Newly elected President William Ruto has his work cut out crafting a coherent political strategy to address the crises bedevilling the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa.
Isaias’s formula for government is dictatorship and his vision of Isaias’s vision for Ethiopia is as a backwater for Eritrea, providing it with raw materials and cheap labour.
It is the firm conviction of the Government of Ethiopia that the peace efforts under the auspices of the African Union must be conducted without preconditions, and the international community should condemn the TPLF’s intimidation of the AU Officials and frustration of the peace efforts in unison.
Mediating the war on Tigray requires neutrality, impartiality, undivided attention, and freedom of action unencumbered by institutional and individual conflicts of interest. Olusegun Obasanjo has failed the test.
Ethiopia’s peoples must be allowed to choose: either to make Ethiopia a consensual nation-building project or to let it go. Any national dialogue that does not acknowledge this reduces itself to a wrestle for power between political elites.
The “Tripartite Agreement” signed between Ahmed Abiy of Ethiopia, Mohammed Abdullahi Farmajo of Somalia, and Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea is a “Trojan Horse” deal that could eventually destabilise the entire Horn of Africa region.
The UN and its highest officials must not choose inaction under the pretext of observing neutrality especially where genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, weaponised rape, and starvation are taking place.
First-hand testimonies coming out of Tigray since November 2020 point to a genocide but for Ethiopia to recognise it as such would mean accepting that the unitary Ethiopian polity as envisioned by the Empire of old and its ideological descendants can only come to be through genocide.
The “no more” narrative is an opportunistic way to hide the fact that Ethiopia is falling apart, and its leaders are spearheading that process.
A genocide is taking place in Tigray. Why is there no mobilization of African civil society organizations, non-governmental bodies, religious institutions, and individuals in support of Tigrayan refugees?
The starkly different responses of the international community towards the crises in Tigray and Ukraine show us that the world must strive towards an international order that works for all.
On the 24 of March, Ethiopia’s government announced an immediate humanitarian truce with forces it had been fighting for 17 months in the northern Tigray region. Can the truce open a window into unlocking the conflict, or is it another lull before the war breaks out again? The Elephant in conversation with Adisalem Desta, an expert in international law.