The Ethiopian Federal Government and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) confounded the sceptics by signing the 3 November 2022 Pretoria “agreement for lasting peace through a permanent cessation of hostilities”, followed by agreeing to implementation modalities in Nairobi on 12 November 2022.

Why did that happen, how is the agreement progressing, and will there be sustainable peace?

Pushed to make peace

All wars end at some time, but the shorter a conflict, the greater the chances of resolution. So, in favour of reaching the Ethiopia/Tigray agreement was the relatively short two-year duration of the civil war. This contrasts, for example, with the entrenched Syria and Yemen conflicts exceeding a decade.

The balance towards talking peace shifted when neither side achieved military supremacy while running up ruinous and potentially endless impacts. Experience suggests that economics have a major impact on war-peace decisions while armed conflicts end only when one side wins decisively or when both are stalemated, as happened here.

How long could Ethiopia have sustained its assault on Tigray as its global reputation and economy crumbled, and other internal conflicts were neglected and tore the country apart? How long could land-locked, blockaded Tigray sustain itself as, out of its seven million population, 600,000 people had been killed, over two million displaced, tens of thousands raped, and the rest starved and diseased to a significant extent?

Even more crucial was external pressure. The heavily criticised African Union was galvanised into action through the political clout of former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, and former deputy president of South Africa Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

United States pressure was indispensable through the stick of sanctions and the carrot of debt rescheduling and potential re-entry into a lucrative trading partnership under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).

Despite the popular perception that wars are driven by irrational maniacs, they actually have logic, even if there are competing logics. The TPLF demonstrated that it is a formidable entity that can’t be ignored, and the Ethiopian Federal Government realised that it can’t subjugate Tigray through force.

Having made your points, why continue fighting?

A sketchy peace agreement

Nevertheless, peace made under duress does not take root as seen from failed efforts, for example, in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Genuine peace is born only within hearts and minds. How effective is the Pretoria Agreement in doing that?

On one hand, its brevity and simplicity are commendable. It ticks critical boxes on civilian protection, humanitarian access, justice, reconciliation, human rights, constitutional order, democracy, addressing political differences, confidence-building measures, disarmament and security.

Conversely, its shortness of detail does not dispel high prevailing mistrust and the Agreement’s lack of transparency provides fodder for conspiracy theorists — particularly when the papers were signed by elites without engagement of their people who shed much blood and tears.

A more generous take on the sketchy Agreement is that when protagonists cannot find common ground on all matters, ambiguity is useful. That enables tackling difficult issues step-by-step through ongoing dialogue and confidence-building.

Peace-making is a process — not a destination. And never more so than in Ethiopia whose cycles of violence have spanned decades. Each cycle was ended through expedient solutions that contained within them the seeds of the next cycle. Will this happen again?

Dividends for keeping the peace

To keep progressing, there must be a reward for silencing the guns. This appears to be happening. Ethiopia’s blockade on Tigray has been largely lifted, and telecommunications, electricity, banking, and flights to Mekelle resumed. Humanitarian access has steadily improved. More assistance including food, medicine, and agricultural inputs are going in.  

But considering the war-related degradation of infrastructure, it will take more time to scale up aid delivery. Meanwhile, considering the millions on death’s verge, benefits will take time and more suffering will ensue in the interim. How aid helps to consolidate peace depends on how equitably it is supplied. If, for example, TPLF-controlled areas are relatively neglected, even as aid reaches neighbouring conflict zones in Amhara and Afar, grievances will re-ignite.

Meanwhile, brace for more stories of previously hidden atrocities to emerge. Also, the exposure of myriad heart-breaking personal tragedies as telephone lines ring again. This may inflame emotions. How communities deal with pain and grief bears on future reconciliation. Conversely, denying or minimising their losses will deepen trauma and undermine future peace.

It is much better to share fully and fast the worst news on what has already happened. It is much easier for traumatised people to deal with what they know — however horrible — than what is conjured up by febrile imaginings. Independent journalists and aid monitors to access and report freely is vital, but still pending,

Security must precede peace

Tigray’s nascent peace is at its most fragile now because if it does not progress fast, it will wither. We have seen this elsewhere — for example, in neighbouring Sudan — when the cessation of violence brought relief to be replaced by a complacent no-war-no-peace. In such cases, frustration and renewed hostilities follow.

While the Pretoria Agreement guarantees “security for all”, prohibits “use of proxies to destabilise the other party or collusion with any external force hostile to either party”, and calls on the Federal forces to safeguard “the country from foreign incursion”, this remains work in progress.

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The Tigray Defence Forces are demobilising, including their heavy weapons, as per the Pretoria Agreement. There are reports that the irregular forces of neighbouring Amhara region are withdrawing and, less convincingly, also the Eritrean forces who carried out the worst depredations in Tigray.

The Agreement makes no formal reference to Eritrea which is engaged in its own long-standing feud with the TPLF with complex roots. The Eritrean leadership’s policy to reshape the Horn of Africa requires eliminating Tigrayans as a political force and sowing ethnic divisions within Ethiopia. The Ethiopian state cannot be at peace within itself if its supposed ally, Eritrea, makes mischief with apparent impunity.

Responsibility for providing security to Tigrayans rests now with Ethiopian federal forces. Their will and capacity to do so are under test. Meanwhile, thousands of Tigrayans are still arbitrarily detained in internment camps without recourse to basic citizen rights. Their release is essential to demonstrate Addis’s sincerity.

Facilitating security and peace is the role of the Joint Monitoring, Verification and Compliance Committee chaired by the African Union and assisted by external African experts. Its appropriate composition and adequate resourcing are vital to enable it to do its job in a way that wins the trust of all stakeholders. It is still early days.

From keeping to building peace

When day-to-day insecurity for ordinary Tigrayans is vanquished and their way of life restored, there will be a more conducive environment for political negotiations.

With so many long-standing grievances at play, the agenda is contentious, including Ethiopia’s internal boundaries between Amhara and Tigray. The Federal Constitution itself is contested with a debate around an imperial versus multi-national state vision. The forces of history favour decentralisation and others such as Switzerland, the US, Kenya and India exemplify different approaches.

Ethiopia is blessed with many diverse groups and perhaps this opportunity should bring peace to all, and not just Tigray. Replacing one conflict with another — as currently in Oromia — through dividing and ruling from the centre or making expedient alliances among the disaffected will not bring peace to Ethiopia.

Negotiators from all sides must lead wisely — not follow — the competing populist demands from their respective bases.

Peace demands justice and accountability

Can Ethiopians write a new chapter without continuously raking over mutually inflicted past wounds? This is extremely difficult going by experiences elsewhere as in Palestine or the Balkans.

It is even more complicated in conflicts hallmarked by brutalities. The Tigray/Ethiopia war — with egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity including acts of genocide — is among the most vicious in recent history, on a par with — or exceeding — the horrors of the 1967-1970 Biafran and 1983-2009 Sri Lankan civil wars.

Universal experience suggests that accountability and justice are integral to sustainable peace. This is because badly damaged people need acknowledgement of the wrongs done followed by redress and restitution to the fullest extent possible. Otherwise, there is no forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, or a new peaceful trajectory.

A transitional justice process is foreseen in the Pretoria Agreement. To be credible, this must be open and fair. The Federal side is key to whether an effective accountability track emerges. So far, its approach has been unhelpful through subverting domestic mechanisms for protection and justice, and obstructing investigations by the UN Human Rights Council’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts.

Against that background, an entirely internal Ethiopian process is not credible. However, forms of justice vary according to socio-political contexts and Africa has demonstrated many successful people-centric and hybrid national/international models, for example, in South Africa, Sierra Leone and Rwanda.  

Today’s world is also rich in mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The problem is that they are practically inaccessible.

But crimes against humanity are crimes of international jurisdiction. That is how The Gambia took Myanmar to the ICJ for genocidal crimes against the Rohingya. Syrians committing atrocities have been tried in Germany and new legislation plans similarly in the United States. That will help to curb impunity.

Nevertheless, even if creative ways to accountability routes are found, it is the truths and myths of history that have the most powerful future influence. Ethiopian peacemakers should wisely leave the tit-for-tat debates to future historians.

Instead, build inclusive monuments and museums dedicated to the horrors that have troubled Ethiopia for many decades. Let all groups — and especially schoolchildren — come to learn, reflect, and draw their own lessons. A visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial shows how this is done in a way that is instructive and therapeutic. Also, take a leaf out of the African Union Human Rights Memorial dedicated to honouring “all victims and survivors of atrocities in the spirit of Pan African Solidarity”, which makes special reference to the Ethiopian Red Terror of the 1970s.

Denying justice, short-changing accountability, and distorting remembering will not bring peace to Ethiopia.

Peace requires resolve

Peace does not come free nor tolerates shortcuts. In the months ahead, the different peoples of Ethiopia and their rulers must find the resolve, sincerity and patience to keep working for peace, even as they vent their frustrations, grieve for their losses, and toil against the obstacles still present.

Meanwhile, every day one gun less is fired, one more person eats, one less woman is raped, one more child resumes school, one more diabetic gets insulin, one more family goes home; these are small victories for humanity.

These, by themselves, are worth having. DM