More than 200 people killed in Ethiopia ethnic attack, witnesses say
PBS NewsHourDec 27, 2021
Ethiopia: EU, US Envoys Urge Talks To Settle Tigray Conflict
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Image copyright: Associated Press [via Africa News]
The Facts
On Tues., two envoys to the Horn of Africa - the US's Mike Hammer and the EU's Annette Weber - urged the Ethiopian government to resume basic services in Tigray to promote peace talks with rebel Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).
Hammer and Weber traveled to Mekele, the capital of Ethiopia's war-torn Tigray region, to advocate for the planned peace talks between the Ethiopian federal government and the TPLF.
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
It's absurd that the EU and the US, of all powers, are now setting themselves up as mediators of peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia. It was the West that previously interfered and took sides unilaterally with the TPLF, but the campaign to overthrow the democratically elected Abiy Ahmed failed miserably. The West has been complicit in serious human rights abuses and any of its advice on peace and dialogue should be taken with caution.
Pro-establishment narrative
The West is doing as much as it can to work diplomatically for peace, after formerly failing to stand up for its values when Abiy Ahmed, with his Eritrean and other allies, committed the most serious human rights crimes in Tigray. The Ahmed regime was willing to accept all this and the deaths of thousands of Tigrayans just because the TPLF stood in the way of his vision of a centralized Ethiopia.
