A group of more than 55 African intellectuals have added their call for peace in Ethiopia, demanding the country’s warring parties lay down arms for dialogue.
The intellectuals including Kenya’s former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, Prof Makau Mutua of the SUNY Buffalo Law School, former Chair of the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights and economist David Ndii; say Ethiopian conflict is causing unnecessary loss of life and livelihood and must be stopped immediately.
The group of experts from across the continent said in an open letter on Thursday that Ethiopia’s role both as an example of Africa’s resilience, and as a host to the African Union demands urgent intervention, whose delay they argue has encouraged protagonists to fight on.
“The AU, its member states — particularly Ethiopia’s neighbouring states — must not allow Ethiopia to dictate the terms of their engagement in seeking a resolution to this conflict,” the 55 intellectuals said in a joint open letter.
“We, therefore, call on the Ethiopian government and the national regional government of Tigray to respond positively to the repeated calls for political dialogue, including with the affected and implicated groups in the Amhara and Oromia regions.”
The intellectuals who include academics, legal practitioners, politicians, scientists, economists, writers and civil society activists were referring to the main protagonists in Ethiopia’s war. Since November last year, the government in Addis has been fighting the Tigray people’s Liberation Front[TPLF], an erstwhile ruling party that had been in charge of Tigray region before Addis Ababa proscribed it as a terrorist group.
No longer in a formal political party, however, the TPLF has fought on including raiding neighbouring Amhara and Afar regional states whose militia are allied with the Ethiopian National Defence Forces. The war initially included just Eritrea as a third fighting party, one on the side of Ethiopia. But the country’s regional militia opposed to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s leadership has also cropped up in southern parts of the country. The Oromo Liberation Army [OLA], for example, announced a ‘pact’ with TPLF, complicating matters, as new details showed Afar militia had attacked the Somali region, killing nearly 30 people two weeks ago. Ethiopian Prime’s Minister’s Spokesperson Billene Seyoum said on Thursday at least 500,000 people in Afar had been displaced “due to TPLF incursion” in addition to the humanitarian crisis seen in Tigray earlier.
“The assessment of damage by the TPLF in these communities is still being assessed,” she said at an online press conference from Addis Ababa, and accused TPLF of “siphoning humanitarian aid away from those in need.” The TPLF have denied the charge and USAID on Wednesday also rejected claims it had supplied humanitarian aid to fighters.
In the meantime, next month, Ethiopia plans to host what it calls a national dialogue, but this will exclude TPLF and other proscribed groups. On Thursday, the intellectuals condemned the destruction of important cultural sites and institutions such as mosques and churches built more than a century ago. They asked Ethiopia’s warring partners must agree to dialogue which they argue will help provide a proper political solution.
“All Ethiopians must recognise that a political rather than military solution is what is now called for, regardless of the claims and counterclaims, legitimate and otherwise, as to how Ethiopia has come to this place.
“Retributive justice, including the seizure and counter-seizures of contested land, and the detention of family members of recently outlawed political groups heightens tensions, leading to generational cycles of violence,” they said.
Ethiopia has in the past rebuffed efforts to have the government sit down with TPLF for dialogue, accusing the group of rejecting all previous offers before the war. The African Union had earlier appointed a panel of eminent personalities including Liberia’s former President Ellen Jonson-Sirleaf, Mozambique’s Joachim Chissano and South Africa’s Kgalema Motlanthe. Prime Minister Abiy argued the conflict in Tigray was an internal law enforcement operation.
Earlier this month, Sudan offered to mediate in the conflict, but Ms Billene said the relationship with Khartoum had reached “tricky” levels as two sides bickered over border demarcation, and over the filling of the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam [GERD] being erected on the Nile.
The intellectuals said Ethiopia can draw benefits from the knowledge of African intellectuals willing to make useful proposals for a lasting solution.
Michael Woldemariam, from Boston University’s Director of the African Studies Center, and one of those who signed the letter said Ethiopia had already lost so much on the past ten years of war and must draw lessons from it.
“Now is the time for the parties to this tragic conflict to prioritize the suffering of their people and pursue negotiations. The idea that this metastasizing crisis can be resolved through force of arms is a mirage.”
The group wants Ethiopia’s neighbours to pressure parties to talk under the framework of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the AU or at least accept external mediation.
“The IGAD and the AU to proactively take up their mandates with respect to providing mediation for the protagonists to this conflict—including providing all possible political support to the soon to be announced AU Special Envoy for the Horn,” they added, saying world powers could provide incentive or punishment to spoilers.
The signatories are:
Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Professor of French and Philosophy
Director of the Institute of African Studies, Columbia University
Mamadou Diouf, Leitner Family Professor of African Studies
Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, Columbia University
Elleni Centime Zeleke, Assistant Professor
Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, Columbia University
Godwin Murunga, Executive Secretary
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa
Boubacar Boris Diop, Author of Murambi, The Book of Bones and many other novels, essays and journalistic works
Achille Mbembe, Research Professor in History and Politics
Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand
Jimi O Adesina, Professor and Chair in Social Policy
College of Graduate Studies, University of South Africa
Ato Sekyi-Otu, Professor Emeritus
Department of Social Science and the Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought, York University
Felwine Sarr, Anne-Marie Bryan Distinguished Professor of Romance Studies
Duke University
Imraan Coovadia, Writer, essayist and novelist
Director of the creative writing programme, University of Cape Town
Koulsy Lamko, Chadian playwright, poet, novelist and university lecturer
Willy Mutunga, Former Chief Justice of Kenya
Maina Kiai, Former Chairperson of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission
Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association
Rashida Manjoo, Professor Emeritus
Department of Public Law, University of Cape Town
Former UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women
Siba N Grovogui
Professor of international relations theory and law
Africana Studies and Research Centre
Cornell University
Nadia Nurhussein
Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies
Johns Hopkins University
Martha Kuwee Kumsa
Professor of Social Work
Wilfrid Laurier University
Mekonnen Firew Ayano
Associate Professor
SUNY Buffalo Law School
Dagmawi Woubshet
Ahuja Family Presidential Associate Professor of English
University of Pennsylvania
Awet T Weldemichael
Professor and Queen’s National Scholar
Queen’s University
Abadir Ibrahim
Ethiopian Human Rights Activist and Lawyer
Michael Woldemariam
Associate Professor of International Relations and Political Science
Director of the African Studies Center
Boston University
Safia Aidid
Arts and Science Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of History
University of Toronto
Abdoulaye Bathily
Professor of History
University Cheikh Anta Diop
David Ndii
Kenyan Economist
Siphokazi Magadla
Senior Lecturer in Political and International Studies
Rhodes University
Fred Hendricks
Emeritus Professor
Faculty of Humanities
Rhodes University
Pablo Idahosa
Professor of African Studies and International Development Studies
York University
Ibrahim Abdullah
Department of History and African Studies
Fourah Bay College
University of Sierra Leone
Seye Abimbola
Senior Lecturer
School of Public Health
University of Sydney
Makau Mutua
SUNY Distinguished Professor
SUNY Buffalo Law School
Salim Vally
Professor
Faculty of Education
University of Johannesburg
Director
Centre for Education Rights and Transformation
L. Muthoni Wanyeki
Kenya Political Scientist
Dominic Brown
Activist and Economic Justice Programme Manager
Alternative Information and Documentation Centre
Michael Neocosmos
Emeritus Professor in Humanities
Rhodes University
Zubairu Wai
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science and Department of Global Development Studies
University of Toronto
Alden Young
Assistant Professor
African American Studies
University of California
Benjamin Talton
Professor of History
Department of History
Temple University
G Ugo Nwokeji
Associate Professor of African History and African Diaspora Studies
Department of African-American Studies
University of California
Lionel Zevounou
Associate Professor of Public Law
University of Paris Nanterre.
Amy Niang
Professeur associé
L’Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique
Sean Jacobs
Associate Professor of international Affairs
Julien J Studley Graduate Programmes in International Affairs
The New School
Founder and Editor of Africa is a Country
Abosede George
Associate Professor of African History
Barnard College
Dr Abdourahmane Seck
Senior Lecturer
Université Gaston Berger
Nimi Hoffmann
Lecturer
Centre for International Education
University of Sussex
Research Associate
Centre for International Teacher Education
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Maria Paula Meneses
Vice-Presidente
Conselho Científico do CES
Centro de Estudos Sociais
Universidade de Coimbra
Ibrahima Drame
Director of Education
Henry George School of Social Science
Cesaltina Abreu
Co-Director
Laboratory of Social Sciences and Humanities
Angolan Catholic University
Lina Benabdallah
Assistant Professor of Politics
Wake Forest University
Oumar Ba
Assistant Professor of International Relations
Department of Government
Cornell University
Samar Al-Bulushi
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of California
Nisrin Elamin
Assistant Professor of International Studies
Bryn Mawr College
Marie-Jolie Rwigema
Incoming Assistant Professor
Applied Human Sciences
Concordia University
Eddie Cottle
Postdoctoral Fellow
Society, Work and Politics Institute
University of the Witwatersrand
Amira Ahmed
School of Humanities and Social Science
American University of Cairo
Convenors’ Forum of The C19 People’s Coalition
Ibrahim Abdullah
Department of History and African Studies
Fourah Bay College
University of Sierra Leone
Jok Madut Jok
Professor of Anthropology
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University
Ebrima Sall
Director, Trust Africa just BY DAILY NATION