Tigrayan peace process


The Tigrayan peace process encompasses the series of proposals, meetings, agreements and actions that aimed to resolve the Tigray War.
A number of proposals for peace negotiations and mediation were made involving some of the main groups involved in the war, with some being made as early as November 2020. Among other, this includes: an emergency Intergovernmental Authority on Development summit in December 2020; a joint statement by the National Congress of Great Tigray, the Tigray Independence Party, and Salsay Weyane Tigray describing their eight pre-conditions for peace in February 2021; a mediation group called "A3+1", in July–August 2021; and a March–August 2022 ceasefire wherein Ethiopian and Tigrayan officials attempted to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict.
In 2 November 2022, the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan leaders signed a peace accord in Pretoria, South Africa, with the African Union as a mediator, and agreed on "orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament". The agreement was made effective the next day on 3 November, marking the second anniversary of the war; on 12 November, another agreement was signed in Nairobi, Kenya to both reaffirm and implement the Pretoria deal.

Background

A conflict between the goals of centralised versus federalised political power between the federal Ethiopian government headed by prime minister Abiy Ahmed and the former dominating party of Ethiopia, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, that retained power in the Tigray Region, emerged in 2019 and 2020. The TPLF dug trenches in a village in June in preparation for a possible war. Abiy, Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki and Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed held a Tripartite Agreement meeting in Asmara on 27 January 2020, Abiy visited an Eritrean military base in July 2020, and Isaias visited the Harar Meda Airport Ethiopian air base in Bishoftu in October 2020. Ethiopian National Defense Force and Amhara Region special forces deployed on the south border of Tigray Region in mid-October 2020 and ENDF troops were flown to Eritrea to prepare a joint attack on the TPLF by the ENDF and the Eritrean Defence Forces. On the night of 3–4 November 2020, the federal military Northern Command bases in the Tigray Region were attacked by the TPLF, and the ENDF responded militarily.
The war continued into February 2021, including military operations, war crimes, sexual violence and looting, with casualty estimates in February of 52,000 civilians and 100,000 soldiers killed. On 6 February, the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, stated that the "risk of atrocity crimes" would remain high and risked worsening unless "urgent measures immediately taken".

2020

African Union (November 2020)

Around 9 November 2020, the TPLF leader and elected head of the Tigray Region, Debretsion Gebremichael, requested the African Union to intervene to stop the war, requesting peace negotiations. Debretsion described Abiy's government as illegitimate.
Abiy argued that the TPLF's holding of the 2020 election was illegal and that the TPLF had started preparing for war since 2018, organising and drafting militias. He stated that Ethiopia would manage the situation on its own. Moussa Faki, chairperson of the African Union Commission, "urged" the Ethiopian and Tigrayan governments to negotiate. On 10 November, Abiy refused the proposed dialogue.
On 20 November, Ethiopian president Sahle-Work Zewde visited South Africa as an envoy of Abiy to discuss the war with Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa and chair of the African Union. As a result of the visit, Ramaphosa appointed three former presidents, Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia and Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa as Special Envoys to "mediate between the parties in the conflict", to "engage with all sides to the conflict", with the aim of obtaining a ceasefire and "creating conditions for an inclusive national dialogue to resolve all issues that led to the conflict". The mediation proposal was motivated by the spirit of "African solutions for African problems." Abiy immediately described the news of planned mediation by the envoys between the federal government and the former Tigray government as "fake". The three envoys visited Ethiopia during 25–27 November and talked with Abiy and representatives of the Transitional Government of Tigray that aimed to replace the TPLF government of Tigray. Ramaphosa published a summary of Abiy's views on the war and Abiy's "commitment to dialogue" in the official summary of the envoys' visit.

Intergovernmental Authority on Development (December 2020)

On 13 December, Sudanese prime minister Abdalla Hamdok stated that he had agreed with Abiy to hold an emergency meeting of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development grouping together seven East African countries. Hamdok arrived in Addis Ababa the same day, as the first foreign leader to visit the city since the Tigray War started. The IGAD summit was held on 20 December in Djibouti, with an official statement "reaffirm the primacy of constitutional order, stability and unity of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia" and "welcom" a 29 November agreement on "'unimpeded, sustained and secure access' for humanitarian support." Abiy "expressed deepest gratitude" to the IGAD leaders at the meeting for supporting the federal government.

2021

Tigrayan peace conditions (February 2021)

On 19 February, the National Congress of Great Tigray, Tigray Independence Party and Salsay Weyane Tigray published eight demands to the international community that closely overlapped with the TPLF's pre-conditions. The pre-conditions and demands were:
  1. the EDF should leave Tigray Region and an independent international body would have to confirm the departure ;
  2. Tigray would have to be "secured" and the "enemies" partitioning Tigray, or Amhara militia and the ENDF, would have to leave Tigray Region ;
  3. the Transitional Government would have to be replaced by the elected administration returning ;
  4. an international investigative body would have to be created for investigating the war crimes and become functional ;
  5. full unrestrained access to Tigray would have to be given to journalists and international humanitarian agencies ;
  6. an international investigative body would have to investigate the looting and destruction of the war ;
  7. Tigrayans arrested as a result of the war would have to be unconditionally released ;
  8. the peace negotiations would have to be mediated by an independent international body.
Seb Hidri made similar demands on 21 February 2021, with the additional demands for a United Nations human rights monitoring and peacekeeping force present while reconstructing a local government; and for a UNESCO-led investigation of the destruction of cultural heritage in Tigray Region.

March 2021

On 8 March 2021, Sahle-Work Zewde visited Kenya for discussions with Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. Daily Nation speculated that the purpose of the visit was a followup to United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken's pressure on Kenya to mediate in the Tigray War.
On 11 March, the US ambassador to Ethiopia, Geeta Pasi, announced support for joint humanitarian activities by international partners and the Government of Ethiopia. In late March, Abiy refused a ceasefire proposal recommended by US Senator Chris Coons on behalf of US president Joe Biden. Coons, who had five hours of talks with Abiy, stated that he had "pressed for a unilateral declaration of a cease-fire, something the prime minister did not agree to, and pressed for a rapid move towards a full political dialogue on Tigray's future political structure."

July 2021

In Operation Alula in late June 2021, the Tigray Defence Forces forced the ENDF to leave the Tigrayan capital Mekelle and much of the Tigray Region and the federal government announced a unilateral ceasefire. In the words of peace researcher Alex de Waal, the federal forces held Tigray Region under a "starvation siege". On 4 July, the restored Tigrayan government set seven pre-conditions for a ceasefire:
  1. withdrawal of the EDF and Amhara militias;
  2. investigations of war crimes;
  3. humanitarian access;
  4. restoral of services;
  5. constitutional rights of the Tigrayan government;
  6. suspension of federal-level decisions taken since October 2020;
  7. an international monitoring mechanism for the other six points.
De Waal judged the conditions reasonable, but argued that both the federal and Tigrayan governments used provocative language that he described as "macho posturing", symbolising that "the two sides hate each other so much they would rather pull the house down than reconcile."
In late July, a group of anonymous "Concerned Ethiopians" issued a public appeal, published by the World Peace Foundation, for a mediated negotiation between the federal, Tigrayan and Amhara governments, to start with confidence-building measures including the " of rhetoric" and cessation of hate speech, mutual uncondition recognition, a one-month ceasefire, statements of each government's demands, and withdrawal of the EDF from all of Ethiopia. The Concerned Ethiopians proposed detailed mediation steps, transitional justice and called for a transitional process to find long-term solutions to Ethiopian "political problems deeply structural in their nature".

August 2021

In early August, Sudanese prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, in his role as head of IGAD, proposed to mediate between the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan leaders. Hamdok contacted both sides with the aim of starting negotiations and allowing humanitarian aid to enter Tigray. However, the Ethiopian government rejected the proposal. Billene Seyoum, Abiy Ahmed's spokesperson, referred to the ongoing border dispute between the two countries over al-Fashaga, Sudan, and stated that Sudan was not a "credible party" to mediate.
Researchers Corda Tiziana and Ann Fitz-Gerald said that a unified international stance and mediators who are considered neutral would be needed for mediation to be accepted. Peace researcher Kjetil Tronvoll suggested that Sudan together with another party might be together acceptable as mediators. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also offered to be a mediator.
On 26 August, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Mamadou Diouf and 56 other African intellectuals issued an open letter calling for a mediated solution to the conflict, stating, "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." The group called for IGAD and the AU to implement their mandated roles of providing mediation in the conflict, and for the wider international community to support IGAD and AU mediation actions. The group called for "any negotiated political settlement to include a process of public accountability for mass atrocities committed across Ethiopia."