In a passionate defence of their article in ROAPE’s journal, Fana Gebresenbet and Yonas Tariku argue that Ethiopians will benefit from building a viable, effective, democratic, and accommodative state, not from its dissolution. If the Ethiopian state collapses, it collapses on the Ethiopian people. Gebresenbet and Tariku argue that their critics have resorted to sensationalist distortions of their argument to garner support for their partisan positions.
By Fana Gebresenbet and Yonas Tariku
When we received ROAPE’s decision to publish our work on 14 January 2023, we were not under the illusion that the argument would be acceptable to all. However, as it was accepted for publication in ROAPE’s Debate section, we thought it would be a much needed contribution to discussion on the war and its aftermath. Conclusively establishing anything beyond debate will not help academic pursuit.
We were not surprised when we got a response from a not-so-surprising corner, from Mulugeta Gebrehiwot et al. What was unexpectd is the lack of engagement with our argument and the extent of misquoting and the mis-characterization. Let us first present our position as students of conflict and security studies, as Ethiopians and Ethiopianists.
Mulugeta et al. attack our personal character by stating that we are insensitive to the suffering of our fellow Tigrayans. We mentioned the extreme suffering of Tigrayans, but did not elaborate on it. Criticising us for not going into detail is one thing, but misinterpreting to mean that we are insensitive to suffering is an intentional mischaracterisation.
We are also mis-represented as biased towards the Federal Government of Ethiopia (FGE). Mulugeta et al. also criticize us for not undertaking a ‘critical, balanced assessment of the records’ of TPLF/EPRDF’s rule, although our central argument is to investigate the CoHA -(Cessation of Hostilities Agreement), not what lead to it. Unlike some of our critics, we have never held public office and political party memberships, nor are we insiders to the FGE nor any rebel movement. The only professional identity we have is as scholars.[1]
In terms of positionality, we should perhaps have explicitly stated that the centre of our ethical concern in our professional work is the state and society not any particular government. As we stress below, we differentiate between regime and state, as much as we differentiate between the TPLF and Tigray.
With the above two caveats, let us briefly highlight the five major misreadings presented in the Mulugeta et al. rejoinder to our debate piece which we believe shows that they did not engage with our arguments, but rather constructed a strawman argument which they then criticised.
Fives misreadings
First, our critics accuse us of being ‘indifferent to the horrors suffered by their fellow citizens’ and showing ‘little nuanced political understanding or empathy’. The war in Northern Ethiopia which affected the three regions, yet disproportionately harmed Tigray and Tigrayans, and ongoing violence in Oromia perpetrated by both the OLA and government forces are the realities in which we are living under. All sides of the war are accused of atrocities, ranging from executions, sexual violence, ethnic cleansing, destruction and stealing of property and public/private assets. Sadly, all forms of atrocities have happened and these are facts.
We accept the facts and we took them as non-debateable. We are against any instrumentalization, exaggerations, denials or reductions. As such, we did not write at length about this.
Mulugeta et al. also state that we argued ‘…claims of genocide are a TPLF propaganda ploy’. There is no such statement in our article. What we pointed out was that foreign experts, particularly Alex de Waal, published a special issue in an academic journal that focuses on genocide as part of their partisan and polarising role during the war. While the timing and theme of the special issue in itself is telling, the selective reading of Ethiopia’s undeniably atrocious past reflected is simply unbelievable. Most notably, in their introduction to the special issue, the authors conveniently skipped, for instance, the well-documented atrocities committed by the TPLF/EPRDF led-regime in Somali (2007-2008) and Gambella (2003-2004) regions—which human rights organisations reported as amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Clearly, mentioning these atrocities does not serve the intended messaging.
Their assertion that we minimized ‘what happened in Tigray in terms of massacres and deliberate starvation of civilians’ is simply false. As Ethiopians and scholars, we believe that the violence and atrocities committed in the war should be determined by qualified independent investigators, not by the propaganda machinations of the warring sides. The purpose of this work is to help Ethiopians overcome the effect of the war and ensure justice, accountability, reconciliation and non-recurrence. We do not overlook minimizing, exaggerating or instrumentalization, which will simply breed further division and violence. We sincerely hope to see the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement that will settle all outstanding issues including justice and reconciliation, once the urgent matters are adequately addressed.
Second, Mulugeta and his colleagues claim that our article ‘…reproduces central narrative threads of FGE propaganda. One of these is that an unprovoked TPLF attack on the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) was the cause of the war’. Yet we did not write about the causes of the war which we know very well are more complex than the single event of the 3 November 2020 attack. We view the attack—which Mulugeta and other pro-TPLF individuals justify as a “pre-emptive operation”—as a triggering factor that unleashed the war as we know it. We are aware that there is an attempt to construct a new narrative which presents the attack as if it is inconsequential.
Accusing us of ‘reproducing’ the government’s narrative is a familiar way of trying to silence those who point out the fact that both sides have contributed to the outbreak of the war but the TPLF should take the responsibility for firing first.
When it comes to the signing of the CoHA, we consider it as an outcome of several factors. Mulugeta et al. complain that ‘those who trumpet the Pretoria Agreement, such as Fana and Yonas, imply that ‘might is right’.” Yet, ours is simply a scholarly interpretation of facts on the ground, with no relationship to any of the warring parties. Our critics argue that the TPLF signed the agreement because its central command decided to ‘sue for peace’ after assessing the looming ‘human cost on both sides’ which contradicts the available evidence. Neither the TPLF nor its supporters were keen on an AU-led mediation. Mulugeta et al. were effectively supporting TPLF’s position of pushing away the peace process through most of 2022, with Mulugeta (2021) himself asserting as early as October 2021 that an AU-led mediation is a ‘plan that failed before it even began to roll.’
So, why would the TPLF ‘sue for peace’ through a process that already failed? Moreover, the TPLF dropped all its preconditions and changed its stance vis-à-vis the AU through a public statement made on 11 September 2022, weeks after the start of the third round of war. If one carefully analyses these dynamics along with the advances made by the ENDF and its allies on the ground, there is little reason to doubt our initial assessment that military losses are central to TPLF’s decision to come to the negotiation table.
Third, as they fail to engage the different arguments in our article, Mulugeta and his collaborators ignored the whole section on the state and national security by simply dismissing our central argument that the CoHA is a turning point, marking the beginning of the end of ethno-nationalism’s hegemonic centrality to national politics. Their reason is that the incumbent regime is simply ‘shape-shifting’ and ‘embracing the multinational nature of Ethiopia’. We do not equate ‘embracing the multinational nature of Ethiopia’ with ethno-nationalism’s hegemonic centrality in Ethiopian politics. The two are conceptually and practically different. We are surprised how a team of six authors misses this distinction. For instance, we embrace and celebrate the multinational and multireligious nature of Ethiopia without necessarily subscribing to ethno-nationalism. The likelihood of imagining a future multinational federal Ethiopia with a reduced centrality of ethno-nationalism as an ideology of major political parties is not necessarily farfetched.
Ethiopia cannot be stable without embracing the diversity of its people, not just in terms of ethnicity but also other markers of identity and plurality. As such, our view of the Ethiopian state and society is that it will be more secure if it is geared toward building a cohesive, accommodative, and just state—society relationship based on democratic principles in which Ethiopians live in peace and dignity. Unlike de Waal (2021) who wrote amidst the raging war—perhaps prompted by ENDF’s defeat in June 2021—that it is ‘…valid to see Ethiopia as an empire’ and ‘its dissolution long overdue’, we view the survivalist instinct of the Ethiopian state and society as valid.
Ethiopians will benefit from building a viable, effective, democratic, and accommodative state, not from its dissolution. If the Ethiopian state collapses, it collapses on the Ethiopian people. As we have seen in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere, it is the people who will suffer—not those who are insensitive to the disastrous consequences of their anti-state positions. As we admitted at the outset of this response, this is our fundamental position which we do not feel in the slightest bit ashamed to plainly state as Ethiopian scholars.
Fourth, Mulugeta et al. denied that ‘…named critics of the Federal Government of Ethiopia (FGE) are supporters of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is neither substantiated nor correct’. We have presented sufficient evidence showing how the named foreign experts—supporting either side—were not impartial ‘critics’. The tweets and articles of some were frequently echo chambers of the propaganda machinations of the respective sides.
In playing this role they have helped to polarize the narratives that accompanied the war. We would like to invite readers to look at, for example, the partisan pieces produced by Alex de Waal and Ann Fitz-Gerald on various platforms. Moreover, our critics misquote us by saying ‘new Ethiopian voices have somehow ‘reframed’ a debate distorted by foreigners.’ They also falsely quote us when stating that our ‘dismissal of foreign scholars is consistent with an anti-colonial, “African solutions” political stance’. Here, they do not only misread our argument but also confuse two separate issues—decoloniality and AU’s ‘African Solutions’. We view this as a sensationalist distortion of our argument to garner uncritical followers.
Nowhere did we link our critique of the role of foreign experts with anti-colonialism or African Solutions. Our argument is that, in the context of the mis/disinformation, Ethiopians on both sides have wrestled the power of framing the situation in their country from foreign experts thanks to social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook (see p. 6). We consider this challenge to the ‘foreign experts’ framing power as a new and exciting development rarely seen, if at all, in Ethiopia’s past. It is a de-colonial moment of knowledge production which could help give birth to new paradigms of thinking and research.
Yet, as we both work and collaborate with several foreign scholars, we did not and will not advance and tolerate anti-foreign expert sentiment. We just made an observation that foreign experts in general and the named partisan experts in particular have been seriously challenged by Ethiopians themselves.
Fifth, our use of ‘African Solutions’ is in reference to the CoHA and the AU’s role. We stated the agreement ‘gives meaning to’ the principle (p. 1). As Mulugeta et al. note, African agency is one of the crucial components of the African Solutions theme (Ani, 2019). African agency in the Pretoria Agreement could be discerned by noting the extent of references made to AU norms and principles in the CoHA and the extent of involvement of the AU. As Mukondeleli Mpeiwa stresses, despite functioning ‘within a context of scarce-to-none budget, staffing and even more limited operational support’, the commitment of the parties to peace and the support of partners enabled the AU to deliver.
Despite the contested nature of AU’s leadership, reducing its role to ‘last minute brokering of peace’ or limiting it to only AU officials ‘holding tight control of the process’ or labelling the agreement as ‘non-African’ is inaccurate. Examinations of AU’s involvement should consider the early appointment of envoys and later in August 2021 the appointment and shuttle diplomacy of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. This again should not be interpreted as romanticisation or simplistic understanding of African Solutions.
To debate not foreclose
In conclusion, the debate should be about asking critical questions and creating new ideas, not to foreclose the possibility of critical engagement. It would be more productive to engage with the arguments and messages, both in academic terms and for peace and stability in Ethiopia. No one would benefit from constricting the space for critical debate and exchanges – surely our critics do not want that. However, Mulugeta et al. spent some time asking why ROAPE has even published our piece. Given the failing to engage with our arguments and the pervasive misreading and misquoting it is difficult to seriously call this either a response or a debate.
The new era is only beginning after the end of the war: TPLF’s eclipse is ascertained now, while the Prosperity Party and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed are consolidating their power. We are not making a value judgement on the nature of the emerging new era, we are only stating its imminent birth. As much as the post-1991 period was applauded by some and denigrated by others—the post-CoHA period will see a similar fate in the years and decades to come. We will be willing participants to this critical debate too.
Fana Gebresenbet and Yonas Tariku’s recent Debate piece in ROAPE’s journal is available to read for free here: ‘The Pretoria Agreement: Mere cessation of hostilities or heralding a new era in Ethiopia?’
Yonas Tariku is a lecturer and academic coordinator of the MA programme at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies of Addis Ababa University. His primary research focus is on national and regional security in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
Fana Gebresenbet is Director and an associate professor of peacebuilding and development at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies of Addis Ababa University. He co-edited two books, Lands of the Future (Berghahn, 2021) and Youth on the Move (Hurst, 2021), and numerous journal articles and book chapters on development, conflict and migration in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
Featured Photograph: Internally displaced people during the recent war in Ethiopia (April 2021).
Notes
[1] Two of our critics are clearly politically partisan, who have skin in the game: Mulugeta (as a TPLF veteran and still an insider) and Mohammed Hassan (an Oromo Liberation Army [OLA] negotiator).
