Ethiopia searching for peace through what appears to be a campaign to change attitudes toward peace. Fixing the political structure and legal basis for conflict seems to be overlooked – if not ignored all together
borkena
The Ethiopian government says it has established a National Council For Peace. It is intended to bring together isolated works on peace, according to a report by Ethiopian News Agency – a state media.
The new council is to focus on three core areas; creating awareness and sound understanding of the importance of peace, community-level work with the aim to make people realize the value of peace and national peace-building work.
“The council is where we work together for our country’s peace,” said Benalf Andualem, who is the Minister for Peace.
The Ministry of Peace was formed after Abiy Ahmed took office at the height of prevalent ethnic-based violence – mostly in the Oromo and Benishangul Gumuz region of Ethiopia.
It is one of the most powerful government ministries.
Ethiopia’s challenge with security and peace
Ethnic-based politics in the country, which has a constitutional basis, nurtured a radical competing ethnic nationalism in the country to a point that even innocent citizens with little or no understanding of ethnic politics were massacred.
Ethiopia’s devastating two years war is said to have claimed at least 600,000 lives only in the Tigray region of Ethiopia appears, on the surface, a power struggle between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian government.
However, it became apparent that ethnic identity was extensively exploited to mobilize on the part of the TPLF forces.
Many of the ethnic-based regional states in the country have “boundary disputes” – which sometimes involve deadly violence.
Ethnic-based politics and administrative structure does not just have a legal support in the constitution but also it has fierce politicians who defend it despite it has caused the deaths of millions of Ethiopians due to outright war and massacre by ethnic nationalist groups.
In a recent remark during a training for diplomats, former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalenge said “Ethiopians should liberate themselves from divisive ideologies”
Many of the radical ethnic-based political organizations – including the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) consider themselves the “liberators” of the ethnic group they claim to represent. In that regard, some are “struggling to win independence” from Ethiopia.
The constitution entrenched ethnic politics when it said that Ethiopia is a federation of “nations and nationalities.” Article 39 of it clearly stipulates that it is legal to secede from Ethiopia.
National Dialogue as a panacea
In 2021, the Ethiopian parliament passed a law establishing a National Dialogue Commission with the aim to resolve issues that have been causing problems ( political and security) in Ethiopia.
The Commission has branches in the region. When the Commissioner, Professor Mesfin Araya, reported back to the parliament after the first phase of the commission’s work, he cited “over-expectation and intervention in the works of the National Dialogue Commission,” as some of the key challenges that it was facing.
The Dialogue was expected to start by this time but there appears to be a delay on the part of the commission. Some of the radical ethnic-based political groups in the country – like the Oromo Federalist Congress – opposed the commission on alleged grounds of neutrality issues.
__
To share information or for submission, send e-mail to info@borkena.com
Telegram Channel : t.me/borkena
Join the conversation. Follow us on twitter @zborkenato get the latest Ethiopian News updates regularly. Like borkena on Facebook as well. To share information or for submission, send e-mail to info@borkena.com
I’m not sure if you have watched it but Good Ole USA has won its match with Iran and is off to the next round. But did you see how players on both sides were so civil with the highest quality of sportsmanship? They were seen hugging and handshaking after the final whistle. That leaves no dry eyes to the beholders. That is how all young people behave when you take politics out of it. So now, The Netherlands, take notice. USA national soccer team is not a pushover, goal basket anymore. It is coming barreling at you!!! My Senegal has also won. Ghana and Morocco, let’s go! What a goal by Christian Pulisic, a grandson of immigrants just like every one of us, I may add!!! I’m good! I’m good for a week now!!!
Ittu Aba farda, loyal to PP
Oromo and amhara are dying massively and you are telling us about football.
Are you enjoying massacre of amhara and oromo if it doesn’t affect chair of PP ?
Did you have the chance to watch the match between Cameroon and Brazil today? If you didn’t, you have missed one of the biggest upsets in the World Cup history. Cameroon embarrassed the soccer powerhouse Brazil by a score of 1-0 and what a fantastic goal it was. Even though Cameroon did not make it to the next round with this historic win its players should go home with heads up high. They fought tooth and nail. You see, sometimes you need to lighten up by temporarily switching attention. Now I invite you to watch the game tomorrow between Good Ole USA and the Netherlands which I am predicting in USA’s favor. When the final whistle blows it will be 1-0 with USA on top. Also don’t miss the other two games Senegal vs. England and Morocco vs. Spain in which I am expecting both Senegal and Morocco to end up triumphant. Mark your calendar and watch. Happy watching!!!! Peace and blessings!!!
When did Abiy Ahmed and the Orommuma thugs ever searched for peace. Peace is an oxymoron with Abiy Ahmed and the PP/OPDO Orommuma thugs. Ethiopia is a living hell for majority of peaceful and law abiding citizens.
Anarchy, tyranny, massacre, misery are the definition of the current Ethiopia.
Prisons are expanding and over blown with innocent Amharas and Honest Journalist/s including INNOCENT Senior Citizen Mr. TADIOS TANTU.
The fact is the overwhelmingly huge Amhara population in Ethiopia has sent fear and shock to Abiy Ahmed and his loser/weak response is to mass arrest, intimidate and give training to Extremist Radical Oromos in Wellega and Showa to massacre and loot Amharas before he loses his power and gone hiding in Oromia Zone cage like the TPLF.
Faced with the well weaponized and armed Extreme Radical Oromo Genocide Slaughterers, People cry for, HELP and Safety and Law and Order in in All the CRY was to no avail . No Government body could hear them because there is no Government that wants their safety and existence..
To have some traction, the Council must be an independent and has professional competency plus some experience. It also must has a teeth and full mandate to do the job. Otherwise I would be in vain and waste of time and meager public resource.
I pray for this council to succeed in playing a vital part in finding a lasting peaceful solution to the main issues haunting that country for decades now. Peace a priority now and peace should remain a priority forever.
On the other front it seems the administrations seems to have finally found its mojo on the diplomatic front. Doomsday hecklers in BBC, AFP, AP, Reuters and others like them are shut up now. Kjetil and his groupies are down and out eating their crows. Those upright and glorious people of Tigray are waving the olive branch of sacred peace with their brothers and sisters of the rest of the country. Those citizens of Tigray didn’t take them too long to see their fake fiends like this Kjetil and his windbag hommies turning on them after they chose peace over war on November 02, 2022. Yesterday they called them geniuses on the battlefields and suggested military academies like the West Point and Sandhurst to use their tactics in their textbooks and now they are calling them coward losers. BBC is even accusing them of starting the war back in 2020. Now they know who is their real friends are.
The citizens of Tigray should have a say on whether to remain as part of non-peaceful, backward and poor Ethiopia. I am sure that the great majority of them will vote for the restoration of the once great, civilized and modern nation of Tigray. In hindsight the worst mistake by the TPLF leaders was to enter Finfine in 1991. They must have stopped in free Tigray. Now the Tigray citizens are paying high prices for this wrong decision taken then.
The citizens of Tigray should have a say on whether to remain as part of non-peaceful, backward and poor Ethiopia. I am sure that the great majority of them will vote for the restoration of the once great, civilized and modern nation of Tigray. In hindsight the worst mistake by the TPLF leaders was to enter Finfine in 1991. They must have stopped in free Tigray. Now the Tigray citizens are paying high prices for this wrong decision taken then.
Persons who know Tigray well tell that the region is very poor in terms of natural resources (poorest in Ethiopia) and can not support its own population. Tigray can not survive as a viable state and sustain its population. Nor can it be sustained as the predator in the region. The predatory politics of its elites is the source of the current conflict. It is believed that this is the main reason for the decision of TPLF leaders to invade the others and seize fertile land.