By E. Frashie | Ethiopian Tribune columnist

Ethiopia’s political theatre, under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, has become a masterclass in the management of appearances, whispers, and global expectations. The recent succession of high-profile international visits  the conspicuously warm hand-holding with India’s Prime Minister and the measured, almost surgical formality of Türkiye’s President Erdoğan revealed far more than diplomatic protocol. They exposed the entangled web of elite culture, public rumour, and the ordinary citizen’s bewildered gaze upon a country balancing precariously between internal fractures and external pressures.

Hovering above all of this is the rumour of the UAE president’s death  a story so vivid and so swiftly circulated across Turkish media, pan-Islamic channels, and social networks that it painted, for many, a portrait of secretive foreign influence, invisible hands, and the tantalising notion that Ethiopia’s leader might be quietly managing external chaos whilst projecting an image of unshakeable calm at home.

The contrast between India’s and Türkiye’s visits is, at its core, a study in how symbolism and substance collide. When India’s Prime Minister arrived, Abiy Ahmed received him with ceremonial grandeur  the public drive, the embraces, the hand-holding that delights both domestic media and diaspora audiences alike. Military bands performed. State dinners gleamed. The optics were unambiguous: India and Ethiopia, friends in both trade and spirit, bound by something warmer than treaty language. It was, in the most generous reading, diplomacy rendered as soft-focus emotional theatre  reassuring, photogenic, and carefully curated for international consumption.

Erdoğan’s February 2026 visit was an altogether different affair. There were no embraces, no personal driving tours, no gestures of playful camaraderie. Instead, the Turkish President delivered firm, layered statements about the Horn of Africa warning that the region must not become a battleground for foreign powers, rejecting Israeli recognition of Somaliland, and invoking shared historical and cultural ties through gestures such as the restoration of the Al-Nejashi mosque. The messaging operated on multiple frequencies simultaneously: cultural diplomacy through Islamic heritage, strategic caution against external interference, and economic signalling through Turkey’s legacy of railway investment and infrastructure ambition in the region. Abiy, for his part, navigated Erdoğan’s visit with chess-like restraint measured nods, careful phrasing, and the composure of a leader acutely aware that every gesture is being read by multiple audiences at once.

Perhaps nowhere was Ethiopia’s diplomatic complexity more visibly compressed than in the pageantry of state ceremony itself. Female Muslim ministers appeared in modest, conservative attire a calculated gesture of cultural respect towards Erdoğan’s perceived Islamic sensibility. Simultaneously, Ethiopia’s military band performed with unapologetic professionalism in ceremonial dress that bore no such concession to conservative norms. To the casual observer, it appeared a contradiction: secular and Islamic, deferential and assertive, all within the same state theatre and the same afternoon. To those inside the inner circle, it was a deliberate and nuanced display Ethiopia asserting its inclusivity, its sovereign authority, and its capacity to speak to multiple audiences without committing entirely to any one of them.

Yet even as these carefully managed ceremonies unfolded, a parallel and far more troubling drama was playing out just beyond the edges of the official frame  one that seasoned security professionals have begun to regard not merely as an embarrassment, but as a genuine and escalating threat. Wander through the corridors of any recent state function, stroll the perimeters of a parliamentary session, or position yourself anywhere near a visiting dignitary in Addis Ababa today, and you will encounter them: a new and rapidly proliferating breed of young Ethiopian digital content creators, gimbal-stabilised cameras strapped to their bodies, backpacks laden with equipment, telephoto lenses the length of a man’s forearm trained with startling intimacy upon the faces, movements, and immediate personal spaces of heads of state, senior ministers, and foreign dignitaries. They move through these environments with the breezy, unearned confidence of those who have confused a press badge  or sometimes the mere appearance of one,  with a security clearance. They possess, by all observable evidence, no formal training in the protocols, boundaries, or responsibilities that govern proximity to protected individuals. And they appear entirely unbothered by this fact.

The entitlement on display is, to anyone with even a passing familiarity with close-protection doctrine, quite breathtaking. These are not seasoned photojournalists who have spent years learning where the line is, why it exists, and what it costs when it is crossed. These are, in the main, young men intoxicated by the social currency of expensive equipment and the follower counts that footage of powerful people can generate. They materialise at parliament. They appear at state receptions. They insert themselves into the working perimeters of visiting foreign leaders with a casualness that would trigger immediate and forceful responses in virtually any other capital city in the world. In London, Washington, Ankara, or New Delhi, a man walking within arm’s reach of a head of state with a backpack, a gimbal, and a telephoto lens  without verified, screened, and closely supervised accreditation would find himself face-down on the floor within seconds, surrounded by individuals whose professional instincts had already calculated every possible implication of his presence. In Addis Ababa, he gets the shot, posts it to his channel, and collects the views.

Security analysts who have observed this phenomenon with growing alarm are not mincing their words. The convergence of several factors  the accessibility of high-resolution imaging equipment, the hunger for digital content, the culture of entitlement that pervades certain social circles in the capital, and the conspicuous gaps in how access to sensitive environments is controlled and enforced creates what one expert described, in terms that should give every responsible official pause, as a gathering storm. These young operators, operating today with apparent innocence and tomorrow with unknown motivations or under unknown influences, represent a vector of potential harm that Ethiopian security architecture has not yet adequately reckoned with. A telephoto lens that can capture the iris of a dignitary from forty metres can equally be used to gather intelligence on movement patterns, security formations, and personal vulnerabilities. A gimbal operator who has learnt, through repeated unchallenged access, exactly how close he can get before anyone reacts, has also learnt something that no hostile actor should ever be permitted to know. The question is not whether these individuals intend harm today. The question is what happens when someone who does intend harm observes that the door is open, the access is easy, and the consequences are nonexistent.

The scene at parliament is particularly instructive, and particularly galling to those who understand what they are looking at. Session after session, these self-appointed videographers wander into the sight lines of accredited international media, their enormous lenses jutting into carefully composed shots, their gimbal rigs swinging with cheerful obliviousness through spaces that ought to be controlled, their physical presence a constant, low-grade disruption to the professionals around them. To the accredited journalist trying to capture a considered, properly framed image from a respectful distance, they are an irritant the photographic equivalent of someone talking loudly on their telephone in a library. But to the security professional tasked with maintaining a protective envelope around the individuals in that room, they are something considerably more serious. They are unknowns. They are unvetted. They are close. And in the calculus of close-protection work, an unvetted unknown in close proximity to a principal is not an inconvenience it is a contingency that must be planned for, every single time, because the one time it is not will be the time it matters.

What makes this situation particularly pointed in the Ethiopian context is the class and entitlement dimension that runs through it like a fault line. These are not individuals who have fought their way into these spaces through years of professional credibility. Many have arrived there through social connections, through the reflected glamour of association with powerful figures, through the simple fact that nobody with the authority to stop them has yet chosen to do so consistently. They carry their equipment like a credential and their confidence like a clearance. They have absorbed, somewhere along the way, the lesson that in Ethiopia, if you look the part and move with sufficient assurance, the doors tend to open. It is the same lesson, expressed through a very different medium, that underlies the Feyisa Lilesa scandal the conviction, whether held consciously or simply lived unconsciously, that certain people in this country are simply not subject to the same rules as everyone else.

This same duality, so carefully choreographed on the ceremonial stage, finds a far less flattering mirror in the domain of elite accountability at home  and no case has crystallised public fury quite like that of Feyisa Lilesa. The celebrated Oromo long-distance runner, who once captured the world’s imagination and the conscience of a people with a single crossed-arm gesture on the Olympic podium in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, now finds himself at the centre of a scandal that has ignited a firestorm of outrage across Ethiopian society. According to reports circulating widely and discussed at length by Addis Mereja, Lilesa was involved in a serious road traffic collision in the Jemo Michael area of Addis Ababa  an incident that has since escalated from a tragic accident into a deeply charged political and moral reckoning.

The human cost of that collision is not abstract. A sixteen-year-old child is dead. Another individual sustained a broken bone and remains under medical treatment. These are not statistics  they are lives, and families, torn apart on an ordinary Addis Ababa street. Yet what has incensed the Ethiopian public beyond even the tragedy of the accident itself are the alleged circumstances that followed it. Reports claim that rather than submitting to police authority at the scene, Lilesa brandished a firearm and used it to intimidate officers, effectively preventing his own arrest. If accurate, this is not merely a legal violation  it is a declaration, however implicit, that certain individuals in Ethiopia exist beyond the ordinary reach of the law.

And then came the Facebook post. In the immediate aftermath of an accident that had killed a child and injured another person, Lilesa reportedly took to social media to describe the incident as a common accident, the sort of thing that could happen to anyone. The public reaction was swift and visceral. To many Ethiopians who had watched this unfold, the post read not as an expression of remorse but as a performance of nonchalance the casual deflection of a man confident that consequence would not find him. It was, to borrow the language of the streets, the message of someone who does not believe he will ever truly be held to account.

The rumours that followed were, in some ways, the most damning development of all. Widespread reports began to circulate — unconfirmed as yet by any official authority — that Lilesa had fled Ethiopia entirely, with Dubai emerging as the most frequently named destination. The Ethiopian police have not, at the time of writing, issued any official confirmation or denial of these reports. That silence, in itself, speaks volumes to a public that has grown finely attuned to the language of institutional evasion. When the state says nothing, Ethiopians have long since learnt to interpret that nothing with considerable sophistication.

This is not the first time Lilesa’s conduct has drawn public censure, and the pattern is instructive. When previously accused of public intoxication and disputes with neighbours, his reported response was characteristically defiant: “If I drink, I drink with my own money.” It was the retort of a man who had confused personal achievement with personal impunity — who had, somewhere along the road from Rio to Addis Ababa, begun to believe that fame was a form of sovereignty. His dismissive remarks about Ethiopia’s rising fuel prices — a crisis felt acutely by millions of ordinary citizens — further alienated those who might otherwise have retained residual goodwill towards him. And his controversial comments regarding the use of the Amharic language in traditional Oromo Aba Gada justice proceedings struck many as wilfully divisive, a provocation dressed in the language of cultural assertion.

The political dimension of Lilesa’s trajectory adds yet another layer of complexity to an already tangled story. When he returned to Ethiopia in 2018 following his self-imposed exile after Rio, he did so as a vocal and enthusiastic supporter of the Abiy Ahmed government — a transformation that struck many of his former admirers as jarring, even bewildering. The man who had crossed his arms above his head on the world’s most watched sporting stage, in solidarity with an Oromo people then facing brutal state repression, had become, in the eyes of some, a symbol of the very political accommodation he once appeared to resist. Whether that shift reflected genuine conviction, pragmatic calculation, or something more complicated entirely is a question that only Lilesa can answer. What is beyond dispute is that it reconfigured his public identity in ways that continue to reverberate.

For ordinary Ethiopians watching all of this unfold, the Lilesa affair is not simply about one man. It is a referendum on the question that sits at the heart of every functioning society: does the law apply equally, or does it bend for those with fame, political proximity, and the means to board a flight before the consequences arrive? Citizens observe the contrast with bitter clarity — ministers in modest attire performing deference to foreign dignitaries, military women dancing in ceremonial dress for the cameras, and a celebrated athlete who allegedly pointed a firearm at police officers and may now be sipping coffee in Dubai whilst a sixteen-year-old lies in a grave in Addis Ababa. The cognitive dissonance is not lost on anyone. It feeds rumour. It deepens mistrust. And it makes even the most outlandish whispers about foreign power brokers and shadowy elite networks feel, to many, entirely plausible — because the architecture of privilege that surrounds them is demonstrably, visibly real.

It is worth pausing here to observe that the gimbal-toting content creator shouldering his way past protocol officers at a state function and the celebrated athlete allegedly brandishing a firearm at police officers in Jemo Michael are, at some fundamental level, expressions of the same cultural pathology. Both represent individuals who have concluded, through experience, through impunity, through the repeated failure of institutions to assert boundaries,  that the rules governing ordinary Ethiopians simply do not apply to them. The content creator has learnt that nobody will stop him from walking into sensitive spaces with a backpack full of equipment and a telephoto lens trained on a foreign head of state. Lilesa apparently learnt that a firearm and a certain quality of confidence could send police officers stepping backwards. The specific expressions differ enormously. The underlying logic is identical. And it is a logic that, left unaddressed, corrodes everything it touches,  from the credibility of state institutions to the physical safety of the nation’s most protected individuals.

Addis Mereja’s coverage of the Lilesa incident concludes with a call that is as simple as it is urgent: the police must provide a transparent and timely update to the Ethiopian public. It is a demand that ought not to require stating. That it does,  that citizens must actively petition their institutions for basic accountability in a case involving a dead child and a nationally known figure,  is itself a measure of how far public trust in those institutions has eroded. Justice, in this instance, is not a complicated philosophical concept. It is a sixteen-year-old who deserved to grow up, and a family that deserves to know that their loss was not simply absorbed into the great Ethiopian silence that tends to swallow inconvenient truths.

Ethiopia’s leadership is simultaneously juggling several weighty portfolios that seldom receive the coherent public narrative they demand. Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones signal military cooperation and procurement ambition. Railway investments, stalled by conflict and entangled in international arbitration, symbolise both the country’s grand infrastructure vision and its fragility in executing it. Mosque restorations gesture towards humanitarian and religious legitimacy on the international stage. Each element is deployed strategically,  showing just enough to reassure partners whilst carefully concealing vulnerabilities that a more transparent posture might expose. Yet it is arguably the vulnerabilities closest to home,  the entitled photographer at the palace gate, the athlete on a flight to Dubai,  that pose the most immediate and corrosive risk to the project of building a credible, governed state.

The rumour mill, meanwhile, does not pause for diplomatic niceties. The widely circulated story of the UAE president’s death  amplified by Turkish media and pan-Arab channels became a proxy for a broader public anxiety about foreign influence in Ethiopian affairs. For elites, it was a whispered talking point, a potential leverage in shadow conversations. For the layperson, it was fuel for outrage, suspicion, and political imagination. For the Prime Minister, it represented an opportunity: demonstrate control through public calm, measured diplomacy, and the quiet redirection of attention. In Ethiopia, as in many states where official communication is limited and political opacity is the norm, rumour does not merely fill the gaps in understanding, it becomes the primary currency of political discourse.

The satirical image almost writes itself. The Ethiopian Prime Minister, immaculately composed, nods attentively as Erdoğan’s eyes sweep the room with the cool deliberation of a general reviewing a chessboard. Behind them, a military band plays with disciplined flair whilst ministers in conservative Islamic dress murmur protocol reminders to one another. And somewhere just off to the side, perhaps three steps closer than any security doctrine would permit, a young man in a branded hoodie swings a gimbal-mounted camera towards the Turkish President’s face, his enormous telephoto lens catching the light, his backpack brushing the elbow of a close-protection officer who glances sideways with visible unease but says nothing, because nobody has yet told him definitively what to do about this. Cameras flash. Social media erupts with speculation about Arab power brokers, athletes allegedly fled to Dubai, and railway arbiters counting their fees in distant capitals. The content creator posts his footage. The views pour in. And the Prime Minister smiles, pours the tea, and holds the room, master of ceremonies, tactician, and juggler of perceptions across a stage that is, in more ways than one, alarmingly unsecured.

What this theatre ultimately reveals is the extraordinary complexity of Ethiopia’s balancing act,  both internally and externally. Domestically, the government must speak to Christians and Muslims, to Oromo and non-Oromo communities, to elites and ordinary citizens whose lived realities could not be more divergent. Externally, it must manage relationships with the UAE, Türkiye, India, Israel, China, and Western donors, each with their own expectations, their own leverage, and their own interpretation of every gesture Ethiopia makes. Every decision, from a minister’s choice of attire to the selection of ceremonial music, from a drone procurement deal to a mosque restoration, carries multiple and often contradictory signals. The art lies not in eliminating that contradiction but in holding it together long enough to keep every audience sufficiently satisfied. What cannot be held together indefinitely, however, is a security culture in which entitlement substitutes for vetting, and a social culture in which impunity substitutes for accountability.

The lessons embedded in this complex choreography are not trivial ones. Opacity, wherever it persists, breeds narrative creation,  and not always the narratives that governments would choose. Perception, verified or otherwise, shapes legitimacy in ways that policy alone cannot correct. Optics matter as profoundly as action, because the theatre of governance is watched not only by foreign partners but by citizens who are drawing their own quiet conclusions about fairness, competence, and sovereignty. And satire, in such an environment, is sometimes the only honest lens available, the only tool capable of holding the absurdity and the seriousness of it all in the same frame without flinching. But satire has its limits. A security breach does not.

Abiy Ahmed’s Ethiopia is, in the final accounting, many things at once,  a secular state with a deeply religious population, a military state with a taste for flamboyant ceremony, a country navigating elite favouritism and foreign influence whilst performing confidence on a world stage. The Prime Minister’s particular genius lies not in controlling every rumour, some, like the story drifting in from the Arab world, are simply beyond any government’s reach, but in managing appearances with sufficient skill that the performance itself becomes a form of power. India’s warmth, Erdoğan’s formality, the whispers from the Gulf, the contradictions of the ceremony hall, the sight of a celebrated Olympian allegedly fleeing accountability on a flight to Dubai whilst a teenager’s family mourns in Addis Ababa, and the gimbal operator who has just walked, unchallenged, to within two metres of a visiting head of state all of it intersects within a single, breathtakingly intricate and increasingly fragile theatre of governance.

For the casual observer, it may read as chaos, even farce. For the political analyst, it is a study in survival, strategy, and the calculated management of perception. For the security professional, it is something closer to a slow-motion crisis waiting for its moment. And for Ethiopia itself, the lesson endures: in a world governed as much by optics as by facts, appearances, carefully choreographed, can be every bit as powerful as the truth. But a sixteen-year-old child is dead. A foreign dignitary’s movements are being filmed from arm’s reach by someone nobody has screened. And no amount of choreography, however immaculate, can indefinitely paper over the cracks in a state that has not yet decided, with full seriousness, that its rules apply to everyone equally including those holding the most expensive cameras in the room.

About Post Author

Ethiopian Tribune editor

editor@ethiopiantribune.com

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By Sewasew Teklemariam

There is something almost tragicomic about watching great powers rediscover Ethiopia every few decades, dusting off the same old script: brave ally, reliable troops, convenient geography. One might be forgiven for thinking that somewhere in Washington, a filing cabinet labelled “Break Glass in Case of Unpopular War” contains a single index card reading: “Try Ethiopia.”

And so here we are again. Seventy-four years after Ethiopian soldiers froze in Korean trenches defending a principle called “collective security,” Addis Ababa finds itself courted once more, this time for Gaza, that graveyard of diplomatic ambition and geopolitical vanity. The Americans, it seems, have run out of takers. The Arabs are squeamish. The Europeans are preoccupied. Enter Ethiopia: loyal, militarily competent, and crucially still returning phone calls.

One almost admires the symmetry.

Let us begin with an uncomfortable fact that tends to disappear from polite diplomatic conversation: Ethiopia earned its stripes as an international actor not through hashtag solidarity or conference-room grandstanding, but by sending young men to die in someone else’s war. Between 1951 and 1954, over 6,000 Ethiopian troops served in Korea under the United Nations Command, personally authorised by Emperor Haile Selassie. The Kagnew Battalions fought at Pork Chop Hill, Old Baldy, and other places whose names now exist only in military histories and fading monuments. They earned a distinction almost quaint by today’s standards: not a single Ethiopian soldier was left behind or captured. Not one (United Nations Command historical records; US Army Center of Military History).

This was not theatre. It was war, and Ethiopia bled for it. The casualty figures, whilst modest by Korean War standards, were significant for a country of Ethiopia’s size and resources. Ethiopian field hospitals treated wounded Americans, Britons, and Turks alongside their own. Ethiopian officers coordinated with UN commanders in conditions that would test any alliance. And when the armistice was signed in 1953, Ethiopia remained in Korea for another year, because that was what collective security demanded.

Why? Because Haile Selassie, having watched the League of Nations abandon his country to Mussolini’s poison gas in 1936, believed, perhaps naively, that multilateralism might actually mean something if smaller nations upheld it. Ethiopia, he reasoned, must defend collective security abroad so that collective security might one day defend Ethiopia. It was a wager on principle over pragmatism, idealism over cynicism, the sort of bet that history tends to punish with exquisite cruelty.

It didn’t, of course. But more on that shortly.

The Korean deployment was not merely military. It was deeply symbolic. Here was an African nation, barely a decade removed from Italian occupation, standing shoulder to shoulder with the West not as a supplicant or protectorate, but as an equal partner in defence of international law. Ethiopian diplomats at the United Nations made much of this. So did American officials, who found Ethiopia’s participation useful for demonstrating that the Korean intervention was a truly international effort, not merely Western imperialism in multilateral drag.

Yet even then, cracks were visible. Ethiopian requests for military aid and modernisation assistance were met with warm words and modest gestures, but nothing approaching the largesse showered on more strategically located allies. The message, subtle but unmistakable, was clear: Ethiopia’s contribution was valued, but not valuable enough to fundamentally alter the transactional calculus of Cold War patronage.

Fast forward to December 2025. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Addis Ababa, all smiles and Memoranda of Understanding. Bilateral relations are elevated to a “Strategic Partnership” that most elastic of diplomatic phrases, meaning everything and nothing simultaneously. There is talk of customs cooperation, digital infrastructure, peacekeeping training, and G20 debt relief (Government of India press briefings; Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs statements). All very modern. All very multilateral. The optics are impeccable: two ancient civilisations, both asserting themselves on the global stage, forging bonds of South-South cooperation untainted by colonial baggage.

Then, almost on cue, the other shoe drops.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to the Times of Israel, has asked Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to consider contributing Ethiopian troops to a proposed International Stabilisation Force for Gaza (Times of Israel, 19 December 2025). Not a UN mission, mind you. Not even a particularly coherent coalition. Just a hastily assembled fig leaf for President Trump’s latest ceasefire plan, which Arab and Muslim states are treating like a radioactive briefcase (Reuters, 17 December 2025).

Pakistan has demurred. Indonesia is dodging calls. Saudi Arabia is suddenly very interested in Yemen again. Egypt, despite its own security concerns in Sinai, has made its discomfort plain. Jordan, normally America’s most reliable Arab partner, is keeping a careful distance. Even the Gulf states, usually amenable to American security requests when sufficiently incentivised, have found reasons to be elsewhere.

And so Washington, in its infinite resourcefulness, has turned to Ethiopia: that reliable old warhorse, still standing after everyone else has bolted from the stable. One might call it flattering, if it weren’t so depressingly familiar.

To be fair, Ethiopia is a serious peacekeeping nation. It currently ranks among the top global contributors to UN missions, with troops in Abyei, Darfur, and Somalia (UN Department of Peace Operations data). Ethiopian soldiers are disciplined, experienced, and, unlike certain Western contingents, unlikely to flee at the first whiff of cordite. They have earned respect in some of Africa’s most challenging environments, operating in conditions that would give European defence ministers nightmares and human rights lawyers apoplexy.

But Gaza is not Darfur. And the proposed ISF is not a UN mission.

It is a politically contested, regionally explosive, militarily ambiguous intervention in one of the world’s most volatile theatres. Trump’s ceasefire framework explicitly links stabilisation to Hamas disarmament, a condition that Hamas rejects, Arab states won’t enforce, and no serious analyst believes can be achieved without catastrophic escalation (Reuters; public statements by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, November 2025). The very premise of the mission is contested. The rules of engagement are undefined. The exit strategy is non-existent. The political legitimacy is questionable at best.

In other words, it’s a deathtrap wrapped in a press release. And Ethiopia is being asked to walk into it.

The parallel to Korea is instructive, but not in the way American officials might hope. Korea, whatever its horrors, was a UN-mandated mission with broad international support, clear opposing forces, and a defined military objective. Gaza would be none of these things. It would be an occupation masquerading as stabilisation, a political arrangement imposed by force and sustained by the presence of foreign troops whom neither side particularly wants. Ethiopian soldiers would find themselves policing a ceasefire that nobody believes in, enforcing a disarmament that cannot be achieved, and serving as convenient targets for any faction seeking to demonstrate its resistance credentials.

Then there is Egypt, which watches all of this with the cold attentiveness of a creditor studying a debtor’s new car. Relations between Addis Ababa and Cairo are hardly warm. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam remains a source of existential anxiety for Egypt, which views Ethiopian control over Nile waters the way Britain once viewed German control of the Channel: intolerable.

Ethiopian troops in Gaza, right on Egypt’s doorstep, would be read in Cairo not as burden-sharing, but as triangulation. Ethiopia securing American goodwill in the Middle East whilst remaining immovable on the Nile. Geopolitical judo. Egypt might publicly welcome the assistance, might even offer logistical support and coordinated border security. Privately, it would seethe. And mistrust, once entrenched, is devilishly difficult to dislodge. Every Ethiopian patrol near Rafah would be interpreted through the prism of Nile politics. Every American commendation of Ethiopian reliability would be seen as a subtle rebuke to Egyptian inflexibility on GERD.

The broader Arab world would face similar contradictions. How does one explain to a restive population that African troops are being deployed to stabilise Gaza when Arab armies stood aside? The optics are appalling. The politics worse. Ethiopian participation, however well-intentioned, risks becoming a symbol not of international cooperation but of Arab impotence and Western manipulation.

To understand why many Ethiopians regard these American overtures with the enthusiasm one reserves for unsolicited timeshare presentations, one must confront an inconvenient historical truth: the West has form. The overthrow of Ethiopia’s monarchy in 1974 was not merely a domestic revolution. It was Cold War opportunism dressed in Marxist rhetoric. Haile Selassie, having served as a steadfast American ally, hosting Kagnew Station, America’s largest communications facility in Africa, supporting Western positions at the UN, maintaining open trade and diplomatic channels, found that loyalty evaporated the moment his utility did.

Western powers, suddenly squeamish about imperial anachronism and distracted by Vietnam, Watergate, and oil shocks, stood aside. The Soviets, delighted, moved in with advisors, weapons, and ideological support (Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia; declassified US and Soviet Cold War records). What followed was not liberation, but systematic dismantling. Ethiopia’s historical state structure was replaced by a Derg regime whose brutality matched its incompetence, and then by an ethno-federal system whose long-term consequences are still being violently litigated in Tigray, Oromia, and Amhara.

The lesson? Loyalty rewarded when convenient. Sovereignty negotiable when inconvenient.

Nor did the post-Cold War era offer correction. Instead, Ethiopia became a laboratory for externally endorsed political engineering, celebrated when stable, condemned when fractured. Critics argue, with some justice, that the international community prioritised short-term manageability over long-term cohesion, tolerating governance models that institutionalised division whilst ignoring their destabilising effects. Western donors pumped billions into Ethiopia during the Meles Zenawi years, praising “African Renaissance” and “developmental state” whilst carefully averting their gaze from political repression and ethnic manipulation.

When the system finally collapsed into civil war in 2020, those same donors expressed shock, shocked!that such instability could emerge from a framework they had spent decades endorsing. It is within this historical memory that fears of a “second disintegration” must be understood, not as paranoia, but as pattern recognition.

If Ethiopia commits troops to Gaza without a clear UN mandate, defined rules of engagement, and regional consensus, it risks becoming once again, the geopolitical equivalent of a hired extra: visible in the frame, expendable in the edit. The question is not whether Ethiopia can contribute to global peace. Korea answered that. The question is whether selective internationalism, driven by great-power convenience, will once again leave Ethiopia holding the bag whilst others collect the applause.

There is also the domestic dimension to consider. Ethiopia is hardly in a position of domestic tranquillity from which to project military power abroad. The Tigray conflict may have formally ended, but its political, economic, and humanitarian consequences continue to reverberate. Ethnic tensions remain acute. The economy is strained. The military itself has been stretched thin by years of internal conflict. Deploying thousands of troops to Gaza whilst Amhara and Oromia simmer would be the diplomatic equivalent of reorganising the deck chairs whilst the hull takes on water.

Ethiopia’s history, from Korea to Cold War abandonment, from peacekeeping leadership to domestic fragmentation, offers a lesson that extends beyond Addis Ababa. It is a lesson about the limits of loyalty in an international system that rewards power and punishes principle. Strategic partnerships grounded in development and mutual respect, such as the one recently signed with India, strengthen sovereignty because they assume equality of agency and mutuality of benefit. Security arrangements imposed by geopolitical necessity do not, because they assume hierarchy and instrumentality.

If there is to be another chapter in Ethiopia’s long record of international service, it must be written with historical memory as strategy, not sentiment. The Kagnew Battalions deserve better than to be remembered as a cautionary tale of loyalty unrequited. Ethiopia’s current generation deserves better than to repeat their predecessors’ mistakes in a different desert, under a different flag, for similarly nebulous reasons.

The filing cabinet remains open. The index card remains tempting. But perhaps this time, Ethiopia might politely suggest that someone else take a turn. After all, there are plenty of nations who have benefited from American patronage over the decades. Perhaps it’s their turn to demonstrate that special relationships involve actual reciprocity, not just convenient deployment schedules.

History, as they say, doesn’t repeat itself. But it does rhyme. And Ethiopia has heard this particular verse before.

Key Sources:
United Nations Command & UN Department of Peace Operations historical records; US Army Center of Military History (Korean War archives); Times of Israel, 19 December 2025; Reuters, 17 December 2025; Government of India and Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs press releases; Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia

About Post Author

Ethiopian Tribune editor

editor@ethiopiantribune.com

https://ethiopiantribune.com

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Current Situation: Renewed Offensives and Government Claims

The Amhara conflict, now approaching its second year, has intensified dramatically in recent days. Fano insurgents—a coalition of Amhara nationalist militias—launched a coordinated offensive dubbed “Operation Unity” targeting Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) positions across multiple zones, including South Gondar, North Wollo, and Gojjam . The Ethiopian government has framed this escalation as part of a broader conspiracy, alleging that Brigadier General Migbe Haile, a Tigrayan military leader aligned with the TPLF’s Debretsion faction, orchestrated the campaign to destabilize both Amhara and Tigray’s interim administration .

The ENDF claims to have “crushed” the offensive, reporting 317 Fano fighters killed, 125 captured, and 15 intelligence officers detained in clashes from March 26–28 . However, Fano sources dispute these figures, asserting decisive victories and the liberation of detained civilians in towns like Merawi and Lalibela . Independent verification remains challenging due to communication blackouts and restricted media access .

Government’s Narrative: Linking Fano to Tigrayan Factions

The Ethiopian government has intensified its rhetoric, accusing Tigrayan General Migbe Haile of masterminding Fano’s operations. According to ENDF statements, Migbe allegedly smuggled gold through Eritrea to fund Fano and sought to undermine the 2022 Pretoria Agreement, which ended the Tigray War . This narrative aligns with broader government efforts to frame the Amhara insurgency as a proxy conflict fueled by Tigrayan remnants opposed to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration .

Critics argue this linkage is a strategic ploy to justify harsher counterinsurgency tactics and divert attention from domestic grievances, such as Amhara’s perceived marginalization and unresolved territorial disputes with Tigray over areas like Welkait and Raya .

Civilian Toll and Humanitarian Crisis

The conflict has inflicted severe humanitarian suffering:

• Civilian Casualties: Reports of extrajudicial killings by ENDF troops, including the Merawi massacre in January 2025 where dozens were executed, have drawn condemnation from Human Rights Watch and the EU .
• Displacement and Aid Blockades: Over 2 million Amhara civilians are displaced, with aid agencies warning of food shortages and collapsed healthcare systems . The region’s status as Ethiopia’s breadbasket raises fears of nationwide famine .
• Ethnic Targeting: Amhara communities outside their homeland, particularly in Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz, face systematic violence, with allegations of state-backed ethnic cleansing .

Geopolitical Context and Historical Grievances

The Amhara conflict stems from decades of systemic marginalization and failed federal policies:

• Post-Tigray War Fallout: Amhara militias, once allied with Abiy during the Tigray War (2020–2022), felt betrayed by the Pretoria Agreement, which ignored their territorial claims and disbanded their regional forces .
• Ethnic Federalism: The 1994 constitution’s ethnic-based federal system, designed under TPLF dominance, entrenched divisions. Amhara nationalists view it as a tool for their political and economic disenfranchisement .
• Centralization vs. Autonomy: Abiy’s push to dissolve regional militias in 2023 ignited protests, driving defections to Fano and fueling insurgency .

International Response and Future Implications

• Diplomatic Inaction: Despite calls for dialogue from the AU and EU, international actors have limited leverage. The U.S. and EU condemned atrocities but stopped short of imposing sanctions .
• Risk of Regional Spillover: Eritrea’s alleged mobilization and Sudan’s border closures after Fano seized Metemma (September 2024) hint at broader destabilization .
• Fano’s Decentralized Resilience: While Fano lacks a unified command, its grassroots support and control over 80% of rural Amhara suggest a protracted stalemate .

A Path to Escalation or Negotiation?

The Ethiopian government’s reliance on military solutions risks deepening the crisis. With Fano factions now merging to form a cohesive entity , the conflict could evolve into a full-scale civil war, further fracturing Ethiopia’s fragile federal structure. Conversely, a negotiated settlement—including lifting the state of emergency, addressing Amhara grievances, and inclusive national dialogue—remains the only viable path to peace .

As one anonymous source noted, the government’s focus on Tigrayan conspiracies may foreshadow expanded offensives, potentially reigniting tensions with Tigray and Eritrea . Without urgent de-escalation, Ethiopia’s future hangs in the balance.

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concerning picture for Ethiopia’s progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Urgent call for UN reform to revive stalled progress on SDG’s

The latest Sustainable Development Report, released on June 13, paints a concerning picture for Ethiopia’s progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The East African nation ranked 145th out of 167 countries in the 2024 SDG Index, underscoring the significant challenges it faces in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The SDG Index, produced annually by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), measures countries’ overall progress on the 17 SDGs, which include goals such as ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, and taking action on climate change. Ethiopia’s score of 56.6 puts it well below the global average of 71.5 and places it in the “red zone” category, denoting major challenges across multiple SDG areas.

“Ethiopia’s low ranking in the SDG Index is a wake-up call that more concerted action is needed to put the country on a sustainable development path,” said Guillaume Lafortune, the report’s coordinator. “While Ethiopia has made some progress, it is still grappling with deep-seated challenges related to poverty, food security, health, and environmental protection that are hindering its ability to achieve the ambitious 2030 Agenda.”

The report notes that Ethiopia’s relatively low ranking is partly a reflection of the significant development challenges it faces as a low-income country. However, it also highlights the need for the government to redouble its efforts and implement more ambitious, evidence-based policies to accelerate progress on the SDGs.

“Ethiopia has demonstrated a strong commitment to the SDGs, but the results show that much more needs to be done,” said Lafortune. “With the right strategies and international support, Ethiopia can make faster strides towards a more sustainable and equitable future for its people.”

The report from SDSN also has issued a stark warning – the world is significantly off track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the 2030 deadline.

The report finds that only 16% of SDG targets are currently on track globally, with the remaining 84% demonstrating limited progress or even reversal. This stagnation in SDG progress since 2020 is occurring across a range of critical areas, including hunger, sustainable cities, life below water, life on land, and peace and justice.

“Midway between the founding of the UN in 1945 and the year 2100, we cannot rely on business as usual,” said Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, President of the SDSN and a lead author of the report. “The world faces great global challenges, including dire ecological crises, widening inequalities, disruptive technologies, and deadly conflicts – we are at a crossroads.”

The report highlights stark disparities in SDG progress between country groups. Nordic countries continue to lead in SDG achievement, with Finland, Sweden, and Denmark topping the 2024 SDG Index. However, even these high-performing countries face significant challenges in meeting certain goals.

In contrast, the gap between the global SDG average and the performance of the poorest and most vulnerable nations, including Small Island Developing States, has widened since 2015. This uneven progress is driven in part by a chronic shortfall in sustainable development financing, particularly for low-income and lower-middle-income countries.

The report calls for urgent reform of the United Nations to “strengthen global cooperation and financing for sustainable development.” It presents five complementary strategies to reform the global financial architecture, including new institutions, forms of global taxation, and priorities for investment in areas like quality education.

Alongside the SDG Index, the 2024 report introduces a new Index of countries’ support for UN-based multilateralism. This ranking shows Barbados as the global leader in commitment to the UN system, while the United States ranks last among the 193 UN member states.

As the world prepares for the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024, the SDSN report underscores the imperative for bold action to upgrade the UN and reinvigorate global progress on the SDGs. “The international community must take stock of the vital accomplishments and the limitations of the United Nations system, and work toward upgrading multilateralism for the decades ahead,” said Sachs.

Source: capitalethiopia.com

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borkena

In light of the escalating multifaceted crises facing Ethiopia, reporting on the ongoing coordinated assault on the Ethiopian flag may seem like a trivial matter.

Ethiopia historically used the tricolor Ethiopian flag – Green, Yellow, and Red – during its resistance against colonial powers to safeguard its independence. This flag has served as inspiration across Africa and the Caribbean, making it a symbol of identity. Consequently, the current focus on the flag is not merely incidental but rather intricately tied to the broader political and security crises in the country.

The war on the Ethiopian flag started during the Tigray People’s Liberation Front domination of the federal government. However, under Abiy Ahmed’s government, this campaign has taken a new turn, ostensibly motivated by the Oromummaa ideology. The administration has introduced new emblems and color choices, evident in the “Prosperity Party” logo – a sort of “rainbow” flavored and other official insignias. How and why they were adopted is not known to the public. 

In the latest series of actions, the government has altered the logo and colors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia. The traditional Green, Yellow, and Red colors were replaced this week by Navy Blue, akin to the U.S. flag, accompanied by a depiction of the Ministry’s building. While this color lacks historical and political significance in the Ethiopian context, it has become a prevailing choice across various Federal institutions. The Intelligence department features it alongside an eagle, replacing the historic Black Lion used in many institutions. The Ministry of Finance uses Navy Blue as a background. The  Prime Minister’s office was the first to introduce the blue color. 

This shift is not merely an aesthetic choice or graphic design issue but it is a matter of identity. Concurrently, there has been a systematic effort to diminish the significance of the Ethiopian flag. Reports have emerged that security forces in Addis Ababa may stop individuals wearing green, yellow, and red colors in any form including wrist band. Displaying these colors in any form in the Oromia region has become unimaginable. Vehicles with stickers in these colors are halted, and owners are compelled to remove them. Despite recurring incidents, the government has not officially addressed these actions, implying a tacit approval or a potential government policy.

Moreover, there are indications that this may indeed be an unstated federal government policy. Instances include restrictions imposed during the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s Meskel Festival and businesses abandoning the traditional tricolor in their logos, as seen with Aqua Addis, a prominent bottled water provider.

While the Ethiopian Defense Force expressed allegiance to the “Green, Yellow, and Red” flag during the 88th-anniversary celebration of the Ethiopian Air Force, it remained silent when security forces conducted campaigns against the Ethiopian flag in Addis Ababa and the Oromia region.

Opposition parties in Ethiopia seem to treat it as a non-issue. Parliamentarians are not raising questions about the orchestrated and overt campaign against the Ethiopian flag. Meanwhile, the Prosperity Party appears to be eradicating the flag, promoting instead the flag associated with the Oromummaa forces’ Gedda and Waqqe Fana traditional religion, along with the Navy Blue color scheme adopted by federal institutions.

In less than a week, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is celebrating Epiphany, known for its open-air religious procession with the replica of the Ark of the Covenant. The Ethiopian flag is an integral part of this tradition. There are unconfirmed reports that the government still intends to impose restrictions on the use of the Ethiopian flag where there is no legal basis – constitutional or otherwise – to do so. It remains to be seen how Ethiopians and opposition parties will respond if such restrictions are indeed enforced again

Source: https://borkena.com

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Ethiopia bondholder call scheduled for Thursday as default looms

By Dawit Endeshaw and Karin Strohecker

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia will hold a call with its international bondholders on Thursday, a senior finance ministry official said, as the country is careening toward default, having said last week that it could not pay a $33 million bond coupon due on Monday.

The finance ministry said on Friday that talks with a group of bondholders had broken down as the two sides disagreed over how long to extend the maturity and spread out repayments of its single $1 billion international bond maturing in December 2024 .

Non-payment of the bond coupon would put Ethiopia, which requested a debt overhaul under the G20 Common Framework in early 2021, on track to default after the grace period of 14 days expires.

JPMorgan said that according to practice the bond will as of Monday be marked as trading “flat” — meaning without accrued interest — in its EMBI index family.

Until now, Ethiopia had serviced interest payments on its international bond.

However, given recently secured debt service suspension agreements with official creditors, including China, and some commercial lenders, the finance ministry said in a statement on Monday that it would “seek a broadly similar treatment” from bondholders.

“It would be important to treat all our creditors equitably,” the ministry said in a statement, which seemed to echo comments last week that a payment was not on the cards.

Some holders of the international bonds had not received payment by 1700 GMT, a person familiar with the situation told Reuters.

But in separate comments made to Reuters on Monday, Eyob Tekalign, state minister of fiscal policy and public finance, told Reuters that “authorities’ intention is to remain current on our obligations”.

He said there would be a call with investors holding the international bond on Thursday.

The combined cost of the COVID-19 pandemic and a civil war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region that ended in November 2022 has left the country, long seen as one of Africa’s most promising economies, struggling to pay its debts.

The bond price on Monday initially dropped more than 1.8 cents on the dollar before reversing losses to add nearly 2 cents and being bid at 62.5 cents at 1929 GMT, according to Tradeweb data.

Outlines of the various proposals exchanged between Ethiopia’s government and its bondholders in the statement on Friday showed differences in expectations for the maturity as well as the size of the coupon and the terms and provisions.

In its final proposal, Ethiopia suggested an amortising structure of eight equal payments from July 2028 to January 2032 and a 5.5% coupon, according to the ministry’s Friday statement. The proposal did not include a capital writedown, which helped support bond prices.

The last bondholder group proposal wanted to see a much faster amortisation between July 2028 and July 2029 and a 6.625% coupon, the ministry said.

Bondholders also sought a loss reinstatement provision, which would see their claims reverted to pre-restructuring levels if Ethiopia were to suffer another default further down the line that would affect the bonds issued as part of the current rework.

“That was a red line,” said one bondholder.

The government’s proposal did not foresee such a provision.

“The discussion with few bondholders did not bear fruit as we did not agree on terms,” Eyob said.

“We are confident that we can work out a plan that works for both of us and have a good chance of being accepted by the OCC (hence the need for broadly similar treatment),” he wrote, referring to the official creditor committee.

Ethiopia is also seeking a four-year loan from the International Monetary Fund, which has said discussions with the government are ongoing and a staff visit to the country is “likely to take place early next year.”

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-ethiopia-finance-ministry-investor-064555301.html

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ከ አለባቸው ደሰአለኝ

ሰላም ሚኒስትሩ በጠቅላይ ሚኒስትር አብይ ትእዛዝ ከስልጣናቸው ተባረሩ:

የሰሜን ሸዋ የኩዩ ወረዳ እና አካባቢ ሕዝብን በመወከል የኦሮሚያ ምክር ቤት አባል የሆኑት አቶ ታዬ፣ በጠቅላይ ሚኒስትር ዐቢይ የሚመራው ገዢው የብልጽግና ፓርቲ ማዕከላዊ ኮሚቴ ናቸው።

ዛሬ በጠቅላይ ሚኒስትር ዐቢይ አህመድ በሶስት መስመር ከሥልጣናቸው ተሰናበተዋል ::

በአገሪቱ ያለው ጦርነት እንዲቆም ጥሪ በማቅረባቸው እንጂ ሌላ ምክንያት እንደሌላቸው የሚናገሩት
የሰላም ሚኒስቴር ሚኒስትር ዲኤታ የነበሩት አቶ ታዬ ለቢቢሲ ጋዜጠኛ በዝርዝር ገልፅውለታል : : በጠቅላይ ሚኒስትር ዐቢይ አሕመድ በተፈረመ ደብዳቤ ከሥልጣን መነሳታቸውን የሚገልጽ ደብዳቤ እንደደረሳቸው ይፋ ካደረጉ በኋላ ነው።

በፌስ ቡክ ገፃቸው ላይ
“ስለእርቅ ስለተናገርኩ ጦርነት ይቁም ስላልኩ “በጦርነቱ ጊዜ ጦርነቱን ስደግፍ፣ ሲያበረታቱኝ ነበር። ሕዝቡ ይታረቅ ስንል ነው ያመማቸው። ጠርተውም አላናገሩኝም። በአካል አልተገናኘንም” ሲሉ ቅርትቸውን አሰምተዋል ።

አቶ ታዬ በጠቅላይ ሚኒስትር ዐቢይ የተጻፈላቸውን የስንበት ደብዳቤ አያይዘው እንዳሉት ጠቅላይ ሚኒስትሩን አምነው እንደተከተሏቸው እና በቃላቸው አለመገኘታቸውን ጠንከር ያሉ ቃላትን ተጠቅመው ወቅሰዋቸዋል: :

ስንብታቸውን በተመለከተ በፌስቡክ ላይ ያሰፈሩትን ጠንካራ ትችት. እንዲህ ይላል “ይሄ እውነት ነው። ለሰው አያዝኑም። የሰው ልጅ ሞቶ አውሬ እየበላው ስለ ፓርክ ያወራሉ። ሰው የሚበላው አጥቶ እየሞተ በብዙ ገንዘብ ቤተ መንግሥት ያስገነባሉ” በማለት ጠቅላይ ሚኒስትሩን አብጠልጥለዋቸዋል ።

አያይዘውም
“የተናገሩትንና የፃፉትን የመደመር ዕሳቤ አምኜ ተከተልኩዎት። አሁን ግን በተናገሩት የማይኖሩ ብቻ ሳይሆን በሰው ደም የሚጫወቱ አረመኔ መሆነወትን ተረድቻለሁ” ሲሉ በገጻቸው ላይ አስፍረዋል።
በሕግ ሊያስጠይቃቸው የሚችል ነገር ይኖር እንደሆነ በቢቢሲ. ለጠይቅቸው ጥያቄ ሲመልሱ ” ዝግጁ መሆናቸውን ጠቅሰው ነገር ግን ይህ የሚሆንበት ዕድል እንደሌለ ጥርጣሬያቸውን ገልጸዋል።

“ይህ [በሕግ መጠየቅ] ምን ችግር አለው ታዲያ። ነገር ግን ሕግ የታለና በሕግ ይጠይቁኛል። ከጠየቁኝ ደግሞ ዝግጁ ነኝ።” በማለት ሐሳባቸውን ገልፀዋል::

የመንግሥት እና የገዢው ፓርቲ ከፍተኛ ባለሥልጣን ሆነው በጠንካራ ትችታቸው የሚታወቁት አቶ ታዬ ሰሞኑን በተከታታይ የሰነዘሯቸው አስተያያቶች ለስንብታቸው ምክንያት ይሆናል ብለው አያምኑም።

“ከዚህ ጋር የሚገናኝ አይመስለኝም። ከፓርቲያችን መርሆች ውስጥ ነጻነት አንዱ ነው። ከዚህ መርህ በተቃራኒ መቆም ተገቢ አይደለም። እኔ ስናገር የነበረው ይህንን መርህ መሠረት በማድረግ ነው” ብለዋል።

በጠቅላይ ሚኒስትሩ ፊርማ ለአቶ ታዬ በተጻፈው ባለሦስት መስመር የስንብት ደብዳቤ ላይ የሰላም ሚኒስትር ዲኤታ ሆነው ላበረከቱት አስተዋጽኦ ጠቅላይ ሚኒስትሩ አመስግነው ከዛሬ ታኅሣሥ 1/2016 ዓ. ም. ጀምሮ ከኃላፊነታቸው መነሳታቸውን አመልክቷል።

ከመስከረም 2014 ዓ. ም. ጀምሮ የሰላም ሚኒስቴር ሚኒስትር ዲኤታ የነበሩት አቶ ታዬ የኦሮሚያ ክልል ምክር ቤት (ጨፌ) አባል ሲሆኑ በማኅበራዊ ሚዲያ ላይ እና በመገናኛ ብዙኃን ላይ በሚሰጡት አስተያየት የፌደራሉን መንግሥት እና የኦሮሚያ ክልልን በይፋ በመተቸት ይታወቃሉ ።

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Ethiopia, aid partners form committee to investigate allegations of food aid misappropriation

The Ethiopian government and aid partners have formed a joint technical committee to investigate allegations of food aid misappropriation, an Ethiopian official said.

Speaking at a press conference to state media outlets on Saturday, State Minister for Ethiopia Government Communication Service (GCS) Selamawit Kassa said the committee will comprehensively investigate any illegal acts that led to aid partners like the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to suspend food aid delivery to millions of Ethiopians who are in need of urgent humanitarian aid.

Kassa said the joint technical committee which is headed by the Ethiopia National Disaster Risk and Management Commission (NDRMC) is already working to deliver inputs for a possible solution to the problem that led to the food aid suspension by aid agencies.

She also said the joint technical committee has already held several successful dialogues since it started its work.

Earlier this month, the WFP disclosed it has decided to suspend its food aid assistance program in Ethiopia citing large scale aid misappropriation.

The WFP statement also accused unnamed local and foreign entities of disseminating hateful and defaming information.

The UN agency estimates that more than 20 million people in Ethiopia affected by ongoing drought and conflict urgently need humanitarian food assistance.

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አቶ ልደቱ አያሌው ወደ ኢትዮጵያ በመመለስና እጃቸውን በሽብርተኝነት ለከሳሳቸው መንግስት እጃቸውን በመስጠት በፍትህ አደባባይ እንደሚሟገቱ አሳወቁ።

“ከአገዛዙ አፈና፣ እስርና ግድያ ሸሽቶ በማምለጥ የሚመጣ መፍትሄ የለም። ትግላችን ሰላማዊና ህጋዊ እስከሆነ ድረስ በገፍ እየታሰርንና እየሞትን አገዛዙ በሀይልና በአፈና ሊያሸንፈን እንደማይችል ተስፋ ልናስቆርጠው ይገባል። በዚህ መጠን ዋጋ ለመክፈል ካልቆረጥን በስተቀር የአገርና የህዝብ ህልውና ከጥፋት ሊድን አይችልምና።

ይህንን በለጋ የልጅነት ዘመኔ ለራሴ የገባሁትን የትግል ቃል-ኪዳንና የምታመንለትን የሰላማዊነትና ህጋዊነት መርህ መሰረት በማድረግ ወደ አገሬ ለመመለስና የዶ/ር ዐቢይን የፈጠራ የአሸባሪነት ክስ እንደተለመደው በፍትህ አደባባይ ለመጋፈጥ ወስኛለሁ።

ስለሆነም በታሰርኩ ቁጥር ከእኔ በላይ ስቃዬን የምትሰቃዩ ቤተ–ዘመዶቸ፣ ጓደኞቸ፣ የሃሳብ ደጋፊዎቸና የትግል አጋሮቸ ይህንን ውሳኔዬን የሞኝነት፣ የአጉል ጀብደኝነት ወይም የመንግስትን የጭካኔ ደረጃ በአግባቡ ያለመረዳት ድክመት አድርጋችሁ እንዳታዩብኝና ያልተገባ ጫና እንዳትፈጥሩብኝ በዚህ አጋጣሚ በአክብሮት እማፀናለሁ። ይህንን ውሳኔ በሚገባ አስቤበትና ከልቤ አምኘበት የወሰንኩት ስለሆነ በሞራል ልታግዙኝ ይገባል እንጂ ልታዝኑልኝም ሆነ ልታዝኑብኝ አይገባም እላለሁ። “

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Justice Ministry grilled over crimes in northern Ethiopia

Committee dissatisfied with official’s response

Officials of the Ethiopian Ministry of Justice are scrutinized by the United Nations for failing to investigate allegations of human rights violations related to the war in northern Ethiopia and for failing to uphold human rights principles during detention, interrogation, and incarceration.

The Ministry’s delegates are in Geneva to update the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) on Ethiopia’s human rights situation. The UNCAT was created to hold states accountable for human rights violations by systematically investigating reports of torture. The 76th session of the UNCAT is being held from April 17 to May 12, 2023.

During its month-long session, the Committee is reviewing the reports of Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, and Slovakia.

On May 3 and 4, the Ethiopian delegation, composed of state ministers, several directors, experts, and security force officials, including the Federal Police Commission, presented its reports. The reports have focused heavily on achievements, progress, human rights legislation, and reforms made since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) came to power.

Human rights issues covered in the report ranged from unlawful detentions, rape cases, and illegal migration to torture during detention, human trafficking, extrajudicial killings, and allegations of ethnic cleansing during the northern Ethiopian civil war.

Members of the UNCAT criticized the Ethiopian government for denying reports of ethnic cleansing in Tigray and failing to provide established facts regarding the involvement of Eritrean forces, extrajudicial killings, and unlawful detentions, among others.

The Ethiopian delegation was also scrutinized for denying access to the International Commission of Experts on Human Rights in Ethiopia (ICHREE).

The report presented by the Ethiopian delegates unsatisfied the rapporteurs and members of the Committee, including Sebastien Touze, a French professor and vice chair of the UNCAT.

“You [the Ethiopian government] denied allegations of ethnic cleansing in Tigray. But there are pieces of information, videos, and public statements campaigning for targeting ethnic cleansing of the Tigrayan population. These are pending questions. We cannot just throw it under the rug. What is the progress regarding ensuring accountability for the extrajudicial killings?” he asked.

Touze says he understands “why you mentioned that ICHREE is politically motivated. The GoE denied authority to the ICHREE to visit the ground. There is one particular concern relating to the figure of deaths in prisons and detention centers.”

The Professor stated that 83 Tigrayan prisoners perished in prison near Mirab Abaya in 2022. “The figures provided do not correspond with other sources we have. Four new detention centers were built to hold 40,000 prisoners. We have no information about where they are located or how many detainees there are,” he added.

Another member of UNCAT, Todd Buchwald, stated that the Ethiopian government failed to provide adequate information regarding Eritrean involvement in the northern Ethiopian war. He says the delegation’s response about the involvement of Eritrean forces was not well received.

“The response is not a well-established fact. You need some practical mechanisms and data on the ground. There is legislation, but that does not mean it is implemented. Violence and arrests of journalists and civil organizations are documented,” Buchwald said.

Ethiopian officials attempted diplomatic responses to circumvent the allegations raised.

“There are allegations that Eritrean forces participated in the conflict in northern Ethiopia. We will look into it, investigate, and ensure accountability for the perpetrators of the violations, if any,” responded Misikir Yirefu, chief of staff at the Ministry of Justice and member of the Ethiopian delegation present at the UNCAT.

Misikir stated that the allegations of ethnic cleansing cannot be confirmed until the investigation is concluded.

“The conflict in the north, to some extent, has an ethnic character. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) did not conclude that an ethnic cleansing act was committed. Amnesty International’s allegations that ethnic cleansing amounts to crimes against humanity cannot be taken as they are. Such allegations are made without conducting a proper investigation on the ground.”

The delegation also asserted that the Ethiopian government denied access to the ICHREE because its establishment was politically motivated, duplicated national efforts, and lacked impartiality. “The GoE has offered the possibility of cooperation with ICHREE. Now that time has lapsed, Ethiopia’s decision is irreversible,” Misikir said.

The delegation urged the Committee to respect Ethiopia’s decision and leave the investigation to national mechanisms under the initiative for transitional justice, JIT, and the Inter-ministerial Taskforce (IMT).

A team of investigators established by the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) has also gathered evidence regarding a number of extrajudicial killings.

Especially the IMT has designed and implemented three tracks of strategies. The first plan involves conducting investigations in the Amhara and Afar regions. The second region comprises Welkait, Tsegede, and Humera. The third is investigating the alleged crimes committed by ENDF and regional forces in the regions of Amhara, Tigray, and Afar.

The IMT has made progress on the first track while awaiting the establishment of security in Tigray before initiating the second and third plans.

Under the first plan, the IMT compiled 2,831 cases of extrajudicial killings of civilians, 1,315 cases of serious bodily injuries, 2,212 cases of rapes and other forms of sexual violence, 442 cases of inhuman and degrading treatment of civilians, 36 cases of enforced disappearances, and 2,516 cases of damage to and looting of public infrastructure.

The IMT collected 10,029 testimonies, 9,552 witnesses, and thousands of video and audio records and medical documents under the first track.

The majority of the research for the first track was conducted in Amhara Regional State. The investigation in Tigray is expected to progress as peace prevails in the region and the IMT sends its experts.

It is also expected that the transitional justice system will share the evidence gathered by the IMT. Under the transitional justice initiative, the investigation and accountability for the atrocities committed during the northern Ethiopian war will be completed.

Zelalem Mengistie, deputy commissioner of the Ethiopian Federal Police, stated that Ethiopia does not tolerate torture and inhuman treatment. “We turned old torture centers into museums. We allowed detainees to be visited by family and lawyers.” He says the government is also planning to install cameras in interrogation rooms.

At the conclusion of the session on May 4, Alemante Agidew, state minister of the MoJ and leader of the Ethiopian delegation in Geneva, vowed to implement the Committee’s recommendations.

“The GoE did not conclude its investigation. So we need time. The first track of the investigation indicated there are some categories of crimes against humanity,” Alemante said, adding that acts of torture and extrajudicial killings were committed.

“We will take this homework and go back to Ethiopia to finalize the investigation and ensure accountability through the transitional justice system. Accountability should be taken as a domestic initiative.”

Source: the Ethiopian Reporter

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