Could SA mediate?

International relations & co-operation minister Naledi Pandor says SA has offered to provide and even fund mediators to help Ethiopia in its peace efforts in Tigray.

A process of national dialogue started in the country late last year in an effort to end the conflict.

“We’ve had discussions with the AU facilitator [former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo] because we can’t displace the AU, and we’ve indicated to Ethiopia through our president [Cyril Ramaphosa] in discussions with his peers that SA stands ready to be of assistance,” Pandor says.

This would be in the form of making available the services of NGOs from SA that specialise in conflict resolution and negotiations.

“We’re glad that the humanitarian corridor has now been established,” she says, though she adds that Obasanjo is concerned that aid isn’t flowing to all the regions that need it.

Soon after the conflict broke out in November 2020, Ramaphosa, then AU chair, sent three former presidents to Ethiopia in an attempt to encourage the two sides to talk. But they returned without having had any success. This is despite seemingly close ties between the ANC and the Prosperity Party of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who spent time studying in SA some years ago.

Abiy attended the ANC’s January 8 anniversary rally in Kimberley in 2020, and the party has in turn sent representatives to the Prosperity Party’s conference in March.

The ANC was represented by SA’s former ambassador to Eritrea, Iqbal Jhazbhay, who praised Abiy for ending the 20-year war between Eritrea and Ethiopia — something that earned him the Nobel peace prize in 2019 — and for setting up a process of national dialogue. He also praised the #NoMore movement in Ethiopia, which was created after the start of the war to push back against especially Western interference in Ethiopia.