Ethiopian opposition politician Jawar Mohammed today urged Amhara Fano militias to join dialogue. He implied that new efforts for start of talks between Fano militias and the Ethiopian government are led by the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF). The armed conflict between Fano militias and the Ethiopian federal government began last year when the government tried to disarm and disband these irregular militias which supported ENDF in war against Tigray forces.
Jawar Mohammed claimed that the first engagement between Tigray and Federal government to end the deadly war in northern Ethiopia was spearheaded by the ENDF. “It was the military that broke the ice, flying to Seychelles for the first-ever face-to-face meeting with commanders of Tigrean forces at a time when politicians were too wary of warmongering public opinion. It was also primarily the ENDF leadership that engineered the two rounds of talks with OLA”, he said.
The talks between Tigray People’s Liberation Front and Ethiopian government, Oromo Liberation Army and the government were not led by military. But senior military officers were part of the talks. Ethiopian government was represented in those talks through Redwa Hussein, the current Ethiopian Intelligence Agency Chief, Gideon Timotheos, Minister of Justice and other civilian leaders.
Jawar Mohammed seems to be saying that the Ethiopian military has realized that it cannot defeat Fano fighters militarily and solution lies in talks. He concluded by saying, “As the entity tasked with dealing with the conflict, ENDF has a realistic assessment of the situation, which is why it wants to end domestic armed conflicts. Additionally, as the ruling clique has become increasingly dependent on the military for its survival, the generals’ opinions carry much more weight than ever before. Hence, I strongly urge Fano commanders and Amhara activists to embrace this army-led peace initiative to end the devastating conflict in the region”.
Fano groups have been publicly opposing dialogue. There are several Fano militias operating in the Amhara region. Most of them are against dialogue with federal government of PM Abiy. Removal of the current government is one of their preconditions for start of talks.
Interestingly one Fano commander, Eskinder Nega, recently supported the idea of talks after US ambassador to Ethiopia asked Fano, OLA and govt to start dialogue. But after facing internal pressure, he changed his position and said that decision of talks can only be made by all the Fano groups jointly.
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