When the Pretoria agreement was signed in November 2022, politicians promised a new dawn for northern Ethiopia. Millions exhaled, believing the guns had gone quiet for good. But peace built on a foundation of absolute impunity never lasts.
Fast forward to today, and fresh armed clashes between Tigrayan forces and the Ethiopian National Defence Force have erupted. It is a bitter, predictable wakeup call. When you sweep mass atrocities under the rug, you are not choosing reconciliation. You are simply writing an invitation for history to repeat itself.
The Broken Promises of Postwar Justice
Let's be completely honest about what happened after the ink dried on the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. Independent watchdogs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, documented harrowing violations during the initial two-year conflict—everything from systematic sexual violence to mass displacement and extrajudicial killings. Those weren't just battlefield accidents. They were war crimes and, in places like Western Tigray, ethnic cleansing.
Instead of investigating these horrors, domestic mechanisms dragged their feet, and international mandates were allowed to quietly expire. The Ethiopian government floated the idea of transitional justice consultations, but the process became a hollow PR exercise rather than a genuine pursuit of truth. Survivors were left with nothing. No support systems, no trials, and no answers.
When perpetrators realize they can burn villages, restrict humanitarian aid, and run forced recruitment campaigns without facing a single legal consequence, they learn the wrong lesson. They learn that brutality works.
How Regional Crises Feed Each Other
You cannot look at Tigray in a vacuum. The security breakdown is spreading outward like an uncontained fire. Look at the ongoing conflicts in the Amhara and Oromia regions. State forces and various militias continue to commit severe violations while authorities clamp down on independent media and civic space.
When the federal government normalizes lawlessness in one region, state institutions degrade everywhere else. Journalists get locked up, human rights defenders face intimidation, and the public loses whatever remaining trust they had in the justice system.
The recent flare-up in Tigray proves that unresolved trauma does not just fade away. It festers. Thousands remain internally displaced, scraping by amid global aid cuts and strict movement controls. Before the first shots of this latest escalation were fired, civil liberties were already shrinking rapidly.
What Real Accountability Actually Requires
Pretending that domestic institutions can investigate themselves when they are compromised by political interests is a waste of time. If international bodies and human rights monitors are blocked from doing their jobs, civilians pay the price with their lives.
Protecting people requires hard choices. Independent investigative mechanisms must be urgently restored. Authorities need to grant unrestricted access to human rights monitors, independent journalists, and humanitarian groups. Most importantly, perpetrators of atrocity crimes must face credible, transparent judicial proceedings—whether through domestic reform or universal jurisdiction.
Ignoring accountability doesn't bring peace. It just buys time until the next explosion.
