant information (MOS:IBX), and if the question is layout and appearance, then it makes sense to improve the structure as in these articles: Yemeni_civil_war_(2014–present), Iraq War, or perhaps World War II article. The recent change needs to be reverted until editors agree on the removal of key information and also on the title. Just to let you know I move the page back to its original title until the discussion is closed. Petra0922 (talk) 09:21, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * is correct that we should wait until this AfD (deletion debate) is finished before doing a title change. You may start an informal title change proposal at Talk:Ethiopian civil conflict (2018–present). If informal consensus converges (as it seemed to on this page), then after waiting until this AfD is over, double check that nobody objects (generally the simplest is guess what you think the likely consensus is, and then ask 'Does anybody object to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX?', and wait a reasonable delay). (If informal debate is insufficient, then a more structured WP:RM might be necessary.)It was me (scroll above) who suggested being WP:BOLD and removing the infobox and then opening a talk page section – so please 'blame' me, not محرر البوق. Since you objected to the bold move, it's clear that there has to be talk page discussion before (possibly) removing the infobox (my prediction of an easy consensus was wrong).To both of you: both of these issues now look like side issues of the current AfD – please open up talk page sections to see if consensus can be achieved. New people presenting arguments for or against deletion do not need to see the details of these two (infobox, name change) discussions, and can go to the talk page if they wish to read the details (or if they wish to contribute to those two particular issues). Boud (talk) 16:25, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Boud @Petra0922 Sorry guys. I was not 100% sure how changing the title of an article worked. I'd assumed that when you "moved" an article it would require an administrator approval and open up a discussion page similar to this one just like what happened when I moved the Hurras al-Din article. I was genuinely surprised when name automatically changed but I just went along with it, which wasn't the right thing to do. محرر البوق (talk) 20:46, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Boud@محرر البوق. Agreed. The talk page needs to reflect the AFD. @محرر البوق, we all are learning. One thing I would add is that for such big edits, it would help if you could leave a note to the editor who created the article or significantly contributed, so they participate in such discussions. For updating the article’s talk page, do you want to add the deletion information and the title change? I will start the Infobox discussion and comment on the name change once created. If the title must change, then as suggested earlier, Abiy Ahmed Ali is the formal name. Petra0922 (talk) 11:14, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose: As others already noted, all included conflicts are interlinked, making this article neccessary for a overview. My main point of comment is to also oppose the removal of al-Qaeda/al-Shabaab from the article. The 2022 al-Shabaab invasion of Ethiopia was specifically motivated by the existing unrest in Ethiopia, and al-Shabaab hoped to exploit the infighting to expand its own influence in Ethiopia. Several refs in the invasion article mention this. The entire invasion thus took place in the context of the civil conflict. Applodion (talk) 17:02, 26 March 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.