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By Jutta Wolf
BERLIN (IDN) – “Ethiopia needs a ceasefire,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen at a meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin on November 27. The conversations focused on the conflict. in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.
According to the German Foreign Ministry, Ethiopia and Germany are partners with long-standing relationships. Ethiopia is a priority country for German development cooperation. Germany is one of the largest buyers of Ethiopian products, mainly coffee and textiles. The main German exports to Ethiopia are finished products such as machinery, engines, motor vehicles, chemicals and medicines.
Ethiopian Airlines and DHL established a joint venture in 2018. Volkswagen signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ethiopian Investment Commission in late January 2019, highlights the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
With Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, he adds, Ethiopia began a course of reform in the country and democratic change began in Ethiopia. After decades of irreconcilable conflict, peace was made with neighboring Eritrea, for which Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
“Now it is necessary to build on these positive developments,” Maas stressed after his talks with Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen. Germany is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.
He added: “Thanks to the peace agreement with Eritrea and the courageous reforms, Ethiopia has also gained a lot of sympathy in Germany. The country can only be pacified by a political process that also continues Prime Minister Abiy’s course of reform.”
Foreign Minister Maas is even more concerned about the current situation in Ethiopia. The existing tensions in the country intensified in early November: in the north of the country, in the Tigray region. A military conflict broke out between the central government of Addis Ababa and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, TPLF. Human rights organizations report a massacre in the Mai Kadra region with 600 dead, currently the capital of Tigray, Mekelle, is at the center of the conflict.
“To defuse the conflict, protect the country’s civilian population and ensure access for humanitarian aid workers, both sides must first stop the fighting,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.
“In view of the announced access to Mekelle, the capital of Tigrin, we are clear that both parties must stop the violence. All parties must do everything possible to protect civilians and provide access to humanitarian aid.
“The suffering that we see is disheartening: crimes against civilians must be investigated and the guilty must be brought to justice. There must be no ethnicization of the conflict.”
Conflict can only be resolved through a political process
In a next step, the two sides must come together for political talks to resolve the underlying conflict, Maas said. Germany supports the mediation offer of the African Union, which has sent three special envoys to Addis Ababa. Only through a sustained political process can the conflict be permanently resolved and human suffering avoided.
Official sources said that Germany is already providing humanitarian aid that benefits people in need as a result of the conflict. Ethiopia and its neighboring countries have already battled floods, locusts and Covid-19 this year, now the conflict is making the situation worse – many people are fleeing to neighboring Sudan.
Therefore, Germany has increased its humanitarian aid to Ethiopia by 5 million euros. The funds are made available to the country’s humanitarian fund and therefore to on-site helpers to care for people who have lost their homes or have had to flee the fighting.
Almost 20 million people in Ethiopia depended on humanitarian aid even before the conflict started. In 2020, Germany has provided a total of more than 30 million euros for humanitarian aid in Ethiopia, the sources said.
The growing international concern was underlined by informal talks in UN Security about the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region on November 24. The meeting took place despite disagreement between European and African members on whether closed-door discussion should take place.
“The meeting was briefly in doubt after the African countries withdrew, but diplomats from France, Britain, Belgium, Germany and Estonia forced the talks,” reported German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).
“South Africa requested time for the envoys to conduct their consultations and refer the matter to the African Union. A statement could complicate the situation,” an African diplomat said after the session.
A European diplomat, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Europeans “voiced their concerns, condemned ethnic violence and demanded protection of civilians” during the one hour and 20 minute session. The meeting ended without the members issuing a statement. [IDN-InDepthNews – 28 November 2020]
Photo: Mekelle Palace of Emperor Yohannes IV (Emperor of the entire Ethiopian Empire). Credit: Alexander Savin, Wikimedia Commons.
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