Day: September 2, 2022

In Ethiopia’s Gambella region, a June attack on the capital by rebels has raised fears of more civil war spreading in the country.

In Gambella city, security has been beefed up. Officials say local police have started working in cooperation with troops recently sent to the region by the federal government.

A major attack by two rebel groups, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) and the Gambella Liberation Front (GLF), caught the city by surprise in June. Local media said up to 37 people were killed.

Analysts said it was the first time the Oromo conflict, a decades-old fight among local, federal forces and ethnic Oromo rebels, had reached Gambella city.

One witness, Abdu Abubeker, a civil servant, recounted seeing the OLA enter the city. He said the shooting began around 6 a.m.; no one was expecting it, so no one was prepared.

The groups got as far as the regional council building, he said. “They entered the city from three directions. I think the Gambella Liberation Front was leading the OLA.”

Less than a week later, in the Oromia region, OLA militants killed around 400 ethnic Amhara.

The rapid uptick in violence in what Human Rights Watch calls Ethiopia’s “other conflict” has led some to question whether it constitutes a second civil war for the country.

Information from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project shows that from August 2021 to July 2022, there were 3,784 deaths linked to the OLA, compared with 651 the previous year.

Fuel for insurgency

William Davison, an analyst with International Crisis Group, a Belgium-based research organization, said the increased violence is the result of long-standing grievances related to Oromo self-determination and lack of political representation in Ethiopia’s federal system, especially since the current government came to power in 2018.

“I think that added fuel to the Oromo Liberation Army insurgency, after a failure to reintegrate those fighters and their rebellion,” Davison said.

The Oromo are the largest ethnic group in the country.

Davison was asked if the conflict is as significant as Ethiopia’s headline-grabbing war with Tigrayan rebels in the north of the country.

“It probably doesn’t immediately threaten the regional government authority in Adama or the federal government authority in Addis Ababa,” he said, “but it is affecting a huge number of people in Oromia, as well as leading to direct violence that’s killing combatants and civilians.”

For now, Gambella is calm, but less than 10 kilometers beyond its outskirts, there are regular firefights with the OLA, local police say.

Local officials are keen to project stability. Chankot Chote, head of the Gambella Regional State Peace and Security Office, said that with the help of the special forces, federal police and regular police, and the community, the situation has improved. He added that although the OLA is trying to attack on the outskirts of town, it will never enter the city again.

The OLA is an offshoot of another rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Front, which signed a peace deal with the Ethiopian government in 2018.

Source: Voice of America

The first U.S. ambassador to Sudan in 25 years has vowed to support the country’s transition to civilian rule. John Godfrey spoke while presenting his credentials Thursday to Sudan’s military-led government.

Godfrey presented his credential documents as the new U.S. ambassador to Sudan in a ceremony at Sudan’s presidential palace.

The document was presented to Sudan’s military leader, Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan, who led the coup against the civilian government in October last year.

Al-Burhan, the chairman of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council, welcomed the return of a U.S. ambassador to Sudan after a 25-year absence.

He stressed the importance of developing relations between Khartoum and Washington and said he hoped Godfrey’s appointment represents a new impetus for the two countries’ relationship.

Speaking to reporters in Arabic after the diplomatic ceremony, Godfrey expressed the commitment of the U.S. to build new relations with Sudan.

In Arabic, Godfrey said, “I am so happy to be the new ambassador of the United States in Sudan after more than 25 years. I am happy to have this opportunity to work in Sudan and get to understand its people and their cultures more closely.”

Godfrey was named by the White House as the new ambassador to Sudan in early January. The U.S. Congress approved his appointment in July, and he arrived in Khartoum last week to assume his post.

Ties between the United States and Sudan were severely strained under the three-decade rule of ousted President Omar al-Bashir, with Washington slapping crippling economic sanctions on Khartoum.

The U.S. government blacklisted Sudan in 1993 as a state sponsor of terrorism because the Bashir administration hosted al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden, who resided in the country between 1992 and 1996.

The ambassador’s arrival comes as Sudan reels from deepening unrest and a sinking economy.

Godfrey said the U.S government hopes to see an inclusive civilian-led government restored in Sudan to complete the remaining transitional period.

“We expect to see the establishment of a new government led by civilians in Sudan within a comprehensive dialogue that supports all Sudanese political parties,” he said, “including the democratic supporting forces.”

Godfrey previously worked as the acting special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

He also formerly worked as the acting deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Source: Voice of America

The White House has condemned last week’s resumption of conflict that threatens to fuel famine and destabilize the Horn of Africa, following the collapse of the five-month cease-fire in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

“We condemn Eritrea’s reentry into the conflict, the continuing TPLF offensive outside of Tigray and the Ethiopian government’s airstrikes,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday.

She urged the parties to cease hostilities. “There is no military solution to the conflict.”

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have blamed each other for the latest round of violence. The TPLF is an armed political movement that led the country as part of a ruling coalition for more than 20 years but has now been designated as a terrorist organization by Addis Ababa.

Jean-Pierre said U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Mike Hammer is set to travel to Ethiopia this weekend to urge parties to engage in negotiations to end the nearly two-year-old conflict. This would be Hammer’s second visit in a month — he was there August 2 with his European Union counterpart, Annette Weber, to facilitate the beginning of talks.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that a return to active conflict “would result in widespread suffering, human rights abuses, and further economic hardships.”

Nearly half a million Ethiopians may have died from violence and famine and more than 1.6 million people have been displaced by this conflict, according to researchers at the University of Ghent.

US role

Washington can provide incentives for negotiations as it is the leading source of development assistance to Ethiopia and a key source of future investment that will be critical for rebuilding after the conflict, said Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University.

“The United States can also reaffirm its commitment to accelerating efforts to help address the acute humanitarian crisis generated by the conflict,” Siegle told VOA. “It will also be important to reinforce to both sides that this conflict revolves around a political dispute — how Tigray can be reintegrated as part of a federal Ethiopia while retaining meaningful autonomy.”

Siegle said Washington can also clearly convey to regional actors, including Sudan, Egypt and the Gulf states, the need to refrain from amplifying the conflict. “If the Tigray conflict were to be regionalized, it would become even more difficult to resolve and could become more destabilizing for the region,” he said.

It is unclear how much pressure the Biden administration can wield to bring parties to the table. Last year, the administration suspended Addis Ababa from the tariff-free African Growth and Opportunity Act, which provides tariff-free access to the U.S. market for African manufacturers.

Source: Voice of America

The Security Council on Friday approved former Senegalese minister and U.N. diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily as the new U.N. envoy to Libya, ending a nine-month search amid increasing chaos in the oil-rich north African nation.

The vote came a day after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had nominated Bathily.

Libya’s transitional government, which opposed Bathily’s nomination, reportedly sent a protest letter to Guterres, which raises questions about how effective the new envoy can be in trying to resolve the country’s political and economic crisis.

The last U.N. special representative, Jan Kubis, resigned Nov. 23, 2021, after 10 months on the job, and several candidates proposed by Guterres were rejected by council members, Libya or neighboring countries.

In December, Guterres appointed veteran American diplomat Stephanie Williams, a former U.N. deputy special representative in Libya, as his special adviser — a job that did not require council approval.

She left at the end of July. So, the mission has had no leader as Libyans grapple with a constitutional and political crisis.

Libya has been in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The county has for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned Tuesday that failure to resolve Libya’s political crisis and hold delayed elections poses a growing threat in the country, pointing to recent violent clashes that killed at least 42 people and injured 159 others, according to Libyan authorities.

The current stalemate grew out of the failure to hold elections in December and the refusal of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who led the transitional government, to step down. In response, the country’s east-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister, Fathy Bashagha, who has for months sought to install his government in Tripoli.

Guterres said Bathily brings 40 years of experience to the job of special representative and head of Libya’s U.N. political mission.

He held various ministerial positions in Senegal, taught history for more than 30 years at the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop in the country, held senior U.N. positions including in Mali and Central Africa, and served as the independent expert for the strategic review of the Libya mission in 2021.

Bathily has doctorates from Universite Cheikh Anta Diop and the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom and is fluent in English, French, Soninke and Wolof.

Source: Voice of America