AFRICA
Ethiopia's prime minister wants Paris to invest
After the peace agreement that put an end to two years of bloody civil war in Tigray, Abiy Ahmed came to Paris to seek support to finance the reconstruction of infrastructure in northern Ethiopia.
By Noé Hochet-Bodin (Nairobi (Kenya) correspondent)
Published on February 8, 2023 at 20h10
It would have been difficult to imagine, just a few months ago, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed being received by President Emmanuel Macron in the splendor of the Elysée Palace, so much had the image of the former Nobel Peace Prize winner deteriorated during the Tigray civil war, which ravaged northern Ethiopia for two years. The conflict in the province of six million people has left at least 600,000 people dead, according to estimates by the African Union. The United Nations, in several reports, has spoken of possible "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" committed by the Ethiopian armed forces.
Ahmed, who was received at the Elysée Palace by the French president on Tuesday, February 7, was hoping to capitalize on the momentum created by the peace agreement signed between his government and the insurgents of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on November 2, 2022, in Pretoria, South Africa. The agreement, which was welcomed by the international community, put an end to two years of hostilities.
The Ethiopian prime minister is now embarking on a vast diplomatic and economic reconquest operation. Before arriving in Paris, the Ethiopian leader went to Rome, where he obtained €182 million in aid from the government of Giorgia Meloni. After a long embrace on the steps of the Elysée Palace, Ahmed thanked, on Twitter, his "friend" Emmanuel Macron and said that "We very much welcome investments by French companies in Ethiopia."
Assessing needs
"The key phrase is 'normalization at all costs,'" said a European diplomat in Addis Ababa who believes that Western embassies are working to support "a peace agreement that has not yet been fully implemented." During a visit to the Ethiopian capital in January, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna spoke of a "gradual re-engagement," announcing investments of €28 million by France to Ethiopia, for projects to rebuild electrical infrastructure and food security.
In a delicate economic environment, Africa's second most populous country needs the support of European partners to implement its recovery. Infrastructure, hospitals, roads, schools and universities in the north of the country have been ravaged by fighting. Olusegun Obasanjo, special envoy to the African Union for the Horn of Africa, estimates the total cost of rebuilding northern Ethiopia at €25 billion.
"France supports the return of peace to Ethiopia and stands by its side for economic reconstruction," wrote the Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade, Olivier Becht, on Twitter after a meeting with representatives of the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance on Tuesday. A delegation from the French Development Agency went to Tigray after the peace agreement to assess the needs there.
In Paris, Ahmed also wanted to make progress on another burning issue, that of Ethiopian debt. Suffocating from a lack of foreign currency, the country, which has a population of 115 million, has asked for debt relief under the common framework set up by the G20. Support from Paris would be welcome as France co-chairs, with China, the committee of Ethiopia's creditors.
But the Elysée finds itself walking on eggshells when it comes to normalizing its ties with Addis Ababa. The recent peace in Ethiopia remains fragile. "The problem for Paris is that [the French authorities] want to resume cooperation but [they] are wondering how to smooth out the edges on the subject of human rights," said a representative of a Western humanitarian organization in Addis Ababa. "They have to give credence to the transitional justice projects [after the war in Tigray] that at the moment exist in name only."
'The abuses continue'
Could political normalization come at the expense of transitional justice? Although the peace agreement signed in Pretoria between the warring parties provided for investigations into human rights violations, no concrete mechanism has yet been established. The scale of the abuses committed in Tigray is disturbing. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has denounced "acts of ethnic cleansing."
"Although a cessation of hostilities agreement has been signed (...), it is too early for business as usual," said Human Rights Watch's Horn of Africa Director Laetitia Bader. "Justice for war crimes in Ethiopia remains out of reach today and abuses continue," she said.
More recently, on September 7, 2022, the UN International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE) found "that there are reasonable grounds to believe that violations such as extrajudicial killings, rape, sexual violence and starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare have been committed in Ethiopia (...) and in several cases these violations constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity."
In response, the Ahmed government has merely convicted four federal soldiers of crimes and rapes. In addition, it has repeatedly tried and failed to withhold funding from the commission of experts in Geneva and also abruptly expelled the representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sonny Onyegbula, in 2021.
These shortcomings could slow down the resumption of the full partnership between Paris and Addis Ababa, sealed during Macron's visit to Ethiopia in 2019. At the time, the two newly elected leaders, all smiles, had shown a perfect understanding.
A defense agreement was signed, in which the French army promised to train the Ethiopian navy. Suspended during the Tigray war in 2021, military cooperation was also on the agenda of the discussions between the two heads of state, with France in favor of resuming it, according to several military sources.
