14-Feb-2024 Aljazeera
Addis summit raises questions about AU’s muted stance on Ethiopia rifts
For years, AU officials have refrained from addressing atrocities in Ethiopia. Analysts say this is strategic.
From Thursday, African leaders will gather in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, home of the African Union (AU), for the continental body’s annual summit. According to AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, regional integration and “maintaining momentum in addressing issues of peace and security” is high on the agenda
But in an ironic twist, the host of the summit has either initiated or been involved in multiple conflicts in the last three years. Ethiopia’s two-year civil war with the state of Tigray may have ended in November 2022 after a Pretoria pact, but federal troops are currently upping drone strikes against rebels known as Fano militia in the state of Amhara, next door to Tigray. This week, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council said “at least 45 civilians” had been killed by federal troops in Amhara
Within the Horn of Africa, Addis Ababa’s relations with neighbouring Mogadishu are frosty after Abiy Ahmed’s government announced a port deal this January with the autonomous region of Somaliland in return for recognition of its statehood – a development that has immensely angered Somalia.
Last month, Mahamat addressed a presummit session of the AU’s Permanent Representative’s Committee, stressing the importance of continent-wide solidarity and unity, citing conflicts in Sudan and Chad. He also called for a humanitarian ceasefire to end the war in Gaza
But there was no mention of Ethiopia.
For years, AU officials have refrained from addressing atrocities in their host nation, maintaining a somewhat passive stance – or even supporting it.
Two months after Prime Minister Abiy sent troops into Tigray in 2020 – the advent of a war some researchers are now calling the deadliest of the 21st century due to an estimated 600,000 civilian deaths – Mahamat seemingly applauded the deployment, describing it as a bold step “to preserve the unity, stability, and respect for the constitutional order of the country”.
The comments came shortly after the AU dismissed a Tigrayan serving the bloc as a security adviser, acquiescing to a request by Abiy’s government that he be fired for “disloyalty to the country”.
Nearly a year later, in a post it deleted and apologised for, the AU’s official X account (then Twitter) slammed the United States for urging the warring factions to consider dialogue
We’ve documented lots of massacres and worked to inform the outside world about such events,” explains Jan Nyssen, a geographer at Ghent University who led its research into the war’s casualties. “But the reaction of the African Union was very weak. The only [African leader] to express concern was Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame who had asked the international community to prioritise the Tigray war in early 2021
No scrutiny
Formally established in 2002, the AU’s precursor, the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) was founded in Addis Ababa in 1963 to lobby for the independence of African states from European colonial powers – and economic empowerment.
Ethiopia had long been identified as a home for Pan-Africanism, as the only African country to have fended off European colonisation, militarily.
The OAU’s founders, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah are widely credited as visionaries for an integrated Africa, and statues commemorating both men are outside the AU’s Chinese-built headquarters in Addis Ababa today.
Their ideals were passed onto the AU when it launched in the 2000s, with the added objective of fostering democracy. But the body has been frequently criticised for propping up ageing dictators, often at the expense of the civil liberties of millions of young Africans
Indeed, Ethiopia, enshrined in African history for its 19th-century battlefield victories over invading Italy, its role in the OAU’s establishment, and key diplomatic influence on the continent, has rarely come under scrutiny of any kind from the AU.
This, despite a history of domestic turmoil: for example mass arrests of street hawkers and the homeless in Addis Ababa, to keep out of view of visiting dignitaries and release after their departure, has gone unnoticed
In the hotly contested 2005 elections, then-Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared victory for his Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) party amid opposition complaints of vote rigging.
Despite allegations of fraud and killings of opposition demonstrators, AU observers declared the election results valid, much to the chagrin of observers from the European Union and human rights researchers
The government had expressed its displeasure with the AU’s inquiry, calling it ‘regrettable’ and ‘unilateral’,” explains journalist and Addis Standard magazine’s founder Tsedale Lemma. “It was a sign that whatever the Tigray inquiry was planning to achieve would be unwelcome by the African Union’s host state … [the ACHPR] never made a single report of the outcome public, if it had any,” she added. “Nor is there any public record of them making a trip to the then-besieged Tigray region
Despite five years of war in Oromia and six months of it in Amhara, and egregious conflict-related human rights violations in its back yard, I’m yet to see the AU’s Peace and Security Council convene a single meeting to discuss helping Ethiopia end either conflict