Eritrea Wire

Ambassador Isa Ahmed Isa, Eritrea’s Ambassador to the Republic of Sudan, presented credentials to Mr. Mohamed Yonus al-Menfi, President of the Libyan Presidential Council, on 29 October as Eritrea’s non-resident Ambassador to that country.
At the event held at the National Palace in Tripoli, Ambassador Isa conveying message of good will from President Isaias Afwerki to President Mohamed Yonus al-Menfi, expressed readiness to work in cooperation with concerned institutions of Libya to strengthen bilateral relations and cooperation between Eritrean and Libya.
President Mohamed Yonus al-Menfi on his part expressed his country’s readiness to work towards strengthening relations with Eritrea and especially in the diplomatic and economic sectors as well as on regional issues of interest to the two countries.
President Mohamed Yonus al-Menfi also wished good health to President Isaias Afwerki and peace and prosperity to the Eritrean people as well as good working time to Ambassador Isa.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

UNITED NATIONS — A commission of independent U.N. experts examining rights violations and atrocities in the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region says that without an end to the fighting, the risk of further atrocity crimes is growing.

“Atrocity crimes are imminent unless there is a cessation of hostilities,” commission member Radhika Coomaraswamy told reporters Friday at the United Nations.

The U.N. International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia warned in their report delivered Thursday to the General Assembly committee that deals with human rights, that Ethiopian, Eritrean and Tigrayan forces have all committed violations in the hostilities that began two years ago. Commission Chair Betty Murungi said several of these violations rise to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The report outlines the dire humanitarian situation in the northern Tigray region, where 6 million people have been cut off from supplies and services by the federal government’s blockade.

“We focused first on the dire humanitarian situation in Tigray and found that the widespread denial and obstruction of access to food, medicine and basic services amounted to a crime against humanity, as well as the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare,” said commission member Steven Ratner, an American law professor.

The three-member commission created by the Human Rights Council last December also found that the federal government targeted civilians in Tigray with shelling, air strikes and drone attacks.

Addis Ababa has rejected the commission’s report.

Ethiopia’s U.N. ambassador, Taye Atske Selassie, told the General Assembly committee Thursday the report is “incoherent and sketchy” and is intended to intensify political pressure against his government.

“The commission is merely an instrument that will later serve as justification for intervention and sanctions,” Selassie said.

The commission found that Tigrayan forces also committed serious crimes, including large-scale killings of Amhara civilians, rape and sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, torture, looting and destruction of civilian property.

“To the degree that there have been allegations of isolated wrongdoing by Tigray forces, the Government of Tigray takes those allegations seriously and will ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice,” the regional authorities said in a statement when the U.N. commission’s report was first published in September.

The report says rape “has been perpetrated on a staggering scale” since the fighting began in November 2020. Survivors in Tigray have implicated the Ethiopian National Defense Force, Eritrea Defense Forces and the Amhara militia, Fano. Women were raped, gang raped, held as sex slaves and violated with objects.

Sexual violence by Tigrayan forces was documented in areas of neighboring Amhara, where some survivors testified that their rapists told them they were avenging the rape of Tigrayan women and girls.

While the commission said grave violations of international law have been carried out, they did not go so far as to deem it a genocide.

“We didn’t have a pattern in which we could at this point say that genocide was happening or could not be happening,” said Coomaraswamy, a lawyer who has investigated atrocities in her native Sri Lanka and in Myanmar.

“But we do say that because of the indicators that are now present at this particular moment in Ethiopian history, and with what is going on at the moment, that there is a possibility that atrocity crimes — that could include genocide — can happen unless the international community, the African Union, stop the cessation of hostilities,” she said.

On Tuesday, African Union-mediated peace talks began in South Africa between the federal government and Tigrayan leaders. The commission welcomed the talks, saying it hopes they will lead to an end to the fighting, the resumption of humanitarian access and the return of peace and security for the people.

The commission spent a week in Addis Ababa in July and hoped to receive permission for “unfettered access” to Tigray, which regional authorities support. But the Ethiopian federal government so far has not granted their request.

“A war without witnesses, as you know, can be terrible,” commission member Coomaraswamy emphasized.

 

Source: Voice of America

Warring sides in Ethiopia’s devastating two-year conflict are sitting down at the negotiating table Africa this week for their first formal peace talks.

The dialogue is led by the African Union, which had failed earlier this month to bring together teams from the Ethiopian government and the rebel Tigrayan authorities, in the face of fierce combat on the ground.

International pressure has intensified for the rivals to silence their guns in a conflict that has unleashed a desperate humanitarian crisis and, according to the US, claimed as many as half a million lives.

Key players

The process is being facilitated by AU Horn of Africa envoy and former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, along with Kenya’s former leader Uhuru Kenyatta and South Africa’s ex-vice president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

US regional envoy Mike Hammer is observing, along with Workneh Gebeyehu, executive secretary of the East African grouping IGAD and former Ethiopian foreign minister, and a UN representative.

Although these are the first publicly announced talks, a Western source has said secret contacts previously took place in Seychelles and Djibouti.

In June, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced the creation of a committee to prepare for possible peace negotiations, while denying secret talks with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that leads the rebel authorities in the northern region.

The government delegation is led by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen.

The seven-member Tigrayan team includes rebel spokesman Getachew Reda and top military commander Tsadkan Gebretensae.

Notably absent is Eritrea, which joined forces with Ethiopia’s army against its sworn enemy the TPLF, the party in power in Addis Ababa during a bloody border war in 1998-2000.

What’s up for discussion?

AU Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat described the talks as an “Ethiopian-owned and AU-led process to silence the guns towards a united, stable, peaceful and resilient Ethiopia”.

But before any comprehensive peace deal, the international community and the rebels are seeking an immediate cessation of hostilities.

“The situation in Ethiopia is spiralling out of control. Violence and destruction have reached alarming levels,” UN chief Antonio Guterres told reporters this month.

Fighting resumed on August 24, torpedoeing a five-month truce that had allowed limited aid into war-stricken Tigray, with both sides accusing the other of firing first.

Since then, pro-government forces have gained ground in offensives Addis Ababa says are aimed at protecting Ethiopia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” and taking control of airports and other federal sites in Tigray.

Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, using artillery bombardments and drone strikes, have captured a string of towns in Tigray including the strategic city of Shire, manouevring towards the capital Mekele.

“The first objective for mediators is therefore to try and get the federal and Tigray delegations to agree to a truce despite the momentum towards continued military confrontation,” said William Davison, senior Ethiopia analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank.

Humanitarian access and restoration of basic services to Tigray and its six million people is another key demand.

The region, where many are going hungry, is largely cut off from the outside world, with a communications blackout and shortages of food, fuel and medicines.

Addis Ababa said this week it was working with humanitarian agencies to provide aid in the areas it had taken over.

The TPLF and the international community also want the withdrawal of troops from Eritrea, a feared and unpredictable player in the conflict.

Its soldiers, whose presence in the first phase of the war had long been denied by Addis Ababa, have been accused of atrocities against civilians.

What are the prospects?

The Pretoria negotiations are set to run until Sunday – but what’s next is unknown and analysts say an immediate breakthrough is unlikely.

“Battlefield developments have a direct bearing on power dynamics at the negotiating table and threaten to overtake political discussions given the current momentum of pro-government forces operating in Tigray region,” the Eurasia Group said in a note.

It said Addis Ababa appeared to be ratcheting up its demands, noting Demeke had called for the “dissolution of Tigrayan forces” before any settlement.

“Addis will now aim to leverage its military ascendancy to force a TPLF climbdown from red lines on disputed territories and restoration of basic services which have thus far thwarted talks.”

Tigrayan leader Debretsion Gebremichael remained defiant, saying victory was “inevitable”.

“We’re going to South Africa while still fighting,” he said this week. “Those joint enemy forces that entered Tigray will be buried.”

 

Source:  Dehai Eritrea Online

All agree a ‘cessation of hostilities’ should be the first step to peace.

The substantive phase of the peace talks between the Ethiopian federal government and its foes in the Tigray province began in South Africa on Wednesday, with intense discussions about the terms of a possible cessation of hostilities.

 

Negotiators from both sides, and the mediators, have agreed that a cessation of hostilities should be the first objective in these first formal negotiations between the two sides who have been fighting each other in a bitter and bloody civil war since November 2020.

“Cessation of hostilities is the priority and both sides seem to be taking this seriously,” said Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation.

 

The negotiations are being mediated by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who is special envoy for the African Union. He is supported by former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta and former South African deputy president Phumzil Mlambo-Ngcuka.

 

The Ethiopian federal government negotiation team is 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 negotiators are 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.

 

• Agenda agreed

 

The negotiators and mediators arrived in South Africa on Monday. The mediators agreed on an agenda that day. On Tuesday there was a ceremonial opening of the negotiations which are taking place at a secret venue believed to be in the vicinity of Pretoria. On Wednesday the substantive negotiations began.

 

The talks are taking place against the backdrop of a fluid situation on the battlefield. Ethiopian federal troops — controversially backed by forces from neighbouring Eritrea — have captured the key towns of Shire, Adwa and Aksum in Tigray, from the Tigray forces, over the past week. But they have not captured the Tigray capital of Mekelle, sources said, contradicting some reports from the Ethiopian government’s side.

 

The sources also noted that the Tigrayans had bounced back from worse positions before — as in November 2020 when they lost Mekelle — and so should not be counted out of the battle.

There had been some discussion among the negotiators and the mediators on whether the talks should aim at a “cessation of hostilities” or a “ceasefire” as a first step. The difference is tactically important and more than semantic. A cessation of hostilities would mean a straightforward freeze in fighting, a silencing of the guns, which would then lead to a ceasefire, requiring the negotiation of terms and conditions such as the positions of troops, the prohibition of certain actions and monitoring and verification mechanisms.

 

• Tigrayan suspicions

 

The Tigrayan side had been suspicious of Obasanjo, believing he was collaborating with Ethiopian Prime Minister Ahmed to aim at a ceasefire rather than a cessation of hostilities as the first step towards peace.

They suspected this was a ruse to give the Ethiopian government forces more time to complete a military victory on the battlefield while the terms of a ceasefire were being haggled over in South Africa.

 

Daily Maverick understands that the Tigrayans have been reassured by having Kenyatta and Mlambo-Ngcuka in the mediation team, as they have been assertive on issues such as insisting on a cessation of hostilities as the first step.

 

“Anyone who assumes that Phumzile and Kenyatta are merely there in supporting roles to Obasanjo would have been mistaken,” one source said.

“Mlambo-Ngcuka in particular is being assertive and asking the right questions and putting people on the spot.” DM

 

Source:  Dehai Eritrea Online