SA helps bring a tenuous peace to Ethiopia
This week, Dirco successfully hosted peace talks in the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Could the country do the same for another conflict, say between Russia and Ukraine? Carien du Plessis reports
The issues before the war are the same as they are now
— International relations director-general Zane Dangor
For us, this agreement ... confirms the correctness of our own country’s principled policy position that political differences are best resolved through meaningful dialogue and diplomacy
— Naledi Pandor, Dirco
There was a collective sigh of relief in the OR Tambo Building’s conference hall in Pretoria as the men representing the two main parties in the Tigrayan war signed a truce on Wednesday night. It happened a day before the deadly conflict could enter its third year, and it took just 10 days of talks to get there.
It was a remarkable diplomatic feat because this was also the first time since the war started that the two sides officially sat down to talk.
“I am the most relieved person in this room,” international relations & co-operation minister Naledi Pandor said at the signing.
She was initially reluctant when the AU approached the department of international relations & co-operation (Dirco) on the possibility of South Africa hosting the peace talks to end the escalating conflict in Ethiopia’s north.
The request came in New York, where Pandor and her officials were attending the UN General Assembly, and the proposed talks were set for less than three weeks later, on October 9.
“My response to the AU was, uhm, I have to think about it,” said Pandor.
When she approached President Cyril Ramaphosa with the request, “he said: ‘Of course minister, we cannot decline. It is a duty that South Africa must assume and undertake, right up to the logical conclusion of peace.’”
After the first hiccup — one of the three AU high-level panel members facilitating the talks, former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, claimed he couldn’t make October 9 — few commentators believed the warring parties would even get as far as agreeing on a meeting date.
But they did, and on October 23 the Tigrayan side flew to Pretoria with the UN special envoy to the Horn of Africa, Mike Hammer. The Ethiopian side arrived the following day.
Redwan Hussein, security adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, justice minister Gedion Timothewos, Amhara region deputy president Getachew Jember and Hassan Abdulkadir, co-ordinator of the governing Prosperity Party’s democratic system office, represented the Ethiopian government side.
The Tigrayan side sent Getachew Reda, adviser to the Tigray region president Debretsion Gebremichael, and Lt Gen Tsadkan Gebretensae, former chief of staff of the Ethiopian National Defence Force and a key member of the Tigrayan forces.
The talks were led by the AU high representative for the Horn of Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo, assisted by Kenyatta and former South African deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Much more was at stake than the potential security threat of having two belligerents under one roof, and Pandor was correct to be nervous.
For months South Africa has maintained — to sharp criticism from Western powers — that it wants to keep a “non-aligned” position on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine because it could play some kind of role in a possible peace process.
The successful Ethiopian talks turned out to be a vindication of sorts. As Pandor said: “For us, this agreement signals a commitment to ending the use of force to settle differences and disputes, and confirms the correctness of our own country’s principled policy position that political differences are best resolved through meaningful dialogue and diplomacy.”
There are no winners in war, she said, and wars do not solve problems.
International relations director-general Zane Dangor underscored this. “The issues before the war are the same as they are now,” he told the Sunday Times.
These issues could have been discussed and resolved before the conflict destroyed lives and livelihoods, he said.
At issue was resistance to Abiy’s political reforms which led to Tigrayan leaders losing power in the federal government and the security establishment.
A bitter feud ensued between Abiy’s government and the Tigrayan regional government, which called its own elections after Abiy cancelled the national elections due to have been held in August 2020, citing Covid safety concerns.
On November 4 2020, Abiy ordered a military offensive by the Ethiopian National Defence Force after Tigrayan rebels attacked a federal military base in the Tigray region.
A bitter war ensued which saw the entire Tigrayan region closed off. Basic services such as hospital and schools, as well as banks and telecoms stopped working. The supply of goods and humanitarian aid was reduced to a trickle.
Other groups, such as the Fano militias from the neighbouring Amhara region and the Oromo Liberation Army in the south, also got involved in the conflict.
Estimates put the death toll at well over 500,000, making it one of the deadliest wars at present being waged. Aid agencies have documented violence against civilians, including rape and deliberate starvation, by both sides.
Fighting intensified in August after a fivemonth humanitarian truce collapsed and Eritrea sent in its army.
The troops fought on the side of the Ethiopians, though Abiy never admitted to having invited them in.
Eritrea still has scores to settle with the Tigrayans after a two-decade war between Ethiopia and Eritrea that Abiy had ended four years before.
The conflict’s escalation put pressure on those involved to speed up the quest for a resolution. This came amid reports that more than a million combatants — many of them young, first-time recruits — had been sent into Tigray and were being mowed down en masse by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
The heavy loss of life on the Ethiopian side and an eventual shortage of fuel and ammunition on the Tigrayan side were among the factors that pushed the two sides to talk. Ethiopia’s economy has also slowed down dramatically and there are reports the country is running low on foreign exchange stocks.
Why the warring sides chose South Africa from the list of possible venues presented to them is not clear, but it was important that they felt comfortable with their choice.
Dangor said it was proof that South Africa had “the skills and experience and facilities” to host such talks.
Dirco’s OR Tambo Building proved the perfect venue as it is comfortable and secure, and out of the public eye.
South African officials also have the experience. Apart from the 1994 talks which prevented a civil war in South Africa and led to a transition of power from an apartheid to a democratic government, South Africa also helped broker the 2002 Sun City peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo civil war and the 2005 Arusha agreement ending Burundi’s conflict, to name but two.
The Ethiopian talks came at a time when many were doubting that South Africa was still capable of hosting such talks, being beset by domestic issues such as corruption, crime and an internal political power struggle.
The memory of him might be fading in
South Africa but the spirit of Nelson Mandela undoubtedly served as inspiration to the Ethiopian negotiators. As a young man, the liberation fighter spent time in Ethiopia and is widely admired there.
Sticking points in the negotiations included the presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray and a reluctance by the TPLF to disarm.
A breakthrough in negotiations came on Monday, when Obasanjo left the talks to lead an investment drive with two Nigerian governors and their delegations to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was during this time that Abiy contacted Kenyatta and MlamboNgcuka with a message of support, which spurred on the Ethiopian government representatives to work harder to find areas of agreement.
In the early weeks of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Ramaphosa mooted South Africa as a potential mediator, and said issues should be resolved through talks.
He could now hold up the Ethiopian truce as an example of South Africa’s peacemaking, should the leaders in that conflict ever be convinced to try thrash out a solution without the use of bullets and missiles.