Ethiopia and TPLF reach peace deal
Ethiopia and the TPLF reach a peace deal that ends two years of conflict. The rebel group has committed to a permanent cessation of hostilities against the democratic Ethiopian government of Abiy Ahmed.
The Ethiopian government under Abiy Ahmed and the TPLF sign a peace deal.
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Ethiopia and the TPLF reach a peace deal that ends two years of conflict. The rebel group has committed to a permanent cessation of hostilities against the democratic Ethiopian government of Abiy Ahmed. This brings to a conclusion a war that has destabilized the Horn of Africa, displacing millions, and further impoverishing people in the region.
The conflict that began with the attack by TPLF on an Ethiopian army base in November 2020 was formally ended after successful peace negotiations in South Africa. Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed paid tribute to the Ethiopian national defence forces, and reaffirmed his commitment to peace, as well as the Ethiopian government’s “commitment to collaborating for the implementation of the agreement.”
The lead negotiator for the rebel grouping Redwan Hussein admitted that “painful concessions” had been made by the TPLF.
The US-backed TPLF had suffered a series of heavy military losses. A humanitarian truce was collapsed by the TPLF when it attacked a strategic Ethiopian position in Raya Kobo. A subsequent push by TPLF rebels overextended their positions, leading to enormous battlefield losses.
READ MORE: “TPLF FORCES SUFFER HEAVY LOSSES, AGREES TO AU MEDIATION”
A defeat for a US / EU proxy
Shortly after the declaration of a universal ceasefire by the Ethiopian government seven months into the conflict to prevent agricultural disruption in the food insecure region, the US special envoy to the Horn of Africa, Mike Hammer, the US charge d’Affaires in Ethiopia, as well as other EU and Western diplomats held meetings with TPLF leaders. Shortly afterwards the rebel group began to mobilize for war.
The TPLF had ruled Ethiopia for nearly three decades, clamping down on dissent and real or perceived challenges to its authority. Presnet Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed was elected to office on a mass movement or pro-democracy sentiment, uniting the various ethno-nationalist regional federations that the TPLF government had effectively dissolved Ethiopia into.
Ahmed’s achievement also extends to international diplomacy. He won the Nobel Peace Price for his efforts to end the decades long conflict with Eritrea, as well as securing a tri-partite peace with Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia.
Regional efforts at diplomacty have undermined the agenda of the US, who maintain a vast military presence in the region, a sleight on the sovereignty of nations in the Horn of Africa. The Biden administration has attempted to undermine this with formenting “astroturfed” dissent, even going so far as to invent, overstate, and platform nine Ethiopian groups at the White House who stood against the democratically elected government of Ethiopia.
Depsite this, Mike Hammer has curiously insisted that he was present at the negotiations “both as a participant and as an observer”, and despite Western support for the rebel grouping against the Democratically elected Ethiopian government, Hammer stated that the Ethiopia and TPLF peace deal aimed to achieve “an immediate cessation of hostilities, to achieve the delivery of humanitarian assistance to all Ethiopians in need, additional measures – securing measures to protect civilians, and seeing Eritrea’s withdrawal from northern Ethiopia.”
