Addis Ababa: Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed emphasized that the ongoing National Dialogue that Ethiopia has embarked on would play a key role in resolving problems through reconciliation and achieving lasting peace.
According to Ethiopian News Agency, Prime Minister Abiy highlighted the achievements registered in the sphere of peace and security over the past seven years and challenges encountered. He attributed the main causes for the conflicts in the country to a wrong narrative of elites aiming to attain political goals through force and power struggles. The tendency to seize power exclusively through force aggravates conflicts in the country, the Prime Minister pointed out.
Citing that plots and conspiracies are intricacies ingrained in Ethiopian political culture, Prime Minister Abiy emphasized the view that these forces aim to come to power through arms, not with supremacy of ideas. During the national reform period, the government firmly took the view to pursue peaceful struggle from within the EPRDF and to bring about change, the prime minister stressed. He added that through conflict or force, success cannot be achieved.
In Ethiopia’s history, it is only the Prosperity-led government that signed the peace agreement, knowing that it defeated the forces it had fought with, he stated. According to the Prime Minister, the conflict in the Tigray region was resolved peacefully because there was a conviction that winning through war is not a lasting victory, and peace is above everything. Expressing the government’s commitment to peacefully resolving conflicts in different regions, he noted that many armed forces have accepted the government’s call for peace and are working together.
Prime Minister Abiy reiterated the government’s unwavering stance for peace and added it will pay any sacrifice accordingly. An essential national dialogue forum to resolve Ethiopia’s problems, not through force but through dialogue, has started operations, the prime minister noted, adding this forum is conducive for citizens to present their problems, queries, and grievances freely.
Stating that the National Dialogue fosters avenues for lasting peace, the Prime Minister underscored the need to recognize that power can only be seized through popular consent and supremacy of ideas. Accordingly, the prime minister strongly advised those forces wishing to achieve their desires through force to accept peaceful alternatives without wasting their time and work together for the good of the country common to all.