Ethiopia’s warring parties and African and international mediators have gathered in South Africa for peace talks scheduled to start on Tuesday to try to end the country’s bitter and bloody two-year civil war.

The negotiators of the Ethiopian federal government in Addis Ababa were expected to arrive in Johannesburg at midday on Monday. The negotiators of their enemies, the Tigray federal government, arrived in South Africa on Sunday night, escorted by international mediators.

The Ethiopian federal government negotiators are led by Redwan Hussein, national security adviser to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and justice minister Gedion Timotheos, according to an official familiar with the arrangements.

The Tigrayan team is headed by Getachew Reda, spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), and veteran military general Tsadkan Gebretensae, a former TPLF member and now part of the Tigray federal government.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, whose national security adviser, Redwan Hussein, is leading the Ethiopian federal government’s negotiating team. (Photo: EPA-EFE / STR)

There are believed to be seven negotiators on each side. The mediators are led by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, special envoy for the African Union, former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, now Kenya’s special envoy to the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes, and former South African deputy president Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, also a former director of UN Women. 

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The mediators, including officials from the African Union Commission, the US and the regional body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, were scheduled to meet on Monday afternoon to strategise about the negotiations proper, which are due to start on Tuesday in Pretoria.

Ceasefire goal

This would be the first time the two opposing sides have sat down in earnest to try to negotiate an end to the conflict which has cost tens of thousands of lives, displaced hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians and damaged billions of dollars of infrastructure, particularly in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray state where most of the fighting has taken place over the past two years.

The negotiators will be sitting down to talk at a moment when the Ethiopian federal army – supported mainly by troops from neighbouring Eritrea – has been making major rapid gains on the battlefield, taking the towns of Adwa, Aksum and Shire in the past few days, according to sources.

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Though that makes the future look bleak for the Tigray side, observers note that it has recovered from setbacks before, since the war began in November 2020, and has retreated into the mountains, to return later to recapture lost territory. 

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The mediators hope that during the next few days the federal government and the Tigray government will be able to agree at least to a cessation of hostilities which would create a conducive environment for more talks. Those would either then take place during this session or the negotiators would go home and return later to resume the talks.

Ethiopian refugees from the Tigray region queue for aid at the Um Rakuba refugee camp – the same camp that hosted Ethiopian refugees during the famine in the 1980s – about 80km from the Ethiopian border in Sudan on 30 November 2020. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Ala Kheir)

Ethiopian refugees from Tigray wait for aid at the Um Rakuba refugee camp on 30 November 2020. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Ala Kheir)

The official familiar with the arrangements for the talks noted that there were political issues to be discussed in trying to lay a foundation for a long-term solution to the conflict between Addis Ababa and Mekelle (the Tigray capital). But unless the talks starting on Tuesday went extremely well, those issues would probably have to wait for a later date.

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The US and other interested international governments have been calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities; the delivery of humanitarian aid to the warzone; the protection of civilians including the prevention of human rights abuses and atrocities; and the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean military forces from Ethiopia. 

The South African government is providing the venue for the peace talks but is not playing any other role in them, officials have said. 

The African Union Commission announced earlier that the peace talks would start in South Africa on 8 October, but this announcement was premature since not all parties, including the TPLF and apparently not even Kenyatta, had been consulted before the announcement. DM