Ethiopia’s Crises: Confronting manufactured peace, broken trust, and the unraveling of continental mediation
https://addisstandard.com/ethiopias-cri ... ion/?amp=1
December 12, 2025
Addis Abeba – Ethiopia’s ruling party’s latest attempt at peace-making has once again revealed a familiar and failing pattern: fragmented processes, opaque negotiations, and the quiet complicity of continental bodies entrusted with preventing conflicts.
On 4 December 2025, state media reported that the Amhara Regional Government and the Amhara Fano People’s Organization (AFPO) had signed a “peace agreement” in Addis Abeba. Masresha Setie, recently dismissed as AFPO’s Foreign Relations head, was presented as the group’s signatory, while regional president Arega Kebede signed on behalf of the Amhara regional state administration. Representatives from the African Union (AU) and Intragovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) were introduced as mediators, and both institutions publicly praised the agreement. The federal government celebrated it, as a response to public demands for peace.
AFPO’s leadership, however, swiftly rejected the deal as “illegitimate” and “unauthorized,” challenging not only the agreement’s validity but the credibility of the AU and IGAD. Their response raises critical questions about the neutrality, competence, and procedural integrity of Africa’s premier peace and security architectures. Instead of facilitating a legitimate and inclusive process, both appeared to have lent their names to a government-engineered narrative.
What is also distinctive about this latest announcement is the revelations that Ethiopia’s internal conflicts are evolving into direct liabilities for continental institutions, expected to uphold regional stability.
For Ethiopia, this pattern is only a repeat of the past. A year earlier, in December 2024, the Oromia regional government announced a “breakthrough agreement” with an individual once a member of the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). But the group promptly clarified that the deal involved only a former commander and a small circle around him, not the organization.
These incidents reflect a broader strategy: individual-centered arrangements that generate short-term political optics, while sidestepping real conflict resolution. Meanwhile, the war in Oromia has worsened. Areas once insulated, particularly in Eastern and Central Oromia, have become new frontlines. Fighting has at times approached areas bordering the capital, Addis Abeba. The ongoing war in the Amhara region will be no different.
When politics damages peace
The most sought-after bid for negotiated peace occurred through two rounds of formal talks in Tanzania – first in Zanzibar, then in Dar es Salaam – facilitated by the U.S., IGAD, Kenya, and Norway. The first round ended without agreement, but was deemed constructive by both sides. Six months later, the second round generated rare optimism. OLA leaders flew through restricted federal airspace to attend, signaling readiness to pursue a political settlement. Federal military officers participated, showing a growing recognition that the seven-years civil war in Oromia had reached a costly stalemate. Early progress suggested, that a breakthrough was finally within reach.
That hope collapsed abruptly, when senior Ethiopian political officials joined the talks. Within a day, negotiations ended with no agreement. According to OLA representatives, political leaders in Addis Abeba instructed the delegation to block compromise and sought to co-opt individual commanders instead of negotiating in good faith. What military negotiators appeared ready to pursue, political decision-makers derailed. The consequence has been devastating: tens of millions in Oromia remain trapped in violence and uncertainty.
A critical revelation came from former State Minister of Peace, Taye Dendaa, recently sentenced to seven years and two months in prison, who publicly claimed that the government sabotaged the peace talks. His account underscores a painful truth: Ethiopia’s youth continue dying not because the country faces existential threats, but because its political elites refuse to prioritize peace over power.
Pretoria and AU’s diminishing authority
The failed talks with the OLA are not an isolated episode. Under the Prosperity Party, peacemaking has repeatedly amounted to little more than a public-relations exercise. What is increasingly alarming is the way the AU and IGAD have become entangled in providing diplomatic cover for this façade, even as Ethiopia’s militarized crises remain far from resolved.
Two devastating years of war in the Tigray region culminated in the November 2023
signed in Pretoria under AU facilitation and U.S. backing.Agreement for Lasting Peace through a Permanent Cessation of Hostilities,
The AU was tasked with overseeing implementation. Yet, three years on, its obligations remain largely unfulfilled. Continuing under current conditions risks reigniting conflict, with destabilizing consequences for the entire Horn of Africa. European Union officials, Norway, and multiple diplomatic missions have urged renewed political dialogue between the federal government and the TPLF ahead of elections, rendering the AU’s silence both conspicuous and costly.
Condemning yesterday, avoiding today
A recent AU summit, has focused heavily on reparations for colonial crimes. Yet the same institution has remained largely silent on present-day atrocities within member states, including Ethiopia, where it is headquartered. During the two-year war in Tigray, Amhara, and Afar regions, AU’s silence was profound. Its investigative commission was formed, but never allowed to operate. After two years of inactivity, it dissolved without results, despite findings from the U.S. State Department and the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE) indicating that crimes against humanity and war crimes had occurred.
This deterioration reflects a deeper crisis inside Africa’s conflict-resolution architecture: eroding leadership and diminishing relevance.
Still, a narrow opening remains. The U.S. Horn of Africa strategy prioritizes preventing new wars in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia, while working to end the conflict in Sudan. The AU could align with this momentum, not by endorsing cosmetic deals, but by enforcing the Pretoria Agreement and restoring credibility to its mediation roles.
Confronting the inescapable
Real peace will not be manufactured through televised ceremonies or sealed in secret corridors. It requires confronting Ethiopia’s crises, directly. This moment demands clarity and courage. As Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, reminds us:
For Ethiopia, this means genuine negotiations with OLA, Fano, TPLF, and all other armed actors – rooted in transparency and accountability, not political expediency. It also requires the AU, IGAD and other continental institutions to move beyond symbolic endorsement and act with the authority expected of a continental peace and security institution.Peace does not mean an absence of conflicts; differences will always be there. Peace means solving these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education, knowledge; and through humane ways.
Ethiopia, still has an opening for durable peace. But it will require truth over secrecy, institutional integrity over political maneuvering, and real dialogue over the theatrics of manufactured agreements.
