The United States’ top priority is the “unity and integrity of the Ethiopian state” and its “commitment to the Ethiopian people,” U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman said at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington on November 2. Noting that the average civil war lasts 20 years, Feltman said a war that long would be disastrous for Ethiopia and urged all parties to the conflict to “give peace a chance.”
Feltman’s remarks came as Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared a six-month state of emergency and asked Ethiopians to defend the capital Addis Ababa against Tigrayan forces who are advancing from the north. The United States opposes any attempt by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to besiege Addis Ababa.
The Need for a Change in Direction
The special envoy said Ethiopia is headed down a dangerous path, but it is still not too late to reverse course. “The change in direction must occur in days, not weeks,” he said. Feltman said he was prepared to travel to Addis Ababa at any time to support an effort by African Union High Representative Olusegun Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president, to broker a peace deal. The special envoy traveled to Ethiopia a day later.
Feltman said the Ethiopian government and the TPLF should immediately commence negotiating and implement “a series of parallel steps that will stop the violence, allow life-saving access to Tigray, lead to TPLF withdrawal from Afar and Amhara and Eritrean forces from Ethiopian territory, result in a durable cease-fire (with rules understood and perhaps with third-party monitors), and initiate accountability for human rights abuses and any war crimes.”
The special envoy said the United States wants to revitalize its relationship with Ethiopia, but that “Ethiopia, not the United States, is in the driver’s seat.”
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