EPDP Editorial

Political programmes of the existing Eritrean pro-democracy and change forces reveal that they have more in common than what divides them. The topmost commonly held fundamental agendas that unite them include the following:

1. Identifying the ruling clique as their chief enemy; responsible

2. Preserving Eritrean sovereignty;

3. Removing the repressive regime;

4. Replacing the existing tyranny by a democratic constitutional system of governance that ensures the supremacy of the citizenry.

Upholding these objectives as they are, the political forces will have all the opportunity of raising their different viewpoints among the people while giving a final shape to the country’s constitutional structure.

The differences among Eritrean political formations can in no way prevent joint action against the repressive common enemy at home. The differences can be seen as choices for the people to consider in post-dictatorship setting. However, lack of proper handling and full understanding of the issues by their propagators could make them those differences look harmful and everlasting while they are not. Those of us who have been calling for joint work for joint victory do indeed appreciate that the seemingly big differences between organizations are not really big but easy to overcome. In the meantime, trying to put aside one’s differences and giving priority to the points of common understanding in order to launch joint work is not proving to be that easy, as seen in the case of the Eritrean opposition. We should not forget that putting it into action requires taking bold decisions and persistent determination to make joint work happen.

In other words, realizing our multiple proposals for joint work are facing hurdles  because joint action calls for bringing closer the perceived points of disagreement and creating in a responsible manner a central space that accommodates all stakeholders. The key factors that prevent us from realizing joint work are:

1. General lack of not setting one’s priorities;

2. Failure to have common understanding of the primary enemy;

3. Failure of understanding the roles and freedoms of organizations as separate entities as well as members of the coalition for joint work; and

4. Not giving priority to people and country over one’s political formation.

Although difficult, it indeed is possible to resolve these differences and reach common understanding for joint action. But, we in the Eritrean opposition camp struggling for change in Eritrea, have not yet acquired the capabilities to take the right steps.

In the call for joint work, there should not be one who invites and another coming as an invited participant. No. It is important that all known stakeholders be part of the initiative and hold responsibilities from the get-go. The issue of unity or joint work cannot be simplified as ‘a trial and error’ matter. It is a strategy that requires high consideration and careful handling because it is the basic means that can clear the path for the aspired political change.

It was springing from this understanding and importance that the Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) has been issuing proposals at its congresses and doing all what it can to promote the idea. For the EPDP, unity and joint action proposals for regime change and the establishment of democratic governance are much beyond the capabilities of one party or organization.

We fully understand that closing the gap and creating a platform for joint work between organizations with long simmering differences and mistrusts requires sufficient time in addition to effective and responsible capabilities. But it is absolutely unacceptable to see our forces for change losing time by hiding behind indefensible excuses  instead of facing the timely challenges head-on. Waiting for others to respond sometimes proves to be tiresome and frustrating, but there is no choice other than steadfastly trying to realize the right path for change.   

Understandably, success through joint work depends on the capabilities of the forces that come together for a joint work and the outcome is the sum total of their inputs.  If the individual members making up the coalition lack capabilities, their coming together will remain just nominal and incapable of doing the required work.

A framework for joint work should not be understood to mean end of the work by the forces capable in immensely contributing in the struggle. Prioritizing and organizing in a responsible way the specific contributions of the parties, movements and organizations forming the joint platform is very essential. Instead of promoting one issue at a time, it is possible to conduct multiple related tasks alongside each other.  For example, while working on how to remove the tyrant regime in Asmara, it is also important to work at the same time on how to guarantee state sovereignty, unity of the people, the tasks required in the transition period, and the modalities of popular participation in the various tasks.

The current developments in our region do put the PFDJ clique in corner and encourage the forces of change to do more. The unwarranted involvements of the repressive regime in regional matters, and particularly its interferences in Ethiopia, have further exposed its anti-people cruelties and excesses. 

In spite of all the efforts exerted so far, our opposition camp has gravely failed to respond to the question of unity and joint work. This failure demonstrates that we have been handling the issues in a wrong way. Our past shortcomings are deeply regrettable. However, it is now time to learn from past mistakes and do what is right. It will be sad if we do not learn from our past and mend our ways in the future. Therefore, our old motto of “Joint struggle for joint victory” is still alive and without other alternative.

HORN OF AFRICA, AFRICA, ETHIOPIA

Source: Washington Post

The deadliest killings occurred at the Mirab Abaya prison camp, where current and retired Tigrayan soldiers were detained

By Katharine Houreld

December 4, 2022 at 2:00 a.m. EST

Then the killings began.

By sunset the next day, around 83 prisoners were dead and another score missing,according to six survivors. Some were shot by their guards, others hacked to death by villagers who taunted the soldiers about their Tigrayan ethnicity, prisoners said. Bodies were dumped in a mass grave by the prison gate, according to seven witnesses.

“They were stacked on top of each other like wood,” recounted one detainee who said he saw the aftermath of the slaughter.

The massacre at the camp near Mirab Abaya, which was covered up and has not been previously reported, was the deadliest killing of imprisoned soldiers since the war started, but not the only one. Guards have killed imprisoned soldiers in at least seven other locations, according to witnesses, who were among more than two dozen people interviewed for this story. None of these incidents have been previously reported either.

The dead were all Tigrayans, members of an ethnic group that dominated the Ethiopian government and military for nearly three decades. That changed after Abiy Ahmed was appointed prime minister of Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most-populous nation, in 2018. Relations between Abiy and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) quickly nosedived. War broke out in 2020 after Tigrayan soldiers in the Ethiopian army and other Tigrayan forces seized military bases across the Tigray region.

Fearing further attacks, the government detained thousands of Tigrayan soldiers serving elsewhere in the country. They have been held in prison camps for nearly two years with no access to their families, phones or human rights monitors. Other Tigrayan soldiers were disarmed when war broke out but continued working in office jobs. Many of them were detained in November 2021 as Tigrayan forces advanced toward the capital, Addis Ababa.

Most of the killings, including the massacre at Mirab Abaya, happened then. Prisoners speculated the attacks might have been triggered by fear or revenge. None of the soldiers killed had been combatants fighting against the Ethiopians and thus prisoners of war.

In some prisons, senior Ethiopian military officers either ordered the killings or were present when they occurred, prisoners said. Elsewhere, imprisoned soldiers said they continue to be guarded — and beaten — by those who killed their comrades.

While there is little sign that the killings were centrally coordinated, there is evidence of widespread impunity. Only in Mirab Abaya did officers intervene to stop the killing.

These newly revealed details come as both sides in the conflict are hammering out details of a cease-fire, announced last month, that has been met with suspicion among the population over a range of issues, including whether there will be accountability for war crimes and other atrocities. How the government responds to the revelations of prison killings could suggest how it will treat other abuses allegedly committed by security forces.

The witness accounts also illuminate how the ethnic divisions tearing at Ethiopia’s society are also eroding its military, once widely respected as one of the region’s most professional and still often relied upon by Ethiopia’s neighbors to help keep the peace. Many of those killed in the prisons were among the thousands of Ethiopian troops who have served in international peacekeeping missions under the United Nations or African Union.

This article’s account of the bloodletting is based on 26 interviews with prisoners, medical personnel, officials, local residents and relatives, and on a review of satellite imagery, social media posts and medical records. Two lists of the dead were provided separately to The Washington Post, and both included the same 83 names. The identities of 16 victims were verified during interviews with detainees. All witnesses spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

When asked about these accounts, Col. Getnet Adane, a spokesman for the Ethiopian military, said he was too busy to comment. A government spokesman and the prime minister’s spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. The state-appointed head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Daniel Bekele, said the panel was aware of the incident and had been investigating it.

Bullets and machetes

About 2,000 to 2,500 serving or retired Tigrayan soldiers, both men and women,were being held at the new prison camp about half an hour’s walk north of the town of Mirab Abaya, in a sparsely populated area dotted with banana plantations and near a large, crocodile-infested lake. Some buildings were so new they didn’t even have doors. But the camp hadguard towers and demarcated boundaries. Guards told prisoners they would be shot if they crossed the line.

In mid-November 2021, a new prisoner — a just-married major who worked in the military’s defense construction division — was badly injured by guards when he went outside his cell at night to urinate, six other detainees said. He was beaten badly. Some said he was shot in the stomach. Guards later told prisoners that he died on the way to the hospital.

Over the following days, tensions continued to mount with reports —later confirmed by rights activists — that Tigrayan fighters in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region were killing and raping as they advanced toward the capital.

But on Nov. 21, the Mirab Abaya camp seemed calm, prisoners said. Many had been basking in the late afternoon sun when between 16 and 18 guards opened fire.

One prisoner said that he had been near two women when they were shot in the toilet.

“One woman died immediately, and the other was calling out, ‘My son, my son!’ Then they fired another bullet, and she died,” hesaid. “They [the guards] wanted to kill everyone there.”

One of the women was a major in the Ethiopian ground forces. She was around 50, had served as a peacekeeper in Sudan and had a son and a daughter, according to the witness. Other detainees said the second woman had worked in the Ministry of Defense.

A senior Tigrayan officer said he was inside his cell when he heard gunshots. He stuffed clothes and belongings into a bag. He decided to run if he could.

“I was thinking: ‘Will I ever see my kids? See them succeed in school and have the good things of life?’ ” he said. If he couldn’t run, he would fight, he said. He and his cellmates looked for a stick or anything else to use as a weapon.

A third prisoner said he began to pray.

Not all guards took part in the killing. A fourth prisoner described one guard taking up a position outside the cells and telling the attackers he would shoot them if they came for the detainees inside. That guard was crying, the prisoner said, and was inconsolable for days afterward. Another prisoner said some guards had tried to disarm the attackers.

Yet another prisoner said he was having coffee outside when shots rang out. Like many others, he ran into the surrounding bush. Ethiopian soldiers pursued his small group, he said. After running more than an hour, he said, they saw some locals. The prisoners blurted out that they’d been shot at and begged for help.

“They said … ‘We will show you what you deserve.’ And then they attacked us,” he said.

A crowd of about 150 to 200 people hacked and bludgeoned the escapees with machetes, sticks and stones, he recalled. Most were killed as they begged for mercy, he said, adding that he was hurt badly and left for dead. During the attack, he said, he saw other prisoners run into the lake to escape the mobs.

Other detainees confirmed that there had been machete attacks on those who escaped the prison. They said residents screamed abuse at the escapees and had incorrectly been told they were prisoners of war and to blame for the deaths of local men in the military. Two prisoners said the attacks continued into the next day.

The shooting at the prison stopped an hour or two after it began when Col. Girma Ayele of the Southern Command arrived. By then, prisoners said, the camp was littered with the bodies of the dead and the earth slick with blood. Girma could not be reached for comment.

The Dejen division

The massacre inside the prison was committed by about 18 guards, including a woman, said the six prisoners at Mirab Abaya who were interviewed. These guards and just over a third of the victims came from the same unit: the Dejen army division, formerly known as the 17th Division. It’s stationed in Addis Ababa.

Many Tigrayan soldiers speculated during interviews that the attack was motivated by revenge. Most of the guards who did the killing were from the Amhara region, which Tigrayan forces had invaded as they pushed toward the capital.

Girma told the prisoners these guards were not under his direct control and had been arrested, detainees said. The guards’ status could not be confirmed. The prisoners never saw them again.

A day after the killing, an excavator dug a mass grave just outside the main watchtower at the entrance gate, perhaps 200 meters from the road, according to the six prisoners.

Among those buried was Maj. Meles Belay Gidey, an engineer passionate about his teaching job at the Defense Engineering College. When Meles was serving as a U.N. peacekeeper in Abyei, a disputed area between Sudan and South Sudan, he video-called his two teenage sons and his stepdaughter every evening to talk to them about school, a relative said.

A local resident traveling past the prison camp the next day said the military warned passersby not to take pictures of the grave.

In Mirab Abaya town, officials used loudspeakers mounted on cars to warn the local population that escapees should be killed. The local resident said he saw three or four people attacked near a banana grove and about a dozen bodies bleeding in the streets, some scattered near the church of St. Gabriel. Ethiopian soldiers nearby did not intervene, he said.

The resident also said he saw a man in his mid-20s being beaten by a mob. Both of his hands had been cut off, and his legs were bleeding. The man begged to be killed as he was dragged up and down the street, the resident said. The attackers told the man they would kill him as slowly as possible. Eventually, he was dragged to the camp gate and shot. Another body was being dragged behind a motorbike, the resident said.

“I couldn’t do anything because I feared for my life,” he said.

Ethiopian soldiers take strategic city in Tigray amid civilian exodus

Wounded Tigrayans were taken to three hospitals, survivors said: Arba Minch General Hospital, Soddo Christian Hospital and another hospital in Soddo. Two medical professionals at Arba Minch General Hospital described an influx of patients around 9 p.m. on Nov. 21. One worker shared medical records showing that 19 patients were admitted with bullet wounds and that 15 were discharged the next day. Two died in the hospital and four were dead on arrival, the two medical workers said.

Most of the patients were kept for only a few hours despite life-threatening wounds, the two said. The patients were kept under police guard, both medical professionals said, and they described nurses and other medical staff taunting the wounded about their ethnicity.

Killings in other prisons

Mirab Abaya was not the only prison where imprisoned soldiers were killed. Current and former prisoners said in interviews that they had witnessed guards killing prisoners at Garbassa training center and the headquarters of the 13th Division in the eastern city of Jigjiga; in prisons in Wondotika and Toga near the southern city of Hawassa; in the southern area of Didessa; and at the Bilate training center in the south. Many of the victims had served as peacekeepers in U.N. missions in Sudan, Abyei or South Sudan or as part of an African Union force in Somalia.

At Wondotika, a detainee said guards had killed five prisoners at facility that holds hundreds of soldiers who are mostly special forces or commandos. The victims included Gebremariam Estifanos, a veteran of a peacekeeping mission in Abyei and an African Union mission in Somalia, who was beaten to death Nov. 8, 2021, in the presence of a colonel and lieutenant colonel from the 103rd Division, a prisoner said. Gebremariam’s biggest wish had been to buy his family a house and his father an ox, the prisoner said. Two other detainees confirmed the account, saying guards often taunted the prisoners about the incident.

Both said that guards had often forced prisoners to dig their own graves, telling them they would soon be killed. The four other soldiers were killed later in November, shot so many times that their bodies were torn to pieces by bullets, the first prisoner said.

“We are beaten and threatened. We have served our country with honor and dignity,” that prisoner said. “I regret my service.”

In Toga prison, guards beat and then shot two Tigrayan soldiers on Nov. 4, a detainee there said. A second prisoner held at Toga, a former peacekeeper who served in Somalia, confirmed two killings. In Garbassa, two prisoners said six detainees had been killed and others injured so badly they had lost the use of limbs and eyes.

“I have seen the bodies being dragged from their rooms,” said a detainee there.

Three prisoners — one from the presidential guard and two from the Agazi commandos — were killed in July 2021 in Bilate training center after guards accused them of attempting to escape, said a witness previously held there. He described soldiers shooting at their bodies long after they were dead and throwing the corpses outside for the hyenas. And in a detention center near Didessa, near Nekemte town, at least five soldiers were killed and 30 others taken away and never seen again, a prisoner previously held there said.

He broke down as he listed the names he could remember. “I’m so sorry, they were my friends,” he said.

An airstrike on a kindergarten and the end to Ethiopia’s uneasy peace

Two imprisoned soldiers, accused of having mobile phones, were also killed by guards at a detention center in eastern Ethiopia between Harar and Dire Dawa, a witness said.

The imprisoned Tigrayan soldiers interviewed by The Post say none of them have had access to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Until a few days ago, their families had no idea what had become of them. At the end of October, the families of some soldiers killed in Mirab Abaya were informed about their deaths. Several relatives were told their loved ones had died honorable deaths in the line of duty. No other details were given.

Some of the survivors of the Mirab Abaya massacre who are still held there said they fear another outbreak of violence.

“I have a prayer book,” one prisoner there said. “Every day I pray to Mary to see my family again.”

NAIROBI — The scent of coffee and cigarettes hung in the hot afternoon air in a makeshift Ethiopian prison camp, prisoners said, as detained Tigrayan soldiers celebrated the holy day of Saint Michael in November 2021. Some joked with friends outside the corrugated iron buildings. Others quietly prayed to be reunited with families they had not seen in a year, when conflict erupted in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.

To keep the fledgling peace process on track, the AU and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a Horn of Africa regional body, need to continue coordinating efforts with African governments and other outside actors like the U.S., UN and European Union (EU). Collectively, they should urge Tigray’s leaders and the federal government to uphold their commitments in the peace deals, working first to ensure Eritrean troops’ withdrawal, lest Tigray use their continued presence as a reason to delay disarmament.

International Crisis Group

Source: International Crisis Group 23 NOVEMBER 2022

• ETHIOPIA

On 2 November, Ethiopia’s federal government and leaders of the country’s northern Tigray region agreed to end two years of devastating war. The welcome deal, brokered by the African Union (AU) in the South African capital Pretoria, was a triumph for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, as Tigray’s embattled leaders assented to disarm their forces and restore federal authority in the region. In exchange, the Ethiopian military, and Eritrean troops who had been fighting alongside federal forces, halted their advance toward Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, and Addis Ababa said it would end its de facto siege of the region. In follow-up talks, Tigray authorities secured an additional pledge that Eritrean forces would withdraw. Fighting between the two sides has stopped. Yet the fragile calm could shatter, especially with thorny questions outstanding and Tigrayans already backtracking on commitments. Both sides need to honour their pledges while keeping up momentum in talks. External actors must seize this moment to coax the parties toward consolidating peace and insist on immediate unrestricted aid to Tigray.

The conflict, among the world’s deadliest, erupted in Africa’s second-most populous country in late 2020, as Ethiopia struggled to navigate a complex political transition. Abiy rose to power in 2018, after three years of protests partly against the rule of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which had dominated Ethiopia for almost three decades, creating a repressive system that brought development gains but bred discontent. The TPLF believe that Abiy’s government sidelined them, cutting them out of a rapprochement with their former comrade and then archenemy, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, and singling out Tigrayans for prosecution for corruption and human rights offences. For their part, Abiy’s allies argue that the TPLF never accepted losing power, blocked reforms and sought to sabotage the new authorities. As the power struggle simmered, Mekelle’s leaders proceeded in 2020 with regional elections in Tigray, in defiance of federal authorities, who had postponed the vote due to COVID-19. The constitutional crisis escalated when the federal and Tigray governments cast each other as illegitimate.

On 3 November 2020, saying they feared an imminent federal military intervention, Tigray’s forces attacked the national army command in the region.

The standoff soon boiled over. On 3 November 2020, saying they feared an imminent federal military intervention, Tigray’s forces attacked the national army command in the region (some Tigrayan federal officers sided with the regional forces). Addis Ababa promptly launched an offensive in Tigray, blocking all roads into the region, starving it of food and other supplies and cutting off telecommunications, electricity and banking services – an approach that left almost all of Tigray’s roughly six million people in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. In the war’s first few months, the neighbouring Amhara region took control of Western Tigray, which it claims as historical Amhara territory, in a campaign that rights groups described as ethnic cleansing. Eritrea also joined the battle on the federal side, with Isaias seemingly hoping to deal his old foe, the TPLF, a decisive blow.

Momentum seesawed over the course of the war. At the outset, Ethiopia’s military, backed by Eritrean troops and foreign drones, captured Mekelle and forced the TPLF into the mountains, only to hastily retreat as Tigray insurgents (motivated in part by atrocities committed by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers against civilians) retook the regional capital in June. Citing the continuing blockade, Tigray’s forces marched southward to Addis Ababa, occupying towns and committing their own atrocities along the way. With supply lines stretched, they withdrew to Tigray in December 2021, after a federal counteroffensive gained pace, with mass mobilisation and drones purchased from Turkey playing key roles. An uneasy lull in fighting then settled in. In March, the federal government declared a unilateral humanitarian truce, speeding up delivery of food and medicine to Tigray. The TPLF also held its fire. But efforts to start formal peace talks foundered, partly because Mekelle said Addis Ababa must first end its blockade by restoring services to the region and allowing trade.

The war tipped decisively in the federal government’s favour after the truce broke down on 24 August, and full-scale conflict re-erupted. Ethiopia rapidly assembled a large number of troops to attack Tigray on several fronts, moving in with Eritrean forces from the north west and leading an offensive with Amhara allies from the south. By all accounts, there were huge casualties in spectacularly bloody infantry warfare, with sources close to both sides estimating that more than 100,000 died on the battlefield in a two-month span. Though Tigray’s fighters stood their ground at first, the allied forces broke through their lines in October in key locations, capturing the northern cities of Shire (a strategic crossroads), Aksum and Adwa, as well as the southern towns of Alamata and Korem. On the back foot militarily, Tigray’s leaders then called for another truce, lowering their conditions to unfettered aid access and Eritrean forces’ withdrawal, leading the AU to convene the two parties in Pretoria.

Tigray’s negotiators went to South Africa desperate for a pause in fighting, and reaching that goal came at a high price. Indeed, the deal’s terms reflect the heavy military pressure Tigray’s forces were under in the face of Eritrean artillery and superior federal logistics, manpower and firepower, including in the air. In the deal, the TPLF committed to laying down arms within 30 days and allowing federal forces to re-enter Mekelle in order to restore constitutional order and take control of federal institutions. The deal also stipulates that, once Ethiopia’s parliament has lifted its May 2021 designation of the TPLF as a terrorist organisation, the TPLF and the federal government are to appoint an “inclusive” interim administration to govern Tigray until elections. This provision represents a significant concession, as it implies that Tigray’s September 2020 regional polls, which the TPLF won in a landslide and which helped spark the civil war, lacked legitimacy. For its part, the federal government agreed to halt its offensive upon Mekelle, while also promising to restore services to Tigray, as well as allow unfettered aid deliveries.

Tigray’s leaders appear to have eventually realised that ending the conflict is the best way to ease the Tigray population’s suffering.

None of the parties has come out of the war with credit. For Tigray’s negotiators, the extent of concessions offered to secure a truce illustrates the scope of the predicament they found themselves in, besieged on all sides by determined adversaries, including two national armies. While both sides share blame for starting the conflict, the TPLF miscalculated – at a cost of countless lives – first by escalating its feud with Abiy after losing power, next by underestimating its opponents and plunging into war, and then by erecting obstructions to peace talks during the autumn lull in fighting. Tigray’s leaders appear to have eventually realised that ending the conflict is the best way to ease the Tigray population’s suffering. As for Addis Ababa, it has rightly attracted international opprobrium for its methods, including what UN investigators found to be the use of starvation as a tool of war against Tigray’s civilians. In the end, though, Abiy’s government also chose peace, opting to halt an offensive that appeared to be on the brink of forcing the TPLF from power again and instead advance federal objectives through talks.

The parties showed early commitment to the Pretoria pact, a positive sign. Most importantly, the two battle-exhausted sides have stopped fighting, although unconfirmed reports continue to filter through of serious abuses in and around Axum and Shire by Eritrean and Amhara forces. Addis and Mekelle also followed through on a commitment for top military commanders to meet within five days to negotiate how to put the Pretoria accord’s security provisions into effect, producing a follow-up agreement on 12 November in Nairobi. 

That subsequent deal maintained critical momentum but also created more uncertainty and diluted disarmament plans. Instead of the ambitious, perhaps even unrealistic, original 30-day timeline, the Nairobi deal gave Mekelle more breathing space, splitting disarmament into two phases and, crucially, tying it to foreign and other non-federal forces’ withdrawal. For the Tigrayans, the pull out of Eritrean troops – the foreign forces the deal refers to, even if not explicitly – is a core demand that was less clearly addressed in Pretoria (that deal said, for example, the parties would cease “collusion with an external force hostile” to the other). The military commanders agreed Tigray would give up “heavy weapons” (presumably tanks and artillery) as non-federal forces withdraw from the region, while punting the timeline for relinquishing small arms to talks due to conclude on 26 November. The parties also agreed to disengage their front-line forces in four distinct zones by 23 November (thus far this appears incomplete), after which Addis Ababa is to restore basic services to the region, while assuming its federal “responsibilities”.

The Nairobi agreement, however, included no precise terms as to how or when Tigray’s leaders would meet their commitment to facilitate the federal military’s re-entry into Mekelle, suggesting that they also won some reprieve from honouring that pledge. Tigray leaders now insist privately that this step might entail a limited security escort for returning federal officials, which would be a far cry from the triumphal procession that the Pretoria accord seemed to envision. With no progress made so far at re-establishing the federal presence in Tigray’s capital, this issue requires further negotiation.

It is far from clear that Tigray is planning to hand over all its arms even if Addis Ababa meets its obligations.

For all the positive developments, the situation thus remains fragile, demanding extreme vigilance from all actors. There are signs that Tigray’s leaders are wavering on the Pretoria accord’s critical terms. Hesitation on their part would, perhaps, not be surprising, given the deal’s lopsided nature, but it would nonetheless be alarming. It is far from clear that Tigray is planning to hand over all its arms even if Addis Ababa meets its obligations. Further, in a 13 November statement, issued the day after the Nairobi agreement, Tigray’s leaders publicly backtracked on parts of the Pretoria deal, including by explicitly rejecting its effective removal of the existing regional government from power. It is unclear if they are posturing to deflect internal criticism of their initial concessions in Pretoria or to position themselves for future negotiations. But regardless, the statement suggests willingness to renege on a key part of the accord, namely that Tigray’s authorities would step aside for an interim administration negotiated between the TPLF and the federal government.

Despite the odd unhelpful comment from his allies, Prime Minister Abiy has publicly welcomed the deal and stressed that more war would be futile. Such remarks are welcome, as sustained provocations from both sides otherwise risk undermining the frail accord by emboldening hardliners, perpetuating the deep mistrust and making a return to war more likely. For example, should the federal government move slowly on lifting all aspects of the blockade (perhaps in response to Mekelle’s backtracking on some of Pretoria’s terms), Tigray’s leaders could stall on disarmament, especially if the Eritrean army or Amhara forces linger in Tigray. That, in turn, would lead Addis Ababa to refuse to fully reconnect and reopen Tigray, creating conditions in which any spark might ignite yet another round of disastrous large-scale hostilities.

A further concern is that the two sides do not yet appear to share compatible visions for how a settlement will emerge, making clear how delicate the process will be. Tigray’s leaders want Abiy to pivot away from his alliance with Isaias. Yet it seems safer to assume that Addis Ababa will want to avoid ruffling the feathers of either the Eritrean leader or Amhara allies. Both Abiy and Isaias could well choose, at least for now, to keep their forces ready for renewed hostilities, thereby keeping Tigray’s authorities boxed in militarily. Further, Tigray’s leaders hope that, eventually, the federal government will allow much of their military force to join the federal army or re-hat as regional security forces. Whether Abiy will pursue integration is a matter of conjecture, however. Some think he could do so to help rebuild the Ethiopian military, while others suggest he will prefer to keep Tigray forces that have just tried to oust him out of the national army. Continuing to make incremental progress, at the negotiating table but also with tangible measures on the ground, will thus be key to preventing the rickety process from falling apart.

Abiy faces an especially thorny balancing act with regard to Eritrea, a key partner in the war that may be satisfied only by Tigray’s almost complete disarmament. Indeed, it will be difficult if not impossible for Abiy to accommodate both Asmara’s insistence that the TPLF be defanged and, on the other hand, Tigray’s security demands. It remains unclear if Eritrea will fully disengage its forces or withdraw, even if Abiy asks it to do so. Should Abiy move to let the TPLF continue as a dominant force in Mekelle, allow Tigray to retain a strong regional force, or integrate large numbers of Tigray’s perhaps 200,000 fighters into the federal military, Eritrea could react defiantly. More than two decades after the last Ethiopian-Eritrean war, new hostilities remain possible if Abiy and Isaias fall out, an additional factor showcasing just how complex the peace process could prove.

Abiy will also need to tread carefully in relations with Amhara political leaders, his other major ally in the war – and an important domestic constituency. The Nairobi accord appears to require Amhara regional forces and militias (the other “non-federal forces” it cites), which have been fighting alongside the Ethiopian army, to also withdraw from Tigray. Yet Amhara regional authorities will be keen not to lose out in the peace process. The complicating factor is Tigray’s loss of territory to Amhara during the war, as Amhara forces captured Western and Southern Tigray, which many Amhara refer to as Welkait and Raya, respectively, in asserting historical claims to the territories. Addis Ababa and Mekelle are unlikely to see eye to eye on the withdrawal of Amhara forces from what the Pretoria agreement called “contested areas” (without specifying which areas these are), a major dispute that could gum up disarmament negotiations.

Ideally, over time, Tigray and Amhara leaders would recognise the need to resolve their differences through dialogue.

What is clear is that the process for addressing these competing territorial claims will need to be central to further political dialogue, as envisaged in Pretoria. One approach could be for the federal government to assert control over the areas, paving the way for the return of displaced people and political processes to adjudicate the disputes. Such a move would infuriate Amhara leaders and activists while failing to placate Mekelle, which would doubtless argue that returning to the constitutional order means restoring Tigray’s pre-war borders. Still, an initial assertion of federal control, if that can be done peacefully, may be the most pragmatic option for the time being. Ideally, over time, Tigray and Amhara leaders would recognise the need to resolve their differences through dialogue, including through provisions for administering the areas that navigate the competing claims and complex local identities. 

Should the peace agreement hold, the parties will also need to negotiate on the make-up of Tigray’s administration. Addis Ababa is in a strong position to dictate the political terms in Tigray, but that would be risky given the region’s historical attachment to autonomy, which long predates the federal era. To foster stability, federal leaders should strive to ensure that Tigray’s rights to self-rule under the constitution (which offers considerable regional autonomy, even legalising secession) are respected as constitutional order is restored.Thus, Addis Ababa should avoid imposing an interim administration that is likely to breed continued resistance. For its part, the TPLF needs to accept that a new regional government will be formed in line with the Pretoria deal, which will mean dilution of its authority. Some Tigray nationalist opposition parties that will demand a governing role have offered stinging criticism of the TPLF’s Pretoria concessions and aspire to independence, a sign of how difficult it will be to create a balance within the interim government and reintegrate Tigray into Ethiopia after such a divisive war.

To keep the fledgling peace process on track, the AU and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a Horn of Africa regional body, need to continue coordinating efforts with African governments and other outside actors like the U.S., UN and European Union (EU). Collectively, they should urge Tigray’s leaders and the federal government to uphold their commitments in the peace deals, working first to ensure Eritrean troops’ withdrawal, lest Tigray use their continued presence as a reason to delay disarmament. Should verified withdrawals start to occur, they must then stress to Tigray’s leaders the need to begin handing over their tanks and artillery. While remaining clear-eyed about the challenges, the U.S., UN and EU envoys and other partners should constantly remind their Ethiopian interlocutors that they have chosen the path of peace, as there is no route to outright military victory. A return to war would have terrible consequences for civilians and corrode Ethiopia’s stability for years to come.

The AU and regional officials have an especially vital role to play in trying to ensure that the truce does not break down. The AU’s high representative, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, and co-mediators former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and former South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, as well as key IGAD officials, especially its Executive Secretary Workneh Gebeyehu (a former Ethiopian foreign minister) and Special Envoy Mohamed Ali Guyo (a veteran Kenyan diplomat), now face a tall order. They will need to keep the parties progressing toward fulfilling their promises, while also ensuring that talks, including about a detailed disarmament plan, maintain forward momentum. Given especially the lack of trust between the parties, an AU team of experts should immediately start monitoring the truce, as agreed in the Pretoria deal. Foreign governments should provide as much support as possible to what on paper looks like a severely under-resourced monitoring mission.

All international actors should push in unison for immediate unrestricted humanitarian access to Tigray.

All international actors should push in unison for immediate unrestricted humanitarian access to Tigray, even as initial indications give reason for modest optimism. To further hold the parties accountable, donors, the UN and NGOs should be transparent about whether or not the federal government and its regional allies are still choking humanitarian access, and insist also on services being comprehensively restored. They should also speak out if Tigray’s authorities divert humanitarian supplies to their forces, as occurred just prior to the last round of fighting, when Mekelle seized World Food Programme tankers, saying the agency had not returned fuel Tigray had loaned it.

The U.S., EU and other outside actors also need to carefully weigh how to keep encouraging progress through their actions. To make the dividends of peace more concrete, the U.S. and EU should pledge donor conferences to help rebuild a peaceful Tigray as well as adjacent parts of Afar and Amhara affected by the war. They should take care to balance the need to continue protecting the budding process with the urgency of providing assistance to Ethiopia’s suffering economy. In particular, they should resume substantial non-humanitarian financial support to Addis Ababa only after the peace process has made clear, tangible progress. That means waiting until Eritrean forces withdraw behind the internationally recognised border, the federal government restores services to Tigray, aid flows freely and political talks with Mekelle get under way.

Despite the difficulties of roping Eritrea into a constructive peace process, the AU and other African intermediaries should reach out to Asmara to urge it to withdraw from Tigray, support the Pretoria and Nairobi agreements, and pursue any of its demands through dialogue. It is also high time Ethiopia settled its long-running border disputes with Eritrea, which helped spark the catastrophic 1998-2000 war between the two countries and remain central to Asmara’s narrative of grievance. Addis Ababa should reiterate its intention to implement in full the 2002 UN border commission ruling, which identified some key disputed areas as Eritrean. Ideally, even if they appear to be in no position to object at the moment, Tigray’s leaders would play their part in this decision, as their exclusion was a key defect of Abiy and Isaias’ 2018 rapprochement that promised a definitive resolution of the border dispute.

Cementing peace will require courageous political leadership from both Abiy and his Tigrayan counterparts. In particular, Abiy should continue speaking about the benefits of peace and act generously toward his erstwhile foes. Mekelle, meanwhile, should recognise the futility of a renewed armed insurgency, and the extreme peril it holds, both for the TPLF’s own future and for Tigray’s population. That message should also be heeded by Tigrayans who criticise the Pretoria agreement, including both those living in Tigray itself and those in the diaspora, with the latter acknowledging that Tigray’s leaders made painful political concessions in part due to their sober assessment of the fighting’s human toll and their battlefield prospects. In sum, all parties should remain patient. They should focus on making incremental progress that will gradually build the trust needed to find an eventual settlement.

The halt in hostilities and agreement to end the war could help Ethiopia and Ethiopians turn a page on this tragic chapter, provided they are a first step on a long road to recovery. The brutal two-year conflict inflicted vast human suffering. Tigray’s immiseration bears witness to its leadership’s miscalculations, even as the conflict has set a frightening precedent with the tactics employed by Addis Ababa and Asmara against their adversaries. Mekelle should now stick to its responsible decision to stop fighting, while Abiy, choosing magnanimity over vindictiveness, should be pragmatic about the region’s disarmament and gradually seek a sustainable settlement with Tigray that can begin to heal the conflict’s deep wounds. All parties should put their efforts into giving peace the chance it deserves.