Ethiotime1
As the stage is set for the first formal negotiations between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to begin any time following both sides’ acceptance of the African Union’s (AU) invitation to participate in peace talks, the process has already been dogged with a number of issues which cast doubt over it can lead to a political settlement that is in the best interest of all warring parties and the general population. They stalled even before they were slated to begin a week ago in South Africa due to what the AU said were logistical reasons. Meanwhile, Kenya’s retired President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is President William Ruto’s Peace Envoy to the Horn and Great Lakes region and had been designated by the AU as part of a “troika of negotiators”, skipped the talks citing conflicts in his schedule. He also sought clarifications on the structure and modalities of the talks, including but not limited to the rules of engagement for all the interlocutors invited. The TPLF on its part complained that the AU did not consult its leaders before sending out the invitations. While these wrinkles can be ironed out in the short term, there are other factors that may throw a monkey wrench into the process.
The major obstacles standing in the way of the negotiations are intrinsic to the protagonists of the conflict. One of the challenges is the TPLF’s key demand for the return of what it calls Western Tigray, which was seized by Amhara region forces soon after war erupted following the TPLF’s attack on federal army camps based in Tigray in November 2020. The Amhara region, however, has made it abundantly clear that it’s loath to cede control over it, claiming it was methodically annexed into Tigray in 1991. Another likely bone of contention is the federal government’s insistence that Tigray forces must lay down their weapons, a demand TPLF leaders are most certainly to reject given their strongly-held belief that the region faces an existential threat from its neighbors. The reluctance of the government of neighboring Eritrea–the TPLF’s long-standing arch-enemy—to withdraw its troops from the territories they control in Tigray is also a dynamic which complicates the negotiations.
The issue we want to focus on though is an external factor that can derail the talks or lead to an outcome detrimental to Ethiopia. Ever since the TPLF-initiated war began the country has been at the receiving end of a coordinated pressure campaign by Western governments, the U.N., mainstream media, think-tanks and rights groups. The U.S. particularly has backed the TPLF, imposing various sanctions on Ethiopia and withdrawing its benefits under the United States’ tariff-free African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) even as it gave the TPLF a slap on the wrist. Furthermore, the U.S. and its allies at the U.N. Security Council have tried over a dozen times to formally admonish Ethiopia but failed thanks to the vote of China, Russia and India. Apart from trying to arm-twist Ethiopian government, the West has also been waging a grey warfare against the country including a disinformation campaign with the instrumentality of the mainstream media, think tanks and advocacy organizations. The West’s ultimate goal, as some analysts plausibly argue, is to engineer the installation of a pliable government or failing that to strong-arm administration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) into implementing its geostrategic interests in Ethiopia, the wider region and Africa as a whole.
Experts on the region by and large agree that the West, especially the U.S., has three strategic interests in these areas. The first is to protect the interests of Egypt, the linchpin of its Middle East policy. The U.S. is also worried about China’s influence on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Moreover, it considers controlling the Bab el-Mandeb strait— a vital strategic link in the maritime trade route stretching from Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula to Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa— as a means through which its dominance can be ensured in the Horn. Accordingly, its policy in Africa is always driven by the “imperative” to envelop any part of the continent that poses a threat to its geostrategic interests into its sphere of influence using all instruments at its disposal. Ethiopian’s reluctance to kowtow to the West explains the unprecedented diplomatic and economic pressure that has been and is being brought to bear on it.
This brings us to the role the West should rightfully play in the upcoming peace talks. It’s an open secret that the West has been active both overtly and behind the scene to nudge the warring sides towards forging a deal that is aligned with its strategic interests. From trying to “convince” the AU to appoint a mediator of its choice to choosing the time and venue of the proposed negotiations, it has been unduly inserting itself into the process; it is weaponizing disinformation and misinformation in order to create the pretext it needs to set the direction of the talks. While this approach may have worked in the past the West is best advised to realize that Africans possess the capacity to resolve peacefully any conflict in their continent without its meddling. Accordingly, it is incumbent on it to genuinely support the AU-led peace talks if it truly has the interest of Ethiopia and its people at heart. That is why the peace process must be disentangled from needless geopoliticking.
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