•Uhuru is among the top African Union peace mediators to steer talks between Ethiopia's government and rival Tigray forces in South Africa on Saturday.
•The head of state has been silent since he handed over power on September 13 with his retirement home still unknown.
Image: File
Former President Uhuru Kenyatta is among the top African Union peace mediators set to steer talks between Ethiopia's government and rival Tigray forces in South Africa at the weekend.
In what will mark his first assignment since handing over power, Uhuru alongside former Nigerian president Olesegun Obasanjo and former South African deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka are expected to lead the talks aimed at ending the two-year conflict between the two factions.
On September 13, during his swearing in, President William Ruto said he had agreed with Uhuru to have him as a peace envoy for the Great Lakes region and Horn of Africa.
“I have asked my elder brother President Uhuru Kenyatta who has done commendable engagements with those regions and he has graciously agreed to continue chairing those discussions on behalf of the people of Kenya,” Ruto said.
He noted that the government will commit to supporting such peace initiatives.
All eyes will now be on Uhuru who has been silent since then with his whereabouts unknown.
The conflict which has seen thousands of civilians killed broke out in November 2020 with the meeting being the first formal negotiation between the two warring sides.
President of the government of Tigray Debretsion Gebremichael has already said they are ready to participate in the talks set for Saturday.
“We are committed to a peaceful resolution of the current conflict. In fact, in a statement issued on September 11, we reaffirmed our readiness for an immediate, negotiated cessation of hostilities,” he said.
He was responding to an invite from AU chairperson Moussa Faki.
He added;
“We are ready to send our negotiating teams to South Africa. Even so, considering that we are not consulted prior to the issuance of the invitation, we need clarification to some of the issues.”
Gebremichael said before the start of the talks, they should be informed whether there are additional actors to be invited as participants, observers or guarantors.
In the letter copied to the three panelists, the president also seeks to know the roles envisaged for the international community and logistics as travel and security arrangements for his negotiating team.
The Ethiopian government has also accepted the invitation for the talks with the rebels.
“The government of Ethiopia has accepted this invitation, in line with our principled position regarding the peaceful resolution of the conflict and the need for talks without preconditions,” Redwan Hussein, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's National Security Advisor said in a tweet.
Faki, in his letter, points out that the peace talks between the two parties is expected to deliberate on the guiding principles, agenda issues, modalities, formal and timelines towards finding a lasting solution.
Tigray region formally referred to as Tigray national regional state is the home to the Tigrayans-the Semitic-speaking ethnic group in Ethiopia.
The Tigray Defense forces are fighting the Ethiopian national Defense Force, Ethiopian federal police, and regional police with involvement of the Eritrean Defence Forces.
The fights sparked after Abiy Ahmed merged the ethnic and region-based constituent parties of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary democratic front (EPRDF) coalition and several opposition parties into his new Prosperity party.
This was part of his wider plans to distance the country from ethnic federalism and ethnic nationalist politics.
The Tigray people's liberation (TPLF) front, a politically powerful entity that had dominated Ethiopian politics for 27 years as a repressive regime through a one-party dominant system refused to join the new party.
TPLF, led by its chairman Gebremichael, went ahead with regional elections in Tigray in September 2020 in defiance of the federal government, which then declared the Tigray election illegal.