Wegahta Facts
When the Pretoria Agreement was signed on November 2, 2022, it was hailed as a turning point. An African-brokered blueprint to end one of the deadliest wars of the 21st century. But more than two years later, the deal’s promises are unraveling.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s recent speech to Parliament, suggest not just a breakdown in trust but a wholesale reversal of the agreement’s core tenets.
The Pretoria deal, facilitated by the African Union with support from the U.S. and others, promised “silencing the guns,” addressing underlying issues based upon the Ethiopian constitution and rebuilding Tigray.
It required the disarmament of Tigray’s forces, restoration of services, unfettered humanitarian access, withdrawal of non-ENDF and foreign forces from Tigray and restoration of the constitutional framework.
However the architecture of the agreement is fundamentally flawed. Lacking robust and effective enforcement and monitoring mechanisms, it was built more on political optimism than practical enforceability.
There is no independent body with the authority to verify compliance or penalize violations. This vacuum has allowed both sides to exploit ambiguity, delay implementation, and at times resume hostile posturing with impunity.
Now, with renewed threats of war looming, it is critical to dissect how this failure in peace architecture has jeopardized not just Tigray’s future, but Ethiopia’s and the Horn Of Africas broader stability.
What Pretoria Actually Promised
The Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, was a brief but ambitious framework. The core commitments of the Pretoria agreement includes Permanent cessation of hostilities, Disarmament of Tigray forces that is going to take place concurrently with the withdrawal of foreign and non-ENDF forces per the agreement, Restoration of constitutional order in Tigray, Resumption of unhindered humanitarian access, Withdrawal of foreign and non-federal forces, Lifting of the terrorist designation of the TPLF, transitional justice, and political dialogue to address underlying political issues.
Structural Flaws in the Agreement
The unmaking of Pretoria cannot be understood solely as a consequence of bad actors. From the outset, the Pretoria Agreement was celebrated more for what it represented than what it actually enforced.
While it succeeded in halting large scale fighting, its clauses were vague, open to interpretation and utterly lacking in enforceability.
One of the most glaring structural weaknesses was the absence of an independent monitoring and verification mechanism. Though the African Union was tasked with oversight, it was given neither the tools nor the mandate to enforce compliance. Its Monitoring, Verification and Compliance Mission has remained largely symbolic, with limited access, no coercive power, and somehow lacking credibility among actors.
Equally problematic was the exclusion of international guarantors or punitive mechanisms. The deal did not bind the parties to external arbitration or sanction in case of violation. Unlike successful peace accords elsewhere the Pretoria pact lacked a deterrent against backsliding. Ethiopia’s federal government and Tigrayan authorities both had little to lose and much to manipulate.
Silent Violations and Derailed Promises
The most damning failure of the Pretoria Agreement is the continued occupation of large parts of western and northern Tigray by Amhara regional forces and Eritrean troops who were supported to leave Tigray per the Pretoria agreement.
According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, despite the cessation of hostilities agreement the occupying forces have continued to commit widespread and systematic abuses, including arbitrary arrests, looting, sexual violence, and ethnic cleansing. Amhara forces have continued to expel thousands of ethnic Tigrayans in defiance of the agreement.
Eritrean troops, meanwhile, have not only refused to withdraw, but have reportedly carried out killings, abductions, and looting in northeastern Tigray, including in Irob, Gulomakeda, and other areas.
The agreement also promised the returning of internally displaced persons, but nearly 1 million displaced Tigrayans remain in makeshift camps across the region, now enduring their fifth rainy season in plastic shelters.
Basic needs like food, medicine, clean water are scarcely met. Numerous reports noted that the situation in displacement camps remains dire.
Meanwhile, the much-touted reconstruction effort has all but collapsed. No comprehensive rehabilitation plan has been launched. Schools, hospitals, and administrative buildings remain largely in rubble.
Systematically Ignored constitutional violations.
Among the most crucial elements of the Pretoria Agreement was its commitment to constitutional order. The parties pledged to “respect and uphold the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.” In practice, that clause has been repeatedly violated by both parties.
The Federal government rather than facilitating the reintegration of Tigray’s constitutionally administrative territories in line with the constitutional structure, the federal government has taken a radically different path. Italy is actively empowering the very forces that are supposed to leave Tigray.
These forces, originating from the Amhara region, have been granted political legitimacy, military support, and federal training and armament, a blatant deviation from both the constitution and the spirit of the Pretoria Agreement.
According to multiple reports, the federal government has equipped these militias with weapons and logistical aid, while turning a blind eye to its commitment to abide by the Ethiopian constitution as well as the Pretoria agreement.
On the other side, elements within the TPLF are reportedly unauthorized negotiations and political dealings with armed groups in the neighboring Amhara region, as well as pursuing backchannel communications with the Eritrean government, bypassing the constitutional framework.
The Costs of a Failed Peace
A return to war is not hypothetical, it is plausible. And the consequences would be staggering. The 2020–2022 war killed an estimated 600,000 people, displaced millions, and destroyed a generation’s access to education, health care, and economic opportunity.
Another war would trigger fresh humanitarian catastrophe, destabilize the already fragile peace in the Horn of Africa, and push the country into a more dangerous path.
The consequences of the unmaking of the Pretoria agreement are not just political and security issues, they are profoundly economic. A country that has already suffered immense war-related destruction is teetering on the edge of economic collapse.
Pretoria was supposed to pave the way for economic recovery. But the political instability and unresolved conflict dynamics have produced the opposite.
Ethiopia is now facing runaway inflation, a crippling foreign exchange shortage, and a looming debt crisis. The birr continues to slide against major currencies, driving up the cost of imports and compounding food insecurity.
The failure of upholding the fragile peace in Tigray will not just be a mere political failure but it will it is a full-blown economic disaster that will push the country into a further crisis.
What Must Be Done
The international community must stop pretending the Pretoria Agreement is working. It must urgently push for a revised peace framework, one that includes robust international monitoring, clear timelines and a punitive measures for violations.
It must be agreed that the African Unilateral alone cannot safeguard this fragile peace. A stronger coalition, including the UN, EU, and U.S., must back enforcement.
At home, leaders on all sides must be held to account. Peace must not be a public relations tool, it must be a commitment enforced through law, diplomacy, and justice.
The people of Tigray, like all Ethiopians, deserve more than rhetorical ceasefires and symbolic gestures. They deserve security, dignity, and the right to live without fear of another war.
The unmaking of the Pretoria Agreement is a cautionary tale about peace without enforcement. Ethiopia still has a chance to reverse course. But that window is closing fast. If war returns, it won’t just be a failure of diplomacy it will be a failure of moral and political will.
And the world will bear witness to another catastrophe it could have helped prevent.
Subscribe to Wegahta Facts
https://wegahtafacts.substack.com/p/the ... -agreement
