By Zekarias Besha Abebe
Om August 24, fighting resumed between the federal government of Ethiopia and the Tigrayan forces, ending the five-month humanitarian truce.
It was on March 24 that the Ethiopian government declared an “indefinite humanitarian truce” to improve the dire humanitarian situation in the northern part of the country and to give peace a chance.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) reciprocated by expressing a willingness to respect the truce and cessation of hostilities, on condition of an adequate and timely humanitarian assistance. The truce paved the way for some positive measures towards ending the conflict that first broke out on November 4, 2020.
On June 27, the Ethiopian government announced the names of a seven-member negotiating team led by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Demeke Meknoennen, in a bid to find a resolution.
On July 28, Redwan Hussien, a member of the negotiating team and national security adviser to the Ethiopian prime minster, tweeted his government’s readiness for peace talks “anytime anywhere” and “without preconditions”.
Earlier, in June, the leadership of Tigray also issued a statement, expressing its willingness to participate in a “credible, impartial and principled peace process”.
Meanwhile, the African Union’s (AU) High-Representative for the Horn of Africa, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, as well as the US, the EU and the UN envoys to the region, engaged in shuttle diplomacy, trying to bring parties to the negotiating table. However, such efforts did not register major results. There are at least three sticking points preventing the peace process from making headway.
The first is the diverging positions on who should lead the peace process. The Tigray regional government, in its June 13 open letter, flagged its concern over the proximity of Obasanjo to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The regional government also seeks to have the peace talks facilitated by Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, with the support of international partners, among them the US, the EU, United Arab Emirates, the UN, and the AU – relegating the AU to a supportive role.
The federal government, on the other hand, stands by its position that the AU should be responsible for the mediation, under the leadership of Obasanjo who was appointed by the chairperson of the AU Commission as the High Representative for the Horn of Africa on August 26 last year, for one year and renewable at the discretion of the commission chairperson.
The second sticking point is the lifting of the blockade and restoration of basic services to the Tigray region, which has been cut off from electricity, telecom, banking and other basic utilities since the withdrawal of federal troops from the region in June last year. The regional government demands the restoration of basic services before talks begin, while the federal government wants to see an “enabling environment” upon the conclusion of a ceasefire agreement for basic services to resume.
The third and perhaps the most challenging hurdle remains the status of the contested areas of the so called Western Tigray (Welkait, Tegede, Telemt, Humera) – a strategic hot spot bordering Sudan and Eritrea.
The Tigray and Amhara regions make historical claim over the areas that were under the administration of Tigray until the Amhara took over control of the areas following the federal force’s advance into the Tigray region in November 2020.
The TPLF wants a return to the “pre-war status quo ante” but withdrawal from the contested areas seems to be a deal breaker for the federal government as that would mean opening a weapons supply line for Tigray forces and putting Abiy’s government on a collision course with the Amhara and Eritrean forces.
Several weeks ago, there were high hopes that the two sides would meet in Nairobi, Kenya, to start the negotiation under the AU’s auspices. That hope is quickly fading as conflict has escalated, with fronts expanding from the south of Tigray towards the west of Tigray, as well as along the Ethiopia-Eritrea and Ethiopia-Sudan borders.
Lack of effective engagement on the part of the various special envoys and other actors to address the sticking points and steer the humanitarian truce towards a negotiated permanent ceasefire and comprehensive peace agreement contributed to the return of full-scale conflict.
On September 7, President of Tigray regional state Debretsion Gebremichael wrote an open letter to the UN Security Council, proposing a cessation of hostilities with four conditions: lifting the blockade on essential services, unfettered humanitarian access, the withdrawal of Eritrean forces under international monitoring, and a return to the pre-war borders of Tigray.
It also proposed the appointment of “a credible panel of high-level international mediators”, highlighting the reservation over the AU High Representative. As fighting escalated, diplomatic engagement also intensified, with the return of US and AU special envoys back to Addis Ababa in a bid to silence the guns.
The engagement reportedly succeeded in bringing the federal government and TPLF together for talks in Djibouti, but neither side have confirmed the meeting. On the Ethiopian new year, which falls on September 11, the regional government of Tigray offered “an immediate and mutually agreed cessation of hostilities”.
In a departure from its September 7 letter, the Tigray regional state agreed to “a credible AU-led peace process”, which includes “mutually acceptable mediators”, “international observers”, and “international experts”.
The federal government has not responded to the offer, and fighting has continued on multiple fronts. While the fighting might delay the process, the conflict will have to be settled through a negotiation.
Key actors, such as the US and the EU that have significant leverage on both parties, seem to be backing a peace process under the AU’s auspices. The federal government of Ethiopia has expressed its firm stand that any peace initiative should be within the AU framework anchored in “African solutions to African problems”.
The TPLF reluctantly accepted the AU’s mediation role in the peace process. The AU has also asserted its leadership role in the peace talks, claiming the AU-led mediation process as the “only viable and effective approach” towards finding a lasting solution.
While this context highlights the continued role of the AU as a mediator, there is also a need for the regional bloc to use more effort and robust engagement to avoid the risk of a protracted conflict in Ethiopia, with serious repercussions to the peace and stability in the wider region.
Taking the following steps might help the AU to recalibrate the mediation process. First, the AU Peace and Security Council, which is a 15-member standing decision-making organ of the organisation with a primary responsibility for promoting and maintaining peace, security, and stability on the continent, should place the conflict in Ethiopia high on its agenda, and consider the situation more regularly and substantively.
Previous engagements by the bloc’s Peace and Security Council, have been notably low even though the gravity of the conflict demands a high level of attention.
The AU council has met only three times – November 8 last year, February 10 and August 4 this year – on Ethiopia since the outbreak of the conflict in November 2020. This is in stark contrast to its UN counterpart that has held around 14 meetings.
Obasanjo has briefed the Peace and Security Council three times but only the briefing last month extended to interactive engagement with its members. In addition to formal engagements, the Peace and Security Council might also explore other avenues for interactions ,including through quiet diplomacy.
The council should also co-ordinate its efforts with other partners to exercise more leverage on the parties. It could consider inviting the Special Envoys of the UN, EU, and US for the Horn of Africa to its briefing sessions on the conflict.
Second, the AU should address the concerns raised by the TPLF over the credibility of its High Representative for the Horn of Africa. Most recently, on September 10, the commission chairperson renewed the mandate of the High Representative, which indicates that President Obasanjo will remain in his position.
In this context, a viable option to address the trust issue and take the mediation process forward could be to add more African leaders and experts to the mediation team, that are acceptable to the federal government and the TPLF, in order to build more confidence in Obasanjo’s mediation efforts.
Third, the AU should pay attention to the regional dynamics that are adding an additional layer of complexity to the internal armed conflict in Ethiopia. Eritrea’s reported involvement in the conflict, border tension between Ethiopia and Sudan, and the controversy between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam) are compounding the conflict.
Hence, the AU should contextualise its intervention in light of the considerations and explore ways to address these broader regional issues as well.
* Abebe’s opinions expressed in this blog piece are his and do not reflect the view of Amani Africa.
** The article was first published by www.accord.org.za
* Abebe is a research and training co-ordinator at Amani Africa Media and Research Services