The two belligerents signed a cease-fire in Pretoria after two years of a fratricidal civil war.
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Ethiopia is no longer at war against itself. After ten days of negotiations in South Africa, the Tigerian insurgents of the Popular Liberation of the Tiguration of the Tiguration (FLPT) and the Ethiopian government were committed, on paper, to immediately cease hostilities. An agreement concluded almost two years to the day after the start of the conflict on November 4, 2020, but which “does not mark the end of the peace process, rather its beginning,” said Olusegun Obasanjo, the special envoy for the horn of Africa and chief mediator of the African Union (AU).
In March, the two camps had already agreed from a “humanitarian truce” with fuzzy contours. Poorly supervised, she had shattered on August 24 and the fighting had resumed in the tiger with rare intensity. For more than a week, at the end of October, when the two delegations were discussed in Pretoria, the Ethiopian federal army conquered several strategic cities of the tiger with great artillery and air strikes. An advantage on the battlefield which allowed the government to negotiate in a position of strength in South Africa.
“We made huge concessions to allow to build confidence,” said the FLPT spokesperson on Wednesday, since Pretoria Getachew Reda. The Tigerian party notably accepted “a detailed program of disarmament, demobilization and reinstatement” of its fighters within thirty days, in what is akin to a surrender. Its armed wing, the tiger defense forces (TDF), would have more than one hundred thousand soldiers, according to several observers.
crusade against the “saboteurs”
Symbol of a military and political defeat, the FLPT also had to resolve to govern the Tiger in concert with the federal authorities, who will ensure a presence in Makalé, the provincial capital, from next week. In addition to the immediate cessation of hostilities, the peace agreement provides for the restoration of basic services – electricity, telecommunications, bank – in the region, as well as free access to humanitarian agencies, the fight against hate speeches and the implementation of a transitional justice mechanism.
“The eyes of the whole world are turned to respect for this agreement,” insisted Olusegun Obasanjo. A panel of ten experts from the African Union will be responsible for checking the ceasefire in the tiger for a period of six months.
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