This week marks the third anniversary of the brutal war in Tigray and the first anniversary of the November 2022 Pretoria Peace Agreement between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which officially ended the hostilities.
Since the start of the war in early November 2020, Tigray and Ethiopia have witnessed devastation of an unprecedented scale. Under the watch of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who ironically got a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, an estimated 800 thousand people lost their lives due to either direct brutal killings, starvation or lack of access to essential medical care. At least 10,000 women and girls, and in some reported instances, men, endured the horrors of weaponized rape and sexual violence.
Additionally, the war involved the deliberate and systematic destruction and pillaging of civilian infrastructure and properties. A near complete siege and a communications blackout that lasted for almost the entire period of the war denied the six million people in the region access to basic services, including food and medical supplies. Hunger was used as a weapon of war resulting in humanitarian catastrophe which the Director General of the World Health Organization described as the worst manmade humanitarian disaster on Earth, with risks of genocide increasingly acknowledged.
The Pretoria peace deal: silent death in Tigray
The Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) signed in Pretoria on November 2, 2022, was met with great optimism since it called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, particularly the violence directed at civilians. It also stipulated unhindered humanitarian access, the swift withdrawal of foreign forces, and the establishment and strengthening of independent mechanisms to investigate human rights violations committed during the war to provide justice and accountability for survivors and victims. Unfortunately, one year on very few of these crucial stipulations have been realised.
Reports of ongoing violence against civilians in Tigray and beyond, including heinous acts of rape and sexual violence and killings, persist a year after the agreement’s signing, not least due to the presence of the Eritrean army and ethnic militias from the Amhara region who continue to occupy more than one-third of Tigray’s constitutionally recognised territories.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reported that these forces were responsible for committing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, which are yet to be fully investigated because the ongoing occupation of these areas has made them inaccessible to the outside world. Apart from the harrowing accounts shared by the fortunate few who have managed to escape or have recently been forcibly displaced, the fate of those who remain is unclear.
Life for some, especially in the capital city Mekelle is slowly getting back to normal, given the restoration of banking, internet and basic services. However, for most people conditions prevalent during the war persist. Most people face enormous difficulties as factories, private businesses, homes, and farms have been destroyed or looted and they have not been able to resume work. For some such as the Irob community, the siege largely remains in place and there is no humanitarian assistance. The situation remains dire for over a million people who remain internally displaced and lack humanitarian access. Survivors of sexual violence still lack access to much needed medical and psychological help to deal with their trauma as well as humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs.
To add fuel to the fire, both USAID and the World Food Programme (WFP), the two most prominent humanitarian agencies active in the region, halted their food assistance operations in April 2023 only after a brief period of food distribution following the ceasefire.
This was ostensibly due to substantial evidence of systematic diversion and theft, including allegations involving high-ranking government officials, according to a USAID investigation. This suspension of aid resulted in deaths from starvation as well as widespread hunger and malnutrition, especially of children. We wonder why USAID and WFP should make innocent survivors of a genocide pay the price for the malfeasance of corrupt public officials.
Poor mechanisms for achieving accountability and justice
Unlike the global focus on the wars in Ukraine and, more recently, in Palestine/Israel, there is little awareness of the situation unfolding in Tigray. This is because the region remains largely inaccessible to media and human rights bodies and also African wars sadly, often ‘remain out of sight and out of mind’.
Even the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’s recent report on the state of internal displacement in the country excluded the situation in Tigray and the Commission admitted that it could not access millions of Tigrayans who survived the many horrors that took place over the past three years.
A year after the ceasefire agreement, progress on investigating crimes and achieving justice and accountability for the victims and survivors is poor. Tigray’s dead, raped, sexually abused, wounded, and forcefully disappeared remain unaccounted for. In fact, evidence of crimes and human rights violations is being deliberately destroyed and cannot be documented by independent and credible human rights organizations.
The two international mechanisms that were established to investigate these heinous crimes and violations have been disbanded. Under pressure from the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments, the African Union quietly closed an investigation initiative launched in 2021, rendering it ineffective with no tangible results to show for its efforts.
In September 2023, the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE), an independent body established by the United Nations Human Rights Council released a chilling report exposing wide-ranging atrocities during the war. These included 49 different mass killings of innocent civilians by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, systematic sexual violence against thousands of women and girls, starvation and arbitrary detention.
It concluded that while all warring parties, including Tigrayan forces committed war crimes, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces committed crimes against humanity. It also stated that Ethiopia had failed to effectively investigate violations, because “Impunity, rather than accountability, is the norm regarding past violations.”
Sadly, the deadline for submitting a proposal for the extension of ICHREE passed last month, with none of the member states taking steps to extend its mandate. It is noteworthy that even the European Union, which had played a pivotal role in the establishment of this commission, remained silent and didn’t push for the extension.
Ethiopia claims that it is in the process of setting up its own transitional justice system. However, as noted even by ICHREE, many flawed processes at the federal level, including evasion, the lack of independent institutions and limited institutional capacity, mean that it is likely these mechanisms will merely serve as a quasi compliance gesture to appease the international community.
With conflicts spiralling in other regions of Ethiopia such as Amhara and Oromia, it is important that future cycles of war are prevented. Sadly, the African Union, USA, UK and EU have reverted back to ‘business as usual’ diplomatic relations with the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali. The vicious cycles of violence and impunity in Ethiopia risk continuing.
Without a firm commitment to achieving accountability, justice, and reconciliation on the part of both national and international actors, the prospects of post-war rehabilitation as well as hope for the justice for the people of Tigray and, indeed, sustainable peace in Ethiopia look bleak.
